Some Aspects of Slavery in Rockbridge County, Virginia
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Author
Cayer, David Shepardson
Subject
Washington and Lee University -- Honors in History
Slavery -- Virginia -- Rockbridge County
Slavery -- Virginia -- Lexington
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Rockbridge County, like most of the South, employed its slaves to help grow its crops, to perform the hard labor necessary for its industrial production, and to act as its domestic servants.
Rockbridge County's planters and iron magnates took advantage of the peculiar institution as did one of its beloved generals, its leading clergyman, its leading attorneys, and the Unionist President of its Washington College. Still, there were few if any citizens of the County who would have expressed their love of slavery as fervently as did the fire-eaters of the southern tidewater and piedmont. The Scotch-Irish who settled the Shenandoah Valley were realists who placed a high value on hard work. Struggling for whatever they obtained, these settlers gave priority to gaining wealth and property, and never attempted to justify Negro slavery on moral grounds. Slavery was an institution of property and wealth when these newcomers arrived in America, and they had neither the time nor the inclination to question it. [From concluding section]