The Political Influence of the Colonial Elite in the

Chesapeake Bay and the Southern Colonies

Sergio Olivas

History 1301
Professor Comar
1 December 2015

Olivas 2

Nature and triumph in politics always involve questions of a groups ability to execute
and to maintain power. This principle is undeniably true as it pertains to the social and political
changes in the English colonies that resulted in the War of Independence. Within the English
empire, the social structure categorized citizens and subjects according to their wealth and social
influence. While most aristocrats lived in England, many successful characters also resided in the
colonies of North America and Caribbean Islands. In the Chesapeake Bay and southern colonies,
many of these aristocrats profited from the large markets offered by the agricultural export
industry. Far from the imperial metropole, this colonial bourgeoisie dominated local politics in
colonial legislative assemblies, free from Parliaments rule. This autonomy also enabled colonists
at the lower-levels of society to live comfortably and attend to their personal endeavors.
Yet life for these everyday colonists changed when Parliament imposed taxes during the
1760s and 1770s. In response to these imperial impositions, many colonists rallied against
taxation and prompted a social movement that demanded a change in the structure of political
power. The colonial elites initial reaction to these grassroots demands for change the revolution
because it threatened the established power structure. Yet eventually, elites favored it because
they had become less reliant on England and more capable of prospering outside the English
empire. Examining these dynamics, I contend that the colonial elite in the Chesapeake and
southern colonies preserved an older hierarchal structure that was at odds with the American
Revolution as a social movement.
Englands conquest of the New World during the seventeenth century consisted of
investments from joint stock companies that sent hundreds of potential colonists into the
continent. This eventually led corporate individuals to organize the Virginia Assembly in 1619,
which was not recognized by the King of England until 1639.1 Though this general assembly
1 Yoram Dinstein, Models of Autonomy (New Brunswick: Transaction Books, 1981), 138.

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began as a legislative body that governed according to the necessities and developments of the
community, it perpetuated Britains monarchical social hierarchy into the colonies.
For centuries, kings and queens had ruled Europe and laid a social and political
foundation based on wealth and privilege. In this system, the idea of divine right served as a
rationale in which individuals, both rich and poor, accepted the unquestionable standard that
there must be a hierarchal structure in any society.2 The placement within this hierarchal structure
depended on many different characteristics. One of the most important traits, especially for
political authority, was being able to create and maintain a network of obligations and
dependencies for those at the lower end of the social hierarchy like being an international trader
because an international trader brought prosperity and wealth to society.3 In other words, when
Europe began colonizing the Americas, it became possible for colonists in the Americas who did
not have direct relations with a royal monarch to ascend in the social hierarchy and develop
political authority. Being an economic contributor to a society, a plantation-owner in the case of
the southern colonies, meant that a society would be dependent from the leadership and deeds of
the contributor, making that contributor the most qualified to be in power according to the
hierarchal societal standards.4 For instance, the production and exportation of tobacco from
plantations in the Chesapeake Bay as well as rice and indigo from the Carolinas allowed landowners to become major producers in an intercontinental economy and independently wealthy by
utilizing the geographic climate and resources to produce the crops.5

2 Gordon S. Wood, The Radicalism of the American Revolution (New York: A.A. Knopf, 1992), 11, 18.

3 Wood, 37, 88.

4 Wood, 88.

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From the establishment of an agricultural supply chain by colonial plantation-owners,

Europe became dependent on these planters to fulfill their market demands for tobacco, rice, and
indigo. Thus, business leaders in the Chesapeake and the southern colonies invested large
amounts of capital in their plantations in order to continue supplying Europes economic
demand.6 Capital was primarily spent on labor during the early eighteenth century as many
impoverished individuals migrated from Europe looking for employment opportunities and
becoming indentured servants. From the plantation owners perspective, the high migration rate
from England to the colonies during the seventeenth century made it inexpensive to hire
indentured servants for their plantations; however, as the immigration rate decreased in the
beginning of the eighteenth century, more planters invested in the importation slave labor from
West Africa instead of servants.7
Since the colonies were an investment for wealth, as they held a corporate self-image, the
intentions of the colonial elite was to ascend in the social hierarchy and mimic the role of
English aristocrats. An effective method for these wealthy plantation-owners to keep and acquire
wealth was through the intermarriage of one affluent family with another affluent family. This
intermarriage of aristocracy eventually made social prominence a hereditary attribute.8 While a
monarch did not reside or exist in the English colonies, the acquisition of wealth through
5 Stephen J. Hornsby, British Atlantic, American Frontier: Spaces of Power in Early Modern British
America (Lebanon: University Press of New England, 2005), 88, 113.

6 Hornsby, 105, 113.

7 Lois Green Carr, Philip D. Morgan, and Jean B. Russo, Colonial Chesapeake Society (Chapel Hill:
University of North Carolina Press, 1988), 406.

8 Hornsby, 207.

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inheritance made it possible for aristocrats to enter and control the political sphere, making
hereditary power similar to the traditional monarchal rule that dominated Europe. In addition, the
southern colonies and the Chesapeake were abundantly resourceful. Of the collective wealth the
English colonies held in 1774 (105,777 thousands of pounds sterling), the southern colonies and
the Chesapeake Bay area had a net worth of 57,006 thousands of pounds sterling, which was
about 53.8 percent of the total wealth.9 Land made the most abundant of physical assetsreal
estate, indentured servants, slaves, inventory, livestock, and crops as it made 45.9 of the
physical wealth in the southern colonies and the Chesapeake Bay.10 Consequently, the large
amount of resources and the social hierarchy structure in the English colonies leads to the
significance of the wealth of the southern colonies.
The wealth of the colonial elite before the revolution is important to consider because
their social status as prominent plantation-owners and ambitions to climb the social hierarchy
allowed them to be politically influential in the Virginia Assembly until the American
Revolution. In this colonial context, social power to create dependencies and political power to
further those dependencies went hand-in-hand.11 In the Chesapeake, a minority group of
plantation-families exuded political authority generation after generation through legislative,
legal, and religious forms of authority, leading to a personalization of politics in the colonies
based on family interests.12 Legally, they were able to politically dominate because they fulfilled
9 Alice Hanson Jones, Wealth of a Nation to Be: The American Colonies on the Eve of the Revolution (New
York: Columbia University Press, 1980), 128, 138.

10 Jones, 27, 97.

11 Wood, 88.

12 Hornsby, 107; Wood, 87.

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the property ownership qualification in order to vote, since they held about seventy-percent of
the total assets within those colonies, excluding commoners with less property from the political
process and making it practically impossible for them to challenge the political power of the
colonial elite.13 Unable to participate in colonial politics, those on the lower end of the social
hierarchy focused more on their domestic affairs. However, this traditional structure of wealth
and power was challenged by a social movement that fiercely gained momentum in the political
turmoil of the 1760s and the 1770s.
The different components of the political turmoil of the 1760s and the 1770s can be
traced to different stages of colonization during the previous centuries. The first component is the
republican ideology that emerged in the colonies. Although many historians consider the French
and Indian War as the event that helped initiate the movement towards colonial independence
from England, the colonial idea of self-rule began with the creation of colonial legislatures.14
Republican ideology is based on the idea that power to govern would not be allocated according
to social hierarchy, which conflicts with a monarchal structure of rule. Even though
republicanism in the English empire did not encompass total egalitarianism, it did exemplify a
shift in the social structure. For example, a patriarchal family structure accompanied this social
hierarchy structure. From this patriarchy, the marriages of children were pre-arranged by the
fathers of different families. Yet throughout the eighteenth century, this arrangement of marriage
became less natural and colonists became less abiding to patriarchy by leaving their homes more
frequently than before. Additionally, this egalitarian shift motivated young adults to have a
13 John Franklin Jameson, The American Revolution Considered as a Social Movement (New Jersey:
Princeton University Press, 1967), 39; Edwin J Perkins, The Economy of Colonial America (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1980), 157; Wood, 87.

14 Dinstein, 139, 143.

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greater influential role in the choice of their partner, sometimes using premarital pregnancy as an
excuse to marry.15 The emergence of the ideas brought by republicanism erected the conventional
social hierarchal structure and served as the foundation of the social movement that the colonial
elite sought to diminish once taxes became unwelcomed in the colonies.
Another component that caused the political turmoil of the 1760s and the 1770s is
English policy making. In the years prior to the 1760s, the English colonies experienced the
English policies of salutary neglect. England anticipated that these relaxed policies on the
enforcement of commercial regulation would allow the colonies to thrive economically and in
turn benefit England.16 These began in the mid-seventeenth century when England passed a
series of laws known as the Navigation Acts, which stated that all colonial goods exported from
the colonies must be loaded onto English ships and sent to England before they reached
European markets. These Acts also stated that the reverse applied to all imports from Europe to
the colonies.17 This mainly applied to the southern colonies because the agricultural economy
was the largest exporter in the English colonies; however, the Navigation Acts were not enforced
in the colonies as there were illegally smuggled goods as well as bribed royal customs collectors
that were not collecting full tax amounts due.18 This meant that colonists were used to a weak
degree of taxation and a lack of enforcement from England in the early 1700s. The nearly non15 Woods 145-147.

16 James R. Carr, Seeds of Discontent: the Deep Roots of the American Revolution 1650-1750 (New York: Walter
Publishing Company, 2008), 128.

17 Matthew Mulcahy, Hubs of Empire: The Southeastern Lowcountry and British Caribbean (Baltimore:
John Hopkins University Press, 2014), 100-101; Perkins, 18.

18 Albert. W. Niemi, U.S. Economic History (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1980), 26; Perkins, 129.

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existent presence of the Navigation Acts allowed the colonial elite and their distributors to
participate in free trade and retain virtually all of the profits.
Nearing the mid-eighteenth century, Englands efforts to maintain control of the Atlantic
economy in North America by waging war against France proved to be a heavy expenditure. The
cost of the French and Indian War, and the cost of land acquired in North America as a result of
that war burdened English tax-payers, as they were reluctant to pay the those costs, prompting
Parliament to impose new taxes on the colonies.19 These taxes included the Sugar Act, the
Currency Act, and Stamp Act, to name a few, and these taxes were passed without the consent of
colonists through legislative representation.20 These acts were not received graciously since
colonists felt that their legislatures instead of Parliament were the only ones who could impose
taxes, and since these legislative decisions were imposed without their consent made these taxes
especially unfavorable. 21 Colonists responded in this manner because republican ideology in the
English empire was reliant on the English constitution that limited Parliaments authority to tax
without legislative representation. Furthermore, the legislative assemblies in the colonies have
always been the main regulators of colonial affairs. Colonists felt that England was exceeding its
authority by undermining their political autonomy, and colonial responses to British taxation
demonstrated the ideological split as colonists increasingly resented the mother country.22. In

19 Frederick Merk, History of the Westward Movement (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1978), 73.

20 Frederick Merk, History of the Westward Movement (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1978), 73; Hornsby, 228.

21 Dinstein, 145.

22 Dinstein, 137, 142-144.

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response to colonial resistance, Parliament foolishly replaced one tax after another, hoping to
force taxation on the colonists.
Throughout North America, tensions increased as colonists violently protested these new
taxes. These protests, worsened the relationship between England and the colonies. At the same
time, colonists from the grassroots level vehemently voiced their frustrations within their
legislative assemblies. As such, this resistance from the bottom up significantly challenged the
traditional colonial structure of English imperialism.23 In this volatile context of the 1760s and
1770s, the colonial elite of the Chesapeake and southern colonies deemed this political and
social unrest as problematic because they intended to maintain the social hierarchy that
benefitted them during the period of Salutary Neglect and made them very wealthy. In order to
maintain this social structure, they considered the benefits and consequences of different social
and political factors.
One factor the colonial elite considered was their reliance on England. The colonial elite
began to question their relationship with England because they felt that they could not rely on
England for their protection. As the rich were becoming wealthier, the poor were becoming
poorer under Parliaments taxes. This disparity helped stimulate artisan and merchant
resentments towards the government that institutionalized the social hierarchy.24 For example,
during the 1760s in Charleston, William Henry Drayton, a wealthy plantation owner, proclaimed
that mechanics and other uneducated individuals should not be participating in legal decisions
due to their lack of understanding over the tax issue.25 However, Drayton failed to predict that the
23 Woods, 175.

24 Wood, 170, 181.

25 Wood, 187.

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colonists discontent with the social hierarchy as well as their willingness to participate in the
political process would sparked a social movement.26
The social movement in opposition to colonists limited political involvement highlighted
the threat they posed to the colonial elite. As poor whites in Charleston began revolting in
response to their economic hardships from taxes, they boycotted the importation of English
goods. They then challenged the colonial elites political dominance by forcing them to allow the
leaders of the boycott to be part of the boycott committee as overseers in 1769.27 In response, the
colonial elite considered the grievances that commoners had against English policies in order to
maintain order in colonial society. Although, considering commoners grievances was not enough
to mitigate the threat to their political power. With a social movement underway, the colonial
elite in the Chesapeake and southern colonies worried about slave rebellions being inspired by
the grassroots movement.
Even though slavery brought wealth to the Chesapeake and southern colonies, white
plantation owners always feared slave rebellions. Ever since Bacons Rebellion in 1676, slaves
had eagerly demonstrated their capabilities and enthusiasm to fight for freedom.28 In fact, in
1772, the colonial elite in the Virginia House of Burgess taxed the importation of slaves to
minimize the growing threat of slave rebellion that was being inspired by the protests against
taxes; however, even by limiting the importation of slaves, the reality was that the institution of
slavery was excruciatingly important for the development of an agricultural-based economy.29 It
26 Woods, 173.

27 Mulcahy, 211.

28 Whitman, 9-10.

29 Whitman, 7-8, 23.

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is for this reason that the English had provided military aid to the agricultural industry for
decades. For example, looking at the Caribbean Islands, a geographical region that was
economically similar to the southern colonies, plantation owners depended on English military
aid due to their vulnerability to slave rebellions. Additionally, the Caribbean islands agreed with
their colonial neighbors in North America about England overstepping its authority. However,
the lack of a white population compared to a black population in the Caribbean islands made it
inconceivable to rebel against England. Realizing their vulnerability without an English army,
the Caribbean islands found it more suitable to fix the taxation crisis by working within the
empire.30 English reliance proved to be an important factor to consider since the Caribbean
Islands, as well as the colony of Georgia, both hesitated to rebel against England.
The colony of Georgia serves as a perfect example about reliance being a contributing
factor towards the colonial elites approach to address the political disorder caused by the social
movement. Georgia was slow to have an independent movement from England because Georgia
was dependent on English funding and military. Yet, rumors of the English potentially arming
slaves to subdue colonial resistance in the region spread across Georgia rapidly. The colonial
elites fear of slave rebellions prompted them to support the independence cause because unlike
their neighbors in the islands, Georgias backcountry population was increasing rapidly,
providing a better opportunity to protect themselves from slave rebellions.31 Thus, a military
reliance on England became a major factor when considering the independence movement.

30 Mulcahy, 209.

31 Mulcahy, 209-210, 212.

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Another factor for the colonial elite to consider towards the revolutionary movement was
the economic prosperity outside of the English empire. One aspect of economic prosperity was
the Chesapeake and southern colonies ability to trade their agricultural products outside their
current limitations. For instance, although the Navigation Acts required colonial exports to be
shipped to England, the English market was not the dominant consumer of colonial exports. If
anything, plantation-owners in the Carolinas were already exporting rice directly to the Iberian
Peninsula as well as the Mediterranean.32 In addition, a market for rice, grain, lumber, and
livestock was increasing in the Caribbean islands. These commodities were not included in the
Navigation acts which made their exportation to the West Indies legal. This exportation allowed
the southern colonies and the Chesapeake to shift the agricultural based economy into a more
independent region from Englands imperial control.33 Thus, the colonial elites aptitude to thrive
by trading with Europe and the Caribbean islands directly made the thought of splitting from
England conceivable.
Another aspect of economic prosperity was land speculation. Before the French and
Indian war, Virginia had already designated two million acres of land to land speculators in an
effort to settle land west of the state. However, after the French and Indian War, land speculators
were prohibited to sell land west of the Appalachian Mountains without imperial approval due to
Parliaments Proclamation Act of 1763.34 The Proclamation was issued in an effort to minimize
tensions between Native Americans and colonists. In Pontiacs War, an organized intertribal
raided and destroyed British posts, demonstrating their refusal of settler migration into their
32 Hornsby, 113, 170.

33 Mulcahy, 208-209; Hornsby, 113, 177.

34 Merk, 65.

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lands.35 There were repeated attempts to push the proclamation line westward at the urgings of
land speculators, but in order to maintain peace, England handled these negotiations trying to
limit settler encroachments in the Native American land.36 These negotiations restrained the real
estate market for the elite in the Chesapeake. Englands prohibition of westward settlements
angered colonists who wanted to venture into Native American lands as well as the elite who
were willing to speculate land to the colonists. For the colonial elite, they needed to generate
revenue in order to pay back the debt they had.
Being free from debt was another driving motive for economically prospering outside the
English empire. Plantation-owners accumulated debt to English creditors as they used the loans
to invest in their plantations.37 When plantation-owners had difficulties paying the debt, English
creditors normally extended the credit terms. However, debt, especially in Virginia, was being
passed down from one generation to another generation. In addition, the colonies were facing
economic hardships throughout the 1750s and the 1760s. England failed to supply the colonies
with enough shillings to be circulated, and as a result, the colonies used currencies from other
European countries or they produced their own paper currency.38 Paper currency depreciated as a
result of an effort to pay for post-war conditions, prompting laws that would alleviate debts or
extend credit measures. The extended measures were burdensome nonetheless as they were
designed to collect the most amount of money possible without pushing the debtor into
35 Merk, 75.

36 Merk, 67-71.

37 Hornsby, 162.

38 Lawrence H. Gipson, Virginia Planter Debts before the American Revolution. The Virginia Magazine
of History and Biography 69, no. 3 (1961): 259-277. JSTOR, Virginia Historical Society (1 November 2015).

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bankruptcy. Many Virginians opposed paying these debts.39 By separating from the English
empire, it would have made it difficult for English authority to collect debt on behalf of the
creditors, meaning plantation owners would be in a position to keep more of the profits.
In conclusion, the colonial elite in the Chesapeake and southern colonies were
determined to preserve an older hierarchal structure that was at odds with the American
Revolution as a social movement. They were determined to maintain their political power and
their social influence. Europe was dominated by monarchies that derived their power from a
social hierarchy structure. When the New World was introduced to the Old World, the
colonization of the Americas provided the opportunity for political and social dominance to be
transferred from royalty to those who were financially successful from their participation in
intercontinental trade. They used wealth as a tool to rise in the social hierarchy in North America
by intermarrying with other elites to keep wealth a hereditary attribute. When England imposed
taxes on the colonies in order to pay for the cost of the French and Indian War, ending the period
of salutary neglect, two conflicting components created a political uproar: English taxation and
an engraved republican ideology that rejected the taxation.
Colonists rejected Parliaments taxes, but being unable to participate in the political
process, they exuded frustration against the colonial elite who had controlled the legislative
bodies in the colonies. The colonial elite in the Chesapeake and southern colonies not only
reacted to the demands of frustrated colonist with compliance, they also sought to maintain their
political authority. In this context, they waged war against England for two different reasons.
First, the colonial elite had become less reliant on British military aid and even more reliant on
colonial militias for maintaining peace and diminishing slave rebellions. Second, the colonial
elite would profit strenuously by circumventing the British Empire to trade with Europe and the
39 Gipson, 259-277.

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Caribbean Islands. They also would profit through western land speculation, which had been
prohibited under the Proclamation Act of 1763. Furthermore, by cutting ties to English creditors,
the plantation-owners would be free of the debt that had plagued their families for generations.
By acknowledging the tensions and the restrictions created by Englands actions during the
1760s and the 1770s, the colonial elite would channel the political frustration of colonists and
their desire to become politically active against England. The actions of the colonial elite in the
Chesapeake and southern colonies ensured their control over political power as well as their
status within the emerging social hierarchy after the revolution.

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