Suzanne Matson has pointed out that Richard Beresford was a South Carolina Indian agent and surveyor. In his letter that I have recently quoted from, he was acting as an agent for the South Carolina Legislature. Virginia had been very successful in Indian trading; this was a major component of the success of the Byrd family. These traders ranged far and wide. When South Carolina traders got into the business, there was severe competition between Virginia and South Carolina, and Virginia lost some of the business. Additionally, there were many independent traders who found it necessary to give the Indians less than a fair price in order to remain in the business. Alexander Spotswood conceived of a plan to have a monopoly of Indian trading in Virginia. No one else would be allowed to trade with the Indians. He believed that a strong trading entity would be better for both the traders and the Indians. So Virginia passed legislation establishing a monopoly which was to be based at Fort Christiana. Shares in this company were sold and Spotswood bought some. He probably expected to be able to buy the shares of some of the other partners later. South Carolina feared this venture because they thought it would impact their traders negatively. Apparently Beresford had gone to Virginia to estimate what the impact of the Virginia Indian Trading would be.
Spotswood was very optimistic about the future of Indian trading through the authorized monopoly. According to Beresford, he was even building a house near Fort Christiana. The implication of this is that he was abandoning Germanna except that he hoped to lease land there to the Germans. He had no other reason to tie himself to Germanna.
A hitch developed in the plans. The legislation establishing the Indian Trading Company was vetoed in London. The merchants there protested (probably because the concentrated power of the Virginia Trading Company would allow them to drive hard bargains for the trade goods and the furs), and the legislation was overturned. This was a severe financial loss to the investors in Virginia, and it showed the dangers of enterprises that might be disallowed. Earlier, in 1710, Spotswood had been warned by the Board of Trade that any legislation establishing an iron works in Virginia might be suspended or cancelled in London. This is one of the reasons that Spotswood was not personally interested in iron for eight years after his arrival in Virginia. He began to show a personal interest in iron only when powerful people in England wanted to become his allies.
One other point that Beresford made which contradicts future historians was to say that the pass over the mountains was between the Rapidan (south branch of the Rappahannock) and the Potomac. Swift Run Gap, where later historians placed the crossing, is outside this region.
(22 Dec 04)
We gratefully acknowledge the work of John Blankenbaker who published over 2,500 Germanna History Notes via the Germanna-L@rootsweb.com email list from 1997 to 2008. We are equally thankful to George Durman (Sgt. George) for hosting the list and republishing the notes via rootsweb.com.