liberal provisions of this indenture reveal not only the great anxiety of the planters to secure English mechanics, but also the difficulty of obtaining them without extending the most powerful inducements.
The English mechanic emigrating to the Colony under indenture often brought tools with him which had been bought at the request of the planter in Virginia by the merchant acting as intermediary.[1] The constantly recurring necessity of having to supply the place of a white mechanic whose term was drawing to a close by importing a successor, must have had an important influence in causing the planters to have their slaves instructed in trades. The county records of the seventeenth century reveal the presence of many negro mechanics in the Colony during that period, this being especially the case with carpenters and coopers. This was what might be expected. The slave was inferior in skill, but the ordinary mechanical needs of the plantation did not demand the highest aptitude. The fact that the African was a servant for life was an advantage covering many deficiencies; nevertheless, it is significant that large slaveholders like Colonel Byrd and Colonel Fitzhugh should have gone to the inconvenience and expense of importing English handicraftsmen who were skilful in the very trades in which if is certain that several of the negroes belonging to these planters had been specially trained. It shows the low estimate in which the planters held the knowledge of their slaves regarding the higher branches of mechanical work.[2]
- ↑ Letters of William Fitzhugh, June 7, 1681.
- ↑ Among the slaves of the first Robert Beverley was a negro carpenter valued at thirty pounds sterling (see inventory on file at Middlesex C. H.). John Carter, Jr., of Lancaster owned a negro cooper (see Records of Lancaster County, original vol. 1690-1709, p. 24). Ralph Wormeley of Middlesex County owned both a negro cooper and a negro carpenter, each being valued at thirty-five pounds sterling (Records of Middlesex
