William Byrd II - Professional Accomplishments and Publications

Professional Accomplishments and Publications

William Byrd not only was an avid politician and statesman, but he was also a great writer. Many of his works are now part of the American literary canon. His most famous work is arguably The History of the Dividing Line, published in 1841, but he also wrote The Secret History, which provides a much more "colorful" perspective of the mapping of the border between Virginia and North Carolina. His other works, published in The Westover Manuscripts in 1841, include but are not limited to A Journey to the Land of Eden, A Progress to the Mines, and The Secret Diaries of William Byrd of Westover.

Without a doubt, The History of the Dividing Line is Byrd’s most influential piece of literature. In conjunction with The Secret History, the societal stereotypes and attitudes of the time are revealed. According to Pierre Marambaud, Byrd, "had first prepared a narrative, The Secret History of the Line, which under fictitious names described the persons of the surveying expedition and the incidents that had befallen them" (Marambaud 144).

In The History of the Dividing Line and The Secret History, Byrd incorporates the motifs of slothfulness and sexual desire. He focuses on work ethic in The History of the Dividing Line and emphasizes the sheer laziness of the North Carolinians. Byrd distinguishes the border between Virginia and North Carolina as a cultural border as well as a physical one. He describes the residents of North Carolina as lazy and corrupt, and provides himself as a contrast to their behavior. He describes the ways in which the North Carolinian men chase after women, as well as the ready acquiescence of the women to the men’s urges. He also explains the methods in which he brought control to the sexual situations into which the other men got themselves. For example, Byrd informs the reader that, having encountered a beautiful woman, "Shoebrush was smitten at the first glance and examined all her neat proportions with a critical exactness. She struggled just enough to make her admirer more eager, so that if I had not been there, he would have been in danger of carrying his joke a little too far" (p. 642, Heath) This is just one of the many examples in which Byrd clearly distinguishes himself as the moral superior of his companions.

It is also likely that Byrd was using these writings as a method of promoting himself politically. In providing himself as the sole person in these stories who is morally upstanding, focused, and responsible, he is describing himself as a great leader. In representing the Carolinians in his commission as morally reprehensible, lazy, lawless people, he is implying that, as he can lead such a difficult group of people, he is clearly capable of leading other, less savage people.