William Strickland

Who is William Strickland?

William Strickland was an 18th-century gentleman farmer and writer from Yorkshire, England. At the end of the 18th century he travelled to the United States where he made a survey of agricultural land, prices and wages, which he published as a Journal of a Tour of the United States of America, 1794–95. The account was also published in the Farmer's Register and in the 1800 Communications to the Board of Agriculture.

Among his many observations on the state of American agriculture was a less than flattering commentary on the slave economies of Virginia and Maryland:

Nothing can be conceived more inert than a slave; his unwilling labour is discovered in every step he takes; he moves not if he can avoid it; if the eyes of the overseer be off him, he sleeps. The ox and horse, driven by the slave, appear to sleep also; all is listless inactivity; all motion is evidently compulsory.