Tag: Slavery

* “We raise the wheat, they give us the corn” : a reflection on life in antebellum Virginia

February 4, 2013

Not too long ago, before the snow fell and kept falling, I drove down to Critz, Virginia, the homeplace of Virginia tobacco baron, J. R. Reynolds. Reynolds’s parents, Hardin Reynolds and Nancy Jane Cox Reynolds, owned  several hundred slaves, who worked the 717-acre Rock Spring plantation. One of these slaves went by the name of … More * “We raise the wheat, they give us the corn” : a reflection on life in antebellum Virginia

Christmas in Antebellum Virginia: Part I

November 30, 2009

What is now the state of Virginia boasted the first permanent English settlement in North America. Despite its rocky beginnings in 1607, the settlement eventually flourished. The first Africans arrived in 1619 and the tobacco industry began in earnest. Along with the need for cheap labor, provided by slavery, the colonialists desired nothing more than … More Christmas in Antebellum Virginia: Part I