Existing comment:
The First Families
The labor of slaves and indentured servants made possible the emergence of an upper class with a wealthy lifestyle unimaginable to the fist settlers.
From 1720 to the Revolution, some three dozen wealthy Virginia families built about four dozen mansions. One visitor from England wrote in 1724, "They live in the same neat manner, dress after the same modes, and behave themselves exactly as the gentry in London. The habits, life, customs, computations &c. of the Virginians are much the same as about London, which they esteem their home." |