Lecture 8A: Chesapeake Colonies, Virginia and Maryland 1607-1660

English Colonization in the Chesapeake (1607-1660)

Examines the settlement of Virginia and Maryland.

Roanoke Fiasco and Initial Disinterest

After Roanoke, interest in colonization waned due to conflict with Spain draining the treasury.
Sir Walter Raleigh's voyage to South America yielded no treasure, discouraging exploration.
By 1600, England lacked a permanent settlement and had not found precious metals like Spain.
Martin Frobisher's ore turned out to be worthless.
The Roanoke colony vanished.
England had lost more than it gained in the New World by 1600.

Economic Conditions Driving Colonization

Persistent inflation caused by influx of gold and silver from the New World increased prices.
Shortages in wood for fuel and housing.
Rising population strained resources.
England's population grew by roughly three million after Columbus.
English observers described their country as an overpopulated “swarming beehive.”
Enclosure: Wealthy landowners switched from grains to sheep, dispossessing tenant farmers.
Dispossessed workers fled to cities, increasing crime and unemployment.
London grew in size and activity, but crime outpaced all other enterprises in it, and fire, disease, and unemployment made the capital the graveyard of the realm.
The English law of primogeniture and entail mandated that eldest sons inherited their father’s entire estates.
Question of “what to do” with second (and third, fourth, or fifth) sons became a real concern.

Mercantilism and Economic Policy

Mercantilism: Nations measured wealth by gold and silver.
Nations competed to control finite resources of gold and silver.
A nation’s supply of gold or silver depended on its balance of trade.
If a nation imported more goods from other nations than it exported, it decreased its national amount of gold or silver.
If it exported more goods than it imported, it increased the nation’s gold or silver.
England had a negative balance of trade, importing more than exporting.
Profits from wool exports did not equal the cost of imported wine, silks, spices, and timber.

Colonies as a Solution

Richard Hakluyt and others argued colonies could relieve unemployment and population crises.
Colonies could produce raw materials and provide new markets for English goods.
Trade between England and colonies would benefit the shipping industry.
Colonies could produce goods like wine and silk, improving England’s balance of trade.

Joint Stock Companies

English monarchs were unwilling to fund expensive exploratory missions.
Joint stock companies developed to finance overseas exploration, colonization, and trade.
Crown gave monopolies over trade for a percentage of the profits.
Companies amassed capital by selling shares of stock.
Investors hoped to profit from successful missions.
A merchant or landowner could purchase a share of stock at a stated price, and at the end of several years the investor could anticipate recovering the initial amount plus a portion of whatever profits the company had made.

Virginia Company of London and Jamestown

In 1606, King James I gave settlement rights to the Virginia Company of London and the Virginia Company of Plymouth.
In 1607, the Plymouth group sent an expedition led by George Popham and Raleigh Gilbert to the mouth of Maine’s Kennebec River.
Their settlement failed within a year, and the Plymouth group never attempted to plant another American colony.
In 1606, the Virginia Company of London sent 105 men and boys on three ships: Susan Constant, Godspeed, and Discovery.
Christopher Newport, a skilled mariner, captained the voyage.
Newport’s mission was to transport the settlers across the Atlantic, ensure they were settled in their new home and, most importantly, bring the New World treasure they discovered back to England.
King’s 1606 charter ensured New World residents would enjoy “all liberties, franchises, and immunities . . . as if they had been abiding and born, within this our realm of England.”
Colonial laws were to be “as near as conveniently may [be] to the form of laws and policy of England.”
The new colony was to be governed by a 52 member council resident in England and a seven-member council in the New World.
John Smith served as a mercenary soldier and adventurer.
Settlers arrived at Jamestown, a defensible but marshy peninsula on the James River.
The marshy terrain bred malaria, and drinking water was contaminated.
Jamestown was described as the “most unsuccessful town in American history.”
By September, half of the original settlers were dead due to typhoid, dysentery, and salt-water poisoning.
About half of the settlers were “gentlemen” who didn't expect to do manual labor.
The occupations of goldsmiths, apothecaries, a jeweler, and a perfumer suggest a “treasure hunt.”

Challenges in Jamestown

Settlers were not used to regular work and refused to grow food, leading to starvation.
Malnutrition was rampant; the colony depended on Native Americans for food.
Settlers fought each other for control. George Kendall was executed for treason (plotting to sail for New Spain).
John Smith led exploratory missions, which likely saved his life.

Interactions with the Powhatan Confederacy

Settlers entered territory controlled by the Powhatan Confederacy.
Wahunsenaca (Powhatan) united around three dozen Native groups using warfare and diplomacy.
The Powhatan lived in small towns along riverbanks, not major cities.
In January 1608, John Smith was captured by the Pumunkeys, a tribuary group of the Powhatan.
Smith taken to Werowocomoco, and the shamans danced and used cornmeal to represent the Powhatan domain and Jamestown's place in it.
Smith misinterpreted Powhatan's message and his own introduction.
Smith later wrote that Powhatan appeared before him dressed in a “great robe” of raccoon skins.
Smith counted to 200 warriors who attended him.
Smith claimed Powhatan had him drug to “two great stones” where he was laid out and a group of warriors stood ready to “beat out his brains.”
Smith later recorded that Pocahontas ran forward, took Smith’s head in her arms and “laid her own [head]” on top of his “to save him from death.”
Powhatan spared Smith’s life so that he could make him hatchets and [Pocahontas] bells, beads, and copper.”

The Pocahontas Story

Pocahontas is a famous figure in colonial America.
The story of her saving John Smith is now questioned by historians.
The episode only appeared in print long after Pocahontas had become a household name in England, following her visit to that country in 1616.
Smith also published the story long after all the participants, who could have questioned its interpretation of events, were dead.
Some argue that the Powhatan did not “beat the brains out” of their captives.
Pocahontas was actually far less important to her father than the story gives her credit.
She was the product of a socially unimportant marriage and, as a ten year old girl, had no power in tribal politics.
There are close similarities between this story and others that Smith told about his adventures in other parts of the world.
Smith liked to portray himself as “an Elizabethan James Bond”.
Powhatan likely saw it as a way to incorporate Smith into her father’s kingdom.
Where Smith saw Pocahontas’ act as a way of expressing dependence on European culture, Pocahontas likely saw it as a way to incorporate Smith into her father’s kingdom.
Act was a ritual of adoption in which Smith’s life was spared so that he might, in future, recognize his dependence on Powhatan.
By Powhatan giving Smith corn, shows that the chief considered the English as a dependent tribe.
Smith presented Powhatan with a copper crown, red robe, and a massive Elizabethan bed.
Powhatan refused to kneel when the crown was placed on his head because he knew that such an action would make him appear dependent on the Europeans.
Smith wrote that several Englishmen had to “lean hard on his shoulders” until he “stooped” enough to have the crown placed on his head.
In return for his presents, Powhatan gave the English a deerskin cape and a pair of his moccasins for King James.

Changes in Jamestown

In 1608, Smith implemented military discipline, organizing colonists into work gangs.
Smith warned that any man that did not work as hard as he did, would be put outside the fort to die from starvation.
Colonists hated Smith, but they survived.
Virginia Company leaders stripped original councilors of powers and vested authority in a governor appointed by the company.
The Virginia Company also began to sell its stock to the general public.
One share in the company cost 12 pounds, 10 shillings – the equivalent of a year’s wages for an unskilled laborer and the approximate cost of outfitting and sending one settler to Virginia.
In the summer of 1609, 600 settlers in nine ships set sail for Jamestown.

The Sea Venture and the Starving Time

Ships encountered a storm, believed to be an Atlantic hurricane, and were scattered.
Sea Venture shipwrecked on Bermuda; survivors built two ships, Deliverance and Patience, to reach Jamestown.
Survivors found only sixty people alive in Jamestown.
Winter of 1609-1610 was the “starving time” due to massive influx of new migrants, without the much needed-supplies on the Sea Venture.
Settlement barely had forty acres of corn under cultivation.
Powhatan refused to trade with colonists.
Settlers ate rats, cats, and resorted to cannibalism.
A man killed, salted, and ate his wife and was executed.

Rescue and New Governance

Settlers abandoned the colony but encountered the new governor, Sir Thomas De la Warr, with supplies.
De la Warr implemented martial law.
Thomas Dale implemented Dale’s Laws, a harsh legal code.
Laws Divine, Moral, and Martial were extremely harsh.
They forced colonists to work and, at least in theory, banned private ownership of property until 1616.
The laws prescribed the death penalty for 20 crimes ranging from stealing a chicken to frequently skipping compulsory church services.
Colonists began settling aggressively beyond Jamestown, leading to war with Powhatan.

Pocahontas' Capture and Marriage

In 1613, settlers took Pocahontas hostage.
During this time, Powhatan converted to Christianity taking the Christian name Rebecca.
In 1614, she married John Rolfe, uniting the two cultures in kinship.
Pocahontas and Rolfe’s son, Thomas, held out hope for cultural unity in Virginia.

Pocahontas in England and Her Death

In 1616, Pocahontas, Rolfe, and their son visited London and were incredibly popular.
Pocahontas seemed to legitimize the Virginia Company’s work and her public appearances in London increased public interest and investment in the venture.
Her transformation may have been less complete than the English believed.
She also told John Smith, who came to London to see her, that the English were liars.
She died in England in 1617 at the age of 22 due to European diseases.
After Pocahontas’ death, few Virginians followed the Rolfe’s example of cross-cultural marriage.
By 1691 marriage between Native Americans and Europeans became illegal in the colony.
Rolfe's son spent his childhood in England and returned to Virginia as a young man. He entered the colony’s ruling class and exhibited no signs of his mother’s culture.

Tobacco and its Impact

John Rolfe introduced tobacco to Virginia in 1611.
King James I called the plant a “stinking weed” that was “loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, [and] dangerous to the lungs.”
Rolfe imported tobacco seeds from the West Indies that produced a milder flavor, and he introduced air-drying.
Tobacco became the cash crop that saved Jamestown.
In 1615, the colony exported 2,000 pounds of tobacco.
By 1629, it exported 1.5 million pounds (1,500 hogsheads).
Settlers planted tobacco rather than food, transforming Virginia into a boomtown.
Tobacco was so valuable that it became the colony’s de facto currency.

Changes to the Colony’s Government and Land Ownership

Virginia Company, under Sir Edwin Sandys, opened the colony to private property ownership.
Settlers could buy 50 acres in Virginia for about 12 pounds.
Headright system instituted in 1618, granting 50 acres per person brought to the New World.
Major investors received large estates.
Company diversified the economy, attempting to produce tar, silk, glass, iron, sugar, and cotton.
In 1618, the Virginia Company allowed settlers to form a representative government, the House of Burgesses.
Landholding male citizens, over the age of 21, could now vote to send two representatives, or burgesses, from each of Virginia’s towns to the House of Burgesses in Jamestown.
Laws made by the Burgesses had to be acceptable to the colony’s appointed governor.
Burgesses outlawed drunkenness, gambling, swearing, and mandated church attendance.
Smaller courts established in settlements to adjudicate local concerns, eventually becoming county courts.