The Punishment Monopoly. Pem Davidson Buck
idea of private property, that some could own land, on which all depended for life itself, to the exclusion of others, was a new idea on the Chesapeake, as it was for all Native polities. But it was an old idea to the English; indeed, the right to private property, or the dispossession from it, was the reason many of them had ended up on the Chesapeake. X Radford carried that tale of dispossession for us in England. In Virginia, as in England, the remains of the diarchic structure legitimized both ownership and its flipside, dispossession. Local parishes in Virginia, rather than church courts, as in England, regulated land rights. And by regulating property and inheritance, the church actually regulated who had the right to make a living and how they did it. John Nelson, in a study of the Anglican Church in colonial Virginia, describes the system of governance as joint parish/county.12 The parish vestry consisted of twelve men, almost invariably representatives of the most powerful local families, plus the minister. Everyone, regardless of religion, paid the heavy parish levies that supported church and minister. As in England, a vague sense of the old commons made the parish responsible for the welfare of those in it. This meant, de facto, that the parish was responsible for people it kept dispossessed by its enforcement of property rights. Parish charity was a major expense.
The parish kept the land records and validated the boundaries of private property, every four years organizing “processioning,” in which members of the community were chosen to walk all boundaries, renew boundary marks as necessary, and settle any disputes—all accompanied, apparently, with a bit of conviviality, judging by at least one parish bill for ale.13 This was the church validating ownership—and by extension, validating landlessness for everyone else. Disputes that couldn’t be settled amicably through church intervention were turned over to the secular authority, the county court, with its ability to apply force if needed. Not only did the church validate the control of land, but it also, under the guise of responsibility for “poor relief,” played an important role in validating the use of labor. The parish “bound out” poor and orphan children, by the early 1700s at the rate of hundreds annually, who were thus legally obligated to provide free labor until adulthood for the family to which they were bound, in return for food and shelter and education (at least for the more fortunate).14 All this was exacerbated by Virginia’s dependence, not on mixed farming by individual families, as was common in the Northern colonies, but on tobacco, an extremely labor-intensive export crop that doubled as money, and grew well in Virginia’s climate.
Tellingly, it was on the monuments to these two pillars of governance, the church and the courthouse/jail (the jail was often in the courthouse basement, with a pillory out front), that the elites lavished money and care, generally with at least a modicum of consent from those who paid the levies that made such impressive buildings possible. This control was all in the hands of local elites. Theoretically, some were appointed by and answerable to the governor, who was appointed by the king, but typically the governor rubber-stamped local selections for the county courts and for parish ministers. And if he didn’t, the local elites were quite capable of strategically ignoring him.15 Wresting power out of their hands and into the hands of the state would turn out to be bloody, involving war, executions, and the English navy.
DIGRESSION FINISHED, BACK TO John Radford and the possible sale of his headright to Thomas Todd—and however Todd got that land, his right to it was legitimized by the church and enforced by the state. If John sold his headright, the sale could have enabled him to do as many did: leave to go and join relatives and connections in the colony. Darrett and Anita Rutman’s extensive study of the area just south of the Rappahannock River (which eventually became Middlesex and Essex counties), where there were many Radford connections, shows this pattern clearly—just about everybody lived within fairly easy reach of relatives or people with whom they had had long-term connections.16 John, however, went a bit farther up the coast, to Northumberland County, on the north side of the Wicomoco River. He did have connections there, through Martin Cole and a possible cousin, Roger Radford. Traveling to Middlesex by boat would have been a long trip. Cross-country would have been even harder, although by the 1650s, there were a few roads, ferries, and bridges in the regions that had been settled by English the longest.
Ferries and bridges marked a very different way of life for the English compared to the Powhatan. For the Powhatan rivers and streams had been connectors, and all had equal access. Everyone had canoes, so all could use the rivers and streams for traveling. Transportation of people and goods by canoe was quick and easy, far easier than cross-country travel. For at least some of the English, however, rivers quickly became barriers. Given the disparities in wealth and possessions, many would have been boatless.17 In the 1650s, horses were fairly rare; transportation by road often meant on foot. For those with boats, or who were connected with those with boats, the rivers were a lifeline to economic well-being. The well-to-do bought or patented land on the rivers; planters in the backcountry, without river access, were dependent on the big planters on the rivers for commercial connections to Jamestown for the sale of their tobacco.
So here was John, buying land from Martin Cole on the north shore of the Wicomoco—land with river access. He remained linked with the network of Rappahannock connections, however, despite the distance, through Martin Cole, who was a relative of Francys Cole, a wealthy planter on the south side of the Rappahannock. Francys was himself connected to Rowland Burnham, an even wealthier planter, whose son John was one of the elite that rebels later imprisoned. In addition to the wealth he inherited from his father, John Burnham was both a planter and one of the few Middlesex merchants. He exported tobacco to England and filled return voyages with English goods ordered mostly by the local gentry, as well as some merchandise for general sale. He is referred to as “Lt. Coll” (for colonel) and was a justice.18 High status indeed.
This whole set of connections appears to have been available to John through Roger Radford, his probable cousin, who was closely connected with Francys Cole, perhaps having been indentured to him previously. These connections appear to have carried over into the next generation, via John’s (probable) son, Bruen Radford, and Rowland’s son, John Burnham. Bruen appeared at John Burnham’s deathbed, signed his will, and inherited a substantial sum of money from him.19 His appearance to pay his respects to his dying patron reflected the attention a client owed his patron—and turned out to be well worth the trip he most likely made from Essex downriver by boat or by road to Middlesex. This was a common pattern in early Virginia, with the less powerful man dependent on the backing of the more influential merchants or wealthy planters, who might themselves be clients of even more powerful men. In return, the client would give service and loyalty, backing the patron’s economic and political strategies.20
These networks of patron-client relationships helped make local elite governance possible. Clients were, to greater or lesser extents, dependent on patrons. Men like John Burnham had power not just as merchants and planters, but also had a surprising degree of influence over access to land, having patented enormous tracts. Their speculation paid off as they rented, and sometimes eventually sold, to newcomers and freed indentured servants. As centers of financial networks, they had at least some degree of influence over the lesser planters, like Francys and Martin, who were dependent on them, and who in turn had their lesser dependents—people like the Radfords.21 In addition, these were the men who were authorized by the church, as vestry members, to wield the legitimizing spiritual power of the church and, as justices, to wield the secular use of force. From the Powhatan perspective, this certainly would have been a subversion of dual sovereignty; too much of both spiritual and secular power was in overlapping hands. Wahunsonacock himself, however, with his expansionist, perhaps imperial, ambitions, might well have understood the benefits. From the English perspective, the institutions were separate but the overlap made that separation workable; one institution would not stymie the other.
A BIT OF AN ASIDE IS CALLED FOR here, about those shadowy figures in the historical record. It is often extremely difficult to tell for sure who is who when looking at court records and even at wills. People named children for parents and grandparents and siblings, so often there are several people of the same name, who may or may not be related, or may even be the same person. Is the John Radford who bought land in Northumberland the same John Radford who earlier testified in a murder trial? In this example, there is reason to think they are one and the same—in both cases, Martin Cole is also