Dr Brothers:  An excellent observation.  Jane Steele.

-----Original Message-----
>From: James Brothers <[log in to unmask]>
>Sent: Sep 28, 2007 8:41 AM
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: [VA-HIST] land definitions
>
>I'm not sure that "peasant" is an apt description of any 18C  
>Virginians. Technically as they owned their own land they would be  
>"yeomen".
>
>I also think the distinction Harold GIll is urging, while possibly of  
>utility in the 17C, is less and less so during the 18C. While it is  
>true that many, even most, early settlers in Tidewater concentrated  
>on growing tobacco, this was less true as the 1700s progressed. The  
>profits available from tobacco were no longer as high and the demand  
>for commodities like corn and wheat growing. Also where the terrain  
>of Tidewater made large plantations possible, the topography of the  
>Piedmont and Ridge and Valley was more ammenable to smaller farms.
>
>By the mid 1700s at least 40% of Virginia's exports were non-tobacco.  
>The majority of the acreage of the Piedmont was devoted to non- 
>tobacco cultivation. There have been a number of studies done on  
>this. And the economy of even the plantations was diversifying. A  
>couple of classic examples are Mount Vernon, Monticello,  and  
>Montpelier. Realizing that his tobacco revenues were falling,  
>Washington built a large still and a fishery. Jefferson's slaves at  
>Monticello ran a large nailery. At Montpelier for a considerable  
>period over half of the income of the property was generated by a  
>large smithing operation on the site of the tempietto.
>
>Other "plantation" owners were also involved in economic  
>diversification, which included iron production. The Tayloes were  
>involved in the Bristol Ironworks, Neabsco, and Occoquan. Alexander  
>Spotswood built both the Tubal Ironworks (often incorrectly called  
>Germanna) and the double air furnace (foundry) at Massaponax. Gov.  
>Gooch was involved in the Fredericksville Ironworks (not Spotswood).  
>The Washington's were partners in the Principio Co, which operated a  
>number of ironworks in Maryland, but also a blast furnace on  
>Washington's land along the Accokeek Creek near Ferry Farm (The  
>Potomac, now called Accokeek IW). By the time of the American  
>Revolution the British North American Colonies were making more iron  
>than the home country. About half of which was made in Maryland and  
>VIrginia (much of the rest in Pennsylvania).
>
>Bergstrom, Peter V.
>1980 Markets and Merchants: Economic Diversification in Colonial  
>Virginia, 1700-1775. University Microfilms International, Ann Arbor  
>and London.
>
>Brothers, James H. IV
>1999a Introduction to Pre-Industrial Iron Manufacturing. Presented at  
>Furnace & Forge: 225 Years of Iron Working, Lost River Valley Museum,  
>WV.
>1999b Isaac Zane and The Marlboro Iron Works. Presented at Furnace &  
>Forge: 225 Years of Iron Working, Lost River Valley Museum, WV.
>2000a Manufacturing Iron in Colonial Virginia: Its Importance and How  
>it was Made in Blast Furnace, Bloomery, and Finery Forge. Paper  
>presented at the Pioneer America Society, Richmond, VA.
>2000b Blast Furnace, Forge, and Foundry- The Making of Iron in  
>Colonial Virginia (revision of the Uplands Paper). Paper presented at  
>The Archeological Society of Virginia.
>2001 'Carried on At A Very Great Expense And Never Produced Any  
>Profit' Titanium and the Albemarle Ironworks (1770-72): The Case for  
>Slag Analysis. Paper presented at the Society for Historical  
>Archaeology, Long Beach, CA.
>2002 'Carried on At A Very Great Expense And Never Produced Any  
>Profit' The Albemarle Ironworks (1770-72). Unpublished Masters  
>Thesis, Department of Anthropolgy, The College of William and Mary,  
>Williamsburg.
>2004a It's a Horse, It's a Bear, No It's a Salamander: Toward a More  
>Concise Jargon for Iron Industrial Archaeology. Paper presented at  
>the 2004 Ironmasters, Rehoboth Beach, DE.
>2004b The Manufacture of Iron in Colonial America. Paper presented at  
>the 1st Pre-Industrial Iron Conference, The Farmers’ Museum,  
>Cooperstown, NY.
>2005 Blast Furnace, Forge and Foundry. Uplands Archaeology in the  
>East: Symposia VIII & IX (pp. 335-353). Paper presented at the 2000  
>Uplands Conference, James Madison University, Harrisonburg, VA.  
>Archeological Society of Virginia, Special Publication 38-7.
>
>Brothers, James H. IV and Charles P. Swann.
>2001 'Carried On At A Very Great Expense And Never Produced Any  
>Profit': Titanium and the Ruination of the Albemarle Ironworks  
>(1770-72). Paper presented at the Society for Industrial Archeology,  
>Washington, DC.
>
>Brothers, James H. IV; Charles P. Swann, and Geof Grimes
>2002 Albemarle Iron Works (1771–1772): Why did this operation fail?.  
>Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research B 189 (2002) 340– 
>343. Elsevier Science B.V. www.elsevier.com/locate/nimb. Paper  
>presented at the IX International Conference on Particle-Induced X- 
>Ray Emission and its Analytical Applications (PIXE 2001), Guelph,  
>Canada.
>  Dermody, Larry D.
>1992 Fire and Ice: The Col. James Madison Ironworks at Montpelier,  
>1762-1801. Paper presented at the 1992 Annual Conference of The  
>Society for Historical Archaeology, Kingston, Jamaica.
>
>Kamoie, Laura Croghan
>2003 Neabsco and Occoquan: The Tayloe family's iron plantations,  
>1740-1780. Prince William Historical Commission, Prince William.
>
>Lewis, Lynne G., Larry D. Dermody
>1990 Archaeology on Ice: The Tempietto/Ice House at Montpelier.  
>Manuscript on file at Montpelier.
>
>McCusker, John J, and Russell R. Menard
>1985 The Economy of British America, 1607-1789. Institute of Early  
>American History and Culture, The University of North Carolina Press,  
>Chapel Hill and London.
>
>Parker, Scott K, Lynne G. Lewis, Larry D. Dermody, and Ann L. Miller
>1996 Crafty Businessmen: A New Perspective on 18th-Century Plantation  
>Economics. In The Archaeology of 18th-Century Virginia, edited by  
>Theodore R. Reinhart, pp. 183-207. Council of Virginia Archaeologists  
>and the Archeological Society of Virginia Special Publication No. 35.  
>Archeological Society of Virginia, Richmond.
>
>
>James Brothers
>[log in to unmask]
>
>
>
>On Sep 27, 2007, at 23:49, John Philip Adams wrote:
>
>> This sounds like more of a class distinction than a land size issue.
>> Plantations belonged to the Gentry and the farms belong to the  
>> peasants.
>>
>> John Philip Adams


Lillian Jane Steele