1. AMERICA'S COLONIAL FOUNDATIONS
THE VIRGINIA COLONY - Early 1600s
An early English settlement effort at Roanoke
The Jamestown settlement
Jamestown's early social dynamics 
The governorship of Sir William Berkeley
Bacon's Rebellion (1676) 
Southern society takes shapeThe textual material on this webpage is drawn directly from my work
America - The Covenant Nation © 2021, Volume One, pages 42-52.
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A Timeline of Major Events during this period
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AN EARLY ENGLISH SETTLEMENT EFFORT AT ROANOKE |
National Portrait Gallery, London
England Finally Gets in The Game
In the early 1600s it was
finally England's turn to play the game. Much like the young Spanish
conquistadores coming to America a century earlier, young English
aristocratic wannabees, or for that matter anyone seeking social
betterment, looked to America in the hope of finding American gold with
which they could buy land and thus social status. But also English King
James needed money to continue England's struggle against Spain and was
therefore very willing to charter two new colonization efforts to the
New World, to the area at that point known as Virginia.1
One such effort was to be located in the northern part of Virginia
(roughly what was to become New England) and one in the south (focused
on the Chesapeake Bay area of today's Northern Virginia and Southern
Maryland). Two companies were set up in England to oversee these
colonization efforts, one in Plymouth (the northern colony), one in
London (the southern colony).
The first of these ventures (the Plymouth or
northern colony) failed. The second one, planted at Jamestown in 1607,
was more successful - but barely so. But with its success the first
Virginia colony was finally established.
Roanoke - An Earlier, But Failed, Effort at Settlement
Actually, Jamestown was not the first English settlement in America. It
was only the first English settlement to have survived the rigors of
colony planting in the wilds of America. A generation earlier, in the
mid-1580s, a couple of efforts
were made under the sponsorship of Queen Elizabeth's close friend, Sir
Walter Raleigh, to plant a Virginia settlement in a strategic American
coastal position from which the English colonists could search for gold - or simply raid passing Spanish galleons. On a second attempt (1587) a
group of 90 men, 17 women and 11 children was brought to a spot they
named Roanoke, on the Outer Banks of what is today North Carolina. They
were left there to establish an English colony, while the ship returned
to England for more supplies.
The ship was unable to return right away however,
because the English at this point were deeply engaged in this struggle
for their very survival against the mighty Spanish Armada. Not until
the English survived this danger, three years after originally
depositing the settlers in America, was a ship able to send supplies
back to the colony. But upon the ship's arrival, the settlers were
nowhere to be seen - nor was there any indication of where they might
be or what had happened to them.
The news of the Lost Colony put a serious chill on
any further thoughts about another such venture - until another
generation came along at a time when the lure of gold seemed to be
greater than the fear of failure.
1The
name of the corporate venture, "Virginia," was chosen in honor of the
"Virgin Queen" (never married) Elizabeth, who had just given England a
long period of stable rule.
England Finally Gets in The Game
The English at the Roanoke Colony on the Outer Banks
Library of Congress
THE JAMESTOWN SETTLEMENT
James I of England, VI of
Scotland - by John de Critz, c.1606
Dulwich Portrait
Gallery
John Smith
The Early Settlement of Virginia at Jamestown (1607)
With the
support of King James, financial backers or "adventurers" of the
Virginia Company in London were able to amass enough money to outfit
three ships (two of them being incredibly small) to bring some 144 (all
male) settlers to Virginia. Setting out in December of 1606, the
settlers arrived in Virginia a very long five months later in May of
1607. They sailed into the Chesapeake Bay and forty miles up a wide
river, which they named the James River. There they found a small
island which offered good defense against the Spanish - although a very
bad spot for human habitation (swampy, and within a month totally
mosquito-infested). They quickly erected a wooden fort, and named their
new settlement Jamestown.
Seriously lacking among these men was any sense of
how they were to cooperate in order to survive. Beyond the building of
the fort, their interests were strictly personal and greedy. The hunt
to strike it rich in gold began immediately. They were also unprepared
to deal diplomatically with the Powhatan Indians - on whom they would
depend greatly for their survival. They had an appointed Council to
oversee the venture. But the members of the Council found themselves
bitterly at odds with each other from the beginning. Briefly Captain
John Smith brought some order to the group - though he was more
interested in adventure than in group management. He was soon (1609)
forced to return to England after a wound he suffered worsened. He
never returned to the colony. Several times supplies - and new settlers - were brought by the Company to add to the colony. But food was never
ample and the hungry mouths always seemed to outstrip supplies brought
from England.
In general, the colonists themselves refused to
provide for their own food stores - for such manual labor would
automatically disqualify them from the gentry status they so earnestly
sought. A gentleman just did not soil his hands in manual labor!
Thus Jamestown entered a massive starving time
during the winter and spring of 1609-1610 in which 420 of the 480
colonists died of hunger or disease. The 60 survivors decided that it
was time to abandon the settlement. They were ten miles downstream on
the James River headed back toward England when Lord Thomas De La Warr
(Delaware) intercepted them coming from England with a boatload of
supplies and 150 additional settlers - and orders from the king to do
what was necessary to ensure the survival of the colony. The survivors
thus turned back. Jamestown was saved.
John Rolfe
Among the newcomers was the
London businessman, John Rolfe, who on his way to Virginia had picked
up a variety of tobacco seed in Bermuda and who thus began a plantation
in tobacco. The first shipment sent back to England in 1614 proved to
be highly profitable (although the king despised the drug!). Failing to
find gold, many of the colonists soon found that tobacco was not a bad
substitute financially.
Rolfe himself was a significant part of Virginia's
development in more ways than one. His passage to Virginia was itself a
most exceptional one. Leaving England in 1609 along with 500 other
settlers headed for the new world, his ship Sea Venture was hit by a
hurricane and wrecked just off the Bermudas. The ship would be slowly
salvaged over a ten-month period, in which time his wife would give
birth to a child, who would soon die and his wife as well. It was while
he was in Bermuda however that he became familiar with tobacco.
Ultimately, two smaller ships were made from the wreckage of the Sea
Venture, one of which brought him finally to Virginia, in the darkest
days of its struggle for survival. But his interest in tobacco
ultimately helped the colony to survive.
So also did Rolfe's romantic interest in
Pocahontas, beloved daughter of local Indian chief Powhatan. She had
been captured in 1613 in an attempt to have someone of importance to
trade for the release of English being held as prisoners by the
Indians. But she stayed on with the English, quickly learned English
and became a Christian. And in 1614 the governor gave the enraptured
and quite pious Rolfe permission to marry Pocahontas. This actually
served finally to put some degree of peace between the English and the
Indians. But the bliss of it all was not destined to last. In 1616
Rolfe, Pocahontas, and their son Thomas sailed to England, where they
received a royal welcome from the very curious English. Pocahontas
wanted to stay on in England, but they were needed diplomatically back
in Virginia to help hold the peace between the English and the Indians.
But just as they were about to leave, she caught pneumonia and died in
England.
A sad Rolfe returned to Virginia, leaving his son
in the care of English friends. He subsequently married again,
increased his tobacco business substantially, and then died in 1622,
presumably in the Indian uprising of that year (although the exact
causes are not known).
The Jamestown settlers meet with the local Powhatan Indians - 1607
Advertisement for additional English settlers to Virginia - 1609
Thomas West, Lord De La Warr saved Jamestown ... just as the men were
abandoning the colony after the deadly winter of 1609-1610 left
420 of the 480 settlers dead ... by bringing in more supplies and settlers
Tobacco
farmer John Rolfe and Pocahontas marry (1614), helping to settle
relations between the English settlers and the Powhatan Indians
Powhatan Princess Pocahontas (wife of John Rolfe) - dressed as an
English lady
National Portrait Gallery
- Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
|
James I of England, VI of Scotland - by John de Critz, c.1606
Dulwich Portrait Gallery
The Early Settlement of Virginia at Jamestown (1607)
The Early Settlement of Virginia at Jamestown (1607)
With the support of King James, financial backers or "adventurers" of the Virginia Company in London were able to amass enough money to outfit three ships (two of them being incredibly small) to bring some 144 (all male) settlers to Virginia. Setting out in December of 1606, the settlers arrived in Virginia a very long five months later in May of 1607. They sailed into the Chesapeake Bay and forty miles up a wide river, which they named the James River. There they found a small island which offered good defense against the Spanish - although a very bad spot for human habitation (swampy, and within a month totally mosquito-infested). They quickly erected a wooden fort, and named their new settlement Jamestown.
Seriously lacking among these men was any sense of how they were to cooperate in order to survive. Beyond the building of the fort, their interests were strictly personal and greedy. The hunt to strike it rich in gold began immediately. They were also unprepared to deal diplomatically with the Powhatan Indians - on whom they would depend greatly for their survival. They had an appointed Council to oversee the venture. But the members of the Council found themselves bitterly at odds with each other from the beginning. Briefly Captain John Smith brought some order to the group - though he was more interested in adventure than in group management. He was soon (1609) forced to return to England after a wound he suffered worsened. He never returned to the colony. Several times supplies - and new settlers - were brought by the Company to add to the colony. But food was never ample and the hungry mouths always seemed to outstrip supplies brought from England.
In general, the colonists themselves refused to provide for their own food stores - for such manual labor would automatically disqualify them from the gentry status they so earnestly sought. A gentleman just did not soil his hands in manual labor!
Thus Jamestown entered a massive starving time during the winter and spring of 1609-1610 in which 420 of the 480 colonists died of hunger or disease. The 60 survivors decided that it was time to abandon the settlement. They were ten miles downstream on the James River headed back toward England when Lord Thomas De La Warr (Delaware) intercepted them coming from England with a boatload of supplies and 150 additional settlers - and orders from the king to do what was necessary to ensure the survival of the colony. The survivors thus turned back. Jamestown was saved.
Among the newcomers was the London businessman, John Rolfe, who on his way to Virginia had picked up a variety of tobacco seed in Bermuda and who thus began a plantation in tobacco. The first shipment sent back to England in 1614 proved to be highly profitable (although the king despised the drug!). Failing to find gold, many of the colonists soon found that tobacco was not a bad substitute financially.
Rolfe himself was a significant part of Virginia's development in more ways than one. His passage to Virginia was itself a most exceptional one. Leaving England in 1609 along with 500 other settlers headed for the new world, his ship Sea Venture was hit by a hurricane and wrecked just off the Bermudas. The ship would be slowly salvaged over a ten-month period, in which time his wife would give birth to a child, who would soon die and his wife as well. It was while he was in Bermuda however that he became familiar with tobacco. Ultimately, two smaller ships were made from the wreckage of the Sea Venture, one of which brought him finally to Virginia, in the darkest days of its struggle for survival. But his interest in tobacco ultimately helped the colony to survive.
So also did Rolfe's romantic interest in Pocahontas, beloved daughter of local Indian chief Powhatan. She had been captured in 1613 in an attempt to have someone of importance to trade for the release of English being held as prisoners by the Indians. But she stayed on with the English, quickly learned English and became a Christian. And in 1614 the governor gave the enraptured and quite pious Rolfe permission to marry Pocahontas. This actually served finally to put some degree of peace between the English and the Indians. But the bliss of it all was not destined to last. In 1616 Rolfe, Pocahontas, and their son Thomas sailed to England, where they received a royal welcome from the very curious English. Pocahontas wanted to stay on in England, but they were needed diplomatically back in Virginia to help hold the peace between the English and the Indians. But just as they were about to leave, she caught pneumonia and died in England.
A sad Rolfe returned to Virginia, leaving his son in the care of English friends. He subsequently married again, increased his tobacco business substantially, and then died in 1622, presumably in the Indian uprising of that year (although the exact causes are not known).
National Portrait Gallery - Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
JAMESTOWN'S EARLY SOCIAL DYNAMICS |
Despite the economic boom that
came to Virginia complements of the tobacco trade, changes were needed
to attract more settlers to the colony. In 1617 the Company ended its
monopoly on land ownership, allowing private ownership. By 1619 there
were ten major plantations in Virginia, mostly along the wide James
River. In that year Virginia received a new governor (Lord Delaware had
died on a return trip to America) and a new colonial assembly. As part
of the plan to encourage settlers to come to Virginia, this legislative
assembly was set up to give the settlers their own voice through two
elected representatives sent to Jamestown from each of the ten
plantations, plus Jamestown itself. Thus in Virginia the idea of
representative democracy was first born in America.
Now the settlers needed land, lots of land - Indian land. In 1622 there was a major
uprising of the Indians led by the new chief Opechancanough (younger
brother of Chief Powhatan), who had planned a surprise massacre of the
inhabitants of the various plantations scattered within what they knew
to be their hunting territory. In a single day 300 to 400 colonists
were killed - although Jamestown itself was spared such destruction
because of a warning issued by an Indian boy to the inhabitants of the
town. Yet the uprising failed to kill but a third of the intruding
English. The surviving English struck back - and the violence continued
for a year until a truce was established. But in fact, the fighting
never really ceased completely.
Troubles
over the high-handed ways of Delaware's deputy, Samuel Argall, created
huge political problems for the colony. Rumors made their way back to
England about the colony's difficulties.
Finally in 1624, because of Indian troubles,
Argall's behavior, and all the rumors which were hurting the
recruitment of settlers, King James suspended the Virginia Company's
charter and reappointed Virginia as a royal colony, directly under his
own governance (or actually under his appointed crown governor).
Virginia was redistricted into counties and towns and the House of
Burgesses' power was reduced somewhat. But the major plantations still
dominated Virginia's local politics (the prestigious Governor's Council
was made up of the heads of the largest plantations).
The
farming of tobacco would prove to be a highly valuable path to wealth -
great wealth - especially for those possessing enough initial capital
to purchase the services of large numbers of indentured servants2
brought in from Europe (and Africa) to work the land for them. The
earliest Virginia planters who purchased the best of the properties
along the shores of Virginia's Tidewater region, where wide navigable
rivers (the James, York, Rappahannock, and Potomac Rivers) allowed
ships from England to pick up their tobacco on docks right at the
river's edge, made excellent profits from the tobacco trade - and thus
were able to purchase the services of additional indentured workers in
order to expand their land holdings and thus overall production. Some
of these plantations consequently became vast in size and operation,
something like great feudal estates of thousands of acres and hundreds
of servants to work those acres. Thus also along the edges of the broad
rivers and numerous bays of Eastern Virginia an English aristocracy
began to grow up in America, dominated by such families as the
Randolphs, the Carters, the Lees, and the Washingtons, whose family
patriarchs typically served on the influential Governor's Council. In
the context of the times this elite-dominated society appeared quite
normal.
But for the other settlers who came later to
Virginia - after the flat, fertile, and directly river-accessible
Tidewater region of Eastern Virginia was basically settled -
opportunities for similar success became quite difficult, if not indeed
even impossible. For the newcomers, life was tough because new land was
available only by pressing into the unsettled Indian woodlands to the
West, involving a dangerous encounter with the Indians. And it took
backbreaking labor in the scorching heat of Virginia to clear a rocky
woodland for tobacco farming. But even with a small cleared farm ready
to produce, a normally servant-less frontier farmer located at some
distance from the ships that would pick up his tobacco found it very
difficult to compete in the tobacco business. He was barely able to eke
out a living in this American land of opportunity. 2Indentured
service was something like an apprenticeship in which, by way of a
contract (the indenture), a young man agreed to work for a master, who
paid for his passage to America and housed and fed him while in his
service. In exchange, the servant was to work in the fields and barns
for the master. At the end of the term of indenture, usually seven
years, the servant was given certain tools and his freedom. And thus
with the training he received during his years of service he was ready
to start off life elsewhere on his own, now himself as a landowner
(usually also as a tobacco farmer) by his own right.
He governed Virginia during the period 1642-1652 and again 1660-1677
In 1642, Virginia received a governor who would play a key role in giving this Virginia society something of a more stable footing, at least for a generation or so. Berkeley was the very bright second son of a family of country gentry, who grew up in England educated by both the rigors of agricultural management and a classical education at Oxford. In 1632 he gained admittance into King Charles's literary circle, the Witts, where Berkeley composed several plays performed before the king. Then in 1639 he took a military command under Charles during the rising conflict in England over the reform of the Church of England, gaining for Berkeley a knighthood. His growing esteem in the eyes of King Charles consequently led to Berkeley's appointment in 1641 as crown governor of Virginia.
But Berkeley was the first royal appointee to take more than a nominal interest in his position as Virginia governor.3 He purchased for himself a section of land (Green Springs) just to the west of the Jamestown capital and began to grow different crops there as a demonstration model of alternatives to tobacco farming. As governor he worked diligently in encouraging other Virginia planters to also diversify their crops.
He clearly became quite supportive politically of the colony as well, and served to enhance the power of the Virginia General Assembly in order for it to be able to act more independently of the royal government in London.
With respect to religion, he was very loyal to Charles's Church of England and quite hostile to those who questioned the Anglican Church and its authority - notably the Puritans, of course. He kept a very close eye on the doctrines and political ideas being preached in Virginia to make sure that they conformed absolutely to the standards of the Church of England. Likewise, he discouraged public education for fear that it would provoke the growth of unwanted ideas and kept a tight rein on what got published, for much the same reason. In general, his strong views supporting the Church of England during a time of rising controversy about the need to purify the Church met with the approval of the Virginians - especially by the prominent Virginia families, who tended to be very supportive of their social identities as proper Anglican Christians.
A major incident occurred in 1644 during Berkeley's first period of service as Virginia Governor (1641-1652): the very savage conflict with the Indians and their leader, Opechancanough, who struck again at the Virginia settlers, killing about 500 of them. But Opechancanough was captured and killed, leaving the Indian uprising leaderless. The Indian attacks continued into the next year, but had run out of energy after Opechancanough's death. Soon the Indians found their power largely broken in Virginia, at least as far west as the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains - which at that point provided the Indians with a more defensible position against the intruding English. In general, Berkeley's handling of the situation met with the approval of the Virginians.
When King Charles was beheaded during the Protestant uprising led by England's Puritan Parliament at the beginning of 1649, thereby bringing England under Parliament's rule as a new Puritan Commonwealth, Berkeley's days as Governor seemed numbered. Still serving as governor in the early days of the rebellion, he offered sanctuary in Virginia to royalists escaping England - until the arrival of Commonwealth authorities in 1652, who removed him from power, but let him continue to reside in Virginia on his Green Springs Plantation.
For the next eight years Virginia was led by Puritan Commonwealth Governors elected by the Virginia General Assembly.
With the restoration in 1660 of the deposed Stuart monarchy (Charles II now being England's new king), Berkeley was also restored to his former position as Virginia governor. But his horizons soon expanded when in the early 1660s he became one of the co-proprietors of the new Carolina colony to the south of Virginia (his older brother John also receiving land in New Jersey).
Perhaps this served to overextend his responsibilities, because in Virginia he was becoming viewed as being increasingly indifferent to some of the problems there, from the poverty experienced by the lower social orders to the troubles with the Indians experienced by the frontier farmers.
3The turnover in Virginia governors was fairly rapid, each governor or acting governor would take his position in Virginia only for a few years at a time, Berkeley being the exception.
BACON'S REBELLION (1676) |
Bacon confronting Berkeley over the lack of protection of the Virginia workers and frontier farmers
Problems also began to develop when in 1675
Berkeley brought onto the Governor's Council a young English
aristocrat, Nathaniel Bacon,4
who came to the Virginia colony to escape a financial scandal back in
England. In the midst of the huge Indian crisis, Bacon asked Berkeley
for permission to use a 400-500 men militia he had assembled to drive
the Indians from the frontier (Bacon actually was aiming at two Indian
groups who had not participated in the attacks, but whose land was
eagerly sought by the Virginia frontiersmen). Berkeley refused. But
Bacon went ahead anyway, bringing the Indians to appeal to Berkeley for
help. Berkeley arrested Bacon, whose men then broke him out of prison.
Bacon subsequently not only went after the Indians, killing and
enslaving many and confiscating their lands, but also issuing a number
of manifestos accusing the governor of corruption and incompetence. In
essence Bacon was striving to make himself Virginia's effective leader.
When Berkeley assembled his own army to go after
Bacon and his militia, a war was on. Meanwhile the King shipped off
from England about 1,000 soldiers to help Berkeley put down the
rebellion. At first, the course of the conflict clearly favored Bacon,
whose militia succeeded in burning Jamestown to the ground in September
of 1676. But a month later, Bacon suddenly died of a fever - and the
rebellion, lacking a leader, quickly collapsed. Berkeley was thus
finally able to restore order just prior to the arrival of the English
troops. Berkeley had twenty-three of the rebels hanged, some without
even the benefit of a trial.
An investigation into the whole affair back in
England brought criticism of both Berkeley and Bacon for their handling
of the matter, especially the treatment of the Indians. Consequently,
Berkeley was removed from his position as governor. Berkeley
immediately sailed to England to protest his dismissal, but died soon
after his arrival. Sadly, he was buried in England, far from the
Virginia countryside that he had given so much of his life to develop. 4He may have also had some family ties to Berkeley's wife, Frances.
The net result of Bacon's rebellion
was a deepening of the social gap between the Virginia aristocracy and
the Virginia frontiersmen. But also, the aristocrats were so unnerved
by the anger of the rebels at this point that the Virginia wealthy lost
interest in indenture - and moved to use fully slave labor in its
place.
In 1619 some 20 Angolan Africans had been seized
from a Portuguese ship (the English privateers were probably hoping to
seize Portuguese gold rather than slaves!) and brought to Virginia.
That number dwindled ... until 1628 when some 100 more slaves were
brought to Virginia. Actually at that time, the slavery of Indians
taken in battle was much more prevalent.
The status of such slaves was at first not
officially different from that of the Whites brought in as indentured
workers. In fact, Africans brought to Virginia were early on classified
as indentured workers, subject to certain service obligations, just
as were the White workers brought in from England, Scotland, Ireland
and Germany. But clearly, arriving as slaves rather than as contracted
workers led to much more rigid terms of service ... some even for a
lifetime, although there were no fixed rules about such matters. Not
yet anyway. Also to be noted was that White slavery existed, though in
only small amounts, as punishment for some kind of crime a person
committed.
Actually, by 1645, a number of freed Africans
(though by no means a very large percentage of Virginia's total African
population) were farming along Virginia's Eastern Shore region.
But as time quickly progressed there was less and
less opportunity for freed workers, Whites or Blacks, who had completed
their required terms of service to now find good land by which they
might prosper. Thus many stayed on with their Virginia masters -
becoming as servants a rather permanent part of the plantation system.
This was especially true of the rather compliant
Africans, who tended to stay on from generation to generation, each new
generation rather permanently indentured. Slowly the Africans were
being locked into the indenture system - legally bound for life in
service to their masters. Also, since indentured services could legally
be bought and sold, soon these African workers and families were looked
on not as humans but as property. Step by step, indenture was
transforming itself into slavery.
Slavery as an institution was recognized as a legal matter only in 1654.5
But as slavery extended its place in the Virginia economy, the laws
regulating and controlling slavery advanced in accompaniment. By 1705
the Virginia Slave Codes defined the institution fairly much as it
would be practiced in Virginia for the next 160 years.
By the very nature of the Virginia plantation system, the lay of the
land, the wideness and depth of the Virginia rivers (such as the James
or York Rivers) in the Tidewater region - the Southern economy remained
essentially rural. Towns were not greatly needed, since the produce of
the major plantations could be loaded directly onto ocean-going ships
bound for England right at the docks in front of the plantation. There
was no need to ship the plantation's produce to some port city or
commercial center to be collected there and then forwarded on to
England. Each plantation conducted its own business with England right
at the plantation. Thus an urban economy did not develop in the South
as it would in the American North.
As for the poor dirt farmers scattered throughout
upland Virginia, their existence was largely one of mere subsistence
farming, their hard work providing barely enough to keep their families
alive. This also made the South unattractive to European immigrants to
America - as they realized that given this wide gap between the rich
aristocrats and the poor dirt farmers in Virginia, they knew exactly in
which class they would eventually find themselves, no matter how hard
they worked. Virginia was not the land of opportunity for an immigrant.
Slave labor and the plantation system that depended on it dictated an
economic reality that worked only to the benefit of the early and
well-established Virginia aristocracy.
Despite this
rather un-Christian social profile of the very rich lording it over the
slaves - and also over the upland poor-White dirt farmers - Virginia
was not Godless. To be sure, there was a Christian character about the
Virginia colony, for that went right along with being English. Much
like in the Catholic Spanish colonies, in Virginia the king's official
Church of England was expected to be established as part of the
(feudal) political order there. However, not until well into the
establishment of the Virginia colony (c. 1620) did some effort take
place to bring Virginia under Anglican church structure, with its
system of parishes presided over by priests or rectors and the
non-clergy vestry. But always there was a shortage of priests willing
to come to America. And even with the creation of the College of
William and Mary in Williamsburg in 16936
(America's second college), there were not many young men willing to
take up the challenge of the Anglican priesthood. Ordination could
occur only in London, as there never was a bishop appointed to the
American colonies during the period prior to American independence in
the 1780s. Also, in status-conscious Virginia, there was little status
and even less economic reward in being an Anglican priest in Virginia.
Also, attendance at Sunday service was the law,
which was seldom enforced - and which thus produced little personal
incentive for the Virginians to be very attentive to the colony's need
for religious discipline.
Virginia did possess some semblance of democracy.
The House of Burgesses continued to give representation to all free
Virginians, although over time the vote was limited to only landowners.
Nonetheless, the greatest power or authority was based on the
Governor's Council, comprised of individuals selected by the Governor
to help him with his governing responsibilities. These individuals were
nearly always drawn from the class of local Virginia aristocrats, the
owners of the major Virginia plantations.
Not surprisingly, Virginians generally were quite
accepting of this political arrangement, holding the social or cultural
understanding that it
was the proper thing to do to defer to one's social betters - just as
things worked back in England. 5Actually,
slavery was practiced widely across the world in the 1600s. The Muslims
specialized in it - and were major slave traders. But Europeans engaged
in the practice as well, though economically it was not particularly
profitable in Europe itself. It really grew big on the islands of the
Caribbean where slaves were brought in in huge numbers to work the
highly profitable sugar cane plantations. Here Africans virtually
replaced the Indian population that had once inhabited the islands. 6It
took 57 years after the Puritans founded Harvard College in New England
to train their Congregational pastors for the Virginia Anglicans to do
the same in founding the College of William and Mary to train their
Episcopal priests.
Miles
H. Hodges
