The Virginia Dynasties: The Emergence of "King" Carter and the Golden Age

by Clifford Dowdey

Every schoolchild is familiar with the names of the giants in Virginia's Revolutionary generation -- Washington, Jefferson, Patrick Henry -- who were leaders in the founding of a new nation. But what was the nature of the society which produced these great men? How did a community of transplanted English people create out of a wilderness, in one and a half centuries, a civilization which produced a political "golden age" on the coastal fringe of an unexplored continent?

The settlers in Virginia, adapting the English social structure to the wilderness, evolved an elite ruling class which was committed to advancing those "best qualified to govern." This homegrown, self-made aristocracy was formed of ambitious, acquisitive men who found in the new land opportunities to carve out personal empires which (as in the English model) entitled them to a responsible place in government. As only a small number of families succeeded on a vast scale in the frontier world, by intermarriage and alliances of common interests these families coagulated power into a "web of kinship." The high sense of responsibility they brought to their exercise of power generated the political-mental climate of Virginia's eighteenth-century "golden age," out of which emerged the famous generation of leaders born after 1732.

In The Virginia Dynasties, Clifford Dowdey traces the rise of the fortune-founders who made up the hard core of the ruling class -- those men whose many-sided and outsize ambitions, pride and vanity, ruthlessness and personal honor and political responsibility, created this climate for greatness.

These first plantation owners were no part of the myths of the "younger sons" or the leisured planters of splendid dissipations. They came to, or were born in, Virginia on the mercantile tides of the era, and they were merchants and traders, shippers and storekeepers, as well as tobacco growers. While remote from the nobility, all the merchant-planters began with the advantages of some education, some money, and good connections. The Virginia Dynasties follows the careers of the early Carters, Lees, Randolphs, Byrds, Fitzhughs, Harrisons, Ludwells, as well as the English governors with whom the rising powers dined and bargained and fought.

The central thread of the book is the story of Robert Carter, called "King" (1663-1732), the richest and politically the most powerful merchant-planter of his age, and ancestor of presidents, revolutionaries, governors, and R. E. Lee. In focusing upon Carter's career, Clifford Dowdey draws upon more than 200 unpublished letters, an unpublished diary, and personal material from Cater's descendants.

The result is a brilliantly researched, broadly based narrative, which emphasizes the all-too-human motivations of the men and women whose lives form the composite story of that neglected colonial era -- after Jamestown and before the Revolution.

Genres: History, American History, Nonfiction, Family

438 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1969

About the author

Clifford Dowdey was born in Richmond, Virginia January 23, 1904 and died there May 30, 1979. The Richmond Newspapers, the Richmond Times Dispatch and the Richmond News Leader eulogized him as The Last Confederate. His father was descended from immigrants surnamed O'Dowda of County Galway, Ireland, and his mother from an English settler of Jamestown. His father worked for Western Union and his mother was a housewife. Four of his grandmother’s brothers were Confederate soldiers. His grandmother lived with his family until she died when Dowdey was age 19. Her reminiscences spurred his lifelong interest in the American Civil War and the history of Virginia.[1]

He attended Columbia University from 1921-1925. He worked for about a year as a newspaper reporter and book reviewer for the Richmond News Leader. He returned to New York City and worked as an editor for various pulp magazines (Munsey’s, Argosy and Dell) from 1926 to around 1935. About 1933 he started writing seriously on what eventually would become his first novel "Bugles Blow No More.” Leaving the magazines, he and his wife moved to Florida for a season and then to Richmond, Virginia where he finished the novel. For the rest of his life, he lived in Richmond and worked as a writer of historical fiction and history. He reviewed others' historical works in academic journals, such as "The Journal of Southern History" and " The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography." Even though he had no formal training as an historian several of his works received critical acclaim by noted historians. His historical novels were popular as evidenced by their being reviewed in "The New York Times."[2]

The circumstance of his first marriage is unknown. In an interview published in The New York Times July 13, 1941, he made reference to a wife as early as 1934 or 1935. On July 13, 1944, he married Frances Wilson, a clinical psychologist; she died July 1970.[3] He was the father of two daughters, Frances and Sarah.

Reviews

[Gregory Knapp · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an outstanding book about the government development and growth of powerful families that took the lead in shaping Virginia away from England. Everyone thinks of the mid-1770's as the time when America broke free from British rule, yet that success was the direct result of the groundwork that the Virginia Dynasties made from 1670 - 1730. Dowdey's unconventional narrative style works well with his deeply research material into a very readable book.