Analysis:1782 Washington County Tax List. Discussion

Southwest Virginia Project

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Slave ownership

The original tax list for 1782 showed a total of 1010 Heads of Household. A number of the original records for these HOH's did not survive intact, with various data elements missing, lost to the wear and tear on the original documents. When the partial records are dropped from consideration, a total of 945 HOH's remain. Of these 945 only 11 percent (104 HOH's) are shown as owning slaves. These 104 slave owning HOH's together owned 266 slaves, or an average of 2.6 slaves per slave owner. The majority of slave owners, 54 out out of 104, or 52 percent, owned only a single slave. Overall, its clear that while slave ownership was an important component of the community, the vast majority of settlers were not slave owners, and most of those that did own slaves, owned relatively few. A total of 17 HOH's owned more than 3 slaves, and the most slaves by any given HOH, was 16. The following table identifies the HOH who owned ten or more slaves.

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Given the fact that so many of the settlers did not own slaves, one wonders how much of an advantage it was. If slave ownership was particularly useful, why did more settlers not own slaves? One way to assess that question is to check to see if an increase in the number of slaves also resulted in an increase in other tangible property. Presumably, adding more slaves would allow more work to be done, and hence result in more land under cultivation, or increase the ownership of horses and cattle. At the moment, this analysis focuses on the number of horses and cattle owned by slaving owning HOHs, since its revealed directly in these tax records. (A comparison with Land Tax records, may allow the former factor to be evaluated, but that is being reserved to another day.)

The following table summarizes ownership data for HOH's with 0, 1, 2, 3 or 4 or more slaves.

Based on these data A "typical" settler owned about four horses, seven cattle, and no slaves. Presumably that was the typical requirement necessary to sustain his farming operations and support his family. However, if he added a single slave, he could manage abut twice as a many horses and cattle. We might assume that these extra horses and cattle were surplus to his immediate farming needs, and perhaps sold to other settlers, either locally, or perhaps to outbound settlers heading for the Cumberland Settlement or to Kentucky. What ever need this met, clearly the use of slave labor provided a substantive advantage to the settler.

However, if we look at settlers with more than one slave, the picture is not so clear. With each increment in the number of slaves, the number of horses and cattle per settler decreases significantly. While there was probably always some advantage to having more horses and cattle, we may infer while some of the additional labor was probably directed to supporting larger husbandry operations, most of the additional labor went to meeting other needs that benefited the farmer---needs other than those captured in the tax records. For example some of the additional labor may have been directed to crop management. Then to, additional labor may have been directed toward household chores, making life more comfortable for the HOH and his family.

Slave Sex Ratio

Normally, in any given population you would expect the male female sex ratio to be approximately 50%. A significant difference in that ratio implies something going on in that community. For example, a significant excess of females may indicate higher than normal mortality among men due to factors such as warfare. An excess of men may indicate the influx of unmarried males into a frontier community. Sex ratio within a slave population may also vary from the norm, though the explanation for that variation are complicated by the social dynamics of slavery, and the fact that the population itself has only partial control over factors that might lead to the retention of one sex over another.

Some idea of the sex ratio in the slave population of Southwest Virginia can be gained by examining the 1782 tax list. In this list, which includes a total of XXX slaves, individual slaves are identified by name. In some cases the records are not clear, or the names are only partially transcribable. When the HOH records for these entries are culled, the resulting population is 226 slaves. In most cases, the names of these 226 slaves are typical of the overall HOH population, and include common names such as "Samuel", and "Mary". Such names can be used to identify males and females. Some names, such as "Minty", "Fortune", and "Ripen", are more problematic, and can not be used to determine the sex of the named individual. Overall, the 226 named slaves in the subsetted population include 115 male names, 86 female names, and 25 indeterminate names. ignoring the indeterminate names, the male/female ratio is 1.3, indicating that there is a certain degree of winnowing of the local female population. What processes are driving that winnowing can not be readily discerned from these data, but there is clear something at work affecting the structure of the slave population. We might, for example, speculate that there is a preference on the part of the owners for male slaves, perhaps implying that the major use of the slave population was in the heavy work of clearing fields, where physical strength would be needed, and which would be a dominate component of farm management among frontier settlers.

Footnotes

1. ↑ Most of these Heads of Household were prominent members in the community, filling various posts in the militia, or in the county government. John Campbell is shown with the notation of "Estate", meaning that he has died, probably in the previous year. There are no entries for a John Camp in Summers, 1929 Annals of Southwest Virginia, and his identity is currently a puzzle. "John Camp" may be a transcription error, or a corruption of some other name. There was a "John Campbell" in the area, who played a prominent role in civic affairs, but he survived until after 1782, and so is not "John Camp". Catherine Estill was the widow of Benjamin Estill, one of the County's "Gentlemen Justices".