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In 1777, with the armed revolt against England in its second year and an empty federal treasury, the Continental Congress suggested a new way for the 13 Colonies to raise money for the rebellion — confiscate land from Loyalists.
The idea was to prevent “traitors” aiding the redcoats and to sell off property that could raise money for the war effort.
New York confiscated more than 1 million acres, while Maryland grabbed another 450,000.
Virginia, which at first stopped short of outright confiscation, eventually seized and sold off an estimated 53,000 acres, plus personal property, which in some cases included enslaved Africans.
Expropriation is not typically a part of school lessons about how the American Revolution unleashed the powers of self-government and liberty.
“’We’re going to take your property’ — that doesn’t sound like freedom,” said Christina Vida, the Elise H. Wright Curator of General Collections at the Valentine Museum in Richmond.
Virginians’ reaction to the rebellion varied. Loyalists began to leave Virginia in 1775, after the first shots were fired in Massachusetts and the Hanover Militia — led by firebrand rebel Patrick Henry — marched on Williamsburg.
But not everyone was eager to take up arms. Many people were indifferent. When Virginia came up short in its quota of soldiers for the Continental army, local officials sought to organize a draft. Riots ensued. In backwoods Rockridge and Augusta, mobs seized draft paperwork. Three companies of mounted militia were dispatched from Winchester to suppress the rebellion.
In a 1927 book, “Loyalism in Virginia,” Isaac Samuel Harrell noted the sporadic uprisings against the draft were not an indication of Loyalist sentiment, but simply “a protest against taxes and military service.”
Historians say there was little Loyalist sentiment in Virginia outside of Norfolk, a port city that was the base of British and Scottish merchants. The wealthiest planters were eaten up with the desire to throw off the yoke of England’s tax policy and mercantile domination. Nearly every leading planter family — the Randolphs, Jeffersons, Lees, Harrisons, et. al. — was deeply in debt to banking houses in England and Scotland.
The slogan for Virginia’s elite who led the break from England might as well have been, “Give me liberty or give me debt.” In May 1774, Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry put forward a proposal that all payments on British debt should be halted. That spring, the Virginia Gazette was filled with “I intend for England” notices from merchants, who encouraged planters to settle accounts.
That fall, after the crown-appointed governor Dunmore dissolved the House of Burgesses, members met on their own to organize a series of extralegal conventions. The first convention banned all commerce with England and payment of debts.
Merchants also took the brunt of Virginia’s land confiscation policies. Those who fled for the Caribbean, New York City or the United Kingdom, left behind stores, warehouses and, in some cases, large tracts of land.
In fact, the state took advantage of the confiscation law to seize several commercial buildings in downtown Richmond to house state offices after the capitol was moved from Williamsburg in 1780. One of the seized buildings, located near the present-day corner of 14th and Cary streets, housed the General Assembly until the Jefferson-designed building was completed in 1786.
At first, Virginia’s new leaders stopped short of a general policy of confiscation. The 1777 General Assembly opted instead for “sequestration” — in which land and personal property of British subjects could be transferred to commissioners, who would manage the property and send all profits to the state treasury. At the end of the hostilities, the owners would regain full use of their property.
In stopping short of a vindictive policy, the General Assembly noted that Great Britain had not seized the property of United States’ citizens. The preamble of Virginia’s first confiscation law referenced the fact that “law and usages of Nations” preclude seizure.
Peter Mitchell, the author of “Loyalist Property and the Revolution in Virginia,” wrote that Virginia’s high-minded policy eventually gave way to the practical need to raise funds to keep the Continental army and local militia in the field.
“The bitterness engendered by four years of war had only hardened the attitude of Virginians, planter and nonplanter alike, toward the loyalists,” Mitchell wrote. “Mostly planters, the delegates had little reason to feel charitable toward their former creditors.”
In the end, confiscations did not prove to be a windfall for Virginia’s treasury.
First, the acreage seized was much lower than in some states. The Virginia law focused on “alien” British who had fled the state. Many landowners who stayed in Virginia who kept their Loyalist sentiments to themselves were allowed to carry on unmolested. The state’s largest landowner, Lord Fairfax, was never asked to take a loyalty oath and his holdings were uncontested while he was still alive.
Second, the Virginia law allowed confiscated property to be sold at auction with paper money issued by Virginia. These “treasury notes” rapidly lost their value relative to the British pound. By February 1779, Virginia’s paper money fell to 10 to one and, by May, sank to 20 to one. By December 1881, the Virginia-issued paper money had fallen to 1,000 to one.
Third, Virginia’s confiscation rules were patterned after an existing state law that provided ample ways to contest a confiscation. Courts found themselves overrun with appeals from spouses and children seeking relief and from neighbors who had leases on property that had been seized. In backcountry areas, the courts heard from squatters who for years worked (and sometimes paid taxes) on land that was contained within tracts that had been seized.
The courts had to untangle supposed handshake deals — a common practice at the time — from people who claimed to be the rightful owner or mortgage holder of confiscated tracts. It was hard to know if the transactions were legitimate — or just a sham to protect land from seizure.
“There were a lot of ways to game the system,” said Vida, who has organizing an exhibit called “Dissent!” that includes the voices of contrarians, including what she called “my favorite loyalists” from the revolutionary period. (The exhibit runs through Jan. 31, 2027.)
The state’s proceeds from confiscated land also were undercut by the fees paid to commissioners who handled the transactions on behalf of the Virginia Land Office. In 1781, the House of Delegates received a petition from Joseph Cabell, Henry Innes and Nicholas Cabell who said the “depreciated” value of Virginia’s paper money was insufficient for them to carry on their work for the land office in Washington and Montgomery counties. The House approved a supplemental payment of 12,240 pounds.
Well-connected supplicants also appealed to the General Assembly, which often restored estates or reimbursed creditors. In 1786, three years after the Treaty of Paris, John Keeling presented evidence that he had received a judgment of 538 pounds paper money in Princess Anne County (now Virginia Beach) against a British subject before the land was confiscated. The legislature approved payment to Keeling from state funds.
But not every well-connected intermediary got his way with lawmakers. In 1781, Benjamin Franklin provided a letter to Governor Benjamin Harrison on behalf of Alexander Spiers, John Bowman and Company, which had land confiscated in Prince Edward County. The land was unsold, and the company was seeking its return. Harrison did not intercede, and the General Assembly later donated 412 acres of the property to Hampden-Sydney College.
The war ended with the Treaty of Paris signed in 1783. But the terms agreed to by the federal government would vex Virginians for generations to come. The treaty allowed British subjects whose land was confiscated during the conflict to seek reimbursement for their loses. But significantly, the treaty stated that British merchants could collect pre-war debts, the very scourge that led Virginia’s planter class to rebel.
In the wake of the treaty, Virginia argued that a 1777 state law nullified the treaty’s debt provision. Under the Virginia law, citizens were allowed to pay off their merchant debts by depositing money — in the form of increasingly worthless paper currency. Patrick Henry was one of the attorneys who argued that these payments released debtors from future obligations, regardless of what the treaty said.
The case — Ware v. Hylton — advanced to the United States Supreme Court and resulted in the precedent that a federal treaty supersedes state law.
Many planters blamed their dire financial situation on the avarice of British merchants, who before the Revolution would buy the tobacco in Virginia, shop it across the Atlantic and sell it for a profit in England. Some believed the mercantile system benefited England at the expense of Colonies. But planters had themselves to blame. Many borrowed on over-optimistic hopes for their tobacco crops and went into debt to purchase luxury products manufactured in England.
The legacy of debt to British merchants would dog the planter class for generations. “There are stories of grandchildren and great-grandchildren having to liquidate estates to settle with creditors,” said Vida of the Valentine Museum.
Case in point was Thomas Jefferson, a visionary who often not attentive to the bottom line. In 1786, Jefferson wrote a neighbor, “I am miserable till I owe not a shilling.”
Six months after Jefferson’s death in 1825, his daughter held at estate sale at Monticello where property auctioned off included slaves, livestock and household furniture. According to the Monticello website, the family later sold off the entire mountaintop estate. The burden fell to his grandson, and the last payment on principal was made 50 years after Jefferson’s death.
The following sources were referenced for this article, in chronological order of publication: Isaac Samuel Harrell, “Loyalism in Virginia,” Duke University Press, 1926; Rolfe Lyman Allen, “The Legislation for the Confiscation of British and Loyalist Property During the Revolutionary War,” University of Maryland dissertation, 1937; Peter McQuillkin Mitchell, “Loyalist Property and the Revolution in Virginia,” University of Colorado at Boulder dissertation, 1965; Marcus Gallow, “Property Rights, Citizenship, Corruption, and Inequality: Confiscating Loyalist Estates during the American Revolution,” John Carroll University dissertation, 2019.