Thomas Jefferson wrote of Virginia, "This country consists of plain, honest, and rational neighbors, hospitable and friendly." Relations between blacks and whites have not been much more pleasant. Most children attend schools made up almost entirely of children of their own race. Many Virginians are trying their best to make the races get along. The population consists of 220,000 Asians and 193,000 Hispanics. A little more than one-fifth of the Virginians are black. The first Scots came to Virginia as indentured servants. More Scots came in the eighteenth-century. Then there were the Jews and the Jewish cemetery of Beth Shalome was inaugurated in 1791. The Jewish population in Richmond led lives quite similar to their non-Jewish neighbors. Slaves were owned. The average Virginia farm has about 150 acres and tenancy is around 17%. Almost half of Virginia's farm income is derived from livestock and poultry and their products.
Massachusetts ranks thirteenth among the states in population, claiming 6,016,425 people according to the 1990 census. Massachusetts is the most densely populated, heavily urbanized state in the nation. More than half of all Bay States are Roman Catholics, most of them of Irish, Italian or eastern-European descent. Among the religion, Massachusetts is the second-most heavily Catholic State in the nation. The people of Massachusetts have an enduring respect for tradition, taking pride in their state's key role in America's history. Today, on the very streets where colonists once walked, men and women work at the forefront of modern technology. As the people reach for their future, they cherish their ties to the past and keep their traditions alive. A story long ago about cows still walks on the Boston Common, a reminder to a new generation of children of how their state began than three centuries ago.
Covering 8,284 square miles, Massachusetts ranks forty-fifth in size among the states.