IN SEARCH OF A COLOR LINE

This research examines laws in the colony of Virginia created by a powerful landowning planter class that attempted to draw a color line separating three descent groups: an indigenous native population (Indian), an immigrant population from Europe (English), and an imported population from Africa (Negro). Textual analysis of the Laws of Colonial Virginia shows that the English lawmakers had to learn they were the White component of a color line; they did not, for many years, refer to themselves as White. Contrary to some widely held views that race relations began as soon as these groups came into contact at some point in the seventeenth century, the analysis of written law suggests it took over 100 years, until near the middle third of the eighteenth century in Colonial Virginia, before a definitive concept of race was socially-constructed and a color line was drawn in Black and White.

Were tobacco warehouse receipts an economic form of money during part of the Colonial period in Virginia?

This article examines the special use of tobacco warehouse receipts as a store of value, medium of exchange and unit of account in Virginia during part of the British Colonial period. These receipts met the three criteria necessary for them to be a type of money. When confidence in a system of currency with coins is present, this more conventional form of money takes precedence. A respected economic form of currency with coins has all three elements of money: medium of exchange, store of value and unit of account. Tobacco warehouse receipts were used as a form of money in Colonial Virginia. They were used since there was insufficient gold or silver for the commerce in British Colonial Virginia at that time. Also, the concept of store of value is examined in detail.