Then stretched the
fields of corn and wheat, the fields of tobacco. Here, at river or bay
side, was the home wharf or landing. Here the tobacco was rolled in casks;
here rattled the anchor of the ship that was to take it to England and
bring in return a thousand and one manufactured articles. There were no
factories in Maryland or Virginia. Yet artisans were found among the
plantation laborers -- "carpenters, coopers, sawyers, blacksmiths, tanners,
curriers, shoemakers, spinners, weavers, and knitters." Throughout the
colonies, as in every new country, men and women, besides being
agriculturists, produced homemade much that men, women, and children
needed. But many other articles and all luxuries came in the ships from
overseas, and the harvest of the fields paid the account.
CHAPTER XIV. THE CAROLINAS
The first settlers on the banks of the James River, looking from beneath
their hands southward over plain land and a haze of endless forests, called
that unexplored country South Virginia. It stretched away to those rivers
and bays, to that island of Roanoke, whence had fled Raleigh's settlers.
Beyond that, said the James River men, was Florida. Time passed, and the
region of South Virginia was occasionally spoken of as Carolina, though
whether that name was drawn from Charles the First of England, or whether
those old unfortunate Huguenots in Florida had used it with reference to
Charles the Ninth of France, is not certainly known.
South Virginia lay huge, unknown, unsettled.
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