Dictionary of Literary Biography on Robert Beverley
Robert Beverley's claim to literary fame rests entirely upon one book, The History and Present State of Virginia (1705), which betrays a deep-seated ambivalence toward the march of civilization. On the one hand, Beverley envisages a productive society based upon wise laws, honest governors, and hard work. On the other, he locates the symbolic center of his book in Indian civilization, condemning the "curse of Industry" and imagining a static, nearly perfect pastoral society without laws of any sort but those dictated by nature; English "improvements" only ruin things.
Beverley was born in Middlesex County, Virginia, sometime about 1673, the son of Major Robert Beverley, a man who stood steadfastly by Gov. Sir William Berkeley during Bacon's Rebellion. Upon his father's death, Beverley inherited a plantation in Gloucester Country and some six thousand additional acres in King and Queen County, where he eventually built an estate and married Ursula Byrd, the sister of William Byrd II of Westover; she died shortly thereafter, and Beverley never remarried. In 1696, he was appointed to the important posts of clerk of the General Court, clerk of Council, and clerk of the General Assembly; he also served as a burgess from Jamestown in 1699, 1700-1702, and 1703-1706. While on a business trip to England in 1703, Beverley read a manuscript of John Oldmixon's account of the British Empire in America and determined to write his own history and set the record straight. He also wrote letters to friends in Virginia alleging that Gov. Francis Nicholson was plotting against the liberties of Virginians, and for his pains Nicholson removed him from the office of clerk of the court of King and Queen County. Retiring from public life, Beverley spent the remaining years of his life transforming the interior of Beverley Park into a Spartan abode--reminiscent, so he claimed, of Indian simplicity--and attempting to establish viniculture in Virginia. He died in 1722, having barely finished a revision of The History and Present State of Virginia in which he toned down his political commentary markedly and to some extent modified his appreciation of the Indians.
The History and Present State of Virginia is divided into four sections, the first of which, relying heavily upon Capt. John Smith's Generall Historie of Virginia (1624), brings the readers up to the founding of the College of William and Mary and the present situation of the colony. This part is marked by open criticism of a number of royal governors--Lord Culpeper, Sir Edmund Andros, and, of course, Francis Nicholson among them--who in various ways attempted to infringe upon the liberties of Virginians. The criticism is written from a Whig perspective and seems to derive more than one idea from John Locke's Two Treatises of Government (1690). Like Locke, for example, Beverley does not believe that one generation ought to make laws binding upon succeeding generations, and he favors maintaining the constitutional liberties of all Englishmen. One may well see in this section the seeds of political ideas that were to flower in the prose of Thomas Jefferson (who read Beverley).
The second and third sections of Beverley's book extend the concept of history to include natural history, detailing the flora and fauna of Virginia and elaborating upon the life led by the local Indians, "happy, I think, in their simple State of Nature, and in their enjoyment of Plenty, without the Curse of Labour." For rhetorical purposes, indeed, Beverley identifies his own language and political pose as those of an Indian, and he hopes European readers will pardon any infelicities or barbarities of style or sentiment. Finally, in part four, Beverley addresses the present and future prospects of the colony, praising the "Liberties and Priviledges" extended to all immigrants--except, of course, the slaves. On that subject, Beverley betrays the same tragic myopia that would later afflict Thomas Jefferson, an inability to understand that the craving for liberty was not to be discovered in white breasts alone but in black men and women also. Despite this flawed vision, Beverley's history remains one of the most interesting literary documents produced in the pre-Revolutionary South, one that can still be read with pleasure and excitement.
This is the complete article, containing 688 words
(approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page).
