Clams and oysters, however, were abundant and made up almost the entire food of some poor families. Game was still abundant in or near most communities, and venison, wild turkey, and bear meat were welcome additions to the table. Most farmers had orchards. Much fruit was put in store for the winter, and part of it was converted into preserves, peach butter, and apple butter. Molasses was imported from the West Indies: and in the northern states, large quantities of sugar were made Indian fashion from maple sap. Coffee and chocolate were not much used, but tea was a highly prized and widely distributed luxury.

Part of the apples went to the cider mill to be turned into cider, which was a drink widely used. Still stronger beverages, distilled from cider and peach juice, were "applejack" and peach brandy. Imported gin and West India or New England rum were common; and those who could afford it drank wine, especially Madeira imported from the Madeira Islands. Alcoholic liquors were used without stint and caused a vast amount of drunkenness.

Besides the food crops, the farmers of the northern and middle colonies raised cattle for sale and large numbers of sheep, from the wool of which most of the people were clothed. Few farmers had a surplus that could be turned into cash, but they could trade their crops and butter, cheese, honey, and other products to the storekeeper for necessary supplies.

73. THE PLANTER

South of Pennsylvania, agriculture was in general of a different type. The staple crop was tobacco, which exhausted the land so that there was a constant process of clearing new soil and letting the old fields go out of cultivation. Grain and cattle were raised in Maryland and Virginia, but south of Virginia it was difficult to raise cattle on account of the ticks and other pests in the woods. Farther south the soil was not suitable for grain, except that rice was raised in the coast swamps of

HART'S NEW AMER. HIST. -8

South Carolina and Georgia. In Maryland and Virginia there was a class of farmers working their own land, just as in the states farther north; but in the Carolinas and Georgia, these independent farmers degener

ated into a shiftless folk who came eventually to be known as "poor whites," "sand hillers," and "red necks."

The typical southern landowner and raiser of crops was the slave-owning planter. A few such planters could be found in Rhode Island and New York; more in Pennsylvania and Maryland; but from Virginia southward they were the dominant class in the community. They raised corn for the food of the slaves, and half-wild hogs, often called "razorbacks," ran through the woods. The expression "hog and hominy" came to be jocularly applied to the diet of most of the people. Yams and other vegetables could be easily grown, but few plantations had vegetable gardens.

HEADDRESS

OF

In the quarter century before the Revolution, the southern planters were not fortunate. Tobacco was very low-priced. Indigo could be grown only in South Carolina and rice in South Carolina and Georgia. One of the few exports was "naval stores," that is, pitch, tar, and turpentine, products of the abundant pine forests, but this was not a planter's crop. Cotton was not yet recognized as a paying crop.

The richest of the southern planters were men of high breeding and gallant spirit. Take for example Colonel William Fitzhugh, a lawyer, a keen planter and slave buyer, and a capable business man, owner of fifty-four thousand acres of land.

He

White Laborers

113 grew flax and hemp, hay and tobacco, and put his large profits into more land and slaves. He had a home plantation of a thousand acres, including a "very good dwelling house with many rooms in it, four of the best of them hung & nine of them. plentifully furnished with all things necessary & convenient, & all houses for use furnished with brick chimneys, four good Cellars, a Dairy, Dovecot, Stable, Barn, Henhouse, Kitchen & all other conveniencys," together with an orchard, garden, water gristmill for wheat and corn, a stock of tobacco and good debts. His yearly income was estimated at sixty thousand pounds of tobacco (about $15,000 in money), besides the

BYRD MANSION, WESTOVER, VIRGINIA.

increase of the negroes. His tobacco he shipped direct to England from the private wharf of his own plantation, and he was accustomed to order fine clothing, silverware, books, and other English goods.

74. WHITE LABORERS

In all the colonies there was a class of white men working for wages for landowners and other employers. Some of the first colonists of New England brought with them such hired

servants. It was difficult to hold them, for the more industrious among them saved their wages, bought land, and set up for themselves. Hence a system of forced white labor began immediately. Convicts, criminals, prisoners in the civil wars, and children, were sent over as bond servants. Other thousands of respectable men and families came over as “redemptioners," under agreement with the shipmaster that he might sell their services for a term of years to somebody in America for money to pay their passage. Both bond servants and redemptioners were subject to the arbitrary will of their masters and were often cruelly treated. Nevertheless, many of them worked out their terms of service, became prosperous members of the community, and founded families.

The respectable colonists strongly protested against sending over men and women of known bad character. The demand for labor was met partly by the large families of the time. Many farmers had eight, ten, or twelve children, who helped on the farm and in the abundant housework, and saved the expense of hired laborers.

In the trades, skilled laborers might earn as much as two shillings a day (having about the purchasing power of $1.00 nowadays) and their board. In the trades such as harness making and blacksmithing and the manufacture of wooden bowls, and also in the shops or small stores, it was the custom to employ apprentices who were commonly bound to serve for seven years, and who lived with the master's family but were often very harshly treated. The average daily wage for unskilled laborers would not buy so much as 50 or 60 cents in our times. While most provisions were cheap, imported articles were always expensive, and the wage earner could not afford to purchase them.

75. THE SLAVE

Perhaps a third of all the hard labor in the colonies after 1750 was performed by negro slaves. The first colonists began to

enslave the Indians, but the red men were sullen and revengeful and rapidly died off in confinement. The first importations of slaves were made from the West Indies, then direct from Africa to the American mainland. Theirs was a terrible fate. Captured by fellow-Africans in raids which caused the destruction of nine tenths of their friends and kindred, they were brought down to the West African coast, and there sold for rum and iron and trinkets to white men who brought them

DECK PLANS OF A SLAVER. (Showing stowage of nearly 500 persons in a 300-ton ship.)

over to an unknown country and distributed them through the colonies. The negroes spent their lives in bondage, transmitted the obligations of a slave to their children, and were shut out from the social and political life of the country in which they lived.

In most of the northern colonies, the slaves were few in number, for it was not profitable to use them in gangs in the fields, and they were held chiefly to mark the wealth and position of their owners. Thus it is recorded that Madam Wads

worth, wife of the president of Harvard College, owned a slave woman named Venus. There was a small negro population in