OUR SOUTHERN ROOTS

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

before it became Virginia ~ the Powhatan

Prior to the founding of Jamestown, the land now known as Virginia was populated by the Powhatan, an indigenous Algonquian people.  Their supreme leader, Wahunsenacawh (commonly called Powhatan), had inherited rulership of an empire of six tribes from his father.  After succeeding his father, Powhatan expanded his empire to 30 tribes, all of whom paid tribute to him.  At the peak of his power, he is estimated to have ruled between 13,000 and 34,000 people.

Walt made her famous!

Chief Powhatan's other claim to fame? His daughter's name was Pocahontas!  The story of her heroic effort to save John Smith from the chopping block is probably a myth, but relations between the Powhatan and the English settlers is not. For the next four decades in colonial Virginia there existed either a state of uneasy peace or all out war between the indigenous people living in the area and the English settlers who had invaded their land.   

expansion in Virginia

It was John Rolfe, husband of the famed Pocahontas, who first experimented with tobacco as a cash crop for cultivation in Virginia. He was so successful that it wasn't long before word was out. Tobacco in Virginia was like gold in California. The lure of easy prosperity was irresistible for many Englanders and waves of immigrants began arriving. Because tobacco farming requires a lot of land, forays were made up the James River to found ever increasing settlements. They called these newly formed communities "hundreds" after a system widely used in England.

Note: The term hundred derived from the English tradition of sizing land so that each designated area could provide 100 soldiers upon command. In Virginia the hundreds were more the size of 100 people, including women and children.

Our earliest ancestors to touch American soil

Our grandfather John Eppes (10GGF) was born ca 1545 in Ashford, Kent England. In 1672, he was admitted to the Middle Temple which allowed him to practice law. He and his wife Thomazine Fisher (10GGM) had 13 children. At varying dates, four of these children sailed for Virginia.

The first to make the voyage was William Eppes (10U) in 1618. Most probably his considerably younger brother Peter (10U) came over with him. William and Peter's sister Katherine Eppes Sloman (10A) died in Charles City County, Va, but just when she arrived in Virginia with her husband, John Sloman, is unknown. We know that our grandfather, Francis Eppes (9GGF), was in Virginia sometime before 1625 when he was selected as a representative in the General Assembly. He most probably came sometime between 1622 and 1625.

The Eppes brothers evidently brought some wealth and influence from England because both Francis and William were able to acquire land and obtain positions of import in the newly formed colony shortly after their arrival.

Uncle William Eppes

We begin our exploration of the Virginia Colony with our Uncle William Eppes (10U), first of the Eppes family in the New World. His story is an apt illustration of the early formation of the colony and the type of men who ultimately controlled it. William left England for America when he was 23 years old. He sailed on the William and Thomas (probably with his brother Peter) and arrived in Virginia on 29 August 1618. By 1619 he had been hired to command Smith's Hundred, a plantation eight miles upriver from Jamestown.

Blue = Smith's Hundred Maroon = Jamestown Green = "the manslaughter incident"

Uncle William may have been a prime example of the rough and tumble type of man who was attracted to early Virginia. In 1619, while on a downriver shipboard foray near Newport News, William became enraged with the ship's captain for grounding the vessel. Our uncle apparently whacked the poor captain over the head with his sword. Luckily the sword was still in its scabbard. Unluckily, Captain Edward Roecroft died of head injuries the next day. William was tried for manslaughter and duly convicted. Over the course of history, there are innumerable examples of rich and powerful men getting away with murder. Uncle William was no exception. Though he was stripped of his rank after his conviction, it turns out that he had powerful connections in England. He was summarily restored to his command position and made captain to boot!

By 1622, William had moved another 10 miles up the James River from Smith's Hundred to Charles City. 1622 marked the year that the Powhatan had finally had enough of the English trespassers devastating their hunting grounds with tobacco plantations. On March 22, Powhatan's brother, Chief Opchanacanough, mounted a brutal, synchronized attack on the English settlements. Because of the severity of the attack, Charles City and the surrounding areas were abandoned for a time. Many colonists flocked to the safer Eastern Shore across Chesapeake Bay. William was one of them.

Note: We will deal with the Powhatan attack in depth in a future post

Yellow = Charles City Black = Eastern Shore

big man on the plantation

In 1623, William was given command of the Eastern Shore Plantation. He, his wife and his brother Peter (10U) were living there when the muster (census) of 1625 was taken. The colony, even at this early stage, was already becoming divided into the haves and have nots. William was definitely on the "have" side. According to James R. Perry in The Formation of a Society on Virginia's Eastern Shore:

"one, Captain William Epes, commanded a muster of fifteen. The size of Epes's muster reflected his privileged position as first commander of Accomack, an office giving him the power to act in the name of the central government as a chief magistrate...one (Epes again) had two houses and a fort...Epes had three stores...he was one of five heads of musters who owned a boat..."

Perry noted "a trend toward private landholdings" which was the "beginnings of a society of individuals pursuing their own interests" instead of working toward the common good. It seem that not a lot has changed in 400 years.

abuse of power

Over time in Virginia, William Eppes gained a reputation as a "mad and ranting fellow." His altercation with Thomas Savage proved him to be just that. Savage, only 13 when he sailed for Jamestown in 1607, had developed good relations with the Powhatan people. While this led many English settlers to distrust him, his interpreting skills were in high demand. William wanted Savage to work exclusively for him. Savage not only turned him down, but word got around that Savage "feared for his life with Eppes in command." These rumors led to a "trumped up" charge of slander against Savage. Savage was interrogated by none other than William Eppes himself who "did lay the said Ensign Savage neck and heels..." Laying neck and heels was an extremely painful form of punishment popular in the day. When the case was finally tried, the court predictably sided with the well-connected Uncle William. The court decreed that if Savage talked to "the Indians of those parts" without Eppes' permission, he had to pay William an exorbitant £200!

headrights: the Virginia path to riches

In 1626, William applied for a grant of 450 acres for the transport of nine people from England to Virginia under the headright system. A headright was a grant of land, usually 50 acres, given to settlers for every person they sponsored to make the trip across the ocean. These sponsored men then became indentured servants for five to seven years.  William, like many other wealthy men, participated in the Virginia "land grab" which ultimately distributed the bulk of the land into the hands of a few prosperous plantation owners.

It has been estimated that half the settlers living in the southern colonies came to America under the headright system. While indentured servitude was practiced in both the southern and northern colonies, servitude turned out to be a much harsher way of life in the south than in the north. While most servants in the north went on to become productive members of New England society, only about 40 percent of southern indentured servants lived to complete the terms of their contracts.

Note:  The headright system became even more lucrative in the coming years. Plantation owners benefitted when they transported African slaves to Virginia.  Transporting 60 slaves was worth 3,000 acres of land and almost free labor.  This practice started in August of 1619 in the Virginia Colony when a ship arrived carrying 20 enslaved Africans. There is no evidence that William Eppes transported Africans to Virginia, but the slave trade would become very important in the coming years to our Eppes, Wall, and Covington families.

still more

With William, of course, there was more. In 1627, he was brought before court for alleged "relations" with recently widowed Alice Boyse. William was married and it created quite the scandal. Tongues wagged. Several witnesses testified that Alice removed her gown and slipped between the sheets of William's bed. Shortly, they heard "a great bussleing and juggling of the bed." One witness said they heard the "bussleing" two or three times! A month later, the jury came back with its verdict: "...it is noe way proved...that Capt Epes and Mrs. Boise have offended the Law but that they are cleare and guiltless." Jennifer Potter, author of The Jamestown Brides, noted that "[i]n Virginia as elsewhere one law existed for the powerful and another for lesser mortals."

on to greener pastures

In 1629 Uncle William was made a commissioner of the monthly court for the "Upper Parts" where the land granted for his headrights had been secured. For unknown reasons, shortly afterwards, he sought his fortune and opportunity elsewhere. By 1630, he had found an overseer for his Virginia lands and was living in St. Christopher's in the Bahamas. The tobacco trade there, as in Virginia, was doing a booming business.

Red = Williams lands in Virginia Blue = The Bahamas

Either William's wild years had caught up with him or he finally grew out of his "mad, ranting" ways. His time in the Bahamas seemed to be spent without incident. Toward the end of the decade, he returned to his homeland. William's rollicking life came to an end in Jolly Old England where his saga began. He died in 1640 at age 46.

our grandfather Francis

The exact date of our grandfather, Francis Eppes' (9GGF) arrival in Virginia is unknown. It is speculated that he came on the ship Hopewell because that is what he called the plantation that he acquired in 1635. The Hopewell  brought passengers to Virginia in May of 1622, November of 1623, and June of 1624. The first record we have of Francis in Virginia, however, was his election to represent Shirley Hundred at the Assembly in James City in May of 1625.

From their first appearance in the colony of Virginia, Francis and his brother William were shown to be men of considerable wealth and influence. Virginia's early development benefited just that type of man. Francis, unlike his brother, stayed the course in his new homeland. The Eppes family became one of the richest and most powerful in the colony. Included in Francis Eppes headright grant of 34 "heads" brought over in 1630 were "Bashaw, Juliana, Andrea, Maydelina, Cessent, Negroes..."

And so it began.

We will delve more deeply into the story of Francis Eppes in a future post. For now, we set our sights on the North.