The Virginia Cavaliers: Myth or Reality?

About this episode

This episode explores the reality and myth of the Virginia Cavaliers and their impact on the culture and economy of Virginia.

Were the famed Virginia Cavaliers truly the architects of the Old Dominion, or are they merely a phantom of Southern chivalry's imagination? Did those proud and defiant Royalists, the "Distressed Cavaliers" of legend, ever actually flee to the Tidewater to escape the dreary tyranny of Oliver Cromwell's Protectorate, or is the "Cavalier" just a convenient myth—a mask worn by a merchant class in search of a noble pedigree? This episode resolves that perennial question. We discuss the reality of the Cavalier-Puritan split in America—a conflict of visions rooted in an irreconcilable divide between the Tobacco Plantations of the Virginia Gentry and the Gospel of Labor. We explore the offer of Cavalier sanctuary provided by Governor Sir William Berkeley, and how Virginia culture became Cavalier culture. Most of all, we discuss the reality of the Second Sons myth of the First Families of Virginia, and if there really were nobles in America's Old Dominion, or at least their second sons. This is the foundational story of the Tidewater Gentry and the rise of the First Families of Virginia. It is the tale of how a tobacco plantation economy was transfigured into a colonial aristocracy, how…

People in this episode

Host: Will Tanner

Topics covered

• Virginia history
• Cavalier culture
• Tobacco plantation economy
• Colonial aristocracy
• Cavalier-Puritan conflict
• First Families of Virginia

Keywords

• Virginia Cavaliers
• Southern chivalry
• Tidewater Gentry
• Cavalier-Puritan split
• tobacco plantations
• colonial history
• English Civil War
• Sir William Berkeley

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Virginia, Tidewater

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