The Birth of Virginia's Aristocracy

The Birth Of Virginia's Aristocracy explains how the first civil society formed in Virginia, what purposes it served, who its members were, and what happened to it as it aged. The transformation of Virginia's leading families into an "aristocracy" was the final stage in the development of its first society. This was not just a matter of accumulating wealth and political influence. Virginia's aristocracy was born, the book contends, when Colonel Richard Lee II transferred his allegiance from the squabbling, fragmented community that surrounded him to a distant English Lord. The descendents of the men who filled Virginia's first general assembly followed Lee more or less en masse. By surrendering their personal sovereignty to Thomas, 5th lord Fairfax and his line, they effectively made themselves members of a hierarchical-hereditary social system that ascended to the King of England. Why would they do this? The author points to the end result, which was a mechanism that preserved the community-at-large by perpetuating the authority of Virginia's patriarchs. Readers will find that the process in which society formed and evolved in this real world setting bore no clear resemblance to the process theorized by the political "scientists" writing on the subject at that time in England. The author suggests that understanding what actually happened in Virginia will help modern observers understand what happened-and is happening-elsewhere.