The Secret Diary of William Byrd of Westover, 1709-1712

by William Byrd

William Byrd of Westover, the most accomplished Virginian of his time, has long been remembered for his charming ‘History of the Dividing Line’, one of the few pieces of urbane and humorous writing in American colonial literature The publication of Byrd’s hitherto unknown diary, which he kept in shorthand for no eyes except his own, gives him a new importance to all persons interested in colonial life. This diary is the most complete revelation of the daily routine of a great plantation that has yet to come to light in the South.

Genres: History

622 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1963

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

William Byrd II was a British planter and author from Charles City County in colonial Virginia. He is considered the founder of Richmond, Virginia. (Source: Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Dorothea · Rating 3 out of 5]

William Byrd II was a rich white guy who owned a bunch of land in Virginia when it was a colony. He had plantations and ships and lots of people working for him, and he had lots of different offices in the colonial government. Unlike the rest of his peers, he's famous today because he wrote a lot, including a diary of his daily life, some of which has survived to be read today. This diary is very unusual because it really was a Secret Diary. He wrote it in shorthand and people who have studied it think that he never intended anyone to read it -- so, as Louis B. Wright puts it in his introduction to the edition I read, "no effect is intended" because Byrd wasn't writing for any audience at all, and therefore "we can expect to find greater sincerity and more truthful statements in these journals" than in most other kinds of writing. Or at least, the truths that Byrd consciously appreciated.

I wondered a bit if it would be wrong to read Byrd's diary, since he meant it to be so private. I think I would find that a compelling argument about secret diaries in general. But as it turns out I do not feel at all bad about violating Byrd's possible wishes, because he was a horrible human being. Wright in the introduction was rather adamant that Byrd was a man of his times and the behavior that shocks us today was normal for a country-house gentleman and planter of this period and blah blah blah but I do not care much for that argument -- not when it's easy to find other people of the same time whose actions and words make it perfectly clear that such things weren't unanimously acceptable. (Also, Mr. Wright, I have difficulty understanding how in 1940 you could justify Byrd by appealing to "Anyone who has ever tried to maintain a Southern plantation" !)

I also suspect that there's not much overlap between the things Byrd would most have wanted to keep secret, and the things I'm appalled by. I do not care much how frequently he "rogered" his wife or "committed manual uncleanness" when away from home on government business (although of course I am pleased to add to my vocabulary of antique sexual euphemisms). And I don't think he would care very much if his methods for disciplining his servants and slaves were public knowledge -- to him, they'd just add to the prestige of being a stern paternal planter. Maybe he would be embarrassed for other people to read about how his servants or his wife disobeyed him, because it showed he didn't have perfect control over his subordinates; I have a very different reaction to learning that he quarreled with his wife because she was upset that he wouldn't let her read a book in his library, or because she beat one maidservant against his wishes and so he beat a different one. And he would probably be embarrassed for others to read about some of his sexual activities, because some of them were adulterous or at least not very decorous -- but for me of course the distressing part is that he was a rapist and sexual harasser.

Look at me, having no objective distance. Too bad. I also had a quite different reaction to the secret diary, which was to find it rather winsome! I think the key to this is the sentence structure: almost always very simple, subject-verb-object. I suppose that's what you get when you write in English, briefly (even when expanded from shorthand the entries take up less than half a printed page), and without caring what it sounds like to other readers. I can imagine that some people might find this style tedious but to me it was sweet and simple. Some of the content adds to the effect -- Byrd was particularly concerned with tracking his different aspects of his health (when he slept, what he ate, when he exercised, his moods, and the moral quality of his thoughts) and some of this information appears almost as ritual phrases: "I rose at 6 o'clock and neglected to say my prayers. I ate milk for breakfast. I danced my dance. [The day's events.] In the evening I read some Latin. Then I said my prayers and had good health, good thoughts, and good humor, thanks be to God Almighty." It is probably very anachronistic and shallow of me but I cannot completely hate a man who "ate milk for breakfast" (sometimes he eats pears with his milk, sometimes he eats chocolate instead) and writes "I danced my dance" meaning that he did calisthenic exercises. In my imagination there is a chibi!William Byrd who dances by himself and eats milk and writes in very simple sentences and who is somehow quite different from the real adult man who had a complicated relationship with his wife and ordered other people to be beaten and bought and sold land and practiced medicine and advised the governor about Virginia's role in the Tuscarora War.

(Medicine, though, augh. This is a guy who has dozens of people under his control and who fancies himself an amateur doctor. Almost every day he's at home he reports on the health of His People. And if someone's not well -- Byrd to the rescue with bleeding, a vomit, or a blister! Sometimes when he hears about sickness in a neighboring plantation he makes all the servants and slaves let blood and vomit preventatively. Poor things. I also feel sorry for his wife, Lucy, when she's sick. He doesn't beat her as he does pretty much everyone else under his control, but whenever she gets sick (especially when pregnant) he nags and nags her to be bled -- and he knows, and records, that she's deathly terrified of it. Ugh. At least there's one moment of cosmic revenge: at one point he gets a little stomach upset and doctors himself with medicine that gives him terribly painful and gross side effects that I will not describe here.)

[Jim Booth · Rating 5 out of 5]

A remarkable chronicle of the foibles of Anglo-American Virginia planter William Byrd II of Westover Plantation (near Williamsburg). Shares some qualities with English diarist Samuel Pepys, but of more interest for those interested in comparing life in the American colonial South with, say, life in New England as recorded by Bradford, Cotton Mather, or with a middle Atlantic colonist such as Benjamin Franklin.

[Martha Trethewey · Rating 3 out of 5]

(I read this for grad school so does it count for goodreads? Idk)

[ziya · Rating 3 out of 5]

What a boring life!

[DelilahW · Rating 5 out of 5]

A really fascinating glimpse into life in the early colonial time period. Mr Byrd prays, "eats" milk for breakfast, dances his dance, quarrels with his wife, whips his slaves, and thanks God for his good fortune. Rinse and repeat. Yes, his days do seem repetitive but it's also interesting to see how much people relied on socialization in those days for entertainment. It seemed company was always at his house. And it also seemed like he, his wife, slaves, and neighbors were ROUTINELY sick. Like, every single day someone had come down with a major illness for which "sweating", bloodletting, and administration of herbs were among the cures. Very fascinating to see how this early medicine was applied.

God plays a major part in his day-to-day life, but yet Byrd routinely forgets to say his prayers, neglects to attend church due to inconsequential reasons like rain, and gropes random tavern wenches for which he kind of nonchalantly repents. In short, this man was a real study in dichotomies. His diary is a treasure as it teaches us what life was truly like her wealthy plantations owners and we can only imagine the mindset of his wife, child, and slaves.