The Virginia plantation of 1760 was much more sufficient unto itself than was the same plantation of the next century when methods of communication had improved, articles from the outside world were easier to obtain, and invention was beginning to become “the mother of necessity.”  Many of the large plantations, in fact, bore no small resemblance to medieval manors.  There was the planter himself residing with his family in the mansion, which corresponded to the manor house, and lording it over a crowd of white and black dependents, corresponding to serfs.  The servants, both white and black, dwelt somewhat apart in the quarters, rude log huts for the most part, but probably as comfortable as those of the Saxon churls of the time of the Plantagenets.  The planter’s ownership over the persons of his dependents was, however, much more absolute than was that of the Norman lord, for on the manors the serfs could not be sold off the land, a restriction that did not apply in Virginia either to black slaves or indentured servants.  On the manor, furthermore, the serf had his own bits of ground, for which he paid rent in kind, money or service, and the holdings passed from father to son; on the plantation the slave worked under an overseer on his master’s crops only and had nothing that he could call his own—­not even his wife or children.  In the matter of the organization of industries there was a closer resemblance.  The planter generally raised the staple articles of food for his family and slaves, as did the lord, and a large proportion of the other articles used or consumed were manufactured on the place.  A son of George Mason, Washington’s close friend and neighbor, has left us the following description of industry at Gunston Hall: 

“My father had among his slaves carpenters, coopers, sawyers, blacksmiths, tanners, curriers, shoemakers, spinners, weavers, and knitters, and even a distiller.  His woods furnished timber and plank for the carpenters and coopers, and charcoal for the blacksmith; his cattle killed for his own consumption and for sale, supplied skins for the tanners, curriers, and shoemakers; and his sheep gave wool and his fields produced cotton and flax for the weavers and spinners, and his own orchards fruit for the distillers.  His carpenters and sawyers built and kept in repair all the dwelling-houses, barns, stables, ploughs, harrows, gates, etc., on the plantations, and the outhouses of the house.  His coopers made the hogsheads the tobacco was prized in, and the tight casks to hold the cider and other liquors.  The tanners and curriers, with the proper vats, etc., tanned and dressed the skins as well for upper as for lower leather to the full amount of the consumption of the estate, and the shoemakers made them into shoes for the negroes.  A professed shoemaker was hired for three or four months in the year to come and make up the shoes for the white part of the family.  The blacksmiths did all the iron work required by the