Good question!  It's asocial statement not a legal definition.

What you might find helpful is that only about 15-20% of all free white
adult males in Virginia actually owned land.  In some counties it was more
and many it was less.  Among those who did own land, about 10 % controlled
anywhere from 20-25% of all the land a given county, while about 50% of
those who owned land controlled less that 10% of the land in a given county.

Jackson Turner Main wrote a number of articles in the William and Mary
Quarterly on wealth and social position on the eve of the Constitution (say
1780-1795) based largely on the Personal Property tax lists back in the
early 1950s.  I'm at work and without my citations, so I can't be more
complete here, but I'll be happy to put together a list and post it in the
near future.

Peter V. Bergstrom, PhD
Manager, Information Systems, Lighthouse Institute
Archivist, Illinois Addiction Studies Archive
Chestnut Health Systems
720 W. Chestnut St.
Bloomington, IL

Webmaster  http://www.chestnut.org

-----Original Message-----
From: Diana Bennett [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Tuesday, 19 June 2001 11:04 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: YEOMAN FARMER


Dear Listers:

I have one more question. (Sorry I didn't include it in the previous
Email)..... What is a yeoman farmer from 1780 in Virginia?

Thanks,   Diana

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