Great Hopes Plantation

Great Hopes Plantation did exist in the 18th century, but not where it is now on the edge of Colonial Williamsburg’s Historic Area. The original Great Hopes was in York County, Va., so the one in Williamsburg is a representation of the middling plantations that existed around the colonial capital. Those plantations were the homes of most of the rural middle class, the ones who weren’t shop and tavern keepers or trades people in town.

Patrick Henry divided colonial society into three parts – well-born, middle, and lower. From other sources we know that only five percent of the population was considered well-born, and about a third or more were lower class, or “lesser sort,” depending on where you lived. The rest of the people were “middling;” that is, hard-working, honest people who owned one hundred acres or more, and ten or so slaves.