The following post is part of a series on the self-made man in American history.
The easier, if relatively rare, form of
upward mobility in colonial Virginia was not so much self-making as self-remaking, in which an individual with
cash resources could invest them in ways that resulted in material gains. The
archetype of this model was William Berkeley (pronounced “Barklee”), who
dominated the Virginia politics for 35 years following his arrival in 1642.
Berkeley came from a rich and powerful family with strong ties to the ruling
Stuart dynasty and received an excellent Oxford education. The principal
obstacle he faced in making his mark on the world was one of birth order: he
was the fourth of five sons in a family of seven children. Because the English
followed the ancient practice of primogeniture, in which a family fortune was
sustained over generations by concentrating and passing it where possible
through eldest sons, younger siblings were forced to rely on alternative means
such as the military, the clergy, or a favorable marriage to maintain elite
status. The route the ambitious William Berkeley took was that of a courtier,
winning a post in the Privy Chamber of King Charles II. He attracted some
attention to himself by as a playwright; his well-received play, The Lost Lady (ca. 1637) was performed
at court. Berkeley used his position to cadge some financial perquisites, among
them royal monopoly on the snow and ice trade. He also served as an officer in
the royal army as England headed into Civil War in the 1640s.
Yet such experiences proved
disillusioning in their fragility (he lost the ice concession) as well as in
the unimpressive view it gave him of a politically inept King destined for the
gallows. Approaching his mid-thirties with his professional prospects
narrowing, Berkeley angled for, and got, a diplomatic post in Turkey. But at
the last minute abandoned it when he learned of, and gained, appointment as the
royal governor of Virginia. His future and that of the colony were about to
change substantially.
The
collective portrait of Berkeley is not an especially attractive one: even his
admirers portray him as a vain elitist who did not suffer fools gladly. But for
most of two terms of governor that extended for all but eight of the 35 years
he lived there, his political skills were considerable. Though Virginia was
founded before New England, it remained on shaky footing until about 1650,
after which it stabilized en route to becoming the largest of all the American
colonies. Berkeley’s formula involved encouraging second-tier aristocrats to
emigrate there, where they would enjoy substantial autonomy and control over
local affairs and form the core of what became the legendary First Families of
Virginia (FFVs). But he also managed power struggles within the oligarchic
governor’s council with calibrated appeals to the elected House of Burgesses,
in which smaller landholders were allowed to vote.
Over time, Berkeley’s Virginia became
increasingly stratified by class no less than race. But for most his tenure
this was not an unmanageable problem. “He claimed kinship with them in one
important respect,” Berkeley’s sole modern biographer noted of his relationship
with the yeomanry. “For him, as for them, Virginia promised something better
than he had left behind in England.” [1138/p57] So it was that Berkeley laid
down an important social template that would govern American politics for
centuries, in which yeoman and planter were part of a seamless spectrum rather
than inhabiting different—and opposing—sides of a class divide.
In
the 1670s, however, this straddle became increasingly difficult, even
impossible, to manage. As poorer land-hungry settlers pushed beyond the rich
soil of the Virginia tidewater toward the less fertile and accessible piedmont
on the northern and western periphery of the colony, they increasingly bumped
up against the Indian frontier, aggravating diplomatic relations. Berkeley has
sometimes been portrayed as relatively enlightened (or, at any rate, shrewd) in
trying to maintain a friendly perimeter with tribes such as the Pamunkey and
Susquehannocks, but he was increasingly perceived as indifferent, even hostile,
toward taking the necessary measures to protect his own subjects.
This created an opening. It was
exploited by Nathaniel Bacon, a rich rogue who arrived in Virginia in 1674,
when he was in his late twenties. Bacon had already left behind a trail of
personal dissipation and financial chicanery when his father staked him a fresh
start in Jamestown (young Bacon also had family connections to Berkeley’s
wife). Though Berkeley looked upon him with favor and gave him a seat on the
governor’s council, it didn’t take long before Bacon proceeded to exploit
frontier tensions by allying himself with hard-liners. When Berkeley rebuked
him for meddling in colonial affairs outside his authority, Bacon doubled down
in his claims to represent the aggrieved yeomen, precipitating the broad-based
conflict that turned into a civil war.
The 1676 upheaval known as Bacon’s
Rebellion was a topsy-turvy struggle marked by sudden reversals and widespread
destruction before Bacon suddenly died at its height. But the eruption alarmed
and annoyed the English government, which mobilized an (unnecessary) armada to
put it down. As a result, Berkeley was recalled to London, soon after which he
too died. In its aftermath, the rulers of Virginia—as well as those of
Maryland, Carolina, and the later colony of Georgis—gradually implemented a
racist legal structure in which the expulsion of Indians and the creation of an
increasingly black slave class reduced frictions among whites, who were to
enjoy a rough sense of social (if not economic or political) equality. This
story, of race and class tensions contained by a ruling elite that set them in
hydraulic opposition to each other, was first crystallized by Edmund Morgan in
his 1975 book American Slavery, American
Freedom, and has remained the master narrative ever since.
Next: A self-made colonial immigrant farmer's dream (and nightmare)
