Short Remarks on the Political and Social Writings Of
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Clemson University TigerPrints All Theses Theses 12-2011 Short Remarks on the Political and Social Writings of Reverend Anthony Walke of Princess Anne County, Virginia & a Concise & Impartial Account of the Causes of Their Origins & Progress Roberta Vogt Clemson University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://tigerprints.clemson.edu/all_theses Part of the United States History Commons Recommended Citation Vogt, Roberta, "Short Remarks on the Political and Social Writings of Reverend Anthony Walke of Princess Anne County, Virginia & a Concise & Impartial Account of the Causes of Their Origins & Progress" (2011). All Theses. 1238. https://tigerprints.clemson.edu/all_theses/1238 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses at TigerPrints. It has been accepted for inclusion in All Theses by an authorized administrator of TigerPrints. For more information, please contact [email protected]. SHORT REMARKS ON THE POLITICAL AND SOCIAL WRITINGS OF REVEREND ANTHONY WALKE OF PRINCESS ANNE COUNTY, VIRGINIA & A CONCISE & IMPARTIAL ACCOUNT OF THE CAUSES OF THEIR ORIGIN & PROGRESS A Thesis Presented to the Graduate School of Clemson University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Masters of Arts History by Roberta Elizabeth Vogt December, 2011 Accepted by: Dr. Paul C. Anderson, Committee Chair Dr. Alan C. Grubb Dr. James B. Jeffries i ABSTRACT The following thesis examines multiple social and political topics in the largely unstudied writings of Reverend Anthony Walke (c. 1755-1814) of Princess Anne County, Virginia. His papers reside at the Filson Historical Society in Louisville, Kentucky, as well as appearing in Virginia newspapers of the period. Walke’s works comprise more than four hundred pages of primary source documents that relate to late eighteenth- century Virginia, and span the period of 1786 through 1805. My research emphasizes his Revolutionary War pamphlet, Remarkable Occurrences during the unhappy American War, & a concise & impartial Account of the Causes of its Origin & Progress: a Pamphlet, 1786 ; his essay on slavery, Short Remarks on the Treatment of Negros, 1793; and, his writings on the French Revolution. This small fraction of his entire body of work contains important reflections on eighteenth-century American society and the ideological changes with which it was confronted. Central to these changes was the question of slavery and the definition of liberty. Walke’s writings reveal the scope of the debates that were occurring during the birth of the American republic and the demise of the old colonial world that had come before it. ii DEDICATION This thesis is dedicated to my father, Dr. John Leonard Vogt, who, among many other things, instilled in me a love for the history of the State of Virginia. iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to thank many individuals for the assistance they rendered me during the research and preparation of this work. Dr. Paul C. Anderson, Dr. Alan C. Grubb, and Dr. James B. Jeffries, all of whom sat on my thesis committee provided me invaluable feedback and guidance. Last, but certainly not least, I wish to thank my father (my invisible fourth reader) for his assistance with doing research in Virginia records and helping me at times to untangle two hundred and fifty years of history. Special thanks go out to Jim Holmberg and the staff of the Filson Historical Society, who assisted me during my research for the week I spent in Louisville poring through Anthony Walke’s writings. Belinda Nash, the house director for Ferry Farm in Virginia Beach has been extremely helpful during my visits to Virginia, as well as performing a herculean effort to preserve a small piece of Old Princess Anne, despite daunting challenges. Lastly, the South Carolina Chapter of the National Society of the Colonial Dames of America deserves great thanks for their generous underwriting of my research in the form of a scholarship for 2011. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Page TITLE PAGE ............................................................................................................... i ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................ ii DEDICATION ........................................................................................................... iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .......................................................................................... iv CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................... 1 II. BIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................ 5 III. WALKE AS THE EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY GENTLEMAN ................14 IV. REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES DURING THE UNHAPPY AMERICAN WAR, & A CONCISE & IMPARTIAL ACCOUNT OF THE CAUSES OF ITS ORIGIN & PROGRESS. A PAMPHLET. 1786 ..........................................................................21 V. WALKE’S WRITINGS IN THE VIRGINIA CHRONICLE IN RESPONSE TO NORFOLK REACTIONS TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION………………………………………………………..60 VI. SHORT REMARKS ON SLAVERY & THE TREATMENT OF NEGROES –1793 .................................................81 APPENDICES ......................................................................................................... 124 A: List of Anthony Walke’s Tithables, Lands, and Wheel Carriages, for the Year 1775 .............................................................................. 125 v PHOTOS……………………………………………………………………………...126 A: A post-March 1865 Photograph of the Old Burial Ground and Plantation Kitchen at Fairfields ……………………………………..127 B: Photograph of a Female Slave Posed with a Spinning Wheel in Front of the Plantation Kitchen………………………………………………128 C: Photograph of the Portrait of Jane Bolling Randolph Walke……….…….129 D. Photograph of a Drawing of a House, Possibly a Rendition of Fairfields, Found in Walke’s Compilation To the Reader ……………….……….130 BIBLIOGRAPHY…………………………………………………………….…….…131 vi CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION A transitional figure, Reverend Anthony Walke of Princess Anne County, Virginia bridged the old English colonial world, to which he was born and the new republic of which he became a citizen. His writings on slavery impart changing notions of morality that touched upon questions of liberty and freedom and what the question meant for blacks; ultimately, these themes are interconnected with his discourses on revolutionary and early federal politics that incorporate concepts of republican virtue, civic participation, and his notions of an emerging national identity for all Americans. This work focuses specifically on his Remarkable Occurrences during the unhappy American War, & a concise & impartial Account of the Causes of its Origin & Progress, 1786 , his political essays on the revolution in France, and Short Remarks on the Treatment of Negros, 1793. The subject of France was, in particular, a keen preoccupation of his, for it represented a revolutionary and republican model against which the United States could be judged. France contained both his aspirations for a sound republican government and also the dangers that lurked for the future of the United States should the American experiment fail. The following analysis of his writings covers only a fraction of his existing body of work and does not address his many other essays on religion and politics. 1 A study of his writings offers insights into Virginia’s pre- and post-Revolutionary society and a greater understanding of the political and religious discussions occurring within the region at the end of the century. They illuminate the views of someone who, as a member of the clergy and of the privileged gentry, stood at the cusp of the decline of the colonial world that had existed up to the Revolution. Eighteenth-century Virginians witnessed multiple social and political cataclysms, beginning in the First Great Awakening and extending through the Revolutionary War. Economic and social upheaval rapidly transformed the social class that had previously controlled Virginia’s political structure. Traditional notions of class distinctions eroded, and Walke’s writings reflect the changes that had eclipsed the gentry’s conception of social control. The third Episcopal Bishop of Virginia, William Meade, described the world in which Walke lived when, in 1857, he wrote regarding the decline of well-to-do Virginia families and lamented the social demise of Lynnhaven Parish in Princess Anne County: Our prospects in this parish are now and have been for a long time discouraging. Formerly this was one of the most flourishing parishes in Virginia. Many circumstances have concurred to promote its declension. In my early youth I remember to have heard my parents speak of it as having what I called the best society in Virginia. The families were interesting, hospitable, given to visiting and social pleasures. They whose words I quote had some experience of it. Both of them were connected with Rev. Anthony Walke, whose mother was a Randolph. At his glebe they were sometimes inmates. The social glass, the rich feast, the card table, the dance and the horse-race were all freely indulged in throughout the county, and what has been the result? Bankruptcy and ruin, and untimely death of those who once formed the gay society of the county. Cards, the bottle, the horse-race, the continual feasts,-these were the ii destroyers. In no part of Virginia has the destruction of all that was old been greater. 1 Meade’s social indictment