William Byrd II was one of colonial Virginia’s most powerful men. He was wealthy, educated, politically connected, and widely respected among the white ruling class. He helped found Richmond and Petersburg, served on the Virginia Governor’s Council for decades, and moved easily between England and the colonies.
Yet behind the image of refinement was a slave owner who recorded the abuse of enslaved Africans in plain and disturbing detail. Unlike many slaveholders, William Byrd II left behind a diary that exposes how slavery actually functioned on plantations not in theory but in daily practice.
Byrd was born on March 28 1674 into a powerful Virginia family and spent much of his youth in England. He studied law at Middle Temple, mixed with aristocrats, and became a member of the Royal Society. He saw himself as a gentleman shaped by reason, discipline, and Christian morality.
When his father died in 1705, Byrd returned to Virginia and inherited vast plantations worked by enslaved Africans. From that moment, his wealth, comfort, and political influence depended entirely on forced labor. He did not question this system. Instead, he managed it with cold efficiency.
The Secret Diary of William Byrd of Westover, 1709–1712
Between 1709 and 1712, William Byrd II kept a secret diary written in shorthand. It was never meant to be read by the public. When historians finally decoded and published it in the twentieth century, it became one of the most revealing records of plantation slavery in British North America.
In it, Byrd recorded his daily routine prayers, meals, reading, sex, business and punishment. Enslaved people appear constantly, not as human beings, but as objects to be corrected, beaten, or controlled.
He wrote casually about whipping enslaved women and men for small offenses. One day he beat an enslaved woman named Jenny for throwing water on furniture. Another day he ordered a boy named Eugene whipped for wetting the bed. When the child did it again, Byrd forced him to drink his own urine as punishment.
In another entry, he nonchalantly recorded whipping a boy named Eugene for attempting to escape, and then placing the bit, a painful restraining device, on him. Immediately afterward, he noted saying his prayers, enjoying good health, and feeling contented, giving thanks to God Almighty.
What stands out in Byrd’s diary is how ordinary cruelty was. Whipping enslaved Africans appears beside notes about dinner, walks, and card games. In some entries, he punished multiple people in a single day and then ended the entry by thanking God for good health and good humor.
Byrd also recorded sexual encounters with women who lived under his absolute authority. In one entry, he described summoning a servant to clean his room, kissing and touching her, and then asking God for forgiveness afterward. At no point did he acknowledge coercion or consider whether refusal was possible.
Under slavery, consent did not exist. Enslaved women could not say no without risking punishment. Byrd’s diary reveals how sexual exploitation was woven into everyday plantation life and reframed as personal weakness rather than abuse.
He frequently disguised these acts in euphemistic language, writing that he had “played the fool” or “committed folly” with enslaved women such as Marjorie, Sally, and others whose names he partially obscured.
Historians have argued that Byrd’s sexual violence functioned as a deliberate exercise of power. Unlike overseers who claimed sexual access due to isolation, Byrd was married to a European woman and lived among other European families. His assaults on enslaved women were therefore not acts of deprivation but of choice. They served to reinforce his position at the top of the plantation hierarchy and to remind those beneath him of his unchecked authority.
Byrd diary also showed that religion dominated his inner life. He prayed daily, read scripture in multiple languages, and constantly assessed his moral state. He thanked God for good health even after days that included whippings and sexual exploitation.
When enslaved people fell ill and died in large numbers, Byrd described the losses as God’s will. During one winter, he recorded the deaths of seventeen enslaved Africans from illness. He described the loss as God’s will, gave instructions for managing the remaining sick, and continued his routine. Plantation life went on.
Publicly, Byrd was respected. He served on the Virginia Governor’s Council for decades, acted as a colonial agent in London, surveyed the Virginia–North Carolina boundary, and helped establish Richmond and Petersburg. He saw himself as essential to the colony’s success.
Privately, his diary reveals a man obsessed with control, status, and self-image.
William Byrd is often contrasted with Thomas Thistlewood, the Jamaican overseer whose diary openly records rape, torture, and extreme cruelty. Thistlewood wrote brutally. Byrd wrote politely.
But the system they served was the same. Both relied on violence. Both exercised sexual power over enslaved women. Both treated human beings as property.
William Byrd II is important not because he was unusually cruel, but because he was typical. He represents the educated slaveholding elite who liked to see themselves as civilized while maintaining their status through violence.
His diary destroys the myth of the gentle master. It shows that slavery was not sustained by ignorance alone, but by men who were educated, orderly, and fully aware of what they were doing.
William Byrd II died in 1744, leaving behind a vast estate, and a diary that stands as his most honest legacy, recording both his daily life and the brutality, exploitation, and disregard for human life on his plantations.
Sources:
https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/byrd-william-1674-1744/
https://explorehistory.ou.edu/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Shelden-1483-Source-2.pdf
https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/becomingamer/economies/text5/williambyrddiary.pdf
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part1/1h283t.html
