Irons in the Fire The Business History of the Tayloe Family and Virginia's Gentry, 1700-1860

This diversity was reflected in the slave community. Demonstrating a versatility exceeding later generations of slaves, and occupying a central position in the daily operations of the South's business culture, the Chesapeake slaves made the planters' relatively sophisticated enterprises not only profitable but possible. Spanning more than a century of early American history, the story begins in 1700, when John Tayloe I managed the family's concerns, and concludes with his six great grandsons, who lived into the Civil War era. Through the generations, the Tayloes demonstrated the same essential qualities - enterprise, risk-taking, business savvy, innovation, ambition, and pursuit of profit - as their northern counterparts. As the eighteenth century ended, however, cotton plantation agriculture - and, in Virginia, the internal slave trade in support of it - increasingly began to take over, working against economic diversification.