History of the Colony and Ancient Dominion of Virginia Part 1

History of the Colony and Ancient Dominion of Virginia.

by Charles Campbell.

PREFACE.

Although Virginia must be content with a secondary and unpretending rank in the general department of history, yet in the abundance and the interest of her historical materials, she may, without presumption, claim pre-eminence among the Anglo-American colonies. While developing the rich resources with which nature has so munificently endowed her, she ought not to neglect her past, which teaches so many useful lessons, and carries with it so many proud recollections. Her doc.u.mentary history, lying, much of it, scattered and fragmentary, in part slumbering in the dusty oblivion of Transatlantic archives, ought to be collected with pious care, and embalmed in the perpetuity of print.

The work now presented to the reader will be found to be written in conformity with the following maxim of Lord Bacon: "It is the office of history to represent the events themselves, together with the counsels, and to leave the observations and conclusions thereupon, to the liberty and faculty of every man's judgment."

I avail myself of this occasion to express my acknowledgments to Hugh B.

Grigsby, Esq., (who has contributed so much to the ill.u.s.tration of Virginia history by his own writings,) for many valuable suggestions, and for having undergone the trouble of revising a large part of the ma.n.u.script of this work.

PETERSBURG, VA., _September 2d, 1859_.

HISTORY OF THE COLONY

AND

ANCIENT DOMINION OF VIRGINIA.

CHAPTER I.

1492-1591.

Early Voyages of Discovery--Sir Humphrey Gilbert--Walter Raleigh--Expedition of Amadas and Barlow--They land on Woc.o.kon Island--Return to England--The New Country named Virginia--Grenville's Expedition--Colony of Roanoke--Lane, Governor--The Colony abandoned--Tobacco--Grenville returns to Virginia--Leaves a small Colony at Roanoke--Sir Walter Raleigh sends out another Expedition--City of Raleigh chartered--White, Governor--Roanoke found deserted--Virginia Dare, first Child born in the Colony--White returns for Supplies--The Armada-- Raleigh a.s.signs the Colony to a Company--White returns to Virginia--Finds the Colony extinct--Death of Sir Richard Grenville--Gosnold's Voyage to New England.

THE discoveries attributed by legendary story to Madoc, the Welsh prince, have afforded a theme for the creations of poetry; those of the Northmen of Iceland, better authenticated, still engage the dim researches of antiquarian curiosity. To Columbus belongs the glory of having made the first certain discovery of the New World, in the year 1492; but it was the good fortune of the Cabots to be the first who actually reached the main land. In 1497, John Cabot, a Venetian merchant, who had become a resident of Bristol in England, with his son Sebastian, a native of that city, having obtained a patent from Henry the Seventh, sailed under his flag and discovered the main continent of America, amid the inhospitable rigors of the wintry North. It was subsequent to this that Columbus, in his third voyage, set his foot on the main land of the South. In the following year, Sebastian Cabot again crossed the Atlantic, and coasted from the fifty-eighth degree of north lat.i.tude, along the sh.o.r.es of the United States, perhaps as far as to the southern boundary of Maryland. Portuguese, French, and Spanish navigators now visited North America.

Dreadful circ.u.mstances attended the foundation of the ancient St.

Augustine. The blood of six hundred French Protestant refugees has sanctified the ground at the mouth of St. John's River, where they were murdered "not as Frenchmen, but as heretics," by the ruthless Adelantado of Florida, Pedro Menendez, in the year 1565.

In the summer of the ensuing year he sent a captain, with thirty soldiers and two Dominican monks, "to the bay of Santa Maria, which is in the lat.i.tude of thirty-seven degrees," together with the Indian brother of the cacique, or chief of Axacan, (who had been taken thence by the Dominicans, and baptized at Mexico, by the name of the Viceroy Don Luis de Velasco,) to settle there, and undertake the conversion of the natives. But this expedition sailed to Spain instead of landing.

This region of Axacan comprised the lower part of the present State of North Carolina. The Spanish sound of the word is very near that of Woc.o.kon, the name of the place, according to its English p.r.o.nunciation, where the colony sent out by Raleigh subsequently landed.[18:A]

In the year 1570 Father Segura and other Jesuit missionaries, accompanied by Don Luis, visited Axacan, but were treacherously cut off by him. In the same year, or the following, the Spaniards repaired to the place of their murder and avenged their death.[18:B]

In 1573 Pedro Menendez Morquez, Governor of Florida, explored the Bay of Santa Maria, "which is three leagues wide, and is entered toward the northwest. In the bay are many rivers and harbors on both sides, in which vessels may anchor. Within its entrance on the south the depth is from nine to thirteen fathoms, (about five feet nine inches English,) and on the north side from five to seven; at two leagues from it in the sea, the depth is the same on the north and the south, but there is more sand within. In the channel there are from nine to thirteen fathoms; in the bay fifteen, ten, and six fathoms; and in some places the bottom cannot be reached with the lead." Barcia describes the voyage of Morquez from Santa Helena "to the Bay of Santa Maria, in the lat.i.tude of thirty-seven degrees and a half,"[19:A] and makes particular mention of the shoal running out from what is now Cape Lookout, and that near Cape Hatteras, the lat.i.tude and distances given leaving no doubt but that the Bay of Santa Maria is the same with the Chesapeake.[19:B] Ten years will probably include the period of these early Spanish visits to Axacan and the Chesapeake; and these explorations appear to have been unknown to the English, and Spain made no claim on account of them. Had she set forth any t.i.tle to Virginia, Gondomar would not have failed to urge it, and James the First would have been, probably, ready to recognize it.

In the year 1578 Sir Humphrey Gilbert obtained from Queen Elizabeth letters patent, authorizing him to discover and colonize remote heathen countries unpossessed by any Christian prince. After one or two unsuccessful expeditions, Sir Humphrey again set sail in 1583, from Plymouth, with a fleet of five small vessels. The largest of these, the bark Raleigh, was compelled in two days to abandon the expedition, on account of an infectious disease that broke out among the crew.

After Cabot's discovery, for many years the vessels of various flags had frequented the northern part of America for the purpose of fishing, and when Sir Humphrey reached St. John's Harbor, the thirty-six fishing vessels found there at first refused him admittance; but upon his exhibiting the queen's commission they submitted. He then entered the harbor, landed, and took formal possession of the country for the crown of England.

As far as time would admit, some survey of the country was made, the princ.i.p.al object of which was the discovery of mines and minerals; and the admiral listened with credulity to the promises of silver. The company being dispersed abroad, some were taken sick and died; some hid themselves in the woods, and others cut one of the vessels out of the harbor and carried her off. At length the admiral, having collected as many of his men as could be found, and ordered one of his vessels to remain and take off the sick, set sail with three vessels, intending to visit Cape Breton and the Isle of Sable; but one of his vessels being lost on a sand-bank, he determined to return to England. The Squirrel, in which he had embarked for the survey of the coast, was very small and heavily laden, yet this intrepid navigator persisted in remaining on board of her, notwithstanding the urgent entreaties of his friends in the other and larger vessel, the Hind; in reply to which, he declared, that he would not desert his little crew on the homeward voyage, after having with them pa.s.sed through so many storms and perils. And after proceeding three hundred leagues, the little bark, with the admiral and all her crew, was lost in a storm. When last seen by the company of the Hind, Sir Humphrey, although surrounded by imminent perils, was seated composedly on the deck with a book in his hand, and as often as they approached within hearing was heard to exclaim: "Be of good cheer, my friends; it is as near to heaven by sea as by land." At midnight the lights of the little vessel suddenly disappeared, and she was seen no more. Sir Humphrey Gilbert was descended from an ancient family in Devonshire; his father was Otho Gilbert, Esq., of Greenway, and his mother, Catharine, daughter of Sir Philip Champernon, of Modbury. He was educated at Oxford, and became distinguished for courage, learning, and enterprise. Appointed colonel in Ireland, he displayed singular energy and address. In the year 1571 he was a member of the House of Commons from Compton, his native place. He strenuously defended the queen's prerogative against the charge of monopoly, alleged by a Puritan member against an exclusive grant made to some merchants. He was the author of several publications on cosmography and navigation. Having attracted the attention of the queen in his boyhood, she at length knighted him, and gave him one of her maids of honor in marriage. When he was preparing for his voyage she sent him a golden anchor with a large pearl at the peak, which he ever after prized as a singular honor. Raleigh accompanied this present, which was sent through his hands with this letter: "I have sent you a token from her majesty--an anchor guided by a lady, as you see; and farther, her highness willed me to send you word that she wished you as great hap and safety to your ship as if herself were there in person, desiring you to have care of yourself as of that which she tendereth. Farther, she commandeth that you leave your picture with me."

Not daunted by the fate of his heroic kinsman, Raleigh adhered to the design of effecting a settlement in America, and being now high in the queen's favor, obtained letters patent for that purpose, dated March, 1584. Aided by some gentlemen and merchants, particularly by his gallant kinsman Sir Richard Grenville, and Mr. William Sanderson, who had married his niece, Raleigh succeeded in providing two small vessels.

These were put under the command of Captains Philip Amadas and Arthur Barlow. Barlow had already served with distinction under Raleigh in Ireland. The two vessels left the Thames in April, 1584, and pursuing the old circuitous route by the Canaries, reached the West Indies. After a short stay there they sailed north, and early in July, as they approached the coast of Florida, the mariners were regaled with the odors of flowers wafted from the fragrant sh.o.r.e. Amadas and Barlow, proceeding one hundred and twenty miles farther, landed on the Island of Woc.o.kon, in the stormy region of Cape Hatteras, one of a long series of narrow, low, sandy islands--breakwaters apparently designed by nature to defend the mainland from the fury of the ocean. The English took possession of the country in the queen's name. The valleys were wooded with tall cedars, overrun with vines hung in graceful festoons, the grapes cl.u.s.tering in rich profusion on the ground and trailing in the murmuring surges of the sea. For two days no inhabitant was seen; on the third a canoe with three men approached, one of whom was readily persuaded to come on board, and some presents gained his confidence.

Going away, he began to fish, and having loaded his canoe, returned, and dividing his cargo into two parts, signified that one was for the ship, the other for the pinnace. On the next day they were visited by some canoes, in which were forty or fifty men, among whom was Granganameo, the king's brother. The king Wingina himself lay at his chief town, six miles distant, confined by wounds received in a recent battle. At this town the English were hospitably entertained by Granganameo's wife. She was small, pretty, and bashful, clothed in a leathern mantle with the fur turned in; her long dark hair restrained by a band of white coral; strings of beads hung from her ears and reached to her waist. The manners of the natives were composed; their disposition seemed gentle; presents and traffic soon conciliated their good will. The country was called Wingandacoa.[22:A] The soil was productive; the air mild and salubrious; the forests abounded with a variety of sweet-smelling trees, and oaks superior in size to those of England. Fruits, melons, nuts, and esculent roots were observed; the woods were stocked with game, and the waters with innumerable fish and wild-fowl.

After having discovered the Island of Roanoke on Albemarle Sound, and explored as much of the interior as their time would permit, Amadas and Barlow sailed homeward, accompanied by two of the natives, Manteo and Wanchese. Queen Elizabeth, charmed with the glowing descriptions of the new country, which the enthusiastic adventurers gave her on their return, named it, in allusion to her own state of life, VIRGINIA. As. .h.i.therto all of North America as far as discovered was called Florida, so henceforth all that part of it lying between thirty-four and forty-five degrees of north lat.i.tude came to be styled Virginia, till gradually by different settlements it acquired different names.[22:B]

Raleigh was shortly after returned to Parliament from the County of Devon, and about the same time knighted. The queen granted him a patent to license the vending of wines throughout the kingdom. Such a monopoly was part of the arbitrary system of that day. Nor was Sir Walter unconscious of its injustice, for when, some years afterwards, a spirit of resistance to it showed itself in the House of Commons and a member was warmly inveighing against it, Sir Walter was observed to blush. He voted afterwards for the abolition of such monopolies, and no one could have made a more munificent use of such emoluments than he did in his efforts to effect the discovery and colonization of Virginia. He fitted out, in 1585, a fleet for that purpose, and entrusted the command to his relative, Sir Richard Grenville. This gallant officer, like Cervantes, shared in the famous battle of Lepanto, and after distinguishing himself by his conduct during the Irish rebellion, had become a conspicuous member of Parliament. He was accompanied by Thomas Cavendish, afterwards renowned as a circ.u.mnavigator of the globe; Thomas Hariot, a friend of Raleigh and a profound mathematician; and John Withe, an artist, whose pencil supplied materials for the ill.u.s.tration of the works of De Bry and Beverley. Late in June the fleet anch.o.r.ed at Woc.o.kon, but that situation being too much exposed to the dangers of the sea, they proceeded through Ocrac.o.c.k Inlet to the Island of Roanoke, (at the mouth of Albemarle Sound,) which they selected as the seat of the colony. The colonists, one hundred and eight in number, were landed there. Manteo, who had returned with them, had already been sent from Woc.o.kon to announce their arrival to his king, Wingina. Grenville, accompanied by Lane, Hariot, Cavendish and others, explored the coast for eighty miles southward, to the town of Secotan, in the present County of Craven, North Carolina. During this excursion the Indians, at a village called Aquascogoc, stole a silver cup, and a boat being dispatched to reclaim it, the terrified inhabitants fled to the woods, and the English, regardless alike of prudence and humanity, burned the town and destroyed the standing corn. Grenville in a short time re-embarked for England with a valuable cargo of furs, and on his voyage captured a rich Spanish prize.

Lane extended his discoveries to the northward, as far as the town of Chesapeakes, on Elizabeth River, near where Norfolk stands, and about one hundred and thirty miles from the Island of Roanoke. The Chowan River was also explored, and the Roanoke, then known below the falls as the Moratoc. Lane, although a good soldier, seems to have wanted some of the qualities indispensable in the founder of a new plantation. The Indians grew more hostile; conspiracies were entered into for the destruction of the whites, and the rash and b.l.o.o.d.y measures employed to defeat their machinations aggravated the mischief. The colonists, filled with alarm, became impatient to escape from a scene of so many privations and so much danger. Owing to a scarcity of provisions, Lane distributed the colonists at several places. At length Captain Stafford, who was stationed at Croatan, near Cape Lookout, descried twenty-three sail, which proved to be Sir Francis Drake's fleet. He was returning from a long cruise--belligerent, privateering, and exploratory--and, in obedience to the queen's orders, now visited the Colony of Virginia to render any necessary succor. Upon learning the condition of affairs, he agreed to furnish Lane with vessels and supplies sufficient to complete the discovery of the country and to insure a safe return home, should that alternative be found necessary. Just at this time a violent storm, raging for four days, dispersed and shattered the fleet, and drove out to sea the vessels that had been a.s.signed to Lane. The tempest at length subsiding, Drake generously offered Lane another vessel with supplies.

But the harbor not being of sufficient depth to admit the vessel, the governor, acquiescing in the unanimous desire of the colonists, requested permission for them all to embark in the fleet, and return to England. The request was granted; and thus ended the first actual settlement of the English in America.

During the year which the colony had pa.s.sed at Roanoke, Withe had made drawings from nature ill.u.s.trative of the appearance and habits of the natives; and Hariot had accurately observed the soil and productions of the country, and the manners and customs of the natives, an account of which he afterwards published, ent.i.tled, "A briefe and true report of the new found land of Virginia." He (Lane) and some others of the colonists learned from the Indians the use of a narcotic plant called by them uppowoc; by the English tobacco. The natives smoked it; sprinkled the dust of it on their fishing weirs, to make them fortunate; burned it in sacrifices to appease the anger of the G.o.ds, and scattered it in the air and on the water to allay the fury of the tempest. Lane carried some tobacco to England, supposed by Camden to have been the first ever introduced into that kingdom. Sir Walter Raleigh, by his example, soon rendered the use of this seductive leaf fashionable at court; and his tobacco-box and pipes were long preserved by the curiosity of antiquaries. It is related, that having offered Queen Elizabeth some tobacco to smoke, after two or three whiffs she was seized with a nausea, upon observing which some of the Earl of Leicester's faction whispered that Sir Walter had certainly poisoned her. But her majesty in a short while recovering, made the Countess of Nottingham and all her maids smoke a whole pipe out among them. It is also said that Sir Walter made a wager with the queen, that he could calculate the weight of the smoke evaporated from a pipeful of tobacco. This he easily won by weighing first the tobacco, and then the ashes, when the queen acknowledged that the difference must have gone off in smoke. Upon paying the wager, she gayly remarked, that "she had heard of many workers in the fire who had turned their gold into smoke, but that Sir Walter was the first that had turned his smoke into gold." Another familiar anecdote is, that a country servant of Raleigh's, bringing him a tankard of ale and nutmeg into his study as he was intently reading and smoking, was so alarmed at seeing clouds of smoke issuing from his master's mouth, that, throwing the ale into his face, he ran down stairs crying out that Sir Walter was on fire.

Sir Walter Raleigh never visited Virginia himself, although it has been so represented by several writers. Hariot's "Report of the new found land" was translated by a Frenchman[25:A] into Latin, and this translation refers to those "qui generosum D. Walterum Raleigh in eam regionem comitati sunt." The error of the translator in employing the words "comitati sunt," has been pointed out by St.i.th, and that error probably gave rise to the mistake which has been handed down from age to age, and is still prevalent. A few days after Drake's departure, a vessel arrived at Roanoke with supplies for the colony; but finding it abandoned, she set sail for England. Within a fortnight afterwards, Sir Richard Grenville, with three relief vessels fitted out princ.i.p.ally by Raleigh, arrived off Virginia; and, unwilling that the English should lose possession of the country, he left fifteen men on the island, with provisions for two years. These repeated disappointments did not abate Raleigh's indomitable resolution. During the ensuing year he sent out a new expedition of three vessels to establish a colony chartered by the t.i.tle of "The Governor and a.s.sistants of the City of Raleigh in Virginia." John White was sent out as governor with twelve counsellors, and they were directed to plant themselves at the town of Chesapeakes, on Elizabeth River. Reaching Roanoke near the end of July, White found the colony deserted, the bones of a man scattered on the beach, the fort razed, and deer couching in the desolate houses or feeding on the rank vegetation which had overgrown the floor and crept up the walls.

Raleigh's judicious order, instructing White to establish himself on the banks of Elizabeth River, was not carried into effect, owing to the refusal of Ferdinando, the naval-officer, to co-operate in exploring the country for that purpose.

One of the English having been slain by the savages, a party was dispatched to avenge his death, and by mistake unfortunately killed several of a friendly tribe. Manteo, by Raleigh's direction, was christened, and created Lord of Roanoke and Da.s.samonpeake. On the eighteenth of August, the governor's daughter, Eleanor, wife to Ananias Dare, one of the council, gave birth to a daughter, the first Christian child born in the country, and hence named _Virginia_. Dissensions soon arose among the settlers; and, although not in want of stores, some, disappointed in not finding the new country a paradise of indolent felicity, as they had fondly antic.i.p.ated, demanded permission to return home; others vehemently opposed; at length all joined in requesting White to sail for England, and to return thence with supplies. To this he reluctantly consented; and setting sail in August, 1587, from Roanoke, where he left eighty-nine men, seventeen women, and eleven children, he arrived in England on the fifth of November.

He found the kingdom wholly engrossed in taking measures of defence against the threatened invasion of the Spanish Armada, and Raleigh, Grenville, and Lane a.s.sisting Elizabeth in her council of war--a conjuncture most unpropitious to the interests of the infant colony.

Raleigh, nevertheless, found time even in this portentous crisis of public affairs to dispatch White with supplies in two vessels. But these, running after prizes, encountered privateers, and, after a b.l.o.o.d.y engagement, one of them was so disabled and plundered that White was compelled to put back to England, while it was impossible to refit, owing to the urgency of more important matters. But, even after the destruction of the Armada, Sir Walter Raleigh found it impracticable to prosecute any further his favorite design of establishing a colony in Virginia; and in 1589 he formed a company of merchants and adventurers, and a.s.signed to it his proprietary rights. This corporation included among its members Thomas Smith, a wealthy London merchant, afterwards knighted; and Richard Hakluyt, dean of Westminster, the compiler of a celebrated collection of voyages. He is said to have visited Virginia, and St.i.th gives it as his opinion that he must have come over in one of the last-mentioned abortive expeditions. Raleigh, at the time of making this a.s.signment, gave a hundred pounds for propagating Christianity among the natives of Virginia. After experiencing a long series of vexations, difficulties, and disappointments, he had expended forty thousand pounds in fruitless efforts for planting a colony in Virginia.

At length, disengaged from this enterprise, he indulged his martial genius, and bent all his energies against the colossal ambition of Spain, who now aspired to overshadow the world.

More than another year was suffered to elapse before White returned to search for the long-neglected colony. He had now been absent from it for three years, and felt the solicitude not only of a governor, but also of a parent. Upon his departure from Roanoke it had been concerted between him and the settlers, that if they should abandon that island for another seat, they should carve the name of the place to which they should remove on some conspicuous object; and if they should go away in distress, a cross should be carved above the name. Upon his arrival at Roanoke, White found not one of the colonists; the houses had been dismantled and a fort erected; goods had been buried in the earth, and in part disinterred and scattered; on a post within the fort the word CROATAN was carved, without a cross above it. The weather proving stormy, some of White's company were lost by the capsizing of a boat; the stock of provisions grew scanty; and no further search was then made. Raleigh, indeed, sent out parties in quest of them at five different times, the last in 1602, at his own charge; but not one of them made any search for the unfortunate colonists. None of them were ever found; and whether they perished by famine, or the Indian tomahawk, was left a subject of sad conjecture. The site of the colony was unfortunate, being difficult of access, and near the stormy Cape Hatteras, whose very name is synonymous with peril and shipwreck. Thus, after many n.o.bly planned but unhappily executed expeditions, and enormous expense of treasure and life, the first plantation of Virginia became extinct.

In the year 1591 Sir Richard Grenville fell, in a b.l.o.o.d.y action with a Spanish fleet near the Azores. Mortally wounded, he was removed on board one of the enemy's ships, and in two days died. In the hour of his death he said, in the Spanish language, to those around him: "Here I, Richard Grenville, die with a joyous and quiet mind, for that I have ended my life as a true soldier ought to do, fighting for his country, queen, religion, and honor, my soul willingly departing from this body, leaving behind the lasting fame of having behaved as every valiant soldier is in his duty bound to do." His dying words may recall to mind the familiar verses of Campbell's Lochiel:--

"And leaving in death no blot on my name, Look proudly to heaven for a death-bed of fame."

Sir Richard Grenville was, next to his kinsman, Sir Walter Raleigh, the princ.i.p.al person concerned in the first settlement of Virginia.

In 1602, the forty-third and last year of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, Captain Bartholomew Gosnold, deviating from the usual oblique route by the Canaries and the West Indies, made a direct voyage in a small bark across the Atlantic, and in seven weeks reached Ma.s.sachusetts Bay. It was on this occasion that Englishmen, for the first time, landed on the soil of New England. Gosnold returned to England in a short pa.s.sage of five weeks. In these early voyages the heroism of the navigators is the more admirable when we advert to the extremely diminutive size of their vessels and the comparative imperfection of nautical science at that day. Encouraged by Gosnold's success, the mayor, aldermen, and merchants of Bristol sent out an expedition under Captain Pring, in the same direction, in 1603, the year of the accession of James I. to the throne.

During the same year a bark was dispatched from London under Captain Bartholomew Gilbert, who fell in with the coast in lat.i.tude 37, and, as some authors say, ran up into the Chesapeake Bay, where the captain and four of his men were slain by the Indians.

In 1605 Captain Weymouth came over under the auspices of Henry, Earl of Southampton, and Lord Thomas Arundel.

FOOTNOTES:

[18:A] Memoir on the first discovery of the Chesapeake Bay. Communicated by Robert Greenhow, Esq., to the Virginia Historical Society, May, 1848, in Early Voyages to America, (edited by Conway Robinson, Esq., and published by the Society,) p. 486. Mr. Greenhow cites for authority the Ensayo Chronologico Para la Historia de la Florida of Barcia, (Cardenas.)

[18:B] MS. letter of John Gilmary Shea, Esq., author of "History of the Catholic Missions among the Indian Tribes of the United States," citing Barcia and Alegambe.

[19:A] "A 37 grados y medio." Alegambe says: "Axaca ab aequatore in Boream erecta 37."

[19:B] In a map found in a rare work, in French, dated 1676, ent.i.tled "Tourbe Ardante," shown me by Townsend Ward, Esq., Librarian of Pennsylvania Hist. Society, the Chesapeake is called St. Mary's Bay.