o share the prosperity of the early years of the 18th
century were injured by the general use of slave labor in the colony.
Since they could not purchase negroes, they were in a sense thrown
into competition with them. The enormous increase in the production of
tobacco brought down the price and made their single exertions less
and less profitable. They were deprived of the privilege of working
for wages, for no freeman could toil side by side with negroes, and
retain anything of self-respect. Thus after the year 1700, the class
of very poor whites became larger, and their depravity more
pronounced.[222] A Frenchman, travelling in Virginia at the time of
the Revolution, testified that the condition of many white families
was pitiful. "It is there," he said, "that I saw poor people for the
first time since crossing the ocean. In truth, among these rich
plantations, where the negro alone is unhappy, are often found
miserable huts, inhabited by whites, whose wan faces and ragged
clothes give testimony of their poverty."[223] It is certain that this
class was never large, however, for those that were possessed of the
least trace of energy or ambition could move to the frontier and start
life again on more equal terms. Smythe says that the real poor class
in Virginia was less than anywhere else in the world.

The introduction of slavery into the colony affected far more
profoundly the character of the middle class farmer than it did that
of the aristocrat. The indentured servants, upon whose labor the
wealthy planters had relied for so many years, were practically
slaves, being bound to the soil and forced to obey implicitly those
whom they served. The influence that their possession exerted in
moulding the character of the aristocracy was practically the same as
that of the negro slave. Both tended to instil into the master pride
and the power of command. Since, however, but few members of the small
farmer class at any time made use of servant labor, their character
was not thus affected by them. Moreover, the fact that so many
servants, after the expiration of their term of indenture, entered
this class, tended to humble the poor planters, for they realized
always the existence of a bond of fellowship between themselves and
the field laborers. When the negro slave had supplanted the indentured
servant upon the plantations of the colony a vast change took place in
the pride of the middle class. Every white man, no matter ho