tucked in short shirtsleeves of youth a pack of bubblegum
cylinders wrapped in cigarette sheaths, powdered sugar between the
two imitated smoke when we blew. my father announced habit responding rebel, kids today vaping dragons layered in ironic lungs. all of my pleasures are complicated
this type of historical study - the french call it l'historie des mentalites
virginia where it all began..the great revolution..the second revolution and we lost it..the third revolution..won't be california after all. it will be settled in virginia where it started
fear of centralized power lay at the heart of the country ideology
plants often assume special significance for the grower, and over several generations the products of the fields may become associated with a particular set of regional values, a pattern of land tenure, a system of labor, even a festive calendar
in the case of cuba, for example, scholars speak of a "sugar mentality"
what one must understand is that the rhythms of debt were not the same for all planters. the great tidewater planters were extremely hard pressed to meet their obligations in the early 1760s, a time when the small producers were holding their own. during this period, the little men did not sympathize with the plight of their richer neighbors. but in the early 1770s everyone found themselves in straitened conditions. the scottish factors as well as the consignment merchants were seen as instruments of economic and political oppression. in fact, the great credit crisis of 1772 probably did more to unify white virginians than did any regulatory act of parliament
sometimes the pressure on the tobacco cracked the staves, bursting the hogshead
the great planters owned more land and slaves, but there do not seem to have been important economies of scale in eighteenth-century tobacco cultivation
leaf by leaf . . . . the ideal of the tobacco man . . . is distinction, for his product to be in a class by itself, the best
the virginia gentry generally subscribed to a calm, reasonable, low-church anglicanism, a theology that did not challenge their rather inflated notions of human capabilities. how different the experiences of the wheat farmer. he found himself dependent upon natural elements beyond his direct control. the vulnerability of the cultivator, his enforced passivity during much of the growing season, may have convinced him of god's terrible omnipotence
though he savored even the slightest praise from neighbors, he showed almost no interest in how his hogsheads were actually marketed in england
"and [i] shall tie up the rest; for i love a good quid"
in relations between great tidewater planters, it was the creditor, not the borrower, who made excuses
commercial friendship
in the absence of an adequate money supply, private credit instruments, particularly bills of exchange, circulated as a sort of unofficial currency
the problem was liquidity
the planters' situation in comparative perspective. though they accounted for only 21 percent of the country's population in 1776, they held approximately 46 percent of the officially documented debt claims..the per capita chesapeake debt - maryland and virginia - was nearly twice than that of britain's other mainland colonies
he could not call himself an independent man "till i have pay'd the old score"
after 1766 genteel forbearance was out of the question
external credit disrupted relations between social peers
the source of friction was contraction of british credit
"a scheme of a lottery" ..involved many of the more prominent planters in tidewater virginia. anyone reading the newspapers would have recognized their names. one typical lottery offered 145 tickets at £5 apiece. there were to be fourteen winners, lucky persons who would cart away the planter's slaves and livestock, take possession of his land and buildings
jefferson
hated debt, was suspicious of the merchant class, and when his
colleague in the new federal government, alexander hamilton, brought
forth schemes for funding a national debt, the virginian led the
agrarians in revolt
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