On two
particularly compelling reasons to study a frustrating, foundational Virginian.
As Edmund
Morgan so elegantly traced, Virginia was the origin point for more than
just the
Declaration of Independence and four out of the
first five presidents—it was also, and not at all coincidentally, the
origin point for the foundational (and, as Morgan notes, apparently quite
necessary) American contradictions: between slavery and freedom. As a result,
it’s difficult to find any significant Virginians from the state’s first few centuries
of existence who did not actively participate in the slave system, and that’s
certainly true of William Byrd
II (1674-1744), the planter and author who founded the city of Richmond and
contributed significantly to the state’s colonial identity. Unfortunately, as his
private diaries reveal, Byrd was not just a slave-owner but a particularly cruel and violent
one; while a connection to slavery was perhaps inevitable in the era (and something Byrd was born
into), his attitude and actions were nonetheless his own and are deeply troubling.
We can’t
remember or study Byrd without including, in a prominent role, that troubling
element—and to be honest I don’t think Byrd himself would want us to. One of
the two things that make Byrd a particularly compelling voice is precisely his
blunt honesty, throughout
his diaries, about his own flaws and contradictions. It’s not just that
Byrd writes about sleeping with the wives of friends, molesting servant girls,
binge-eating when he knows it’s bad for him, treating his first wife very poorly,
and so on—it’s that he makes such details one of his two primary focal points,
with fervent expressions of repentance and religious feeling as the
counter-balancing second focus. While many diarists could be read as writing
for an audience and/or posterity in one way or another, Byrd
utilized a secret code in his diaries, suggesting that he was indeed
writing for his own psychological and emotional benefit. What exactly that
benefit might be is a question I’ll leave for the psychoanalysts—but for
students of American identity and history (and international ones, as Byrd also spent
time in England), Byrd’s honesty offers an amazing glimpse into his life
and world.
The second reason
to read Byrd is similarly grounded in a compelling contradiction, but in this
case a more public and published one. In 1728, Byrd spent time surveying and
mapping the contested border between Virginia and North Carolina, a process he
turned into the complex, witty, and unique book The History of the
Dividing Line betwixt Virginia and North Carolina. The book’s
combination of geography, history, sociology, and autobiography would be
compelling enough in its own right—but the ever contradictory and verbose Byrd
also wrote a second concurrent text, The Secret
History, in which he fictionalized the process of mapping the border,
the various figures who took part and whom he met along the way, and many other
elements of this foundational moment. Taken together, these two books are more
than just a unique record of colonial Virginia and America—they’re one of our
most striking and significant literary texts, and another reason to read this
Virginia voice.
Next voice
tomorrow,
Ben
PS.
What do you think? Voices from your home you’d highlight?
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