Capitalistic Ventures Establish England’s First Colony, Jamestown While France and Holland were starting New World colonies, the English had not been idle. Although Sir Walter Raleigh’s Roanoke colony had failed, his idea of planting “a new English nation” in North America continued to fire the imagination of the English. They knew, however, that Raleigh had lost a fortune on his ventures. And a great deal of money would be needed to finance any new attempt at settlement. A way was needed to combine the resources of many people to share the financial risks. Joint-­‐Stock Companies Raise Money for Colonies The answer was a new kind of business organization called the joint-­‐stock company in which many individuals could invest small amounts of money. The joint-­‐stock company—the ancestor of the modern corporation—was already proving highly successful in raising large amounts of capital for trading companies such as British East India Company. Why not allow investors to buy shares in companies formed for the purpose of planting colonies in America? With these ideas in mind, a group of London and Plymouth merchants went to King James in 1606. The king gave them a charter, which allowed them to form two Virginia companies. The Virginia Company of Plymouth was given the right to colonize along the Atlantic coast of North America from Chesapeake Bay north to the present-­‐day Maine. The Virginia Company of London was granted the area south from the Chesapeake Bay to Spanish Florida. The Plymouth Company made only one unsuccessful attempt at colonization: the Popham Colony the coast of Maine. But the London Company began a movement of people across the seas, which in time brought wealth and power to England—and resulted in the birth of the United States of America. An Unpromising Beginning On a gray December day in 1606 three small ships carrying 120 men left London and drifted down the Thames River bound for America. From the dock, friends and relatives waved hats and scarves in gesture of farewell. Little did anyone realize the perils this small group of Virginia colonists faced in the days ahead. Trouble began almost at once. Bad weather kept the ships along the English coast until mid-­‐
February. Rather than brave the North Atlantic in the winter, the little ships took the southern route of Columbus, stopping at several places in the West Indies before steering north. It was not until early May that they sighted the Virginia coast. Some 16 of those who left London died during the voyage. Five months squeezed together in cramped quarters made everyone edgy. Fights broke out, and one of the men, John Smith, was placed in irons and held prisoner below deck for much of the trip. The difficulties of the voyage soon faded when the colonists caught sight of Virginia and began sailing slowly up a broad river, which they called the James in honor of their king. It was spring-­‐
time. The dogwood was in bloom, filling the air with a sweet fragrance. Wild strawberries, far sweeter than those that grew in English gardens, were ripening on the hillsides. The banks of the river were a brilliant carpet of flowers. Everywhere there were marvels to greet the eye in this earthly paradise. The settlers chose a spot 30 miles upstream from the coast to lay out their settlement. To further honor their king they decided to call it Jamestown. The location seemed at first to be ideal. It was on a narrow peninsula that had a commanding view of the river. Defense would be easy because the peninsula became an island at high tide. The men began at once building a fort to guard against Spanish attack. The colonists discovered too late that because of the low ground, the well water was brackish and polluted. Although they did not know it, the marshes and swamps nearby were a breeding ground for disease-­‐carrying mosquitoes. Over the next few years scores of colonists died of malaria and typhoid. Orders from Home Before colonists left England, the directors of the London Company gave them a sealed box that contained instructions to be opened on arrival. In addition to a list of seven men who were to be the Southern Indians preparing for a feast.
Engraving by Theodore DeBry, 1590.
leaders of the colony, the instructions listed three duties for these colonists: 1) They were to search for gold and other valuable minerals. 2) They were to explore the surrounding area for the Northwest Passage to the Pacific Ocean, which was thought to be nearby. 3) They were to convert the Indians to Christianity. The company also laid down a rule that the colonists were to hold all their goods in common. No one was to own anything, and all were to work for the common good. They were to receive only the food and supplies they needed. Disaster Strikes Much time and energy was wasted looking for gold and for the supposed waterway to Asia. (Indian cities of gold and the Northwest Passage did not exist in North America.) The time would have been better spent laying in a supply of food and building snug homes that would be needed during the coming winter. None of these things were done, and the result was near disaster. The company had not chosen well in picking the men who were to start the colony. Many of the settlers were English “gentlemen,” which meant they had never done any manual labor. Men from this class had no idea what was needed to survive in the wilderness. They expected the company to feed them and take care of their needs while they looked for gold. John Smith Takes Command The man who saved Jamestown was the same John Smith who had arrived in disgrace. Once in America his luck quickly changed. When the company’s box of instructions was opened, Smith learned that he was to be one of seven leaders. At first, the other six would not allow John Smith to serve, but soon his natural leadership talents won out. Smith was one of those rare men of action who can size up a situation and see what has to be done and then make sure that it gets done. A young man of 27, he had been chosen by the company because of his military background. Although denied his council seat, Smith soon had the men working, cutting logs for the protective fort. He then began to explore the surrounding countryside with an eye in protecting the settlement against attack by the Indians or possibly by the Spanish, who had settled St. Augustine. He also, of course, looked for gold and for the Northwest Passage that was on everyone’s mind. One of his scouting trips he fell into the hands of Powhatan, chief of a confederation of 34 tribes. Smith was about to be clubbed to death when—according to legend—Powhatan’s 12-­‐year-­‐
old daughter, Pocahontas, came to his rescue and brought about his release. John Smith’s greatest service to Jamestown came during his first two years, when it seemed that disease and starvation would wipe out the little settlement. Only 38 of the original colonists survived the first winter. During this crisis period, the members of the council were divided, unable to act. At this point, Smith took over complete control. He used his influence with Indians to obtain corn to feed the starving. He sent men out under armed guard to fish and gather oysters. He introduced strict military discipline to end the bickering among the colonists. He marched the men out in the morning in small groups to clear fields, plant crops, and build additional fortifications. John Smith (left) and a modern painting of Jamestown’s marketplace in 1619.
“The Starving Time” In 1608 and 1609 about 500 new settlers joined the colony. But it was still in trouble when Smith was injured in a gunpowder explosion in 1609 and returned to England to recover. Before he left, he had shown the settlers that strict discipline and hard work were necessary to their survival. Unfortunately, however, worse times were still ahead for Jamestown. The winter after John Smith left was so bad that those who survived always looked back on it as “the starving time.” Only 60 of the 500 settlers lived through this terrible winter. When spring came, the survivors decided to give up the losing battle and return to England. But the timely arrival of a relief ship bringing more settlers and needed supplies changed their minds. A new charter in 1609 reorganized the colony, giving it a more effective rule under a single governor. The new charter also added more territory to the original grant. From The Archives
Jamestown’s “Starving Time” Within six months after Captain Smith’s departure,
there remained not past 60 men, women, and children,
most miserable and poor creatures; and those were
preserved, for the most part, by roots, herbs, acorns,
walnuts, berries, now and then a little fish. So great
was our famine that a savage we slew and buried, the
poorer sort took him up again and eat him. And one
amongst the rest did kill his wife, and had eaten part
of her before it was known, for which he was executed.
This was that time, which still to this day we
called the starving time; it were too vile to say and
scarce to be believed, what we endured. But the
occasion was our own for want of providence, industry,
and government, and not the barrenness and defect of
the country, as is generally supposed. This in ten
days more, would have supplanted us all with death.
But God that would not this country should be
uplanted, sent Sir Thomas Gates, and Sir George
Sommers with 150 people to preserve us.
From John Smith, General Historie of Virginia, 1624. Language and spelling modernized. Tobacco Saves the Colony What Jamestown needed to survive as a colony and make a profit for the London Company investors was a marketable product. It found such a product in tobacco, which had been introduced into Europe by the Spanish and had become popular in England. The Indians in the Virginia area grew tobacco for their own use, but it had a bitter taste and did not appeal to the English. One of the colonists, John Rolfe, introduced a milder tobacco plant from the West Indies. It grew well in Virginia and was easily sold in England for a good profit. Antismoking cartoon, 1640
Soon tobacco was growing everywhere, even in the streets of Jamestown. Rolfe’s discovery brought prosperity to Virginia. He later married Pocahontas, thereby softening for a time the bitterness of Powhatan against the colonists. By 1619, Jamestown was prospering from the tobacco trade. Every ship from England brought new settlers, many of them skilled craftworkers. New liberal policies introduced by the London Company in 1618 gave each male newcomer who paid his own passage of a 50-­‐acre grant of land. The earlier ban on owning property was lifted, and with this new incentive the economy began to boom. Among new arrivals in 1619 were some 60 unmarried women, sent over by the company to find husbands among the settlers. Until then there were very few women in the colony. Growing numbers of families soon added another element of stability in the Virginia colony. Despite a plague that took the lives of almost 4,000 settlers between 1619 and 1624 and a terrible Indian massacre in 1622 that killed 347 more, the colony survived and slowly expanded. Indentured Servants in Virginia As the Virginia colony expanded, much of the labor needed to cultivate the fields of tobacco was provided by men and women who came to Virginia as indentured servants. An indentured servant was a person who had signed an agreement to work for a master for three to seven years in return for passage for America. Often the services of newly arrived indentured servants were sold to plantation owners at auction. When their period of indenture was up they were free. Slavery was not part of the Virginia labor system in these early years. The first blacks to arrive in Virginia were bought in 1619 by a Dutch captain who had seized them from a Spanish slave ship. He sold them to Virginians, who treated them like other indentured servants, freeing them after a number of years. Other blacks who arrived in the early years of the colony were treated the same way. It was not until after 1650 that blacks were brought to Virginia for sale as slaves. Self-­‐Government Begins to Develop When the London Company liberalized its policies in 1618, it decided to allow some of the settlers in Jamestown a voice in the government of the colony. The male colonists who owned land were allowed to elect representatives to an assembly. The assembly, later called the House of Burgesses, was to help the governor and his advisers make laws for Jamestown. Thus it was that on a steaming hot day in July 1619, twenty-­‐two newly elected members of the House of Burgesses crowded into the log church in Jamestown to meet with the governor and his council. They took part in the first meeting of a freely elected representatives body in the colonies. The London Company’s new liberal policy was the work of investors who were prominent in English politics and who were eager to limit arbitrary government whether it was the king in England or the governor in Virginia. They also took the occasion to assure the settlers that in the future they would be governed by English law and would have all the “rights of Englishmen.” This was good news in Jamestown. In the original charter of 1606, the London Company had promised that settlers in Virginia would have all the rights they enjoyed in England. But during the difficult early years at Jamestown, this promise had not been kept. The “Rights of Englishmen” The “Rights of Englishmen” was a phrase that had been around a long time. Ever since 1215 when the English barons forced King John to grant a charter of liberties called the Magna Carta, few English rulers had dared to govern as absolute rulers. According to the Magna Carta, kings and queens had to obey the laws and customs of the land like anyone else. To see that the rulers lived up to this idea, the English developed a council called Parliament.* While Parliament was not originally a democratic body, it continued to meet down through the centuries, frequently preventing kings and queens from overstepping their authority. It was of very great importance that English colonist took with them to the New World these same guarantees against absolute rule. As we have seen, the colonists in New Spain and New France had no such rights. No council like Parliament existed in Spain or France. The absolutism of their rulers was extended to the New World colonies. With no say in their own affairs, Spanish and French colonists lacked the incentives that the English colonists enjoyed. For this reason more than any other, the English colonies soon outstripped all others in population and wealth. England’s House of Commons in the 1600’s
Virginia Becomes a Royal Colony The reforms introduced by the London Company brought lasting benefits to Virginia. But they did not solve the company’s financial problems. A fortune in investors’ money had been poured into Virginia to outfit supply ships and help settlers survive the bad times. Just when the future looked brighter because of the success of the tobacco plantations, the company ran into serious political troubles at home. The English ruler, King James I, believed in absolutism, even though he dared not to practice in it. Thus he did not like the new policies of the company in Virginia. Some of the London merchants were the king’s enemies in Parliament. Therefore, in 1624, the king decided to revoke the company’s charter and make Virginia a royal colony under his direct control. He did not, however, disturb the assembly created in 1619. In the future, the governor was appointed by the king rather than by the London Company. But the elected House of Burgesses continued to meet and assist in making the laws for Virginia. * Parliament (parliament): The national
lawmaking body of representatives in Great
Britain, consisting of the House of Lords and
the House of Commons.