Robert Beverley's The History And Present State Of Virginia
Robert Beverley is the author of The History and Present State of Virginia (1705). He was an educated English and became the member of the House of Burgesses in 1699. He considered himself as a Virginian, and he used his family background to benefit himself in social status and wealth making. He wrote this book, a document of the history of early life in the Virginia colony, purposely wanted to earn more support to raise his reputation on his political status ().
In this book, the author first wrote down the definition of servants and slaves to describe the difference between them. And then, he talked about both of them have some kind of duties and rights. Meanwhile, he made a clear line to separate male and female. For example, if the planter
wanted to employ a woman to work on the ground, the planter had to pay the heaviest tax. Also, there were some laws used to protect the servants and slaves.
Showing a strong distinction between the male and female slaves and servants greatly reflected the social condition at that time. The social order in early New Englander was absolute obedience, which means children had to listen to their father, and wife had to obey her husband. Women, at that time, only owned responsibility for raising children, producing food and doing housework, but making decisions. English common law showed that women did not have right on controlling the properties (). All of these phenomena shows that the social status of women at that time was much lower than men. Even though women shared a lot of responsibilities in family, they still did not have right to make decisions and rebel their father or husband.
Since the purpose of this book is not purely for writing down the history or recording the real life of people, it should not be considered as an accurate source. Robert Beverley may intentionally use some language or events to help him to earn more support from different people since he used this book for his reputation on social status.
In this book, the author first wrote down the definition of servants and slaves to describe the difference between them. And then, he talked about both of them have some kind of duties and rights. Meanwhile, he made a clear line to separate male and female. For example, if the planter
wanted to employ a woman to work on the ground, the planter had to pay the heaviest tax. Also, there were some laws used to protect the servants and slaves.
Showing a strong distinction between the male and female slaves and servants greatly reflected the social condition at that time. The social order in early New Englander was absolute obedience, which means children had to listen to their father, and wife had to obey her husband. Women, at that time, only owned responsibility for raising children, producing food and doing housework, but making decisions. English common law showed that women did not have right on controlling the properties (). All of these phenomena shows that the social status of women at that time was much lower than men. Even though women shared a lot of responsibilities in family, they still did not have right to make decisions and rebel their father or husband.
Since the purpose of this book is not purely for writing down the history or recording the real life of people, it should not be considered as an accurate source. Robert Beverley may intentionally use some language or events to help him to earn more support from different people since he used this book for his reputation on social status.