with from 20 to 29; forty with from 10 to 19; forty with from 5 to 9; seventy with from 1 to 4; and sixty who had none.  In the three chief plantation counties of Maryland, viz.  Ann Arundel, Charles, and Prince George, the ratios among the slaveholdings of the several scales, according to the United States census of 1790, were almost identical with those just noted in the selected Virginia counties, but the non-slaveholders were nearly twice as numerous in proportion.  In all these Virginia and Maryland counties the average holding ranged between 8.5 and 13 slaves.  In the other districts in both commonwealths, where the plantation system was not so dominant, the average slaveholding was smaller, of course, and the non-slaveholders more abounding.

[Footnote 23:  Printed in lieu of the missing returns of the first U.S. census, in Heads of Families at the First Census of the United States:  Virginia (Washington, 1908).]

The largest slaveholding in Maryland returned in the census of 1790 was that of Charles Carroll of Carrollton, comprising 316 slaves.  Among the largest reported in Virginia in 1782-1783 were those of John Tabb, Amelia County, 257; William Allen, Sussex County, 241; George Chewning, 224, and Thomas Nelson, 208, in Hanover County; Wilson N. Gary, Fluvanna County, 200; and George Washington, Fairfax County, 188.  Since the great planters occasionally owned several scattered plantations it may be that the censuses reported some of the slaves under the names of the overseers rather than under those of the owners; but that such instances were probably few is indicated by the fact that the holdings of Chewning and Nelson above noted were each listed by the census takers in several parcels, with the names of owners and overseers both given.

The great properties were usually divided, even where the lands lay in single tracts, into several plantations for more convenient operation, each under a separate overseer or in some cases under a slave foreman.  If the working squads of even the major proprietors were of but moderate scale, those in the multitude of minor holdings were of course lesser still.  On the whole, indeed, slave industry was organized in smaller units by far than most writers, whether of romance or history, would have us believe.

CHAPTER V

THE RICE COAST

The impulse for the formal colonization of Carolina came from Barbados, which by the time of the Restoration was both overcrowded and torn with dissension.  Sir John Colleton, one of the leading planters in that little island, proposed to several of his powerful Cavalier friends in England that they join him in applying for a proprietary charter to the vacant region between Virginia and Florida, with a view of attracting Barbadians and any others who might come.  In 1663 accordingly the “Merry Monarch” issued the desired charter to the eight applicants as Lords