Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Semester of Degree Completion

1995

Thesis Director

Christopher Waldrep

Abstract

Throughout the eighteenth century, Virginia's populace acted in ways which reinforced the communal will. A deep rationality underlay popular action. While eighteenth-century contemporaries did not view it this way, historians must not view the mob as unruly. This thesis delineates the social laws displayed in the communal actions of pre-revolutionary Virginia, whether labeled by the elite as orderly or disorderly.

The Virginia Gazette and other sources during the quarter century before the Stamp Act show a society actively and publicly displaying communal and hierarchical values. Fairs reinforced the hierarchy through festive social interaction. Royal celebrations allowed the elite and populace to express communal as well as monarchical loyalty. Courthouse gatherings, more than any other social occasion, unified the community. Even contested elections, when resolved, often reinforced the hierarchical, yet consensual, community.

While society was not without tensions before 1765, disturbances increased when the Whig elite attempted to limit the British government's political and economic influence. The Whig elite organized petitions and demonstrations against the Stamp Act, government agents, and merchants willing to conduct business under the new imperial laws. The Townshend Act further divided the Virginian elite into Patriots and Loyalists. Also in 1768 and 1769 an inoculation crisis divided the elite along the same lines. The inoculation riots were a product of both elite manipulation and customary beliefs.

The populace responded to these incidents by attempting to maintain community. While the root cause was Whig elite organization against British governmental officers or merchants, the forms taken in mob action and the victims chosen for public humiliation were distinctly popular: tar and feathering, ducking, burning in effigy, carting. Most "riots" were clearly orderly. Those people singled out by the mob for correction or humiliation either promoted individual (not community) interests or were viewed as community outsiders.

The implications of this study extend beyond 1775. Gordon S. Wood argues that the American Revolution was a radical social revolution. The evidence from colonial Virginia does suggest a breakdown of the consensual community view among the elite well before 1775. But this breakdown did not extend to the popular level. An analysis of popular rituals reveals the popular mentalité. Foremost in the popular eighteenth-century Virginia mind was the maintenance of community. Disorderly popular actions reinforced social stability and order.

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