The First Seventeen Years: Virginia 1607-1624 Part 2

Despite domestic tobacco, however, and the favor of Spanish leaf, the Virginia product, cheaper than the Spanish, began to win friendly users in London and in the other cities. To meet the demand and to produce profits, the young colony all but abandoned other industries and even its staples, to the concern of the Company, for the cultivation of "the weed." Soon governors were taking measures to restrict planting in the interest of producing foodstuffs and in defending themselves. Captain Samuel Argall, who came to Jamestown in 1617, is said to have found "but five or six houses, the church downe, the palizado's broken, the bridge in pieces, the well of fresh water spoiled; the store-house ... used for the church; the marketplace, and streets, and all other spare places planted with tobacco; the salvages as frequent in their homes as themselves, whereby they were become expert in our armes ... the Colonie dispersed all about planting Tobacco." In 1617 Virginia exported some 20,000 pounds, in 1619 this had doubled and in 1629, only a decade and a half after the first shipment, the total reached 1,500,000 pounds.

Thus, a new trade and industry were born in the Colony. Tobacco proved to be the economic salvation of Virginia, and provided a means that brought land into use and made slavery profitable. Tobacco and slavery together led to the development of important characteristics of the whole social, political, and economic structure of the Old South. One of the immediate effects of tobacco culture in Virginia was the impetus it gave to the expansion of the area of settlement and to the number of settlers coming to Virginia.

YEARDLEY AND ARGALL

When Dale departed Virginia in May, 1616 there was more security, stability, good management, deeper understanding of the new land, and a keener knowledge of survival than had existed prior to this date. Even so, at this time only about 350 of all the hundreds of persons who had come to the Colony had managed to stay alive and remained here.

Captain George Yeardley was left in charge, seemingly having been appointed directly by Dale. Under him, it was reported, "the Colony lived in peace and best plentie that ever it was to that time." He very probably was glad to see the supply ship that came in October, 1616.

Various kinds of provisions from it were exchanged with the colonists for their tobacco. It was this ship, too, that brought Abraham Piercey who, as "cape-merchant," took over the management of the Company's store in Virginia.

But all was not peace. Yeardley had soon to deal with the Chickahominies who objected to their payment of "tribute corn." This was soon resolved to the satisfaction of the Governor. Later there was friendly exchange with the Indians even, it seems, to the extent of training some in the use of firearms for hunting purposes and "There were divers ... [that]

had savages in like manner for their men." Perhaps, there was too much familiarity for later well being.

In May, 1618 Argall returned to Virginia as deputy governor in charge.

He seemingly, with "sense and industry," began to renovate the disrepair he found, particularly at Jamestown. He was the first to prescribe the limits of Jamestown as well as of "the _corporation_ and _parish_" of which it was the chief seat. He soon re-established good relations with Opechancanough now the dominant Indian personality. He was hampered by a great drought and a severe storm that damaged corn and tobacco, and he sought to control profit and tobacco prices by proclamation. Moreover, he was the author of a policy of watchfulness and carefulness in individual relationships with the Indians.

Eventually, however, Argall was severely criticized and accused of the misappropriation of Company resources. He was charged, too, with a host of private wrongs to particular persons, wrongs accompanied by high-handed actions. Much in disfavor, he slipped away from the Colony a matter of days before the new Governor, Sir George Yeardley again, reached Virginia in April, 1619.

It was early in the Yeardley-Argall three year span (1616-19) that a new form of settlement began to take root in Virginia. This was that of the particular plantation. No new Company communities had been, or would be, added to the "four ancient boroughs" ("Incorporations") already established, yet many would rise as the result of the enterprise, expenditure, and direction of special ("particular") persons, or groups, within the Company or having the sanction of it. Such settlements were known as particular plantations.

Resulting settlements spread east and west along the James and outward along its rivers and creeks as well. Jamestown lay approximately in the center of an expanding and growing Colony. It was the center of one of the four initial Incorporations and it was more. It developed into one of the original Virginia shires in 1634. This shire, a decade later, became a county. James City County continues as the oldest governing unit in English America. Jamestown was its chief seat, Virginia's capital town and the princ.i.p.al center of the Colony's social and political life. In size it remained small, yet it was intimately and directly related to all of the significant developments of Virginia in the period.

There is strong evidence that Jamestown was the first to feel the impact of the advantages and fruits that growth produced. Material progress is evident as early as 1619 in the letter of John Pory, Secretary of the Colony, written from Virginia late in that year:

Nowe that your lordship may knowe, that we are not the veriest beggars in the worlde, our cowekeeper here of James citty on Sunday goes accowtered all in freshe flaming silke; and a wife of one that in England had professed the black arte, not of a schollar, but of a collier of Croydon, weares her rought bever hatt with a faire perle hatband, and a silken suite thereto correspondent.

But it is good to remember, perhaps, that Virginia was still not the perfect paradise. On March 15, 1619 a letter reaching England reported sad news and very likely not unusual news--"about 300 of the Inhabitants ... died this last yeare."

A NEW APPROACH

In 1618 there were internal changes and dissensions in the Virginia Company that led to the resignation of Sir Thomas Smith, as Treasurer, and to the election of Sir Edwin Sandys as his successor. This roughly corresponded to changes in Company policy toward the administration of the Colony and to intensified efforts to develop Virginia. It led to the abolition of martial law, to the establishment of property ownership, to greater individual freedom and partic.i.p.ation in matters of government and to the intensification of economic effort. The program was prompted by a desire to make the Virginia enterprise a financial success, to increase the population, and to make the Colony attractive as well as to give the colonists more of a sense of partic.i.p.ation.

Sir George Yeardley, recently knighted, returned to Virginia as Governor, in April 1619, and was the first spokesman in the Colony for the new policy toward Virginia. In England it had been ably advanced on behalf of the Colony by Sir Edwin Sandys, the Earl of Southampton, and John and Nicholas Ferrar.

Land was one of the great sources of wealth in Virginia and soon after early commercial enterprise failed, was recognized as such. Its acquisition became a prime objective. Initially the Company had determined that no land would be a.s.signed to planters, or adventurers, until the expiration of a seven year period. And this period was in actual practice delayed. The first real, or general, "division" was provided for in 1618 and this became effective in Virginia in 1619.

It was recognized that there were several groups meriting land. First came the Company and its investors. The second was the particular hundreds and plantations sponsored and belonging to private adventurers joined in investing groups in England. The third was composed of individual planters who lived and resided in Virginia. Yeardley came armed with instructions to effect the division. The boundaries of the four Incorporations (James City, Charles City, Henrico and Kecoughtan) were to be fixed and public lands for the support of their officers and churches were to be set aside as well as tracts for Company officials in Virginia and others for Company use and profit. The consolidation of all settlements into the four listed "Cities or Burroughs" was soon consummated.

Two cla.s.sifications of planters were noted--those who came to Virginia before Dale departed in 1616 and those who came later. The first group, called "ancient planters," may have been Virginia's first "aristocracy."

Each such person with three years of residence was ent.i.tled to 100 acres as a "first division." Those having come to Virginia after Dale's departure were in a different position. If they had come, or were to come, at their own charge they were to obtain only fifty acres at the "first division." If transported by the Company they were first to serve as "tenants" on the Company's land for a term of seven years.

All grants it was specified would "be made with equal favour except the differency of rent." Rent proved to be a diverse term covering tobacco, capons, merchantable Indian corn and such. Rent payments were a matter of concern and led the planters in the a.s.sembly of 1619 to pet.i.tion for the appointment of an officer in Virginia to receive them. Payment to the Company in London, in money, was described as impossible.

All tracts, including those allotted prior to the general division, now would have to be laid off and surveyed. The prescribing of bounds became a necessity to resolve existing, and to prevent future, uncertainties and disputes. This was to be the function of William Claiborne, surveyor-general, who reached Virginia in October, 1621.

Headrights were another matter which entered the picture in these formative years. This began as a device, a good one it proved to be, used by the Company to stimulate immigration and settlement in Virginia.

It allowed any person who paid his own way to the Colony to receive fifty acres for his own "personal adventure." In addition he could collect fifty acres for each person whose pa.s.sage he paid. If a person brought himself and three others, for example, he could claim 200 acres under this arrangement. This headright system was later adopted in other colonies and continued in use for generations.

The early success of the land division can be seen, perhaps, in the report of John Rolfe written in January, 1620:

All the ancient planters being sett free have chosen places for their dividendes according to the commission, Which giveth all greate content, for now knowing their owne landes, they strive and are prepared to build houses & to cleere their groundes ready to plant, which giveth ... [them] greate incouragement, and the greatest hope to make the Colony florrish that ever yet happened to them.

Partic.i.p.ation in the affairs of government was another element in the new Company approach. Soon after his arrival, Yeardley issued a call for the first representative legislative a.s.sembly in America which convened at Jamestown on July 30, 1619, and remained in session until August 4.

This was the beginning of our present system of representative government. The full intent behind the moves that led to this historic meeting may never be known. It seems to have been another manifestation of the determination to give those Englishmen in America the rights and privileges of Englishmen at home that had been guaranteed to them in the original Company charter. It seems to be this rather than a planned attempt to establish self-government in the New World on a scale that might have been in violation of English law and custom at the time.

Whatever the motive, the significance of this meeting in the church at Jamestown remains the same. This body of duly chosen representatives of the people has continued in existence and its evolution leads directly to our State legislatures and to the Congress of the United States.

Circ.u.mstances seemed to prevent the annual meeting of the a.s.sembly even though this was initially intended. Possibly, although it is not clear, the a.s.sembly met in March, 1620. There was a session after the arrival of Governor Wyatt in October, 1621 although little is known of its actions. The next session of record was in the late winter of 1624 and of this some papers have survived. At the time the dissolution of the Company seemed to be sensed and the Burgesses acted carefully. Much of the session was devoted to answering questions relative to the state of the Colony. The a.s.sembly went on record, too, denouncing the so-called autocratic government that existed in Virginia prior to 1619. There was, however, refusal to a.s.sociate its name with an attack on the Company and it would not send its papers to England by the investigating commissioners. Instead they were sent by a representative of the a.s.sembly's choice. The status of the General a.s.sembly under the King, when Virginia became a royal colony, was, for sometime, undefined and even its continuation was, perhaps, doubtful. It did, nonetheless, survive to become a chief instrument of government.

In the social field the Company had recognized that homes, children and family life make for stability and now steps were taken to do something about it. To this end, in November 1619, a program was launched to increase the emigration of women to Virginia. Many had already come to contribute greatly to the Colony's welfare, the first two in 1608; and family life was already very much a reality. The male percentage of the population was, however, still much too high.

The first of the "maids" sent in this new program reached Virginia in late May and early June, 1620 seemingly to the benefit of both "maids"

and eligible bachelors. In 1621 it was reported that in December the _Warwick_ arrived with "an extraordinary choice lot [of] thirty-eight maids for wives."

Earlier, in August 1619, there had been another event, this an unplanned one, when a group of negroes were brought to the Colony out of the West Indies and sold from the ship which brought them for "victualls." This created little attention at the time. Evidently these newcomers found themselves bound for a time as servants rather than as slaves. The matter of ma.s.s negro slavery with its profitableness in the tobacco economy was, as yet, decades away. This event of 1619, however, may properly be noted as the first move in this direction.

Immigration to the Colony continued to increase including even a number of English youths, and measures were taken to meet the religious and educational needs of the settlers. This was the period that saw the attempt to establish a college at Henrico.

The reorganized Virginia Company, following its political changes, renewed its efforts to expand the Colony and to stimulate profitable employment. Heavy emphasis was placed on crop diversification and on the establishment of a number of new industries including forest products, wine, iron and gla.s.s, the latter attempted a second time possibly on Gla.s.shouse Point just outside of Jamestown Island. The planting of mulberry trees and the growing of silkworms were advanced by the dispatch of treatises on silk culture as well as silkworm eggs in a project in which King James I himself had a personal interest.

The industrial and manufacturing efforts of these years, however, were not destined to succeed. This condition was not due to any laxity on the part of George Sandys, resident Treasurer in Virginia, who was something of an economic on-the-spot supervisor for the Company. Virginia could not yet support these projects profitably, and interest was lacking on the part of the planters who found in tobacco a source of wealth superior to anything else that had been tried. It was the profit from tobacco that supported the improved living conditions that came throughout the Colony.

These Englishmen who came to settle in the wilderness retained their desire for the advantages of life in England. Books, for example, were highly valued, and with the pa.s.sage of the years were no uncommon commodity in Virginia. As early as 1608, Rev. Robert Hunt had a library at Jamestown, which was consumed by fire in January of that year. Each new group of colonists seemingly added to the store on hand: _Bibles_, _Books of Common Prayer_, other religious works, medical and scientific treatises, legal publications, accounts of gardening, and such. There was local literary effort, too, such as that by Treasurer George Sandys who continued his celebrated translation of Ovid's _Metamorphoses_ in the house of William Pierce at Jamestown.

YEARDLEY AND WYATT

Yeardley, having inst.i.tuted the measures of the "Greate Charter,"

continued to serve as Governor until November 18, 1621. His was a good administration, yet it was not without criticism. There was some unfavorable comment on his negotiations relative to Indian lands as well as in the arrangement of various government fees. With so many personal and private interests in so many of the individual settlements, it is remarkable that he did not get into difficulties of a more serious nature. Even when Sir Francis Wyatt relieved him as governor, he continued on as a Councilor and was later to be Governor again. He had been at the helm when Virginia enjoyed, perhaps, its best three years to date--1619-21.

His successor, Wyatt, proved as popular and even survived the dissolution of the Company. Wyatt, as others before and others to follow, found the governorship to be expensive. It is reported that he spent 1,000 in less than two years. Both Yeardley and Wyatt resided at Jamestown from which, for the most part, they directed Colony affairs.

Here they maintained a most impressive establishment with their wives, children and indentured servants including some of the negroes now resident in the Colony.

It is in the 1619 to 1624 period that the first clear picture of at least a part of the physical town of Jamestown emerges, for this period corresponds with the earliest known property records that exist. The town had outgrown the original fort in some years past and now appeared as a fairly flourishing settlement. The records reveal that many of the property owners were yeomen, merchants, carpenters, hog-raisers, farmers, joiners, shopkeepers, and ordinary "fellows," as well as colonial officials. The "New Town" section of James City developed in this period as the old section proved too small and the residents began to build more substantial houses, princ.i.p.ally frame on brick foundations. Even so, the town was far from that of a city, perhaps, only a village at best. It was, nonetheless, as close to a hub of political, social, and economic life as completely rural Virginia had.

It was the Colony's capital in every sense.

The population figures taken in these years give a good idea of the size of Jamestown in this period. In February 1624, it is recorded that 183 persons were living in Jamestown and 35 others on the Island outside of the town proper. These are listed by name, as are the 87 who had died between April 1623 and the following February. In the "census" of January 1625 there was a total of 124 residents listed for "James Citty"

and an additional 51 for the Island. The over-all total of 175 included some 122 males and 53 females.

Aside from the population statistics, the musters of January 1625 give much more information. Jamestown had a church, a court-of-guard (guardhouse), 3 stores (probably storehouses), a merchant's store, and 33 houses. Ten of the Colony's 40 boats were here, including a skiff, a "shallop" of 4 tons, and a "barque" of 40 tons. There were stores of fish, 24,880 pounds to be exact, corn, peas, and meal. There were four pieces of ordnance, supplies of powder, shot and lead, and, for individual use, "fixt peeces," snaphances, pistols, seventy swords, coats of mail, quilted coats, and thirty-five suits of armor. The bulk of the Colony's livestock seems to have been localized in the Jamestown area, about half (183) of the cattle, a little more than half (265) of the hogs, and well over half (126) of the goats. The one horse listed for the Colony was shown to have been at Jamestown, but in this category the "census" must have been deficient. Even in 1616 there had been 3 horses and 3 mares.

The ma.s.sacre and its aftermath and the investigation and dissolution of the Company dominated the Virginia scene in Wyatt's first three year term as Governor. These things should not, perhaps, becloud the continued expansion and growth of the Colony that resumed after the fateful year of 1622 when the ma.s.sacre was followed, in the summer, with disease along the James and then by the more specific plague.

It was on March 22, 1622 that the great catastrophe struck Virginia in the form of the well planned and carefully executed ma.s.sacre by the Indians under the crafty leadership of Opechancanough, successor to Powhatan. Although the consequences were not enough to threaten the survival of the Colony, they were deeply serious. At least a fourth, if not a third, of all residents lay dead at the end of a single day. Many plantations were abandoned and safety and security became the princ.i.p.al order of the day. It spelled the end of numerous projects such as the production of iron and of enterprises such as the attempt to found a college. Jamestown, given timely warning because of the loyalty of an Indian, Chanco, to his master, saw no damage. In this respect it was one of only a few such areas. It did, however, see some resulting congestion as survivors came in from distant, and even nearby, communities.

Regrouping, reorganization and revenge followed after the initial shock was over. Punishment of the Indians occupied the center of the stage for months. In January, 1623, however, the Governor and his Council could report in answer to Company inquiries, some of which were critical of Colony operations, that "We have antic.i.p.ated your desires by settinge uppon the Indians in all places." Directed by the Governor from Jamestown, George Sandys, Sir George Yeardley, Capt. John West, Capt.

William Powell and others led expeditions against the various native tribes. "In all which places we have slaine divers, burnte theire townes, destroyde theire wears [weirs] & corne." The seizure of considerable additional mature corn, likewise, was a blow to the Indian and a help to the English. The Indian had been brought to heel, yet he was still not impotent, a fact that the colonists now well recognized and of which they had occasional reminder as when Capt. Henry Spelman and his party were slain in April, 1623.