1610]

JOHN SMITH

35

book. His maps are so accurate and his account of Virginia so exhaustive, that most of his stories of personal adventure have passed current as true. Smith's personal history takes its chief interest from Pocahontas, thus suddenly introduced. She proved a true friend to the colony, supplying it with corn at a critical time. Later she became the wife of one of the colonists, John Rolfe, visited England, and was received at court as an Indian princess. Several distinguished families of Virginia claim descent from her. Smith found it easier to outwit the Indians and to map the country than to manage the colony. One morning a yellowish substance was discovered in the bed of the river. It was pronounced gold, and the little colony at once went mad over the discovery. Smith protested that it was not gold, but he was laughed to scorn. A ship was quickly loaded with the ore and sped away to England, where the shining earth was at once recognized as an ore of iron commonly called "fool's gold." While the Virginians were digging fool's gold, Champlain was exploring the Mohawk Valley and Lake Ontario.

About this time Smith was chosen president of the council, but his vigorous measures were unpopular. Having met with a serious accident, he returned to England for medical treatment. The company continued sending over ship-loads of colonists, but they did not bring prosperity. After Smith's retirement, the colony speedily came to want. Over four hundred persons died within six months. The few who remained, about sixty in number, looked daily for a ship that would take them home. One came, bringing colonists and supplies, but on learning the condition of affairs the captain took the survivors on board and turned the prow of the ship toward England. By a curious accident, the ship met Lord Delaware with a fleet coming up the river, and bringing colonists, cattle, supplies of all kinds, and a new charter creating him governor of Virginia. Thus in 1610 the colony was preserved, just as it was about to be abandoned. Delaware was a soldier and a stern man, and he was rapidly bringing the colony into a prosperous condition, when ill health compelled him to return to England. He came in June, 1610, and returned in the following March.

It was during these few months that the fate of the colony was settled. Its prosperity began. A sterner soldier, Sir Thomas Dale, succeeded him, and ruled the colony for five years with military discipline. Many of the colonists were of the criminal class, for the company was not particular about its immigrants. Dale broke up the communal system, and gave every man land to cultivate as his own. As every man was now a land-owner, he began to express his opinions with freedom. Dale found tobacco in cultivation, and recognized the value of the plant to the colony. It is said that John Rolfe, in 1612, was the first to cultivate the wild plant. Soon tobacco culture was the chief occupation of the people. Even the streets of Jamestown were planted. The Virginians discovered that they could raise something that would sell in England, for the habit of smoking, said to have been introduced by Raleigh, had spread so rapidly that tobacco was in great demand.

The new charter widely extended the colony. Instead of a grant a hundred miles square, the company now was given the region two hundred miles north and south from Old Point Comfort, and from sea to sea. This became the basis, later, of Virginia's claim to the Northwest. But the new charter also contained other important provisions which affected the government of the people and the future of America.

The colonists were empowered to choose delegates to a general assembly-two from each borough. On the 30th of July, 1619, the delegates met in the church at Jamestown and organized the Virginia House of Burgessesthe first representative assembly in the New World. This was an event of greatest importance, for the people could now make their own laws. The present legislature of Virginia is successor to this "Little Parliament," by an unbroken line of assemblies. The title House of Burgesses continued until 1830. Of course, if the first English colony had an assembly, all later ones would demand one. first act of this assembly was to repair the church. This meant a tax and an appropriation. Soon followed laws fixing the prices of tobacco and other commodities; also fixing wages, penalties for various offenses, and the quali

The

1619]

THE NEW CHARTER

37

fications for voting. These laws, by the terms of the new charter, were to be in force unless disapproved by the crown. The house could make any laws "not contrary to the laws of England." This liberal charter was exacted from the company by the condition of the colony. Its affairs had gone so badly that immigrants refused to come, and those in Virginia threatened to return to England. The company therefore gave the people a voice in public affairs. Popular government was thus the fruit of industrial conditions.

At this time slavery in some form prevailed in every country in the world. Columbus had enslaved the natives. as soon as he could catch them, and African slavery had long been a recognized part of the institutions of New Spain. Cargoes of slaves in Dutch and Portuguese trading ships were continually arriving at Havana. Hearing of a new colony in Virginia, a Dutch slaver, eager for a good market, appeared in the James River in August, 1619. Twenty slaves were sold-the small beginning of an evil which rapidly spread over the English colonies, became an established American institution, and for years made the United States a slave-holding republic. It seems strange that at the very time representative government was established in the colonies slavery should have been established also. Few then thought slavery wrong, or that the slave had any more rights than any other property. The world was a great slave-holder throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and during the greater part of the nineteenth. Nor were negroes the only slaves in Virginia or in the other colonies. On account of the crowded condition of English jails, many convicts were transported to America and sold for a term of years as "indentured servants." White slaves and black worked side by side in the tobacco fields. Sometimes the whites, on becoming free, acquired property and social position in the colony. Many led a miserable existence, and their descendants were called "poor whites." White slavery ceased about 1700. Till that time negro slavery was held in check, because white slaves were often the cheaper. But negro slaves were preferred, and at the close of the seventeenth century there were upward of three thousand of them in Virginia.

King James was greatly incensed when he discovered that the company had given the Virginians a charter permitting a popular assembly. He brought many accusations against the company, and determined to get rid of the charter. This was not easy, because many wealthy merchants and powerful noblemen had become members of the company under the new charter. But in 1624 subservient judges decided in favor of the king, declared that the colony had been misinanaged, and annulled the charter. The king then took the place of the company and assumed control of Virginia. He began writing an elaborate code of laws for the colony, but died in the midst of his work. Though Virginia was a charter colony only fifteen years, this was long enough for popular government to get a lawful and vigorous start. The local Virginia council, under the first charter, was appointed by the directors of the company in London. The chief officer of the local council was elected by its members, and styled president; that is, chairman. Two hundred and eighty years later, the most famous Virginian, George Washington, was chosen chairman of the convention in Philadelphia that framed the Constitution of the United States. By that instrument our chief executive is styled the president. Two years later, Washington was chosen to the office. Virginia thus furnished the original title of our highest office, and long afterward the first of our presidents. The title president was taken up by the people in other colonies, and given by some to the governors, by others to the chairmen of their assemblies.

The new king disliked popular government in any form. He wished to rule without Parliament or House of Burgesses. Sir John Harvey, his first governor for Virginia, in 1629, violated the rights of the people so seriously that the king was compelled to recall him. In 1642 he sent over Sir William Berkeley, a very able man, popular but severe. He greatly improved the manners of the colony, but steadily repressed popular government as much as he could. "I thank God there are no free schools nor printing presses' (in Virginia), said he, "and I hope we shall not have them these hundred years." He knew that schools and a free press. are the life of free institutions. He did not want the Vir

1649]

SIR WILLIAM BERKELEY

39

like his master, Civil war broke

ginians to do their own thinking. But King Charles I., he met with difficulties. out in England, and Charles was forced to summon a Parliament, which, because it was not dissolved during twenty years, is known as the "Long Parliament." For six years king and Parliament were at war. In 1649, after an exciting trial, the king was convicted of high treason and exe cuted. The commonwealth was established, and Oliver Cromwell became lord protector. These changes greatly affected English colonial affairs.

For eleven years the colony practically controlled its own affairs. The House of Burgesses was supreme, and gained an ascendency which it never lost. Though England was a commonwealth only eleven years, this was long enough for popular government to become firmly estab lished in the colony. During this time the king's friends, the cavaliers, in England were out of favor and power. Many who had fought for Charles preferred to immigrate to America rather than to live under Cromwell and the Puritans. They came to Virginia. Among them were the ancestors of Washington, Lee, and some other leaders of the American Revolution. Among the members of the first House of Burgesses was a Jefferson. A century and a half later, Thomas Jefferson, his descendant, wrote the Declaration of Independence. The cavaliers who came to Virginia were not admirers of popular government. They were of the king's party in the colony. But as time passed, their descendants joined with those of the burgesses in defense of colonial rights. The cavalier influence in Virginia gained control of the House of Burgesses about the time the commonwealth came to an end.

With the return of Charles II., who at one time had been invited by the cavaliers of Virginia to set up his throne there, and had seriously thought of accepting the invitation, the House of Burgesses elected Berkeley governor, largely to please the king. Berkeley had not changed. He was hostile to the house, and for fourteen years managed to get along without it, by adjourning it every year as soon as it convened. In vain did the people protest, for the royal governor had power to adjourn the assembly at