1611] Dale's Administration 55 southern line must be drawn westward and the northern line northwestward (b). 1612. In 1612 the king granted the Virginia Company still Charter of another charter extending the limits of Virginia eastward to include the Bermudas, or Somers Isles, as they were then called. The company also received nearly complete governing powers and was authorized to hold general meetings of all the freemen or shareholders of the company, the General Courts, as they were termed. These courts were held at London. Winsor's 137-141. Laws," 1611. Gay's Popular History, 1, 300. 41. Dale's Administration. In 1611 Sir Thomas Dale Dale's adcame to Virginia as ruler of the colony. He was a strict ministration. disciplinarian and at once introduced vigor and order into the affairs of the plantation. It is reported that as he sailed into the James River he saw two men reclining by the river's bank and promptly set them to work. To arouse the needful self-interest, he granted to each of the old planters three acres of land for his own, and in this way began the destruction of the system which had so far hampered the colony's prosperity. Dale's rule in Virginia is chiefly remembered, "Dale's however, in connection with a severe system of laws which were established in his time. This code was entitled "Articles, Lawes, and Orders, Divine, Politique, and Martiall for the Colony in Virginea," and was said to be based on the military systems of the Netherlands. Many of its clauses, however, have a character one usually associates with the so-called "blue-laws" of the New England colonies. For Religious instance, Article vi provides that "every man and woman duly twice a day upon the first towling of the Bell shall upon working daies repaire unto the church, to hear divine Service upon pain of losing his or her dayes allowance for the first omission, for the second to be whipped, and for the third to be condemned to the Gallies for six moneths." The thirty-third article further prescribes that all persons shall satisfy the minister of their religious soundness or place themselves under his instruction; for neglecting this duty a third time the offender should "be whipt every day until observances. Tobacco culture. Hart's Contemporaries, I, No. 83. The and the Virginia Assembly, 1619. Hart's Contemporaries, I, No. 65. he hath made the same acknowledgement, and asked forgiveness, and shall repaire unto the Minister to be further instructed by him." Article iii provided that no man should "speak against God's name" or "the known articles of the Christian faith," namely, those of the Church of England, — under pain of death. A second conviction of "cursing" was punished by having a bodkin thrust through the tongue, and for the third offence the culprit suffered death. Other articles provided penalties for neglect of work (three years in the galleys), and no person could sell anything to be transported out of the colony under pain of death. That Virginia enjoys the distinction of being the first permanent English colony to be founded in America is due mainly to the rapidity with which mankind adopted the practice of using tobacco in one form or another. The Czar of Russia decreed that smokers should have their noses cut off, but this and other prohibitions were in vain, and the tobacco habit spread throughout Christendom faster than any religion or language has ever spread. From the moment that the production of tobacco became profitable, the future of Virginia was assured. - Be 42. Introduction of Representative Institutions. tween 1614 and 1618 the Virginia Company fell into the hands of the Puritans, and its character was radically changed. In 1618 Sir Edwin Sandys, one of the leaders of that party in the House of Commons, displaced Sir Thomas Smith as treasurer of the company. The Puritans believed in the civil equality of man; it mattered not to them whether one were a dweller in the home land or in the colonies. They sent over Sir George Yeardley as governor in 1619. His instructions directed him to summon two burgesses to be freely elected by the inhabitants of each plantation or other convenient local unit. These representatives of the people, with the Governor and Council, were to form a General Assembly. Yeardley at once carried out his instructions, and the first representative legislative body in the history of America met in the church at James 1619] Overthrow of the Virginia Company 57 town in 1619. Dale's Laws were at once repealed and a much milder code substituted. Every one was still required to attend divine service according to the Church of England twice each Sunday, but the penalty for staying away was reduced to three shillings for each offense. Many of the new laws restrained personal liberty; while others limited the production of tobacco and encouraged the cultivation of food stuffs. 43. Introduction of Forced Labor. With increasing pros- Indentured perity came a better class of colonists: many men of sub- servants. stance and ability emigrated to Virginia; they acquired great tracts of land and cultivated tobacco on a large scale. In this way was created a demand for cheap, unskilled labor. Shiploads of convicts, of runaways, and of persons who had been kidnapped were sent to Virginia to be bound out as servants or apprentices for a term of years, or perhaps for their lives, as the case might be. These were the indentured servants, or "indented servants," as they were usually termed in the colony. Many poor but respectable persons gladly adopted this means to secure a new start in the world. The same year (1619) that saw the establishment of representative institutions witnessed also the introduction of negro slavery. The first negroes Negro were brought to Jamestown in a Dutch vessel and may be slavery regarded as a chance importation, not one made in any way to answer a demand already in existence. Employers appear to have preferred the forced labor of whites to that of blacks; slavery in consequence increased very slowly, and it was not until the middle of the century that there were many slaves in the colony. 44. Overthrow of the Virginia Company, 1624. - The Puritans, who were now in control of the Virginia Company, were not at all to the taste of King James; they did not always heed his requests, and the General Courts of the corporation afforded them a convenient, opportunity to meet and plan to oppose the king's measures. It was determined to overthrow the company. James had now reached that introduced, 1619. The end of the Virginia Company, 1624. The Assembly of 1629. Opposition to Governor Harvey. part of his reign when he found himself obliged to proceed with great caution, as war with Spain had again broken out. With his habitual cunning, he appointed a commission to collect evidence and to excite animosity against the company in Virginia. This plan, however, was not successful; but an Indian massacre (1622) gave the government the opportunity to charge the company with failure to protect its colonists. The charter was annulled in 1624. 45. Virginia under the Royal Governors, 1624-52. - The fall of the Virginia Company brought slight change to Virginia the royal governors enjoyed about the same powers that Yeardley had exercised; but it is not certain that assemblies were held in the years immediately following the downfall of the company. Meantime James had died, and the new king, Charles I, was greatly in need of funds to maintain the government of England without holding a Parliament (p. 70). He, or his ministers, conceived the idea that a handsome profit might be made from a monopoly of the tobacco trade. The co-operation of the Virginians was necessary to the successful working of the plan, and a General Assembly was held in Virginia (1629) to secure their consent to the scheme. The colonists refused to become parties to the arrangement, but the holding of the assembly was important, as it proved to be the precedent for the summoning of legislative bodies thereafter in all the royal provinces. The first of the royal governors to attract attention was John Harvey, who won the planters' hatred by his arbitrary conduct. Besides, the Virginians disliked his kind treatment of Lord Baltimore's colonists when they came to settle Maryland, for that province had been carved out of territory granted to the Virginia Company. Harvey, as representative of the king in America, was obliged to do what he could to forward his master's wishes, but this only increased the hatred with which the Virginians regarded their ruler. Some of the bolder among them arrested him, sent him to England to answer their complaints, and a few of them even 1629] Virginia during Puritan Supremacy 59 went to England to lay their case before the king. Harvey was soon sent back, but, on the other hand, little was done to punish the Virginians for their contempt of the king's representative. In 1642 Sir William Berkeley arrived in Virginia as gov- Sir William ernor. His rule was the longest in colonial history, lasting Berkeley. from 1642 to 1652, and again from 1659 to 1676. During the first of these periods the Puritans appeared in Virginia and made many converts to their peculiar beliefs. Berkeley and the leading men were alarmed at their success and made sharp laws against them. In the end most of them crossed the Potomac to Maryland. While Execution of 46. Virginia during the Puritan Supremacy. Berkeley had been governing faithfully for king and church Charles I. in Virginia, both king and church had succumbed to the The execution of Charles I Puritans (p. 70) in England. The Puritans, now supreme in England, offered most gen- The Puritans erous terms to the colonists of Virginia, Maryland, and New and Virginia. England, nothing less than free trade between the colonies and the mother country, on condition that the colonists would confine their commerce to England. As the case then stood, the proposition was for free trade within the British Empire, much as there is now free trade within the United States. The Virginians would have none of it. For a few years the affairs of Ireland and Scotland occupied the energies of the Puritan rulers of England. In 1652 they turned their attention for a moment to the rebellious colony; a small fleet sailed across the Atlantic, and the Virginians surrendered without striking a blow. The terms offered by the conquerors were singularly liberal: the colonists were required to recognize the authority of the Commonwealth; in other respects they were left to govern Hart's Contemporaries, I, No. 69. |