Thomas Roderick Dew

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Thomas Roderick Dew (1802 – 1846) was an American educator and writer; a son of Captain Thomas Dew and Lucy Gatewood Dew. His father was a Revolutionary War soldier and founder of Dewsville, a prosperous plantation near Newtown, King and Queen County, Virginia. He was born in King and Queen Co., Virginia, and graduated in 1820 at the College of William and Mary. He was professor of history, metaphysics, and political economy at William and Mary from 1827 to 1836 and served as the thirteenth president from 1836 until his death.[1]

In 1832 he published a review of the celebrated slavery debate of 1831–32 in the Virginia legislature, under the title An Essay in Favor of Slavery, which went far towards putting a stop to a movement, then assuming considerable proportions, to proclaim the end of slavery in Virginia. His largest work is Digest of the Laws, Customs, Manners, and Institutions of Ancient and Modern Nations (1853).

Dew was well respected in the South; his widely distributed writings helped to confirm pro-slavery public opinion. His work has been compared to that of the southern surgeon and medical authority Samuel A. Cartwright, who defended slavery and advocated the beating of slaves who absconded from their duties or became idle.

He described the hardships faced by men in the marketplace and the almost brutal strength needed to survive in such a competetive atmosphere. He stated courage and boldness are man's attributes. Dew also described women as passive (not active), emblematic of divinity, dependent and weak, but a spring of irrestible power.

Source: A History of Women in America by Carol Hyowitz and Michaele Weissman

Preceded by Adam Empie

President of William & Mary 1836 – 1846

Succeeded by Robert Saunders, Jr.

• This article incorporates text from an edition of the New International Encyclopedia that is in the public domain.