I spent a lot of the last year researching the John Read[e] family of Culpeper County, Virginia. It will be a book soon, but I haven't finished it yet. Sometimes there's no bottom to it! He was my 6th great grandfather. He was also a plantation and slave owner; he was definitely a man of his times.
He lived in York, Gloucester, King and Queen, Spotsylvania, Orange, and Culpeper Counties, in colonial Virginia. The county names changed faster than he moved. He was born before 1692 and he died in 1765 in Jeffersonton, Culpeper County. He was married to Winifred Favor. And while his own life seems quiet in comparison, he was the grandson of Col. George Read[e], the great grandson of Nicholas Martiau, and a cousin to George Washington and to Thomas Nelson, Jr., who all took their places in Virginia history. Here is a link about Nicholas Martiau, one of the first American patriots: http://www.jamestowne-wash-nova.org/NicholasMartiau.htm.
The laws of Virginia and actual practices were in flux during the colonial period. But in general, since the state was also the Church of England, the Anglican parish church vestries decided and imposed local tithes, basically county taxes on property, and provided public and social services. Attendance at church services, military service, public services, and payment of taxes were often adjudged to be mandatory. Public services could include road construction/maintenance, local court actions, and the keeping of birth and death records. The church vestries also provided public charity for widows, orphans, and those who could no longer support themselves; the working indigent could become indentured though the vestries, laborers under contract.
In general, too, the vestry boards were initially elected by and from freeholders, that is, white, male landowners. This also applied to leaseholders for an interval of time: "The law made clear in 1684 that tenants with life leases, not just outright landowners, could also participate in elections and that a person could vote in any county in which he held land" (http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Elections_in_Colonial_Virginia#start_entry). By 1736, the law was more restrictive:
The Colony of Virginia voting law of 1736 defined a Freeholder as a white male 21 years of age who owns at least 100 acres of unimproved land or 25 improved acres with a house and a "plantation". Any qualified Freeholder who failed to vote was subject to a fine of 200 pounds of tobacco. Any non–Freeholder who attempted to vote was subject to a fine of 500 pounds of tobacco (http://www.milaminvirginia.com/glossary.html).However, after and between initial elections, boards often appointed their own replacements. In Virginia elections, "wealthy planters won nearly all of these political contests" (http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Elections_in_Colonial_Virginia). As a result, members of wealthy, influential families sat on the vestry boards (Bruce 1910, 62-72; see also http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Church_of_England_in_Virginia#start_entry).
During the 1720s, there was an economic depression in Virginia, tobacco production had been limited in 1723, and in "1724 a drought followed by a storm ruined the tobacco crop, destroying 34,000 harvested hogsheads, and the following year also produced a low yield (http://www.san.beck.org/11-9-VirginiaEtc1664-1744.html).
On 23 December 1726, John Read was present at Petsworth Parish vestry, with Capt. John Washington in attendance. When the levy of the annual tithe on tobacco was discussed, "Capn/. John Washington Desired that It might be Entred that he Doth not Consent to the Making the Abosd/. Order by Reason he Doth not Agre to the laying of the levey this present Year" (Chamberlayne 1933, 192).
Washington's comment is immediately followed by the note, "At this Vestory, Mr/. John Reade Struck his Name Out of the Vestory Book And Would Stand No longer Vestory man" (192). This may have been peaceful or it may have been a resignation in protest, in that it immediately followed Washington's protest. "Struck" connotes a more forceful action. There exists an earlier vestry page, an oath of office signed circa 1714, where John Read's signature is partially crossed out (Petsworth Parish, 127).
Individual vestries set their own local tax rates each year to cover operating expenses in the parish, thus potentially creating financial burdens for local landowners, who were already challenged by conditions. The feud noted above with the Petsworth vestry was a symptom of a more generalized resentment among taxpayers. However, the vestries wielded substantial power. If "county residents thought that the county levy was set too high, they had little recourse other than to move away" (http://www.virginiaplaces.org/taxes/taxcolonial.html).
The wealthy and influential were definitely in charge in Virginia from the beginning, benefitted from their families' wealth and previous connections in Great Britain, and consolidated their positions over time through intermarriage and interconnections in Virginia. Immense land grants were made in the colony's history to people with substantial connections, including the Fairfaxes, below. In addition, the early system of head rights provided the opportunity to accumulate immense properties by sponsoring new colonists; the system is acknowledged to have been abused (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Headright).
George Washington was upwardly mobile and very well connected. He inherited property from his father and acquired property, some through his early connections to the Fairfaxes, one of the most powerful families in Virginia, and through his marriage to Martha Dandridge Custis. Her wealthy late husband was only recently buried when Washington courted her--he didn't waste the opportunity, as unmarried women, particularly wealthy ones, were a valuable commodity in the Virginia colony. By the time of his death, George Washington owned an immense amount of property, over 52,000 acres. Undoubtedly, he helped to finance at least part of the Revolution. It was indeed a tax revolt, run by the wealthy who could keep it going.
Lawrence Washington, George's half brother, is known for his tax protest against the minister of the Truro Parish, whom Lawrence sued because of the minister's alleged sexual improprieties with Lawrence's fiancée, Ann Fairfax. Lawrence eventually lost the case, but he married Ann. Since taxes were controlled by the parish vestries, it was a very political power struggle wrapped in honor and personal vengeance. Like George, Lawrence was also marrying up, into the Fairfax family, who controlled the grants of the Northern Neck Proprietary, over five million acres under a royal grant (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Neck_Proprietary).
Here are some more references:
Bruce, Philip Alexander, 1910. Institutional History of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century: An Inquiry Into the Religious, Moral and Educational, Legal, Military, and Political Condition of the People Based on Original and Contemporaneous Records. Vol. 1. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons.
Henriques, Peter R. 1992. Major Lawrence Washington versus the Reverend Charles Green: A Case Study of the Squire and the Parson. Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 100, no. 2 (April):233-264. Accessed October 5, 2013. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4249277.
Petsworth Parish (Gloucester County, VA).Vestry Book, 1677-1793. Accession 19992. Church records collection. Library of Virginia, Richmond VA.
