pp. 83 and 90.

[137] Bassett, Writings of Wm. Byrd., Intro. XXV.

[138] Anbury, Vol. II, p. 329.

PART TWO

THE MIDDLE CLASS

Like the aristocracy the middle class in Virginia developed within the
colony. It originated from free families of immigrants of humble means
and origin, and from servants that had served their term of indenture,
and its character was the result of climatic, economic, social and
political conditions. There is no more interesting chapter in the
history of Virginia than the development of an intelligent and
vigorous middle class out of the host of lowly immigrants that came to
the colony in the 17th century. Splendid natural opportunities, the
law of the survival of the fittest, and a government in which a
representative legislature took an important part cooperated to
elevate them. For many years after the founding of Jamestown the
middle class was so small and was so lacking in intelligence that it
could exercise but little influence in governmental affairs, and the
governors and the large planters ruled the colony almost at will.
During the last years of the 17th century it had grown in numbers, had
acquired something of culture and had been drilled so effectively in
political affairs that it could no longer be disregarded by governors
and aristocracy.

In the development of the middle class four distinct periods may be
noted. First, the period of formation, from 1607 to 1660, when, from
the free immigrants of humble means and from those who had entered the
colony as servants and whose term of indenture had expired, was
gradually emerging a class of small, independent farmers. Second, a
period of oppression, extending from 1660 to 1676. In these years,
when William Berkeley was for the second time the chief executive of
the colony, the poor people were so oppressed by the excessive burdens
imposed upon them by the arbitrary old governor and his favorites that
their progress was seriously retarded. Heavy taxes levied by the
Assembly for encouraging manufactures, for building houses at
Jamestown, for repairing forts, bore with great weight upon the small
farmers and in many cases brought them to the verge of ruin. During
this period the evil effects of the Navigation Acts were felt most
acutely in the colony, robbing the planters of the profit of their
tobacco and causing suffering and discontent. This period ends with
Bacon's Rebellion, when the down-trodden commons of the colony