University of Virginia Library

INDIANS OF EASTERN VIRGINIA.[3]

According to the account of Captain John Smith, that part of Virginia that lies between
the sea and the mountains, was inhabited by forty-three different tribes of Indians.
Thirty of these were united in a grand confederacy under the emperor Powhatan. The
dominions of this mighty chief, who was long the most powerful rival, and most implacable

foe, with whom the English had to contend, extended over that part of the country
that lies south of the Potomac, between the coast and the falls of the rivers.

In comparison with civilized countries, this extensive territory contained but a scanty
population. The Powhatan confederacy consisted of but about eight thousand inhabitants.

Indian in a summer dress.

Indian Priest.

Besides this confederacy, there were two others which were combined against that of
Powhatan. These were the Mannahoacks and Manakins; the former of whom, consisting
of eight tribes, occupied the country lying between Rappahannock and York
rivers; and the latter, consisting of five tribes, was settled between York and James
rivers, above the falls. Besides these, were the Nottoways, the Meherricks, the Tuteloes,
and several other scattering and independent tribes.

The hereditary dominions of Powhatan lay on James River, which originally bore
his name.[4] He had a seat on this river, about a mile below the falls, where Richmond
now stands, and another at Werowocomoco on the north side of York River, within the
present county of Gloucester.

This monarch was remarkable for the strength and vigor of his body, as well as for
the energies of his mind. He possessed great skill in intrigue and great courage in battle.
His equanimity in the career of victory, was only equalled by his fortitude in the
hour of adversity. If he had many vices incident to the savage life, he had some virtues
seldom found among the civilized. He commanded a respect rarely paid by savages
to their werowance, and maintained a dignity and splendor worthy the monarch of
thirty nations. He was constantly attended by a guard of forty warriors, and during
the night a sentry regularly watched his palace. Though unlimited by custom in the
number of his wives, his seraglio exhibited the apathy of the Indian character. When he

slept, one of his women sat at his head and another at his feet. When he dined they
attended him with water, or brought him a bunch of feathers to wipe his hands. His
regalia, free from the glitter of art, showed only the simple royalty of the savage. He
wore a robe composed of skins, and sat on a throne spread with mats, and decked with
pearls and with beads. The furniture of his palace, like the qualities of his mind, was
adapted to war, and the implements of death, rather than of pleasure, garnished his
halls.

The figures in the annexed engraving, representing an Indian in his summer dress,
and an Indian priest, were copied from those given in Beverly's History of Virginia,
published in London, in 1722. The figure on the left, (the Indian in his summer dress,)
is thus described:

The upper part of his hair is cut short to make a ridge, which stands up like the
comb of a cock, the rest is either shorn off or knotted behind his ear. On his head are
stuck three feathers of the wild turkey, pheasant, hawk, or such like. At his ear is
hung a fine shell, with pearl drops. At his breast is a tablet or fine shell, smooth as polished
marble, which also hath sometimes etched on it a star, half-moon, or other figure,
according to the maker's fancy; upon his neck and wrists hang strings of beads, peak,
and roenoke. His apron is made of a deer skin, gashed around the edges, which hang
like tassels or fringe; at the upper end of the fringe is an edging of peak, to make it
finer. His quiver is of a thin bark; but sometimes they make it of the skin of a fox, or
young wolf, with the head hanging to it, which has a wild sort of terror in it; and to
make it yet more warlike they tie it on with the tail of a panther, buffalo, or such like,
letting the end hang down between their legs. The pricked lines on his shoulders, breast,
and legs, represent the figures painted thereon. In his left hand he holds a bow, and in
his right an arrow. The mark upon his shoulder-blade, is a distinction used by the
Indians in travelling, to show the nation they are of—and perhaps is the same with
that which Baron Lahontan calls the arms and heraldry of the Indians. Thus, the
several lettered marks are used by several other nations about Virginia, when they make
a journey to their friends and allies.

The habit of the Indian priest, is a cloak made in the form of a woman's petticoat;
but instead of tying it about their middle, they fasten the gatherings about their neck,
and tie it upon the right shoulder, always keeping one arm out to use upon occasion.
This cloak hangs even at the bottom, but reaches no lower than the middle of the
thigh; but what is most particular in it is, that it is constantly made out of a skin dressed
soft, with the pelt or fur on the outside, and reversed; insomuch that when the cloak
has been a little worn, the hair falls down in flakes, and looks very shagged and
frightful.

The cut of their hair is likewise peculiar to their function; for 'tis all shaved close,
except a thin crest, like a cock's comb, which stands bristling up, and runs in a semicircle
from the forehead up along the crown to the nape of the neck. They likewise
have a border of hair over the forehead, which, by its own natural strength, and by the
stiffening it receives from grease and paint, will stand out like the peak of a bonnet.

The face of the Indian, when arrived at maturity, is a dark brown and chesnut. By a
free use of bear's grease, and a continual exposure to the sun and weather, it becomes
harder and darker. This, however, is not the natural complexion. In infancy they are
much fairer.[5] Their hair is almost invariably of a coal black, straight, and long; their
cheek bones are high, and their eyes black and full of a character of wildness and ferocity
that mark their unappeasable thirst of vengeance, and their free and uncontrolled indulgence
of every fierce and violent passion. But the education of an Indian, which commences
almost with his birth, teaches him that dissimulation, which masks the thought
and smooths the countenance, is the most useful of virtues; and there is a continual effort
to check the fierce sallies of the eye, and keep down the consuming rage of his bosom.
His eye, therefore, is generally averted or bent downwards. The terrible complacency
of the tiger is no inapt illustration of an Indian visage.

The figure of an Indian is admirably proportioned beyond any thing that has hitherto
been seen of the human form. Tall, straight; their muscles hardened by the continual
action of the weather; their limbs supple by exercise, and perhaps by the use of oil, they

outstrip the bear, and run down the buck and the elk. No such thing is to be found as a
dwarfish, crooked, bandylegged, or otherwise misshapen Indian.

The power and qualities of their minds are such as we should expect from their state
of society. In a state of nature the mind of man differs but little from the animals
around him. Occupied in supplying his wants or gratifying his resentments, he has but
little time or inclination for the labors of calculation or the refinements of abstraction.
The sensible objects with which he is most conversant, impress themselves on his memory
in the order and degrees of their importance; but their classification, and the faculty
of generalizing them by an idea and term that shall take in all the particulars and
classes, are the result of deep thought and intense reflection. For this, leisure and application
are necessary. But the time of the Indian, after returning successful from the
chase, or victorious from the battle, is too valuable to be employed in such trifles. His
duty it is to spread the feast; to hear the praises of the old men, and the congratulations
of the women; to attend the great council of the nation, and to sing the history of
his own exploits. If any time remain after discharging those duties, he exercises himself
in shooting the arrow or throwing the tomahawk; or stretched at length along the
grass, enjoys that luxury of indolence which constitutes the supreme blessing of his existence.

The idea of numbers is, therefore, very limited among the tribes. Some of them can
reckon a thousand, while others cannot exceed ten; to express any greater number they
are compelled to resort to something indefinite. As numerous as the pigeons in the
woods, or the stars in the heavens, is a mode of expression for any greater number. For
the same reason, their language has no term for the abstract ideas of time, space, universal,
&c. There is, however, a conjecture, which, if true, will prove that the Indians of
Virginia had a more copious arithmetic. It is suggested that Tomocomoco or Uttomaccomac
was sent to England by Powhatan, for the purpose of procuring an exact account
of the number of the people of England. Tomocomoco made the attempt till his arithmetic
failed; but before he would be sent on such an errand, he must have been able to
reckon the Powhatans, and these, according even to the lowest estimates, amounted to
eight thousand.

It has been said that the Indian is the most improvident of animals; that, satisfied
with his present enjoyments, he wastes no thought on the morrow, and that repeated
calamities have added nothing to his care or foresight. This may have been true of
some of the tribes in South America, or in the islands. The North American, and more
especially the Virginian, always had their public stock hoarded. Powhatan and the
other sachems carried on a continual trade with the first colonists for corn, and we find
that Raleigh, Baltimore, and Penn, derived their principal support from similar sources.
But the quantity of labor and industry required for raising this superfluity was comparatively
nothing. A few did not, as in established societies, work for the support of the
whole, and for the purpose of enabling the rich to vend their surplus commodities in foreign
markets. Here every man labored for himself, or for the common stock, and a few
days in every year were sufficient for the maintenance of each man, and by consequence,
of all the members of the tribe.

The Indians of Virginia have no written laws, but their customs, handed down from
age to age in the traditions of their old men, have all the force of the best-defined and
positive institutions. Nor is this respect acquired by the fear of punishment. The
aborigines of Virginia, whatever may be pretended, enjoyed complete freedom. Their
sachems made their own tools and instruments of husbandry. They worked in the
ground in common with the other Indians. They could enter into no measure of a public
nature without the concurrence of the matchacomoco or grand council; and even
after this body had decided on the merits of the question, the consent of the people at
large was necessary to sanction their proceedings. If the voice of this council be in
favor of war, the young men express their approbation by painting themselves of various
colors, so as to render their appearance horrible to their enemies. In this state they
rush furiously into the council: they begin the war dance, accompanying their steps
with fierce gestures, expressive of their thirst of vengeance; and describing the mode in
which they will surprise, wound, kill, and scalp their enemies. After this they sing
their own glories; they recount the exploits of their ancestors, and the ancient glories of
their nation.

The Indian festival dance, says Beverly, is performed by the "dancers themselves
forming a ring, and moving round a circle of carved posts, that are set up for that purpose;
or else round a fire, made in a convenient part of the town; and then each has
his rattle in his hand, or what other thing he fancies most, as his bow and arrows, or his
tomahawk. They also dress themselves up with branches of trees, or some other strange

accoutrements. Thus they proceed, dancing and singing, with all the antic postures
they can invent; and he is the bravest fellow that has the most prodigious gestures."

Indian Festival Dance

When any matter is proposed in the national council, it is common for the chiefs of
the several tribes to consult thereon apart with their counsellors, and when they have
agreed, to deliver the opinion of the tribe at the national council, and as their government
seems to rest wholly on persuasion, they endeavor, by mutual concessions, to obtain
unanimity. Their only controls are their manners and their moral sense of right and
wrong, which, like tasting and smelling, in every man makes part of his nature.

An offence against these is punished by contempt, by exclusion from society, or when
the case is serious, as in murder, by the individuals whom it concerns.

The Indians of Virginia had no idea of distinct and exclusive property; the lands were
in common, and every man had a right to choose or abandon his situation at pleasure.
Their mode of computation, as with us, was by units, tens, and hundreds. There is no
light on the records by which we may discover its limits or extent. Analogy affords no
helps on this occasion. The Iroquois could reckon a thousand, while other tribes, almost
in their neighborhood, could count no further than ten.

They reckon their years by winters, or cohonks, as they call them, which was a name
taken from the note of the wild geese, intimating so many times of the wild geese coming
to them, which is every winter.

They distinguish the several parts of the year by five seasons, viz.: the budding or
blossoming of the spring; the earing of the corn, or roasting ear time; the summer, or
highest sun; the corn-gathering, or fall of the leaf; and the winter, or cohonks.

They count the months by the moons, though not with any relation to so many in a
year as we do; but they make them return again by the same name, as the moon of
stags, the corn moon, the first and second moon of cohonks."

They have no distinction of the hours of the day, but divide it only into three parts,
the rise, the power, and lowering of the sun; and they keep their accounts by knots on
a string, or notches on a stick, not unlike the Peruvian Quippoes.

If we believe the accounts of Smith and Beverly, the Indians of Virginia were grossly
superstitious, and even idolatrous. The annexed engraving is a representation of their
idol Okee, Quioccos, or Kiwasa, copied from one in Beverly's History. "They do not
look upon it as one single being, but reckon there are many of the same nature; they
likewise believe that there are tutelar deities in every town."

Although they have no set days for performing the rites of religion, they have a number
of festivals, which are celebrated with the utmost festivity. They solemnize a day
for the plentiful coming of their wild fowl, such as geese, ducks, teal, &c.; for the returns
of their hunting seasons; and for the ripening of certain fruits. But the greatest
annual festival they have is at the time of their corn-gathering, at which they revel
several days together. To these they universally contribute, as they do to the gathering
of the corn: on this occasion they have their greatest variety of pastimes, and more
especially of their war dances and heroic songs; in which they boast that their corn
being now gathered, they have store enough for their women and children, and have
nothing to do but go to war, travel, and to seek for new adventures.

There is a second annual festival, conducted with still greater solemnity. It commences
with a fast, which exceeds any thing of abstinence known among the most mortified
hermits. This fast is succeeded by a feast. The old fire is put out, and a new fire,
called the drill fire, elicited by the friction of two pieces of wood. They sprinkle sand
on the hearths, and, to make the lustration complete, an emetic is taken by the whole
nation. At this meeting all crimes, except murder, are pardoned, and the bare mention
of them afterwards is considered as disreputable. At the close of this festival, which
continues four days, a funeral procession commences, the signification of which is that
they bury all the past in oblivion, and the criminals having tasted of the decoction of
casina, are permitted to sit down by the men they have injured.

The ceremony of huskanawing returns after an interval of fourteen or sixteen years,
or more frequently, as the young men happen to arrive at maturity. This is intended
as a state of probation, preparatory to their being initiated into the class of warriors and
counsellors. The candidates are first taken into the thickest part of the forest, and kept
in close and solitary confinement for several months, with scarcely any sustenance
besides an infusion or decoction of some intoxicating roots. This diet, added to the
severity of the discipline, invariably induces madness, and the fit is protracted for
eighteen days. During the paroxysms they are shut up in a strong enclosure, called an
huskanaw pen, "one of which," says Beverly, "I saw belonging to the Pamaunkie
Indians, in the year 1694. It was in shape like a sugar-loaf, and every way open like
a lattice for the air to pass through." When their doctors suppose they have drunk a

Indian Idol.

sufficient portion of the intoxicating juice, they gradually restore them to their senses by
lessening the quantity of the potion, and before they recover their senses they are
brought back to the town. This process is intended to operate like Lethe on their memory:
"To release the youth from all their childish impressions, and from that strong
partiality to persons and things which is contracted before reason takes place. So that
when the young men come to themselves again, their reason may act freely without being
biased by the cheats of custom and education. Thus they also become discharged
from any ties by blood; and are established in a state of equality and perfect freedom, to
order their actions and dispose of their persons as they think proper, without any other
control than the law of nature."

Marriage, or the union of husband and wife, stood precisely on the same footing as
among the other American tribes. A man might keep as many wives as he could
support: but in general they had but one, whom, without being obliged to assign any
reason, they might at any time abandon, and immediately form a new engagement.
The rights of the woman are the same, with this difference, that she cannot marry
again until the next annual festival.

Courtship was short, and, like their marriage, unembarrassed by ceremony. If the
presents of a young warrior are accepted by his mistress, she is considered as having
agreed to become his wife, and without any further explanations to her family, she goes
home to his hut. The principles that are to regulate their future conduct are well understood.
He agrees to perform the more laborious duties of hunting and fishing; of felling
the tree, erecting the hut, constructing the canoe, and of fighting the enemies of the
tribe. To her, custom had assigned almost all the domestic duties; to prepare the food;
to watch over the infancy of the children. The nature of their lives and circumstances
added another, which, with more propriety, taking in a general view, should have been
exercised by the male. It belonged to the women to plant the corn, and attend all the
other productions of an Indian garden or plantation. But the labor required for raising
these articles was trifling, and the warriors, being engaged in hunting and war, had
neither leisure nor inclination to attend to objects of such inferior consideration.

To compensate for this seeming hardship or neglect, the women had several valuable
privileges, that prove their importance, and the respect entertained for them by the
men. All the honors of an Indian community are maternal, and the children, in the
event of a separation, belong to the wife. The husband is considered only as a visitor;
and, should any difference arise, he takes up his gun and departs. Nor does this separation
entail any disgrace upon the parties.

If any credit be due to the accounts of our early historians, the women in the Powhatan
confederacy had considerable weight. Some of the tribes had even female
sachems, a regulation which could not have been tolerated by freemen and warriors, if,
as has been imagined by some historians, they had been regarded only as objects of contempt
and ill-usage. What agitation and sorrow were not excited by the death of Pocahontas,
and how anxious the inquiries of her family respecting her health and her feelings,
her content and her return!

It was no uncommon spectacle to see groups of young women, almost naked, frisking
with wanton modesty in the wild gambols of the dance. Even the decent Pocahontas
did not disdain to mingle in those pastimes. Crowned with a wreath of leaves and
flowers, she sometimes led the chorus and presided in the dance. Nor should this be
regarded as a deviation from the rules of modesty and innocence. They acted agreeably
to the usage of their country and the dictates of nature. Every object inspired happiness
and content, and their only care was to crowd as many pleasures as possible into
the short span of a fleeting existence.

The following summary account of the Indians in Virginia, as they were about the
year 1700, is from Beverly's History of Virginia.

The Indians of Virginia, east of the Blue Ridge, are almost wasted, but such towns
or people as retain their names and live in bodies, are hereunder set down; all which
together cannot raise five hundred fighting men. They live poorly, and much in fear of
the neighboring Indians. Each town, by the articles of peace, 1677, pays three Indian
arrows for their land, and twenty beaver-skins for protection, every year.

In Accomack are eight towns, viz: Matomkin is much decreased of late by the smallpox,
that was carried thither. Gingoteque; the few remains of this town are joined
with a nation of the Maryland Indians. Kiequotank is reduced to a very few men.
Matchopungo has a small number yet living. Occahanock has a small number yet
living. Pungoteque; governed by a queen, but a small nation. Oanancock has but
four or five families. Chiconessex has very few, who just keep the name. Nanduye:
a seat of the empress; not above twenty families, but she hath all the nations of the
shore under tribute. In Northampton, Gangascoe, which is almost as numerous as all
the foregoing nations put together. In Prince George, Wyanoke is extinct. In Charles
City, Appamattox, extinct. In Surry, Nottaways, which are about a hundred bowmen,
of late a thriving and increasing people. By Nansamond: Menheering, has about
thirty bowmen, who keep at a stand. Nansamond: about thirty bowmen: they
have increased much of late. In King William's county, Pamunkie has about forty
bowmen, who decrease. Chickahomonie, which had about sixteen bowmen, but lately
increased. In Essex: Rappahannock, extinct. In Richmond: Port Tabago, extinct.
In Northumberland: Wiccomocco has but few men living, which yet keep up their
kingdom, and retain their fashion; yet live by themselves, separate from all other Indians,
and from the English.

The following able article, from Tucker's Life of Jefferson, relates to the "Abolition
of Entails.—Primogeniture.—Their effects considered.—Church establishment in Virginia—its
gradual abolition.—Entire freedom of religion."

On the 11th of October, 1776, three days after Mr. Jefferson had taken his seat in
the legislature, he brought in a bill for the establishment of Courts of Justice, which
was subsequently approved by the House and passed. Three days afterwards, he introduced
a bill to convert estates in tail into fee-simple. This, he avows, was a blow at
the aristocracy of Virginia.

In that colony, in the earlier periods of its history, large grants of land had been obtained
from the crown by a few favored individuals, which had been preserved in their
families by means of entails, so as to have formed, by degrees, a patrician class among
the colonists. These modes of continuing the same estates in the same family, found a
protection here which they could not obtain in the mother country; for, by an act passed
in the year 1705, the practice of docking entails, which had previously prevailed in
Virginia as in England, was expressly prohibited; and whenever the peculiar exigencies
of a family made it necessary that this restraint or alienation should be done away,
it could be effected only by a special act of Assembly.

The class which thus provided for the perpetuation of its wealth, also monopolized
the civil honors of the colony. The counsellors of the state were selected from it, by
reason of which the whole body commonly had a strong bias in favor of the crown, in
all questions between popular right and regal prerogative. It is but an act of justice to
this class to state, that although some of them might have been timid and hesitating in
the dispute with the mother country—disposed to drain the cup of conciliation to the
dregs—yet, others were among the foremost in patriotic self-devotion and generous sacrifices;
and there was but a small proportion of them who were actually tories, as those
who sided with Great Britain were then denominated.

Mr. Jefferson was probably influenced less by a regard to the conduct of the wealthy
families in the contest, than by the general reason which he thus gives: "To annul
this privilege, and instead of an aristocracy of wealth, of more harm and danger than
benefit to society, to make an opening for the aristocracy of virtue and talent, which
nature has wisely provided for the direction of the interests of society, and scattered
with an equal hand through all its conditions, was deemed essential to a well-ordered
republic."

The repeal of this law was effected, not without a struggle. It was opposed by Mr.
Pendleton, who, both from age and temper, was cautious of innovation; and who, finding
some change inevitable, proposed to modify the law so far as to give to the tenant
in tail the power of conveying in fee-simple. This would have left the entail in force,
where the power of abolishing it was not exercised; and he was within a few votes of
saving so much of the old law.

This law, and another subsequently introduced by Mr. Jefferson, to abolish the preference
given to the male sex, and to the first-born, under the English common law, have
effectually answered their intended purpose of destroying the gross inequality of fortunes
which formerly prevailed in Virginia. They have not merely altered the distribution
of that part of the landed property, which is transmitted to surviving relatives by the
silent operation of the law, but they have also operated on public opinion, so as to influence
the testamentary disposition of it by the proprietors, without which last effect the
purpose of the Legislature might have been readily defeated. The cases are now very
rare, in which a parent makes, by his will, a much more unequal distribution of his property
among his children than the law itself would make. It is thus that laws, themselves
the creatures of public opinion, often powerfully react on it.

The effects of this change in the distribution of property are very visible. There is
no longer a class of persons possessed of large inherited estates, who, in a luxurious and
ostentatious style of living, greatly exceed the rest of the community; a much larger
number of those who are wealthy, have acquired their estates by their own talents or
enterprise; and most of these last are commonly content with reaching the average of
that more moderate standard of expense which public opinion requires, rather than the
higher scale which it tolerates.[6]

Thus, there were formerly many in Virginia who drove a coach and six, and now

such an equipage is never seen. There were, probably, twice or three times as many
four-horse carriages before the revolution, as there are at present; but the number of
two-horse carriages may now be ten, or even twenty times as great, as at the former
period. A few families, too, could boast of more plate than can now be met with; but
the whole quantity in the country has now increased twenty, if not fifty fold.

Some nice but querulous observers, have thought that they perceived a correspondent
change in the manners and intellectual cultivation of the two periods; and, while they
admit that the mass of the people may be less gross, and more intelligent than the backwoodsman,
the tobacco-roller,[7] or the rustic population generally under the regal government,
yet they insist that we have now no such class as that which formerly constituted
the Virginia gentleman of chivalrous honor and polished manners—at once high-minded,
liberal, delicate, and munificent; and that as to mental cultivation, our best educated
men of the present day cannot compare with the Lees, the Randolphs, the Jeffersons,
Pendletons, and Wythes, of that period.

This comparison, however, cannot easily be made with fairness; for there are few
who have lived long enough to compare the two periods, and those few are liable to be
biased on one side or the other, according to their early predilections and peculiar
tastes. But apart from these individual influences, there is a general one to which we
are all exposed. Time throws a mellow light over our recollections of the past, by
which their beauties acquire a more touching softness, and their harsher parts are thrown
into shade. Who that consults his reason can believe, if those scenes of his early days,
to which he most fondly looks back, were again placed before him, that he would again
see them such as memory depicts them? His more discriminating eye, and his less
excitable sensibility, would now see faults which then escaped his inexperience, and he
would look tranquilly, if not with indifference, on what had once produced an intoxication
of delight. Yet such is the comparison which every one must make between the
men and things of his early and his later life; and the traditionary accounts of a yet
earlier period are liable to the same objection, for they all originate with those who describe
what they remember, rather than what they actually observed. We must, therefore,
make a liberal allowance for this common illusion, when we are told of the superior
virtues and accomplishments of our ancestors.

The intellectual comparison may be more satisfactorily made. While it is admitted
that Virginia could, at the breaking out of the Revolution, boast of men that could hold
a respectable rank in any society; yet, after making allowance for the spirit-stirring
occasion, which then called forth all their talents and faculties, there seems to be no
reason to suppose that there is any inferiority in the present generation. It must be recollected,
that by the more general diffusion of the benefits of education, and the continued
advancement of mental culture, we have a higher standard of excellence in the
present day than formerly, and in the progressive improvement which our country has
experienced in this particular, the intellectual efforts which in one generation confer distinction,
would in that which succeeds it scarcely attract notice. It may be safely said,
that a well-written newspaper essay would then have conferred celebrity on its author,
and a pamphlet would then have been regarded as great an achievement in letters as an
octavo volume at present. Nor does there pass any session of the legislature, without
calling forth reports and speeches, which exhibit a degree of ability and political information,
that would, forty years ago, have made the author's name reverberate from one
end of British America to the other. The supposed effect of this change in the distribution
of property, in deteriorating manners, and lowering the standard of intellectual
merit, may then well be called in question.

Another law, materially affecting the polity of the state, and the condition of society,
owes its origin in part to Mr. Jefferson. This was the act to abolish the church
establishment, and to put all religious sects on a footing. The means of effecting this
change were very simple. They were merely to declare that no man should be compelled
to support any preacher, but should be free to choose his sect, and to regulate his
contribution for the support of that sect at pleasure.

From the first settlement of Virginia, the Church of England had been established

in the colony. The inhabited parts were laid off into parishes, in each of which was a
minister, who had a fixed salary in tobacco, together with a glebe and a parsonage
house. There was a general assessment on all the inhabitants, to meet the expenses.
Mr. Jefferson thus explains the success of rival sects:—

"In process of time, however, other sectarisms were introduced, chiefly of the Presbyterian
family; and the established clergy, secure for life in their glebes and salaries,
adding to these generally the emoluments of a classical school, found employment
enough in their farms and school rooms for the rest of the week, and devoted Sunday
only for the edification of their flock, by service and a sermon, at their parish church.
Their other pastoral functions were little attended to. Against this inactivity, the zeal
and industry of sectarian preachers had an open and undisputed field; and by the time
of the Revolution, a majority[8] of the inhabitants had become dissenters from the established
church, but were still obliged to pay contributions to support the pastors of the
minority. This unrighteous compulsion, to maintain teachers of what they deemed
religious errors, was grievously felt during the regal government and without a hope of
relief."

The successive steps by which an institution, which was deeply rooted in the affections
of many of the principal citizens, was deprived of its power and property, without
disturbing the public tranquillity, may be not unworthy of notice.

In the bill of rights which was drawn by George Mason, June 12, 1776, the principle
of religious freedom is distinctly asserted in the last article, which declares, "that religion,
or the duty which we owe to our Creator, and the manner of discharging it, can
only be directed by reason and conviction, not by force or violence; and, therefore, all
men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience."
But the constitution itself, passed June 29th, is silent on the subject of religion,
except that it renders "all ministers of the Gospel" incapable of being members of
either House of Assembly, or of the Executive Council.

At the first session of the legislature, in the same year, under the new constitution,
numerous petitions were received for abolishing the general assessment for the established
church; and at this session, Mr. Jefferson drafted and supported a law for the
relief of the dissenters, which, he says, brought on the severest contests in which he
was ever engaged. Here, too, he encountered the formidable opposition of Mr. Pendleton
and Mr. R. C. Nicholas, both zealous churchmen. The bill finally passed, but
modified by its opponents. It declared all acts of Parliament, which proscribe or punish
the maintenance of any opinions in matters of religion, the forbearing to repair to
church, or the exercising any mode of worship whatsoever, to be of no validity within
the commonwealth; it exempts dissenters from all contributions for the support of the
established church; and, as this exemption might in some places make the support of
the clergy too burdensome on the members of the church, it suspends, until the end of
the succeeding session, all acts which provide salaries for the clergy, (except as to arrears
then due,) and leaves them to voluntary contributions. But, at the same time, it
reserves to the established church its glebe lands and other property, and it defers "to
the discussion and final determination of a future Assembly," the question, whether
every one should not be subjected by law to a general assessment for the support of the
pastor of his choice; or, "every religious society should be left to voluntary contributions."
The church party had previously succeeded so far as to obtain a declaration in
committee, "that religious assemblies ought to be regulated, and that provision ought to
be made for continuing the succession of the clergy, and superintending their conduct."

In the following years, the question of providing for the ministers of religion by law,
or leaving it to individual contributions, was renewed; but the advocates of the latter
plan were only able to obtain, at each session, a suspension of those laws which provided
salaries for the clergy—the natural progress in favor of liberal sentiments being
counterbalanced by the fact, that some of the dissenting sects, with the exception of
the Baptists, satisfied with having been relieved from a tax which they felt to be both
unjust and degrading, had no objection to a general assessment; and, on this question,
voted with the friends of the church. But the advocates of religious freedom finally
prevailed, and after five suspending acts, the laws for the support of the clergy were, at
the second session of 1779, unconditionally repealed. And although Mr. Jefferson was
not then a member of the legislature, it is probable that his influence, as governor of
the commonwealth, was sufficiently exerted towards its repeal. But to protect the
rights of conscience, it was not deemed enough to remove past injustice, it was thought
also prudent to prevent its recurrence. Among the bills, therefore, reported by the revisers,

was the celebrated act of religious freedom, drawn by Mr. Jefferson; which not
merely reasserts the principles of religious liberty contained in the bill of rights, but aims
to give them permanence, by an argument equally clear, simple, and conclusive.

This bill, with many others, was not acted upon by the legislature for several years;
but in the mean time, the friends of the Episcopal church prepared to make one more
effort to recover a portion of its ancient privileges, by a general assessment. Their first
object was to get an act of incorporation for the church, to enable it the better to retain
and defend the large property it held, as well as to facilitate further acquisitions. A resolution
having passed by a large majority, in favor of incorporating "all societies of
the Christian religion" which desired it, leave was immediately given to bring in a bill
"to incorporate the Protestant Episcopal Church," by which the minister and vestry
in each parish were made a body corporate, for holding and acquiring property, and regulating
the concerns of the church, and which finally passed into a law. The plan of
a general assessment met with more difficulty. The petitions which had been got up
among the people gave it the show of popularity, and it received the powerful aid of
Patrick Henry's eloquence. Thus supported, it seemed likely to obtain a majority, when
those who were opposed to the measure on principle, for the purpose of gaming time,
proposed to refer the matter to the people before the legislature acted upon it, and they
succeeded in postponing it. George Mason, George Nicholas, and others of this party,
then proposed to Mr. Madison to prepare a remonstrance to the next legislature against
the assessment, to be circulated through the state for signatures. This was done, and
the paper which he prepared exhibited the same candid, dispassionate, and forcible reasoning,
which had ever characterized the productions of his pen, convincing those who
before doubted, so that there was a general disapprobation of the measure among all
sects and parties; and, at the next session, the table could scarcely hold the petitions
and remonstrances against the proposed assessment. Such a manifestation of the public
will was not to be resisted. The measure was abandoned, and Mr. Jefferson's bill,
with some slight alterations, was then passed without difficulty.

To conclude this history of religious establishments in Virginia: the law could not
fairly claim the praise of impartiality, so long as a single church had the benefits of incorporation;
and the injustice was the greater, if, as the other sects maintained, most
of the large property it held it owed to the public bounty. In two years afterwards the
act allowing religious incorporations was repealed, but with a saving to all religious societies
of the property they possessed, with the right of appointing trustees for its management.
In 1799, all these laws, as well as those made for the benefit of the dissenters
and the church, were repealed, as inconsistent with the bill of rights and the
principles of religious freedom; and lastly, in 1801, the overseers of the poor in each
county were authorized to sell all its glebe lands, as soon as they shall become vacant
by the death or the removal of the incumbent for the time; but reserving the rights of
all private donations before 1777. By the execution of this act, the last vestige of legal
privilege which this church had over other sects, was completely eradicated.