William Byrd
Diary of a Virginia Planter and Politician, 1709-1712
William Byrd was born in Virginia in 1674 of a wealthy and influential family and educated from the age of seven in England, where he would later occasionally serve the colony’s interests. He inherited his father’s fortune and in 1726 settled in Virginia and made his Westover plantation a permanent home. Ultimately, he expanded his properties to include numerous plantations and thousands of acres of land, principally in Richmond, a city he had founded. Byrd was an honored member of the Council of State in Virginia, and in the last year of his life its president.
These diary excerpts, covering the years 1709 to 1712, provide a picture of a witty, intellectual, philandering plantation owner, as well as a public servant and member of colonial Virginia society.
April 19, 1709 I rose at 5 o’clock and read in Homer and a chapter in Hebrew. I said my prayers and ate rice milk for breakfast. . . . In the afternoon I played at piquet with Mr. W-I-s. We dined very late and I ate nothing but fowl and bacon. When that was over we went to Mr. David Bray’s where we danced till midnight. I had Mrs. Mary Thomson for my partner. I recommended myself to the divine protection. I had good thoughts, good health, and good humor, thanks to God Almighty. . . .
September 3, 1709 I said my prayers and ate chocolate with Mr. Taylor for breakfast. Then he went away. I read some geometry. We had no court this day. My wife was indisposed again but not to much purpose. I ate roast chicken for dinner. In the afternoon I beat Jenny (a slave) for throwing water on the couch. I took a walk to Mr. Harrison’s who told me he heard the peace was concluded in the last month. After I had been courteously entertained with wine and cake I returned home, where I found all well, thank God. . .
October 23, 1709 I went in the evening to Colonel Bray’s where we found abundance of company and agreed to meet there the next day and have a dance. About 10 o’clock I came home and neglected to say my prayers, and for that reason was guilty of uncleanness. I had bad thoughts, good health, and good humor, thanks be to God Almighty.
1. When we write in a diary, we mention the stuff that we feel is important in our daily lives. What does Byrd find important?
2. What kind of life did Byrd (as well as other VA planters) have?
John Winthrop
A new England Governor’s Diary
1633-1648
John Winthrop was born in England and educated in the law at Cambridge. He sailed for New England in 1630, landed at Salem, Massachusetts, and made his home in what became the city of Boston. Winthrop was selected by London’s Massachusetts Bay Company to govern its colony, and was subsequently elected to that office twelve times from 1630 to 1649. While Massachusetts prospered under his leadership, his Puritan ethic and strict religious governance left little room for the kind of democracy America was later to enjoy.
Winthrop’s diaries are rich in graphic examples of life in colonial America: the smallpox epidemic that ravaged Native Americans and colonists; native enslavement; and rulings of the colony’s Court of Assistants on a wide range of individual and social behavior, including the banishment of Anne Hutchinson for her religious dissent, and the death penalty for witchcraft and adultery.
The Death Penalty for Witchcraft
4 (June 1648) At this court one Margaret Jones of Charlestown was indicted and found guilty of witchcraft, and hanged for it. The evidence against her was, 1. That she was found to have such a malignant touch, as many persons (men, women, and children) whom she stroked or touched with any affection or displeasure, or, etc., where taken with deafness, or vomiting, or other violent pains and sickness, 2. She would use to tell such as would not make use of her physic, that they would never be healed, and accordingly their diseases and hurts continued, with relapse against the ordinary course, and beyond the apprehension of all physicians and surgeons, 3. In the prison, in the clear day-light, there was seen in her arms, she sitting on the floor, and her clothes up, etc., a little child, which ran from her into another room, and the officer following it, it was vanished. The same day and hour she was executed, there was a very great tempest at Connecticut, which blew down many trees, etc. . .
1. What types of “evidence” was used against Margaret Jones convicting her of witchcraft?
2. What is your view about the evidence used in the witch trials?
3. Think about Byrd’s prayers and Winthrop’s law for witchcraft…How are these things contrasted against one another?