| Book Review | Environmental History, 10.2

Book Review

The Planting of New Virginia: Settlement and Landscape in the Shenandoah Valley. By Warren R. Hofstra. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004. xv + 410 pp. Illustrations, maps, bibliography, index. $49.95.
In his thoroughly researched text, Warren R. Hofstra, professor of history at Shenandoah University in Winchester, Virginia, focuses the reader's attention upon life in "New Virginia," which was open land in the Shenandoah Valley when the eighteenth century began. At that time, eastern Virginia, which is to say Virginia east of the Blue Ridge Mountains, constituted a largely rural economy focused on tobacco and slave labor. In contrast, the Shenandoah Valley was largely empty of people, because Native Americans had for the most part abandoned the area by the 1650s.	1
By 1800, a century later, the Shenandoah Valley, "the earliest settled region in the Southern backcountry," had become settled private property: surveyed, divided, and subdivided. This had been accomplished through a system of patents and land grants that Native Americans had never anticipated. The valley, in contrast to Tidewater Virginia, became rich in market towns and smaller villages. Colonists taking up newly surveyed tracts in the valley wanted to expand their holdings, while in Tidewater Virginia, where speculator interests played an important role, the population relied on longstanding colonial law and policy and previously surveyed property lines.	2
Hofstra contends that development of the valley underwent three phases in the eighteenth century. The 1730s were a "planting time," when new settlers, encouraged by then-Colonial Governor William Gooch, concentrated on developing three-hundred- to four-hundred-acre plots. Colonists taking up settled tracts usually were eager to expand them. Wheat production changed the landscape. By the 1760s, there was a closer integration of town and country and valley farmers had begun shipping farm products to Great Britain.	3
War played a vital role in the financial development of the Valley. During the French and Indian War, Colonel George Washington commanded a group of soldiers operating in and about Fort Loudon. These men had what the author terms both "official and unofficial" requirements, including provisions and medical care. Some relationships forged during that period had long-term implications. Washington, for example, met Army surgeon James Craik at about this time, and the doctor would remain the future president's personal physician until Washington's death in 1799. Local buildings were requisitioned as hospitals, and local men and women served as doctors and nurses.	4
The Revolutionary War brought about greater development of the merchant community, and increased demand for wheat, hemp (for cordage), and livestock. No fighting occurred in the valley, but local farmers earned a good income supplying beef, pork, and grain to the Revolutionary Army, while at the same time trade with Great Britain was temporarily interrupted.	5
The postwar years brought about an economic slump. Wheat production went up during the postwar period but prices of other commodities dropped. Tobacco production also fell. But overall, economic growth had brought about the establishment of fourteen new Shenandoah towns and had resulted in the creation of several new Virginia counties. Another outcome was that the remaining population of Native Americans was largely eliminated.	6
State taxes in the 1780s hurt rural business, but the commerce clause of the new federal constitution greatly facilitated interstate trade after 1789. Hofstra tells us that this freed the valley from state laws that restricted the flow of goods. By the close of the century, the Shenandoah Valley was part of a regional system that linked the valley to the eastern seaboard through markets in cities such as Alexandria [Virginia], Philadelphia, and Baltimore. Further, while cash helped this system operate smoothly, good account keeping was also essential, because merchants used a system of debits and credits and carried balances forward from year to year.	7
Hofstra concludes that new frontier settlements to the south and west brought new sources of revenue to valley residents. This was accomplished through the sales of foodstuffs—principally grain—and other necessities to people traveling through the valley to Kentucky and Tennessee, together with the repair of their wagons. Migration of settlers to Kentucky and Tennessee also lessened population pressures in the valley. All of this economic activity proved to be very profitable and as the eighteenth century came to a close, valley farmers were transitioning from a cash exchange to a commercial economy. And the rapid growth of farming in turn was made possible by the expanding exploitation of African American labor. During the 1790s, the slave population went up 27 percent.	8
The continuing growth of the town of Winchester made it the primary urban center in the lower Shenandoah Valley by the end of the eighteenth century. There was a community of purpose in Winchester centered on trade.	9
Hofstra has ably woven together the many strands of the private and business lives of Shenandoah Valley residents during the formative colonial and early national eras. Students of early Virginia history will find this a comprehensive and well-written contribution to the literature.	10
A one time college professor, Keir B. Sterling has been with the U.S. Army historical program since 1983 and is command historian for its Combined Arms Support Command at Ft Lee, Va. Many of his publications have dealt with historical developments in American and European natural history.

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