Lecture 2 – Virginia (Old Dominion) & English Colonization

Spain dominates Gulf of Mexico & Caribbean; France entrenched in Canada ➔ England looks for a “middle slot”.
Monarch: Queen Elizabeth I (reigns $1558!–!1603$ ; daughter of Henry VIII).
- Rivalry with Spain: commercial, military, religious (Catholic Spain vs. Protestant England).
English “Sea Dogs” – crown-sanctioned privateers attacking Spanish treasure fleets.
- Key figure: Sir Walter Raleigh (wealthy from plunder; likened to “Captain Jack Sparrow”).

Strategic motive: need Atlantic coast base to harass Spanish shipping.
$1587$ : Partner John White leads ~ $100$ settlers to Roanoke Island (Pamlico Sound, present-day N.C.).
- Birth of Virginia Dare – first English child born in New World.
Supply crisis ➔ White returns to England $1588$ ; held back by Spanish Armada crisis.
Returns $1590$ ⇒ settlement deserted; only carving “CROATOAN”.
- Multiple theories: relocation to Croatoan Island, Indian capture, famine, etc.
- Outcome: total failure & Raleigh ruined (later imprisoned by James I; dies penniless).
LESSON LEARNED: one man’s fortune is insufficient ⇒ future colonies will use Joint-Stock Company model.

Many investors buy shares ⇒ pool capital, spread risk/reward (prototype of modern stock market).
Earlier success: British East India Company (since $1490\text{s}$ ).
Two colonial corporations licensed (early $17^{th}$ c.):
- Plymouth Company (northern grants).
- London / Virginia Company (southern grants – whole coast then called “Virginia”).

$1606$ Nov.–Dec.: ~ $50$ settlers land on rugged Maine coast.
- Extreme cold, poor soils ⇒ give up within months & sail home (failure #2).

Departure: Dec. $1606$ ; Landfall: May $1607$ .
- $3$ ships, ~ $100$ settlers; sail up river named James River; town named Jamestown (flattering King James I – lecturer jokes “world’s first pimp”).
EARLY MISTAKES
- Wrong demographics: urban “gentlemen” treasure-seekers, not farmers/carpenters/hunters.
- Unrealistic gold expectations (told to walk arm-in-arm length scanning forest floor).
- Site selection: low, swampy peninsula → mosquitoes (malaria), brackish water (dysentery).
- Governance: $10$ -man council requiring unanimity ⇒ paralysis.
- Supply imbalance: new ships bring more mouths, not provisions.

Smith’s background: soldier-of-fortune, Balkan wars, self-promoting memoirs (" $100$ half-naked harem women rescued me" tale).
Takes command: “He that will not work, shall not eat.”
- Daily regimen: drum revéille, march to fields, productivity checks.
- Effect: colony whipped into shape; likely “saved English civilisation in New World.”
Pocahontas episode:
- Ethno-historic reinterpretation: likely a kinship adoption ritual, not romantic rescue; Pocahontas ≈ $12$ yrs old.
Smith injured by powder explosion (early $1609$ ) ⇒ returns to England; discipline collapses.

Loss of leadership + crop failure + harsh winter.
- Population fall: $\text{~500} \rightarrow 60$ survivors.
- Evidence of cannibalism (mass graves unearthed $2007$ archaeological digs).
Rescue: outbound survivors met in Chesapeake by arriving supply fleet – colony continues.

$1612$ : John Rolfe hybridizes local tobacco with Caribbean seed ➔ smoother, shippable product.
- “Grow it to the doorstep”; massive profit boon.
Rolfe marries Pocahontas (creates Anglo-Powhatan peace window); son Thomas Rolfe.
- Pocahontas dies in England $1617$ ; buried there.

1. House of Burgesses convenes (Jamestown).
- First representative legislative body in New World.
- Name: “Burgess” = townsman (Old English/German “burg”).
2. Large-scale arrival of English women.
- Signals permanent settlement: family formation, demographic growth.
3. First Africans land (Dutch slaver; ≈ $20$ individuals).
- Initially treated as Indentured Servants (contracted labor for set years).
- Seeds planted for race-based chattel slavery.

Structural needs:
- America: excess land, labor shortage.
- England: excess population, land scarcity ➔ poor sign indentures for passage.
Africans originally folded into same system; some gain freedom, property, intermarry.
Mid $17^{th}$ c. legal tightening:
- Non-Christian arrivals ➔ lifetime servitude ➔ later reduced simply to African phenotype.
- Status follows mother (partus sequitur ventrem); bans on interracial marriage.
Two drivers:
1. ECONOMIC – need permanent, cheap, controllable labor for labor-intensive cash crops.
2. RACIAL IDEOLOGY – Africans cast as inherently inferior & suited to bondage.

Context:
- Higher life expectancy ⇒ many freed indentured servants (white & black) roaming poor.
- Tobacco price crash = land unaffordable.
Frontier–Indian clashes; Governor Sir William Berkeley (royal appointee) forbids retaliation to avoid cost.
- Nathaniel Bacon rouses militia; first attacks Indians, then burns Jamestown & other elite towns.
- Rebellion collapses when Bacon dies of disease.
Aftermath (per historian Edmund Morgan – American Slavery, American Freedom):
- Elites adopt divide-and-conquer: privilege poor whites, harden status of Africans.
- Rapid codification $1680\text{s}–1690\text{s}$ : white = free; black = slave.

Birth of REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT – House of Burgesses, model for later colonial & U.S. legislatures.
Growth of CAPITALISM / cash-crop economy – tobacco boom demonstrates profit motive and private investment model.
Institutionalization of SLAVERY – race-based chattel system entrenched; profound social, moral, political ramifications culminating in U.S. Civil War.