ubstantiate this testimony, by
showing that the average holdings at all times in the Eighteenth century
were comparatively small. In the years from 1722 to 1729 Spotsylvania
was a new county, just opened to settlers, and a large part of its area
had been granted in large tracts to wealthy patentees. Yet the deed book
for these years shows that it was actually settled, not by these men
themselves, but by a large number of poor planters. Of the 197 transfers
of land recorded, 44 were for 100 acres or less and 110 for 300 acres or
less. The average deed was for 487 acres. As some of the transfers were
obviously made for speculative purposes and not with the intent of
putting the land under cultivation, even this figure is misleading. The
average farm during the period was probably not in excess of 400 acres.
One of the most extensive dealers in land in Spotsylvania was Larkin
Chew who secured a patent for a large tract and later broke it up into
many small holdings which were sold to new settlers.[8-49]

This substitution of the small slave holder for the man who used only
his own labor in the cultivation of his land unquestionably saved the
class of small proprietors from destruction. Without it all would have
been compelled to give up their holdings in order to seek their fortunes
elsewhere, or sink to the condition of "poor white trash." Yet the
movement was in many ways unfortunate. It made the poor man less
industrious and thrifty. Formerly he had known that he could win
nothing except by the sweat of his brow, but now he was inclined to let
the negro do the work. Slavery cast a stigma upon labor which proved
almost as harmful to the poor white man as did negro competition. Work
in the tobacco fields was recognized as distinctly the task of an
inferior race, a task not in keeping with the dignity of freemen.

Jefferson states that few indeed of the slave owners were ever seen to
work. "For in a warm climate," he adds, "no man will labour for himself
who can make another labour for him."[8-50] Chastellux noted the same
tendency, declaring "that the indolence and dissipation of the middling
and lower classes of white inhabitants of Virginia is such as to give
pain to every reflecting mind."[8-51]

Slavery developed in the small farmers a spirit of pride and haughtiness
that was unknown to them in the Seventeenth century. Every man, no
matter how poor, was surrounded by those to whom he felt himself
superior, and this