EARLY VIRGINIA

westmohney
Feb 25, 2021
6 min read

Carry me back to old Virginny ; there let me live 'till I wither and decay ~ James Allen Bland

piecing together a history

Most of what we know about our early ancestors comes from the vital records of births, marriages and deaths which were maintained by town clerks. Other excellent sources of information are the voluminous records that colonial towns kept from their earliest days. In the north, those records have been, for the most part, preserved intact. The south, however, presents a different story. The civil war decimated many of the southern states. Virginia, beyond doubt, was hardest hit in that tragic conflict. Because of the widespread destruction of buildings in southern cities, many of their vital records have been lost.

Piecing together the narrative of our southern ancestors would have been impossible without the help of forerunner ancestry buffs. These persistent individuals poured through what remained of town records, wills, land grants, court proceedings, etc. available to them. For the information we've gathered on our Eppes, Wall, Bishop, Peebles, Poythress, Hardyman and Covington families, we owe a special debt of gratitude to Lou Poole (5C), a family history researcher who has definitely done much of the legwork necessary to unravel the roots of these families.

old Virginny

The Virginia Company, much like the Massachusetts Bay Company, was founded under James I of England to establish colonies in the Americas. After a rocky beginning, the colonization of Virginia found its sea-legs when King James decided that "no substantial progress could be expected from gentlemen-adventurers, convicts and rogues." In 1624, the king reshaped the settlement into a crown colony. The crown encouraged men to settle with their wives and children on land granted to them by the king's authority.

The Virginia Company recognized that there was one one thing in particular that every immigrant was hungry for. As an inducement to attract new settlers, the company began to offer land. Thus, the headright system, discussed in a prior post, was initiated. Each man emigrating would receive fifty acres of land for himself and fifty for every individual he brought over. This system, coupled with the discovery of the insanely profitable tobacco plant, ensured the future stability of the colony. The era of vast, multi-acre plantations was born.

The success of tobacco as a cash crop defined the southern states where the plant thrived. 1619 was the year that a Dutch ship brought the first African slaves to Virginia. The labor structure beginning with these twenty individuals became, over time, crucial to the continued prosperity of the Virginia Colony. As the fledgling colony struggled to survive, the seeds of a powerful and shameful inequity that would rock a nation for 400 years were already being sown.

the "Indian Massacre" of 1622

Indian massacre of 1622, depicted as a woodcut by Matthäus Merian, 1628.

As the years passed and colonization stretched ever further up the James River, the Powhatan remained the most powerful band of Natives Americans in the area. Eventually, matters came to a head. The Powhatan had myriad reasons to be unhappy with the English settlers overrunning their territory. Diseases like smallpox had decimated much of the native population. The cultivation of tobacco created a need by plantation owners for ever larger plots of land while the Powhatan prized these lands for hunting and cultivation of crops. And, as the arrogant contempt held by the English immigrants for the Powhatan and their way of life became increasingly evident, any hope of solving their differences peacefully became increasingly remote. According to colonist John Thorpe, "There is scarce any man among us that doth soe much as afforde them a good thought in his hart and most men with their mouthes give them nothinge but maledictions and bitter execrations." To make matters worse, by 1620, Virginia officials had begun pressuring the Powhatan to have their children educated, civilized and Christianized in specially funded colleges focused on Anglicizing them.

Note: John Thorpe, a Native American sympathizer to the end, was tragically killed in the "massacre" of 1622.

Under the leadership of Chief Wahunsenacawh (aka Powhatan) relations between the native people and the English had remained peaceful for the most part. When Powhatan died in 1618, his brother Openchancanough, who took over leadership, became weary of the diplomacy that Powhatan had utilized to maintain the semi-peaceful relations that existed with the newcomers.

Chesapeake Bay warrior by John White 1585

Openchancanough's ultimate motive for the Powhatan attack on the settlers is unknown. It might have been a power play to gain a bargaining tool. Or he may have been trying to rid his people of the newcomers altogether. Whatever the reason, on 22 Mar 1622, Chief Openchancanough led his people in coordinated attacks on various Virginia settlements, including Charles City County where our Uncle William Eppes (10U) was living at the time of these raids.

The day prior to the attack, the Powhatan came to the settlements bearing gifts of food to share with the colonists. The following morning they were again welcomed by the unsuspecting townspeople. Seizing the settlers own tools, the Powhatan struck suddenly and with force. They killed families, livestock and servants in the fields. They burned houses and mutilated the dead before disappearing with about 20 women captives.

The official number of Virginia colonists killed was recorded at 347 but the count may have been higher. According to Captain John Smith, the assault plummeted the colony into a "labyrinth of melancholy." One-sixth of Virginia’s colonists had been wiped out in a single day. For a time, the devastated colonists could do nothing but huddle in their home and await future attacks.

aftermath

The climate of fear didn't last long. The colonists set out on a series of retaliatory raids in the summer and fall of 1622. In January of 1623, the Council of Virginia reported to the London Company: "...Wee have anticipated your desires by setting uppon the Indyans in all places...uppon ye Wyanokes and in a seconde expeditione upon the Nancemunds [Nansemonds]...we have slaine divers, burnte theire Townes, destroyde theire Wears (weirs) & corne...we will Constantlie pursue their extirpations...we have slayne more of them this yeere, then hath been slayne before since the beginninge of ye Colonie..."

The raids were so successful that the Powhatan, unprepared for the massive onslaught, decided to use the captured women as a means of fostering peace. In March 1623, Openchancanough let the colonists know that he was ready for a truce in order to allow his people to plant corn for the coming year. In exchange, he promised to return the the captive women. An agreement was reached and the corn planted.

Colony officials, however, evidently felt that revenge on the Powhatan was more important than rescuing the women. On May 22, Captain William Tucker and a force of his men met with Opechancanough with the pretense of a negotiation for a truce and the release of the captives. After "manye fayned speeches," about 200 of the Powhatan people were served wine that had been poisoned. Many instantly fell sick or died and the English shot about 50 more. In addition, successful raids on the Powhatan's already harvested corn depleted their food supply and further decimated the population.

Warfare and disease over the next ten years dropped the Powhatan population to only a few thousand and many villages were left vacant. Opechancanough and his people would launch a final desperate attack in 1644. The conclusion of that conflict in 1646, not surprisingly, found Opechancanough in jail and one more nation of American indigenous people subjugated.

politics and religion of old Virginia

A heavy preponderance of immigrants to the northern colonies came to America in search of religious freedom. The immigrants to Virginia, on the other hand, came to get rich. For their religious needs, they stuck to the Anglican Church. This choice had political consequences as the new colony gained a foothold in the New World. Tying themselves to the Church of England bound the southern settlers more firmly to the political and cultural traditions of England than those in the north. This led to the plantation system which closely resembled the feudal and class-based societies of Europe.

While the northern colonies were more diversified with trade, crafts and industry, the southern colonies were almost entirely agricultural. This led to a colonial legislature that largely consisted of the planter elite. Since wealthy landowners controlled the politics of the colony, that left little room for others in the political structure. The elite aristocrats in the southern colonies also used their religion and Anglican customs to further concentrate political power in the hands of affluent white men.

And so, as our ancestors made their way across the ocean to the new land, they encountered a world well suited to their especial needs. But the words of John Smith bear repeating:

"This deare bought Land with so much bloud and cost, hath onely made some few rich, and all the rest losers."

our Virginia families

Of our thirty nine northern families, all but three arrived in the first half of the 17th century. By contrast, of the sixteen southern families, only five arrived in this time frame. We had southern families who settled first in both Virginia and Maryland. Maryland, though colonized in the early 1630's, experienced very slow growth until the middle of the century. By 1650, there were only about 1,000 homesteaders in Maryland contrasted with about 20,000 in Virginia and 15,000 in Massachusetts.

Our five earliest ancestors in the south all settled in Virginia. They were Francis Eppes (9GGF), Francis Poythress (8GGF), John Bishop (8GGF), John Wall (9GGF) and David Peebles (8GGF). All eventually settled in James City County. Below are the approximate locations of the land each man acquired.