The Story of Jamestown (continued)

THE SPREAD OF SETTLEMENT. Jamestown was planned as the first permanent English settlement in Virginia. The fixed intention was to establish other seats as soon as possible. As the limitations of Jamestown became obvious, the desire for other townsites was intensified. Soon after the settlement was made at Jamestown, temporary garrisons were placed at outlying points for protective and administrative reasons —at Kecoughtan (Hampton-Newport News), Cape Henry, and at the falls of the James. The first efforts in this direction, except at Kecoughtan, ended in the autumn of 1609 under pressure from the Indians. With the arrival of Delaware, Kecoughtan (renamed Elizabeth City in 1619) was established as a permanent settlement. Dale and Gates went on to establish the city of Henricus (Henrico) well up the James near the falls. Then came Charles City (the earlier Bermuda Nether Hundred) which developed into the last of the four settlements established by the company, each of which had the designation "city." These four settlements were the only towns specifically set up by the company and consequently under its complete control. These later came to be mentioned in the records as the "Four Ancient Boroughs" or "four ancient Incorporations." As one of these, Jamestown became the center of the political subdivision that developed into one of the original Virginia shires in 1634. Within the next decade the term county replaced that of shire, and today, although Jamestown has ceased to exist as a corporate organization, James City County continues to function as the oldest governing unit in English America.

Although the four "cities" constituted the first settlements in Virginia and were the only ones established directly under company control, they were but the beginning. About 1616, a new plan gave rise to the creation of settlements known as "particular plantations," some times called "hundreds" as a result of the practice of awarding land on the basis of 100 acres or of sending settlers in groups of the same number. These were established with company permission, which included a grant of land made to individual groups of stockholders organized for the purpose of setting up a specific settlement. The first of these was Martin's Hundred, in 1617, and others followed rapidly. By the summer of 1619, there were seven particular plantations already functioning, in addition to the original "cities," a term sometimes thought to derive from the form of government being used by the "City of Geneva" in Switzerland which was held in high esteem by some of the company officials, particularly by Sir Edwin Sandys who became Treasurer of the Virginia Company in 1618.

With the spread of settlement east and west along the James and outward along its rivers and creeks as well, Jamestown lay approximately in the center of an expanding and growing colony. It was the capital town and the principal center of the colony's social and political life. In size it remained small, yet it was intimately and directly related to all of the significant developments of the 17th century. Its physical aspects changed with the evolution of 17th century architectural patterns and designs. Life in the town was varied and perhaps representative of the best in the colony for almost a century. As wealth accumulated, the manner of living broadened and improved. There is strong evidence that Jamestown was the first to feel the impact of the advantages and efforts that this produced, particularly in the first half century of its existence. Material progress is evident as early as 1619 in the letter of John Pory, secretary of the colony, written from Virginia late in that year:

Nowe that your lordship may knowe, that we are not the variest beggars in the worlde, our cowekeeper here of James citty on Sunday goes accowtered all in freshe flaming silke; and a wife of one that in England had professed the black arte, not of a schollar, but of a collier of Croydon, weares her rough bever hatt with a faire perle hatband, and a silken suite thereto correspondent.

A typical view of the landscape on Jamestown Island. The high ground is principally along low ridges, sometimes called "fingers," divided by marshes or very low ground.

THE BEGINNING OF REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT. In 1618, there were internal changes in the Virginia Company that led to the resignation of Sir Thomas Smith as treasurer, and to the election of Sir Edwin Sandys as his successor. This roughly corresponded to changes in company policy toward the administration of the colony and to intensified efforts to develop Virginia. It led to the abolition of martial law, to the establishment of individual property ownership, and greater freedom and participation in matters of government. Virginia already enjoyed a high degree of religious freedom due, perhaps, to the fact that a number of company officers were strongly under the influence of the puritan element within the Church of England. This, together with the fact that Virginia was not settled purely for religious reasons, caused less stress to be put on absolute uniformity in church matters. Sir George Yeardley, recently knighted, returned to Virginia as governor in April 1619, and was the first spokesman in the colony for the new policy toward Virginia. In England it had been ably advanced on behalf of the colony by Sir Edwin Sandys, the Earl of Southampton, and John and Nicholas Ferrar.

Soon after his arrival, Yeardley issued a call for a representative legislative assembly which convened at Jamestown on July 30, 1619, and remained in session until August 4. This was the earliest example of our present system of representative government in America. The full intentions behind the moves that led to this historic meeting may never be known. It seems to have been an attempt to give to the Englishmen in America those rights and privileges of Englishmen that had been guaranteed to them in the original company charter, rather than a planned attempt to establish self-government in the New World on a scale that might have been in violation of English law and custom at the time. Whatever the motive, the significance of this meeting in the church at Jamestown remains the same. This body of duly chosen representatives of the people has continued in existence and its evolution leads directly to our State legislatures and to the Congress of the United States.

DEVELOPMENTS, 1619—24. Another significant development of 1619 was the sending by the company of maidens to Virginia to be wives of the settlers. Although many women were already established with their families in the Jamestown colony, the company recognized that homes and children for all the men would be conducive to established family life and permanent residence. Under this new project, the first maidens arrived in May and June 1620. Others followed, as ships brought more and more young women seeking their fortunes in Virginia.

The third momentous event in 1619 was the arrival of Negroes in a Dutch warship. They remained in Virginia, some finding homes, and some as indentured servants even as some white men were at that time. Nevertheless, this first arrival of Negroes was to lead to the introduction of slavery into the colony. It was more than a generation before the institution of slavery began to be entrenched as the backbone of the economic life in Virginia, yet this event of 1619 was the first move in that direction.

Under Dale, the emphasis on colonization was away from Jamestown, yet later governors found the original seat desirable. Capt. Samuel Argall, who succeeded Yeardley as deputy governor in 1617, wrote that he advanced physical improvements prior to his hasty withdrawal from Virginia in the spring of 1619 to avoid arrest under charges of mismanagement of company affairs. Argall had been the first to prescribe limits for Jamestown. Yeardley followed him as governor, and for the next few years Jamestown, at this time most often called "James City," witnessed considerable growth and activity. The town, long before, had expanded outside of the fort and spread along the shore on the extreme west end of the island. The borough or incorporation, of which it was the center, extended west to the Chickahominy River and downriver beyond Hog Island. Its territory was along the north side of the river and included the south side as well—the area that later became Surry County. West toward the Chickahominy the area adjacent to Jamestown Island became rather heavily developed and was referred to as the "Suburbs of James City."

The period from 1619 to 1624 was one of considerable activity for Virginia in general and Jamestown in particular. The reorganized Virginia Company, following its political changes, renewed its efforts to expand the colony and to stimulate profitable employment. Heavy emphasis was placed on new industries, particularly iron and glass, the latter evidently attempted a second time on Glasshouse Point. The planting of mulberry trees and the growing of silkworms were advanced by the dispatch of treatises on silk culture and silkworm eggs in a project in which King James I himself had a personal interest. Immigration to the colony was increased, and measures were taken to meet the religious and educational needs of the settlers. This was the period that saw the attempt to establish a college at Henrico.

The industrial and manufacturing efforts of these years, however, were not destined to succeed. This condition was not due to any laxity on the part of George Sandys, resident treasurer in Virginia, who was something of an economic on-the-spot supervisor for the company. Virginia could not yet support these projects profitably, and interest was lacking on the part of the planters who found in tobacco a source of wealth superior to anything else that had been tried. Tobacco was profitable, and it was grown, at times, even in the streets of Jamestown. It was the profit from tobacco that supported the improved living conditions that came throughout the colony.

These Englishmen who came to settle in the wilderness retained their desire for the advantages of life in England. Books, for example, were highly valued, and with the passage of the years were no uncommon commodity in Virginia. As early as 1608, Rev. Robert Hunt had a library at Jamestown, which was consumed by fire in January of that year. Each new group of colonists seemingly added to the store on hand—Bibles, Books of Common Prayer, other religious works, medical and scientific treatises, legal publications, accounts of gardening, and such. In 1621, the company wrote to the colonial officials regarding works for a new minister being sent to the colony that: "As for bookes we doubt not but you wilbe able to supplie him out of the lybraries of so many that have died." By this date there was local literary effort, too, such as that by Treasurer George Sandys who continued his celebrated translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses in the house of William Pierce at Jamestown. Then, too, in March 1623, a gentleman of the colony sent from "Iames his Towne" the ballad "Good Newes from Virginia" in which among other things, he describes the arrival of the governor's wife at Jamestown and uses this to prod others to support the colony and to settle in Virginia.

But last of all that Lady faire,
that woman worth renoune:
That left her Country and her friends,
to grace braue Iames his towne.

The wife unto our Gouernour,
did safely here ariue:
With many gallants following her,
whom God preserue aliue.
What man would stay when Ladies gay;
both liues and fortunes leaues:
To taste what we haue truely sowne,
truth never man deceaues.

(From The William and Mary Quarterly,
3rd Set., V, 357—8)