Notes on the State of Virginia

NOTES ON THE STATE OF VIRGINIA

THE OMOHUNDRO INSTITUTE OF

EARLY AMERICAN HISTORY AND

CULTURE IS SPONSORED JOINTLY BY

THE COLLEGE OF WILLIAM AND MARY

AND COLONIAL WILLIAMSBURG,

INCORPORATED

NOTES

ON THE

STATE OF VIRGINIA

BY

THOMAS JEFFERSON

Edited with an Introduction and Notes

by

WILLIAM PEDEN

PUBLISHED FOR THE

Omohundro Institute of Early American History

and Culture at Williamsburg, Virginia

BY THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA PRESS

CHAPEL HILL AND LONDON

© 1954 BY THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA PRESS

© 1982 BY WILLIAM PEDEN

All rights reserved

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Jefferson, Thomas, 1743-1826

Notes on the State of Virginia / by Thomas Jefferson;

edited with an introduction and notes by William Peden.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-8078-4588-2 (pbk.: alk. paper)

1. Virginia—Early works to 1800.

2. Jefferson, Thomas, 1743–1826—Literary art.

I. Peden, William Harwood, 1913— . II. Title.

F230.J5102 1995

975·5’03—dc2o 95-47378

CIP

The paper in this book meets the guidelines

for permanence and durability of the

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Manufactured in the United States of America

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Foreword

DURING his long and productive life Thomas Jefferson wrote and published only one full-length book. That book was Notes on the State of Virginia. Though he gave it a misleadingly modest title and was originally reluctant to publish it at all, the Notes on Virginia was eventually accepted as an important contribution to American letters and science, and it is recognized today as the best single statement of Jefferson's principles, the best reflection of his wide-ranging tastes and talents. It is, in short, an American classic.

Yet this remarkable book has long been unavailable to readers, and even scholars do not have ready access to satisfactory texts. The purpose of the present edition, the first to be issued separately in sixty years, is to supply this want, especially for the general reader. The aim has been to include all that Jefferson approved as text and appendices of the Notes, together with his later corrections and additions, and to furnish a brief introductory commentary and such explanatory notes as present-day readers may find helpful.

Since the Notes on Virginia from the outset has had a complicated history, the editorial method followed here needs to be explained in some detail. The text of the present edition is basically that of the first regularly published edition in English, which was issued by the London bookseller John Stockdale in 1787 with Jefferson's authorization. In his personal copy of the Stockdale edition, which is now in the rare book collection of the University of Virginia, Jefferson throughout the rest of his life made occasional handwritten insertions, sometimes in the margins or body of the text, sometimes by pasting in slips. All such matter that Jefferson added to the text has been printed in the present edition within angle brackets, thus: . Most of Jefferson's insertions, however, were intended as footnotes; these have been incorporated in the notes of the present edition, always preceded by the phrase MS note by TJ. Jefferson's original footnotes, as printed in the Stockdale edition, are distinguished from the present editor's notes by the phrase Note by TJ.All other notes are by the editor, the phrase Ed. note being resorted to only when the present editor has added something to a printed or manuscript note by Jefferson.

The few cases of departure from the Stockdale text as revised by Jefferson are explained at the appropriate points. The following silent changes have been made in the interest of readability:

1. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

2. Passages in foreign languages have been translated, with due indication in each case. Foreign phrases found in standard dictionaries have, however, been allowed to stand.

3. The long s (£) has been printed as s.

4. ye has been printed as the.

5. Printers’ symbols like † and § have been replaced by raised numerals to indicate footnotes, and sometimes their position has been altered for the sake of clarity.

6. Modern usage has been followed for indicating quoted matter.

7. In a very few cases a comma has been shifted or added to clarify the meaning.

8. In a very few cases a citation inserted by Jefferson in the text has been shifted to a note.

9. The numerals in parentheses in the Stockdale text referring to Charles Thomson's commentaries in Appendix No. 1 have been changed to appropriate raised numerals in the sequence of footnote numbers.

Jefferson's later insertions in the text have been slightly normalized in order to conform to printers’ practice at the time. His added notes have been printed as he wrote them except for capitalizing the beginnings of sentences, adding periods at their end, and altering & to and.

Although I have collated the Stockdale text with that of the earlier, privately printed Paris edition of the Notes on Virginia and also with Jefferson's original manuscript (owned by the Massachusetts Historical Society), this reader's edition does not contain a complete collation or thorough textual study. These will be included in the definitive edition of the Notes in The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, being edited by Julian P. Boyd and his associates at Princeton. In order to reduce the bulk of the annotation, letters to and from Jefferson have been cited only by dates. Since Jefferson's entire correspondence will eventually be printed in The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, it seems pointless to multiply references that will soon be unnecessary.

Many individuals and several institutions have aided me in preparing this reader's edition of the Notes on Virginia; it is a pleasure and a privilege to thank them here. Particularly, I am grateful to Lyman H. Butterfield, director of the Institute of Early American History and Culture, and to John Cook Wyllie, curator of rare books, University of Virginia Library. In effect, Mr. Butterfield and Mr. Wyllie have been my collaborators. Although any shortcomings of the present edition are my own responsibility, much of whatever value my work may possess is due to the constant and painstaking efforts of Mr. Butterfield and Mr. Wyllie.

I am also deeply indebted to the staff of the Library of the University of Virginia, to all the efficient and helpful individuals who aided me constantly, as they have so often in the past; especially, though, I want to thank Harry Clemons and Jack Dalton, the past and present librarians of this Library. I am grateful, too, for the generous cooperation of Harvey N. Deal, reference librarian, and his staff, and to everyone in the division of rare books and manuscripts, particularly Miss Ruth Bird, James Bear, Francis L. Berkeley, Jr., and Russell Smith.

Finally, I wish to thank Charles Barham, Jr., and the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation for financial assistance; Julian Boyd, for valuable comments concerning my introduction and for help in many ways; Lester J. Cappon, editor of publications, Institute of Early American History and Culture, for his careful reading of my manuscript and for his editorial assistance; Joseph M. Carriere, Department of Romance Languages, University of Virginia, for translations from the French and for many valuable suggestions and comments; Verner Clapp, Frederick Goff, and E. Millicent Sowerby, Library of Congress; John S. Creaghan, S. J., Department of Classical Languages, Bellarmine College, for translations from Latin and Greek; Arnold A. Del Greco, Department of Romance Languages, University of Virginia, for translations from Spanish and Italian; William A. Gwatkin and Saul Weinberg, Department of Classical Languages and Archaeology, University of Missouri; Dumas Malone, Department of History, Columbia University; the Research Council of the University of Missouri, and its chairman, Henry Bent, for granting me a sabbatical leave of absence to work on the Notes; Stephen T. Riley, librarian of the Massachusetts Historical Society, and the Society, for permission to use the microfilm copy of Jefferson's manuscript copy of the Notes; William Runge and Joseph Vance, of the University of Virginia, for information about the 1853 Randolph edition; Coolie Verner, School of Education, Florida State University; and to my wife, Miriam Irby Peden, for her constant help and encouragement. The index, compiled by Lester J. Cappon, is the first to be prepared for any edition of the Notes.

William Peden

University of Missouri, 1 June 1954

CONTENTS

Foreword

Introduction

Query I. Boundaries of Virginia

Query II. Rivers

Query III. Sea-Ports

Query IV. Mountains

Query V. Cascades

Query VI. Productions Mineral, Vegetable and Animal

Query VII. Climate

Query VIII. Population

Query IX. Military Force

Query X. Marine Force

Query XI. Aborigines

Query XII. Counties and Towns

Query XIII. Constitution

Query XIV. Laws

Query XV. Colleges, Buildings, and Roads

Query XVI. Proceedings as to Tories

Query XVII. Religion

Query XVIII. Manners

Query XIX. Manufactures

Query XX. Subjects of Commerce

Query XXI. Weights, Measures, and Money

Query XXII. Public Revenue and Expences

Query XXIII. Histories, Memorials, and State-Papers

Appendix No. 1. Charles Thomson's Commentaries

Appendix No. 2. Draught of a Fundamental Constitution for the Commonwealth of Virginia

Appendix No. 3. An Act for Establishing Religious Freedom, 1786

Appendix No. 4. Relative to the Murder of Logan's Family

Notes

Index

Introduction

THOMAS JEFFERSON'S Notes on Virginia is unique in American literary history. Begun almost accidentally as an essentially statistical survey, the Notes on Virginia is an engrossing commentary on various aspects of American life and history during the last decades of the eighteenth century. In it, along with accounts of such factual matters as iron mines in Virginia or North American birds, Jefferson discusses in detail most of his major intellectual, social, political, scientific, and ethical beliefs. Here are to be found his ideas concerning religious freedom or the separation of church and state, his analysis of the ideals of representative government versus dictatorship, his theories of art and education, his attitude concerning slavery and the Negro, his interest in science.

The Notes on Virginia is probably the most important scientific and political book written by an American before 1785; upon it much of Jefferson's contemporary fame as a philosopher was based. The Notes reveals more clearly than any of his writings except his letters the flexibility of Jefferson's mind and the breadth of his interests. Anyone interested in Jefferson and his times will find the Notes on Virginia an indispensable book. It is, moreover, a remarkably lively and entertaining one. In spite of its statistics, which are of little interest to the lay reader, the Notes on Virginia is a book for today; it is valuable both as an introduction to Jefferson and as a commentary on problems as relevant to our own generation as they were to his.