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 VIRGINIA UNDER CHARLES I AND CROMWELL, 1625-1660

 By

 Wilcomb E. Washburn

 Research Associate, Institute of Early American History and Culture

 and

 Instructor in History, College of William and Mary

 Virginia 350th Anniversary Celebration Corporation Williamsburg, Virginia 1957

 COPYRIGHTŠ, 1957 BY VIRGINIA 350TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION CORPORATION, WILLIAMSBURG, VIRGINIA

 Jamestown 350th Anniversary Historical Booklet, Number 7

Virginia Under Charles I and Cromwell, 1625-1660

VIRGINIA ON THE EVE OF EXPANSION

Woodrow Wilson named the first volume of his _History of the UnitedStates_ "The Swarming of the English. " We might go further and comparethe colonization and expansion in the New World to a fissioning processin which individual atoms are torn loose from a former pattern ofcoherence and fused into new and strange patterns. The United States, indeed, is still in the process of fusion following the earlier fissionprocess. It has not yet reached the stability that comes to some nationsin history, and which is marked by a fixed pattern of population growth, land use, day-to-day habits, and philosophic beliefs. It is, rather, acountry in which every generation can look back to a strangely differentera that existed before it came of age. 

The period 1625-1660 in Virginia history is an important one for thestudy of the fission-fusion process in America. During those yearsVirginia's population increased perhaps twenty-five or thirty fold, andthe settlements spread from a thin belt along the James River to thewhole of Tidewater Virginia. Human atoms were propelled outwards inevery direction in an uncontrolled and only feebly directed expansion. 

The years 1607 to 1625 had created a base for this expansion. Those hadbeen crucial years and difficult ones. Settlements had resembledmilitary camps and individual colonists had been commanded likesoldiers. Rigorous administration of justice, fear of the Indians, andthe strict economic regulations imposed by the London Company had servedto restrain the potentially expansive nature of the colonists. 

The year 1625 saw Virginia under a new King and under a new form ofgovernment. The charter of the London Company was made void, and thecolony passed from the control of a commercial company to the directcontrol of King Charles I. 

The official census of the non-Indian population of Virginia in 1625showed 1, 232 persons in the colony. Nine hundred and fifty-two weremales, twelve of them Negroes. Two hundred and eighty were females, eleven of them Negroes. Although the colony had been in existence foreighteen years the fissioning process had hardly begun. But it wasbeginning. Five years later the population had more than doubled toapproximately 3, 000. In 1640 the population jumped to 8, 000, and by 1670to 40, 000, of whom 2, 000 were Negroes. Every aspect of Virginialife--political, physical, economic, social, and moral--was to beaffected by this explosive and uncontrolled growth. 

Virginia did not develop any cities or even towns during the period1625-1660. Indeed, the towns, such as Jamestown and Henrico, that hadearlier been established, declined in population or were totallyabandoned. The immigrants who were funneled into the colony throughJamestown were soon attracted to the ever widening frontier. During thefirst twenty years colonists had lived in organized farming communities, separated from other such settlements, but strictly supervised by local"plantation commanders. " The separate settlements were variously called"colonies, " "plantations, " "hundreds, " and "particular plantations, " andsometimes contained hundreds of planters. Frequently the "plantation"was located within a loop of the James River. The members of thesettlement planted their crops within the loop, and set up palisades andforts at the open end for their common defense. Sentinels and guardswere provided cooperatively to man the defenses. As the settlersincreased in numbers and the power of their governors and of the Indiansto restrain them decreased, however, they tended to leave the organizedcommunities and to carve out for themselves individual plantations inthe wilderness. Thus, even while the population of the colony grew byleaps and bounds, the population of Jamestown and other areas wherepopulation was once concentrated declined. It was a process, one mightcall it, of de-urbanization. 

What was it that reversed the process of urbanization that was going onin the mother country? The attraction was, of course, the land and itsfruits. England, with her five or six millions, was not overpopulated bymodern standards. Nor was she overpopulated by comparison with the greatnations of the Orient such as China which could even in that periodcount its population in the hundreds of millions. But her few millionsseemed at times to oppress the English soil. On the other hand, Americawas a relatively new home of the human species. Perhaps less than amillion Indians lived within the present bounds of the United States, and the Indians with whom the English in Virginia came in contactnumbered less than 10, 000. "In the beginning all the world was America, "wrote John Locke, and the English townsmen, villagers, and yeomen whocame to America found it natural to revert back to the time when Adamwent forth from the Garden of Eden to till the ground from whence he wastaken. It would be more truthful to say, however, that the English wentnot so much in sorrow as in confidence, as the sons of Abraham to whomGod had promised all the land of Canaan for an everlasting possession. 

Tobacco was the richest fruit of the land. Despite the moral opprobriumin which the "vile, stinking weed" was held by men in England, includingKing James himself, the public soon developed an insatiable appetite forit. Having for the Europeans the attraction of novelty and utility, itcommanded an enormous price in the early years of the settlement. WithSpanish tobacco selling at eighteen shillings a pound in 1619, theopportunities for gain from tobacco production seemed unlimited. Herewas the "gold" that Virginia had to offer, and soon all hands couldthink of nothing else. The earliest settlers, hoping to emulate theSpaniards in finding great treasures and living off the labor of theIndians, had suffered bitterly from shortages of food. Later settlers, though they did not hold to the expectations of the first arrivals, still sought the avenue of quickest and greatest gain, and tobaccoprovided that avenue. Throughout the 1620's many planters neglected togrow corn or wheat, preferring to obtain their food supply by barter orseizure from the Indians, or by purchase from planters who were willingto divert their labor to such crops. Who would bother with grain whentobacco sold for as much per pound as grain did per bushel? Frenchmen, brought over to introduce vine-growing in the colony, neglected theirspecialty to plant tobacco and had to be restrained by an act ofFebruary 1632. An act of February 1633 similarly required all gunsmiths, brickmakers, carpenters, joiners, sawyers, and turners to work at theirtrades and not to plant tobacco or do other work in the ground. 

Another booklet in this series deals with agriculture in Virginia. It isenough to say here that as the total production of tobacco increased sodid the price decline. Our present-day farm surplus problem is not new. Even when the price had plummeted to a penny a pound the planters werenot discouraged from planting. Attempts were made on both sides of theAtlantic to fix prices and to control the amount of production in orderto restore prosperity to the tobacco farmers. The important questionswere whose interests would be served, and how would they be served best?

The death of James I and the dissolution of the Virginia Companyoccurred almost at the same time. Charles I, his son, assumed the thronein 1625 and promptly assured the planters that though the form ofVirginia's government had changed, the individual planters could be surethat their rights and property would be respected. Charles informed thecolonists, however, that he would take over the buying of their tobaccoas a royal monopoly and give them such prices as would satisfy andencourage them. Agreement with the planters, nevertheless, was difficultto obtain. The Virginians were solidly united as a special interest infavoring the highest prices and the greatest production. Theirrepresentatives, both in the House of Burgesses and on the Council, weretheir ardent spokesmen, themselves planters, whose interest lay infighting the battle of all Virginians. On the other hand the King, andthe English merchants and associates through whom he dealt, desired tobuy Virginia's tobacco at the lowest possible prices and in moderatequantities. The tug of war between the two sides continued for manyyears without any clear-cut resolution. 

VIRGINIA UNDER WYATT AND YEARDLEY, 1625-1627: TOBACCO AND DEFENSE

Sir Francis Wyatt, who had been the London Company's Governor in theperiod 1621-1624, was appointed Governor by James I the first year thecolony was under royal control. Although the King made no specificprovision for the continuation of a representative Assembly, Wyatt andthe Council called together representatives of the various settlementsto meet in a General Assembly on May 10, 1625, in Jamestown. There theydrew up a petition complaining of the old Company rule and the miserablestate in which it had kept the colony during the previous twelve years, and pleading with the King not to allow a monopoly of the tobacco trade. The King's advisers, they feared, were those who had formerly oppressedthem and who would do so again should the King consent to a "pernitiouscontract" taking all their tobacco at unfair rates. To present theircase against the contract they chose Sir George Yeardley, formerGovernor, to go to England as their agent. The willingness of Wyatt andthe Council to call such an Assembly and the unanimity of views derivingfrom it, show how single in their economic interests all Virginianswere. 

Governor Wyatt attempted to prevent disorderly expansion of settlementand to build positions of strength in the colony, but he knew that the"affection" of the planters to "their privat dividents" was too strong aforce to resist. Hence he recommended that a palisade be built fromMartin's Hundred on the James River to Chiskiack on the York River, with houses spaced along it at convenient intervals. In this way theIndians might be kept out of the entire lower portion of the peninsula, the cattle kept in, and the colony provided with a secure base for thedevelopment of its economy. After the economy was flourishing, therewould be a chance for finding the riches in the mountains to the westand the longed-for passage to the South Sea, so confidently believed tolie just beyond the Appalachians. All these enterprises presupposed the"winning of the Forest" between the York and the James, which Wyatthoped to accomplish by means of his palisade scheme. 

Wyatt's project was not immediately put into effect. In 1626 he wasreplaced by Sir George Yeardley. Yeardley, like Wyatt, devoted much ofhis time to devising means to promote the security of the colony againstattack by land or by sea. 

It is hard for us to realize how desperately concerned with theirsecurity were the few thousand Englishmen who inhabited Virginia at thistime. Separated from the mother country by 3, 000 miles of ocean, adangerous crossing usually taking two months, the settlers had only aprecarious toe hold on a vast continent. From the ocean side thesettlers feared possible attack from other European colonizing powers:the Spanish, French, or Dutch. The Spanish ambassador in London in theearly period of the Virginia settlement had frequently urged hisgovernment to wipe out the struggling colony. But the indecision ofSpain's monarch had saved the colony. 

The Virginians themselves had engaged in expeditions against the Frenchsettled in Maine, and spoke menacingly of the Dutch who had establisheda settlement on the King's domain in Hudson's River in 1613. The claimsof the European monarchs to the American continent conflicted with oneanother, and there seemed little chance that a resolution would come byany other means than war. So it proved to be, later. In the meantime, athome, Virginia settlers stood on guard. Governor Yeardley appointedCapt. William Tucker, one of the Virginia Council, to check at PointComfort all ships entering the James River. Tucker was provided with awell-armed shallop and absolute authority to check all ships arriving. He could not do battle with an enemy warship, of course, but he couldgive the alarm in case the enemy appeared. A few years later a fort wasbuilt at Point Comfort to defend the entrance to Virginia's great river. Although the channel was too wide ever to be adequately commanded by thecannon of the day, the fort provided some protection to the colony. 

Yeardley made similar efforts to strengthen Virginia's position on landagainst the numerically superior Indians. Like Wyatt he urged thenecessity of "planting the forest" rather than jumping beyond it toareas far from existing settlements. As a means of controlling thepopulation Yeardley issued a proclamation requiring that anyone whodesired to move his place of residence within the colony must obtainprior permission from the Governor and Council. Even to be absent for ashort time from his place of residence, a planter was required to getpermission from his "plantation commander. " As was pointed out earlier, "plantations" in this early period were usually not theindividually-owned, individually-operated plantations of later times, but "private colonies" or "particular plantations, " organized on ajoint-stock basis, on which more than a hundred men might live. 

In keeping with his conception of the colony as a military outpost, Yeardley made plans for an armed settlement on the York at Chiskiack, and devised a project for a surprise attack on all the surroundingIndians on the first day of August 1627. Each "particular plantation"was to march against an Indian town, kill as many Indians as possible, and seize or cut down what corn it could. The attack was a success, butbecause of a scarcity of shot the English failed in their desired goalof utterly extirpating the red men. 

In November 1627 Yeardley died, and the Council chose one of itsnumber, Captain Francis West, to assume the role of Governor and CaptainGeneral. 

VIRGINIA UNDER FRANCIS WEST AND DR. JOHN POTT, 1627-1630

Meanwhile the King had grown increasingly disgusted that Virginia'seconomy continued to be "built on smoke, " and he ordered the Virginiansto concentrate on crops and products other than tobacco. Among theproducts urged on the colonists were iron, salt, pitch and tar, potash, and pipe staves. As his directives went unheeded, the King determined toforce a drastic reduction in the planting of the profitable tobaccocrop. In instructions sent out in 1627 he directed that no master of afamily be allowed to plant above 200 pounds of tobacco and no servantmore than 125 pounds. He also ordered that all tobacco was to beconsigned to him or his representatives. 

Charles directed that a general assembly of the planters'representatives be summoned to deal with his proposals, and GovernorWest and the Council ordered an Assembly to meet on March 10, 1628. TheAssembly thanked the King for prohibiting the importation of Spanishtobacco into the English market, but cried that they would be at themercy of covetous individuals in England if a monopoly on Virginiatobacco was allowed. They proposed, however, that since the Kingintended to take all their tobacco, he should agree to take at least500, 000 pounds of tobacco at 3 shillings 6 pence the pound delivered inVirginia, or 4 shillings delivered in London. If the King was unwillingto take so much, they desired the right to export again from England tothe Low Countries, Ireland, Turkey, and elsewhere. As to the King'sproposal to limit tobacco cultivation to 200 pounds for the master of afamily and 125 pounds for a servant, "every weake judgment, " theyasserted, could see that this would not be sufficient for theirmaintenance. As to the King's desire that the colonists should producepitch and tar, pipe staves, and iron, they complained that much capitalwas needed to put such enterprises in operation. Few planters eithercould or would undertake such schemes when tobacco culture required solittle capital and produced such quick and profitable results. 

[Illustration: National Portrait Gallery, London

KING CHARLES I

Painting by Daniel Mytens]

The Assembly commissioned Sir Francis Wyatt, then in England, and twoVirginians to represent them in negotiations with the King. They were tobe allowed to come down six pence on each of the figures insisted uponby Governor, Council, and Burgesses in their answer to the King'sletter. 

As in 1625, the opportunity to join in Assembly for the purpose ofagreeing on regulations for tobacco production allowed the planters todeal with other matters. Wesley Frank Craven has written that"representative government in America owes much in its origins to anattempt to win men's support of a common economic program by means ofmutual consent. " Had the King been less desirous of taking everyplanter's tobacco and less concerned with the neglect of staplecommodities, he might well have governed the colony without calling theplanters together in periodic "assemblies. "

Dr. John Pott was elected by the Council on March 5, 1629, to succeedWest as Governor, and he governed in Virginia for one year. Few menpossess a less savory record than this first representative of themedical profession in America. In 1624 he had been ordered removed fromthe Virginia Council, at the insistence of the Earl of Warwick, for hispart in the attempt to poison the colony's Indian foes. He was laterconvicted of cattle stealing but spared punishment because he was theonly doctor in the colony and therefore in great demand. 

Both West and Pott were foes of the Indians, and in numerous orders andproclamations denounced former treaties of peace with them, and directedthat perpetual enmity and wars be maintained against them. A pretendedpeace was, however, authorized to be extended to the Indians in August1628 until certain captive Englishmen were redeemed; then it was to bebroken. 

The colonists, too, suffered during the administrations of West andPott. One man expressed the hope for "an Easterly wind to blow to sendin Noble Capt. Harvey, And then I shall have wright for all my wrong. "Capt. John Harvey was known in the colony for the investigation he hadconducted in Virginia in 1624-1625, and the King had appointed himGovernor on March 26, 1628. Harvey did not actually take up hisgovernment in Virginia until two years later. In the meantime West andPott administered the colony. 

VIRGINIA UNDER JOHN HARVEY, 1630-1632: EXPANSION AND DEVELOPMENT

When Harvey arrived in 1630 he found that inadequate restrictions placedon tobacco production in the previous years had created an enormoussurplus which had forced the price down to a penny a pound. Harvey foundalso that because of their "greedie desires to make store of Tobackoe, "the settlers had neglected to plant sufficient corn, let alone todevelop different commodities as instructed by the King. Calling anAssembly, he convinced the representatives to agree to reduce the amountof tobacco planted, and to increase the amount of corn. He also sentships into the Chesapeake and southward to Cape Fear to trade for cornwith the Indians to make up the deficit left by the negligent planters. But most important of all, Harvey put into effect the long-dreamed-ofplan to secure the entire area between the James and the York bybuilding a palisade between Archer's Hope Creek (now College Creek), emptying into the James River, and Queen's Creek, emptying into the YorkRiver. Harvey's plan called also for a settlement on the south side ofthe York. This outpost would serve as an advance base and point ofdefense for operations against Opechancanough, King of the Pamunkeys, and his many warriors. Six hundred acres apiece were granted there in1630 to Capt. John West, brother of Lord Delaware, and to Capt. JohnUtie, who were made commanders of the settlement. Fifty acres wereoffered to any person who would settle there during the first year ofits existence and twenty-five during the next year. Exactly when thefirst settlers moved to the York is uncertain, but it was probably in1631. West and Utie settled on either side of a bay formed by thejoining of King's Creek and Felgate's Creek about four miles abovemodern Yorktown. The tourist who speeds along the Colonial Parkway fromJamestown to Yorktown crosses the bay within sight of the tracts grantedWest and Utie. Today he may drive from Jamestown to the York withcomfort and safety in a few minutes. It took the early settlerstwenty-four years to cover the same distance. 

[Illustration: Map 1]

About the same time, probably in 1630, another distant settlement wasestablished. William Claiborne, Secretary of the Council of State ofVirginia, with one hundred men, settled Kent Island 150 miles upChesapeake Bay. In the Assembly of February 1632 both "Kiskyacke and theIsle of Kent" were represented by Capt. Nicholas Martiau, ancestor ofGeorge Washington. 

The great expansion had now begun. Settlers crossed from the James tothe York, and provision was made by an act of the Assembly of February1633 for building houses at Middle Plantation, situated strategicallybetween College Creek and Queen's Creek, and for "securing" the tract ofland lying between the two creeks. 

Besides being concerned with questions of defense, Harvey pursued apolicy of encouraging trade with other colonies in the New World. Numerous commissions were issued by the Governor in March and April of1632 authorizing individuals to trade with New England, Nova Scotia, andthe Dutch plantation in Hudson's River, as well as with the West Indies. Harvey even gave instructions to Nathaniel Basse, one of the traders anda member of the Council, to encourage people from the other colonies tocome to Virginia. "If those of Newe England shall dislike the coldnes ofthere clymate or the barrenness of the soyle, " wrote Harvey, "you maypropose unto them the plantinge of Delaware bay, where they shall havewhat furtherance wee cann afford them, and noe impediment objectedagainst theire owne orders and lawes. "

But all was not well in the government of the colony. Harvey found theCouncil members constantly opposing him, disputing his authority, resisting his attempts to administer equal justice to all men. The royalGovernor was not supreme as we now sometimes mistakenly assume. He wasfirst among equals only. Decisions at this time were made by majorityvote, and the Governor was frequently outvoted. Moreover the Councilors, who could devote more of their time to their private affairs, tended tobe better off financially than the Governor himself, who found it nextto impossible to get his salary from the King, and who was forced toentertain at his own expense all who came to James City. Harveycomplained that he should be called the "host" rather than the"Governor" of Virginia. In contrast, Samuel Mathews, one of Harvey'senemies on the Council, owned the finest estate in Virginia. WilliamClaiborne, another of Harvey's enemies on the Council, besides a largeestate, had a royal commission and English backers for his powerfultrading company. 

Harvey made every effort to reconcile the differences which arosebetween him and the Council members, and on December 20, 1631, allsigned an agreement promising to work in harmony and to mend theirdiscontent. 

Fortified by this agreement, Harvey went forward with his efforts to putVirginia's agricultural economy on a sound basis. The principal problemwas to force the planters to diversify. Many tears are shed for thepoverty of the planters of Virginia, and their customary indebtedness toEnglish creditors is usually cited as proof of their poverty. But this"poverty" was not based on the inability of the planter to raise enoughfood to support himself and his family, but on the fluctuations of themarket price of the crop--tobacco--to which he had devoted most of hisenergies as a speculative venture. Strange as it may seem, the planterhad to be forced to raise enough food for his own support, so avid washis desire for quick tobacco profits. 

Governor Harvey's Assembly of February 1632 directed that every manworking in the ground should plant and tend at least two acres of cornper head, on penalty of forfeiture of his entire crop of tobacco. Harveyhoped to make Virginia "the granarie to his Majesty's Empire, " as Sicilyhad been to Rome. Another act allowed corn to be sold for as high aprice as could be obtained, contrary to the usual European and colonialhabit of fixing prices on basic commodities used by the people. Thereason given for this freedom from price fixing was that the precedentsof other countries did not apply to America, "for none are so pooreheere, as that they may not have as much corne, as they will plant, havinge land enough. "

The Assembly of 1632 did, however, fix a price on tobacco, requiringthat it not be sold at less than six pence per pound, a law they went togreat pains to justify to the King. Tobacco was Virginia's primaryeconomic interest, and the Virginians were willing to go to any lengthsto advance that interest. They urged the King not to place anyimpediment to their "free trade, " or right to sell their tobaccowherever they could, and mentioned that they had already constructedseveral barques and had begun trading with the Dutch plantation onHudson's River. Governor Harvey asked why the English merchants couldnot afford to allow them a penny a pound for their tobacco when theDutch paid eighteen pence per pound. 

The English merchants who traded with Virginia formed a tight littlegroup which used its favored position to charge excessive prices forEnglish-made goods, and to give abnormally low prices for Virginiatobacco. Such a policy was not entirely owing to covetousness. TheEnglish economy was shackled by a conception of economic life whichbelieved in the necessity of monopolies and restrictive devices of allsorts. The Dutch nation, on the other hand, had thrown off many of thetraditional mercantilist restraints on trade. Holland soon enjoyed alevel of prosperity that made her the envy of the rest of Europe. Herrivals attributed Dutch success to the energy of her people. "Go to beatthe Dutch" became a byword which has persisted to this day. Not until acentury later did the English realize that Dutch prosperity was causednot so much by hard work as by the policy of freeing trade fromunnecessary restraints. As Dutch prosperity increased, Dutch shipsappeared in every sea, underselling all rivals and paying better pricesfor local products. The complaint that the London merchants allowed onlyone penny a pound for the Virginians' tobacco while the Dutch gaveeighteen strikingly illustrates the measure of Dutch commercialsuperiority. No wonder that the London merchants should demand that theDutch be excluded from the Virginia market! For the same reasonVirginians, whether Governors, Councilors, Burgesses, or planters, were, throughout the seventeenth century, almost unanimously opposed to theEnglish government's policy of restricting trade with Virginia toEnglish ships and confining that trade to English ports. 

Although Governor Harvey supported the Burgesses and Council in theirstrong defense of tobacco production, he privately wrote that he had notonly endeavored to have reduced the amount of tobacco planted "but if itmight have been, to have utterly rooted out this stinking commodity. " Hereported that only the powerful hand of the King and his Council could, however, effect such an end, so "indeared" were the planters to thetraffic. Moreover, Harvey admitted that until some more staple commoditycould be developed, tobacco could not be prohibited without the utterruin of the colony. Virginia was rooted to tobacco--seemingly for ever. 

The Virginia planters' proposals, of course, met the opposition of theLondon merchants, who complained to their powerful friends andassociates in the government and urged the King and his Council tonullify the restrictions which the Virginians tried to place on the saleof their tobacco. The merchants were particularly opposed to the desireof the Virginians to by-pass them and trade with foreign nationsdirectly. 

It is hard for us to realize today the immense importance of merchantsand traders in influencing the colonial policies of the Englishgovernment. Virginia was founded by a commercial company. All the earlyattempts at settlement were made by private persons who were willing to"adventure" their capital or their skill. Behind the great explorersstood private individuals who risked their money on the success of thevoyage or settlement. The "government"--perhaps it would be truer to saythe Kings and their advisers--did not have the funds or the foresight tosupport these ventures. They were perfectly willing to sign papersgranting lands they did not own to those who were willing to attempt thesettlement, but they were reluctant to put up their own money except ona sure thing. 

Once the settlements were functioning, once revenues were patentlyobvious, the monarchs showed more concern with their government. Merchants still, however, continued to provide the link between the Kingand colony to a great extent. In an age of state regulation andmonopolies, in an age which did not provide fixed salaries for men inhigh position, there was a close relationship between the Exchange andthe Court. A merchant dealing with overseas trade could not besuccessful unless he had influence at Court. Even after the King tookaway the charter of the Virginia Company, merchants continued to applypressure to the committees and commissions set up to advise the King oncolonial policy. Although the colonists feared that Charles I mightreinstitute a company over them, and the former representatives of theVirginia Company pressed for such a move, the merchants were not able tore-establish direct control over the colony. 

VIRGINIA UNDER HARVEY, 1632-1634: PROSPERITY AND DECENTRALIZATION

In September 1632, under Governor Harvey's direction, the first revisalof Virginia's laws was made. Twenty-five years of experience undervarying forms of government lay behind the revisal. All previous lawswere examined and brought into conformity with existing conditions. Mostof the legislation concerned the Church, tobacco, and the Indians, goodindications of what most concerned the early settlers. Highways werealso authorized to be laid out in convenient places, the first sign thatsettlement was spreading from the rivers--the traditional highways ofVirginia--into the interior. Virginia was becoming more than a militaryoutpost. It was becoming a "home. "

The success of Harvey's attempt to stabilize and diversify agriculturalproduction is confirmed in the account of Captain Thomas Young of hisvoyage to Virginia and Delaware Bay in 1634. Sailing up the James Riverhe noticed that "the cuntry aboundeth with very great plentie of milk, cheese, butter and corne, which latter almost every planter in thecountry hath. " The grim threat of starvation that had in former timeshung over the colony had been dispelled. Although there had been a rapidincrease in population, the food supply more than kept up with theincrease, and thousands of bushels of corn were even transported andsold to the New England colonists. 

The year 1634 also marked the establishment of the county form of localgovernment in Virginia. The scattered plantations and settlements, rapidly expanding and hence more difficult to govern from James City, were now organized into eight counties. For each a monthly court wasestablished by commission from the Governor and Council. Provision forseparate courts in outlying areas had been made as early as 1618. Nowthe shift to decentralized government was formalized. 

[Illustration: Map 2]

THE "THRUSTING OUT" OF GOVERNOR HARVEY AND ITS AFTERMATH, 1635-1641

In 1635, in one of the most famous incidents in Virginia's earlyhistory, Governor Harvey was deposed by his Council. Many historianshave assumed that Harvey was deposed by a spontaneous uprising of thepeople no longer able to bear his oppressive government. There is, however, little justification for this view. Many more accusations havebeen hurled at Harvey by later historians than by his contemporaries, and it is undoubtedly Harvey's position as a royal Governor and hisquick temper that have caused historians to take such a hostile view ofhim. Ever since the successful American Revolution of 1776, Americanhistorians, in interpreting the events of the colonial period, havejumped at any evidence of discontent as an anticipation of, andjustification for, the War for Independence. They have not stopped todetermine whether the charges hurled at the royal Governors were true ornot. It is enough that someone accused them of oppression. 

The causes of the revolt against Harvey were various. Of firstimportance was the continual opposition that existed between theGovernor and his Council. The revolt was not primarily a revolt of thepeople but a revolt by certain members of the Council who attempted togive their particular insubordination the appearance of a generalrebellion. 

Harvey's commission was such that he could do nothing except by majorityvote of himself and the Council sitting as a single body. The Councilfrequently outvoted him, effectively blocking his proposals. Harveybitterly disputed the Council's power to thwart his will. He pointed outthat the King had sent him to Virginia not only as the new Governor butwith the specific duty of correcting the abuses that were reported tohave existed under previous Governors, especially those abuses for whichmembers of the Council were responsible. Previous to his arrival thegovernment had been in the hands of Francis West and Dr. John Pott, elected to office by the other members of the Council. Pott, whosereputation has been mentioned earlier, was not pleased to be brought tojustice for his dishonest actions. Nor was Samuel Mathews, an importantmember of the Council, pleased to be brought to justice for withholdingthe cattle and property of other men. (Mathews, the richest man in thecolony, successfully resisted all legal attempts to divest him of thisproperty. ) Nor were the Council members pleased when, in accordance withHis Majesty's commands, Harvey attempted to punish those responsible forthe ill treatment of William Capps, sent earlier by the King to startproduction of tar, potash, salt, pipe staves and other commodities. TheCouncil had discouraged him from his mission, except in so far as itconcerned the production of salt, and Pott had issued an orderpreventing him from leaving the colony to report to the King. 

Another cause for grievance against Harvey was the peace he made withthe local Indians. The colonists distrusted the Indians more than theydistrusted other Europeans. The great massacre of 1622, when the Indiansmade a desperate attempt to destroy the English settlement, had placedIndian-white relations on a basis of perpetual enmity. Legally, theIndians had never been considered to have the same rights as theEnglish. English law throughout the seventeenth century maintained thedoctrine that between Christians and infidels there could exist nothingbut perpetual enmity, a view which was a hangover from the period of theCrusades, wars against the Turks, and expansion by militant Christiannations into heathen lands during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. It is true that practical co-operation and on-the-spot recognition ofIndian rights had developed in Virginia in the early years. The massacreof 1622, however, gave Virginians an excuse for abandoning all forms ofco-operation with, and respect for, the Indians. Deceit and breach offaith were elevated into acknowledged instruments of policy. The rightof the Indians even to occupy the land of their forefathers was denied. They were admitted to exist and to hold land _in fact_, but the Englishrefused to recognize _in law_ either their existence or their title toland. Total extirpation was resolved against those Indian nations whichhad taken part in the massacre. "Marches" were periodically orderedagainst the various tribes with the purpose of destroying or seizingtheir corn, burning their shelters, and killing as many members of thetribe as possible. 

Governor Harvey reversed this policy and made peace with the Indiansagainst the advice of Dr. Pott and other Councilors. He also attemptedto see that some measure of equity was extended to Indian-whiterelations. As a result, the more aggressive planters accused him ofpromoting a second massacre. 

What really set off the revolt against Harvey, however, was theinjection of the hottest issue of the day into the controversy: whetherHarvey was "soft" on Catholicism. This issue was brought to a headbecause of the grant of a portion of Virginia's original territory toGeorge Calvert, first Lord Baltimore. Harvey had extended a helping handto Baltimore's colonists. Although his actions in this regard werespecifically required of him by the King, and although he receivedespecially warm commendation from the English government for doing so, the Virginia colonists objected. The King's grant, for one thing, hadbeen carved out of the Virginia Company's old bounds which had been leftundisturbed when the Company lost its right to govern the area. AlreadyVirginians were beginning to eye the benefits of settlement in thenorthern reaches of Chesapeake Bay. One, Colonel William Claiborne, Secretary of the colony, had obtained a royal commission to trade in thearea and had established a settlement on Kent Island, opposite thepresent Annapolis, far up Chesapeake Bay. By acting on the King'sinstructions and supporting Baltimore's authority in the area againstClaiborne's claims, Harvey turned the second most important man in thecolony against him. 

Harvey at first backed the Virginia Council's assertion that KentIsland was a part of Virginia, and not part of the supposedlyuncultivated wilderness granted to Baltimore by the King. But in theface of Charles's obvious desire to take the area away from Virginia, and because Claiborne's patent authorized trade rather than settlement, Harvey soon accepted Lord Baltimore's position that Claiborne's tradingpost lay within the limits of Baltimore's jurisdiction. Irritationbetween the two men increased when Harvey attempted jointly with theMaryland authorities to conduct an examination of charges that Claibornewas stirring up Maryland's Indians against the new settlers. Claibornewas accused of telling the local Indians that the new settlers were notEnglishmen but Spaniards. The investigation which ensued was hampered atevery turn by Claiborne and his friends on the Virginia Council. 

The Virginians were most concerned not by the apparent violation ofVirginia's territorial integrity, but by the fact that the newsettlement was being established and settled by Roman Catholics. TheVirginians were less tolerant than the King in wishing success to LordBaltimore, a Catholic, and his fellow religionists, in establishing acolony on their northern border. The Virginia Council wrote Charles in1629 thanking him for "the freedome of our Religion which wee haveenjoyed, " and asserting proudly that "noe papists have beene suffered tosettle amongst us. " They insisted upon tendering the oaths of supremacyand allegiance to Lord Baltimore when he arrived in Virginia in October1629 to consider a possible settlement, and reported to the King that hehad refused to take those oaths. Charles I had married a Catholic, Henrietta Maria of France, and, like his father, James I, was notdisposed to allow too rigorous penalties against those who professedreligious allegiance to Rome. But the Parliament, and the people ingeneral, feared and hated Catholics, believing their religious beliefsto be incompatible with loyalty to a Protestant state. 

By means of the oaths of allegiance and supremacy Catholics wererequired to recognize the English sovereign as their rightful ruler inmatters spiritual and ecclesiastical as well as temporal, to repudiatethe papal claim to depose heretical princes, to promise to fight for theKing in case of rebellion caused by a papal sentence of deposition, andto denounce the doctrine that princes, being excommunicated, could bedeposed or murdered, or that subjects could be absolved from their oathof allegiance. The oaths were based on a real fear which identifiedRoman Catholicism with treason. Protestants felt that Catholics owedtheir highest allegiance to a foreign power, and hence were not goodEnglishmen. The problem was a complicated one, and much debated at thetime and since. Now it is generally accepted that one can owe spiritualallegiance to Rome while remaining a faithful subject of a non-Catholicstate. In England in the seventeenth century, however, the Church ofRome was too closely identified with England's mortal enemies to allowher freely to tolerate Catholics in her midst. For a long period Englandhad feared Spain as the greatest threat to her existence. Even after thedefeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 this fear persisted and to acertain extent was transferred to France, another Catholic power. Themeasures taken against the Catholics in England were similar to thosetaken against Communists in this country today, and they were taken forthe same reason: the fear that the followers of a universal ideologywould turn against their local allegiance if the two ever came inconflict. 

Eventually Charles's easy attitude towards Catholics helped bring abouthis downfall. In a similar way Harvey's compliance with the King'sinstructions to aid and respect Baltimore's colonists weakened hispopularity in Virginia. 

As the locus of power in England shifted from the King and his lordstowards the Parliament and the people, a stronger Protestant anddemocratic policy became necessary. The eventual result of this shift inpower became evident with the beheading of Charles I in 1649 and, later, with the Glorious Revolution of 1689 and the crowning of William andMary as constitutional symbols of the power of the English nation. 

So great was the popular feeling in Virginia against the "Papists" inMaryland that many, in casual conversation, exclaimed that they wouldrather knock their cattle on the head than sell them to Maryland. Toaccommodate the needs of the new settlers in Maryland, Harvey sent themsome cows of his own and did his best to ease their early struggles, inaccordance with the King's commands. He could not do all he wished, however, because he was frequently outvoted at the Council meetings onanything that had to do with Maryland. 

The deposition of Governor Harvey had its origin on April 27, 1635, in amutinous gathering held in the York River area, Virginia's firstfrontier settlement outside the James River. The ring-leader seems tohave been Francis Pott, brother of Doctor Pott, who harangued themeeting about the alleged injustice of Governor Harvey, and about theGovernor's toleration for Indians, which he said would bring on anothermassacre. Francis Pott had formerly been commander of the fort at PointComfort but had a short time before been discharged by Harvey formisbehavior. 

Harvey ordered the principals in the York meeting arrested, and calledthe Council together to consider what action should be taken againstthem. The Council opposed Harvey's desire to proceed against them bymartial law, and began to excuse the dissidents on the grounds of themany complaints the people had about the government. Harvey thereupondemanded opinions in writing on what should be done with the mutineers. George Menefie, the first Councilor of whom Harvey demanded such awritten statement, said he was but a young lawyer and dared not give asudden opinion. A violent debate ensued. The rest of the Council alsorefused to put their opinions in writing. At the next meeting of theCouncil, Menefie began to recount the grievances of the country, namingHarvey's detention of the Assembly's letter to the King as the principalone. The original of this letter, refusing the King's propositionsconcerning a tobacco contract, Harvey had retained, as likely toinfuriate the monarch and do the country no good. Instead he had sent acopy of the letter to the Secretary of State. At Menefie's words, Harvey, in a rage, brought his hand down sharply on the Councilor'sshoulder and said, "Do you say so? I arrest you on suspicion of treasonto his Majesty. " Then Capt. John Utie and Capt. Samuel Mathews seizedHarvey and said, "And we you upon suspicion of treason to his Majesty. "Secretary Richard Kemp immediately stepped between the men and told Utieand Mathews that Harvey was the King's Lieutenant and that they had donemore than they could answer for. Mathews and Utie released their hold onthe Governor but demanded that he go to England to answer the people'scomplaints. To emphasize their demand Dr. John Pott signaled fortysoldiers who had been concealed outside the Governor's house (where themeeting was held) to march up to the door, apparently as a form ofthreat, although the mutineers protested that the guard was for theGovernor's safety. More days of negotiations passed. The rebelliousCouncil called an Assembly to hear charges against Harvey, and choseCapt. John West to be Governor until His Majesty's pleasure might beknown. Finally Harvey agreed to return to England. Francis Pott went onthe same ship home. 

In England the Privy Council heard the charges against Harvey and hisdefense. None of the accusations stood up, and he was able to show whythe Council had private reasons to desire his removal. The King directedhim to return to his government with increased power, and ordered theCouncilors who had been instrumental in deposing him to be sent toEngland for trial. Harvey was able to collect some of his back pay andto obtain the King's agreement that he should return in a ship of war. Unfortunately, an old and unseaworthy prize ship was provided him whichhad to turn back shortly after its departure, and Harvey was forced totake passage on an ordinary merchant ship which arrived in VirginiaJanuary 18, 1637. Harvey suffered great losses because of theunseaworthiness of the prize ship, and petitioned the King forrecompense. He was, however, ordered to pay out of his own pocket allthe losses he had sustained by the affair, although he was authorized tocollect an equivalent amount from the estates of the mutinous Councilorsshould they be convicted. 

The sending of the mutinous Councilors--Capt. John West, Samuel Mathews, John Utie, and William Pierce--as prisoners to England, strangely enoughallowed them to accomplish what they had been unable to do in Virginia. So many and so powerful were their friends, so wealthy were theythemselves, and so many were the charges that they contrived againstHarvey now that he was back in the colony and unable to answer them, that the King soon reversed himself and ordered Harvey relieved of hispost. The King's action illustrates one of the little appreciatedfactors in American colonial history: the role played by petitions tothe King. Three thousand miles of ocean, and months, even years, intime, separated the assertion from the proof, encouraged the mostexaggerated charges, and contributed to the unjustified sympathyextended by the King to many petitioners who did not deserve suchconsideration. Some of the "crimes" charged against Harvey were evendiscovered to have their origin in the King's own commands or in earlieracts of Assembly. Yet they contributed to clouding the atmosphere andblinding the lords of England to the true worth of their representativein Virginia. 

On the basis of unjustified or unsupported charges concerning Harvey'salleged misappropriation of the mutinous Councilors' estates, which hadbeen seized for the King pending their trial, the King, on May 25, 1637, ordered these estates returned to their owners. Harvey compliedimmediately as far as four of the Councilors were concerned, but he hadalready allowed legal action to be directed against Mathews' estate bythose who had claims against Mathews, and judgments had been made infavor of the plaintiffs. When the English government heard he had notturned back Mathews' property, it promptly ordered that he do so withoutdelay, which order Harvey then tried to put into effect as best hecould. The damage had been done, however, and the impression createdthat he had willfully misappropriated Mathews' property and disobeyedthe King's commands. 

Harvey's fight against the charges his enemies brought against him inEngland suffered another blow when Mr. Anthony Panton, a minister whohad been twice banished from the colony, returned to England to add hiscomplaints to those of the others. Harvey was not given a chance todefend himself against the new charges, and on January 11, 1639, SirFrancis Wyatt was appointed to succeed him. 

On Wyatt's arrival Harvey's estate was seized and the old Governorprevented from returning to England until he could satisfy hiscreditors. To meet their demands, Harvey, in 1640, was forced to sellall his land and much of his personal property. The fact that he was indebt to many persons in the colony is itself a significant indicationthat he had not abused the powers of his office. It is a curious factthat both Governor Sir William Berkeley and Governor Harvey were much indebt when the rebellions against their rule began, while their principalenemies were among the wealthiest men in the colony. 

Harvey was finally able to return to England, probably in 1641. There hefound Anthony Panton continuing his campaign of defamation against him. Panton was not content to accuse the previous government in Virginia ofevery sort of general crime (although he failed to cite any specificinstance of oppression) but charged that the commission the King hadgranted to Sir William Berkeley in August 1641 to replace Wyatt had beensurreptitiously obtained. The House of Lords therefore orderedBerkeley's voyage delayed while they examined the case. The House ofCommons, on the basis of an earlier petition from Panton, had similarlyprevented the return to Virginia of Richard Kemp, Secretary of thecolony, and Christopher Wormeley. Both Berkeley and the two Virginianspresented counterpetitions, the one pointing out that he was chargedwith nothing and hence desired not to be held up on his costly voyage, the others asserting that all Panton's accusations were untrue andsimilarly requesting permission to leave. The House of Lords thereupongranted these petitions, sending Panton's charges to the Governor andCouncil of Virginia for a decision. 

THE EARLY ADMINISTRATION OF SIR WILLIAM BERKELEY, 1642-1644: AN ERA OFGOOD FEELING

In March 1642 Sir William Berkeley took up his duties in Virginia andbegan a career which ended both gloriously and ignominiously thirty-fiveyears later. Berkeley came from a distinguished family, was a graduateof Oxford and the Inns of Court, a playwright, and a courtier muchadmired by the King. Men frequently wondered why he chose to waste histalents in the American wilderness when he might have achieved eminenceat Court. The mystery will probably ever remain. In Virginia Berkeleyhad to work with many of the same Councilors who bedeviled Harvey, butBerkeley was able to get along well with them and with the Assembly andpeople of Virginia. No Governor of Virginia in the seventeenth centurywas ever so well or so deservedly loved by the people. Since he endedhis long career as Governor amidst a colonial rebellion against his rulein 1676, historians have found it hard to determine whether to bestowpraise or blame upon him. Usually he is praised for his early years inthe government and condemned for his later years, thus taking on a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde character. The last word has not yet been written onGovernor Berkeley, however, and his character may prove to be moreconsistent than historians have realized. 

Berkeley's first action was to join the Burgesses and Council in aviolent denunciation of those who were attempting to reinstitute the oldVirginia Company's control over the colony. In a "Declaration againstthe Company" Berkeley and the Assembly asserted that government underthe Company had been intolerable and if introduced again would destroyall the democratic rights allowed by the King's instructions, such aslegal trial by jury, the right to petition the King, and yearlyAssemblies. The readmission of the Company would also, the declarationasserted, impeach the "freedom of our trade (which is the blood and lifeof a commonwealth). " The declaration went on to order that anyone whopromoted the restoration of the Company's power would, upon dueconviction, be held an enemy to the colony and forfeit his whole estate. 

Berkeley's next action was to recommend the repeal of the tax of fourpounds of tobacco per poll which formerly had been levied for theGovernor's use. The Assembly acknowledged this as "a benefit descendingunto us and our posterity ... Contributed to us by our presentGovernor. " Berkeley abolished certain other valuable emoluments due himby virtue of his office "wherein, " the Assembly declared, "we may notlikewise silence the bounty of our present Governor in preferring thepublic freedom before his particular profit. " Finally Berkeleyrecommended that taxes be proportioned in some measure "according tomens abilities and estates" rather than by the old poll tax system, andthe new scheme was, for a brief period, put into effect. 

Governor Berkeley not only showed himself selfless in restraining hisown opportunities for profit, but fearless in restraining the colonists'itch for land. A few months before his arrival, the Assembly hadauthorized settlement both on the north side of the York and in theRappahannock area, if it could be done in great enough force. Opechancanough was to be offered fifty barrels of corn a year for thearea between the York and the Piankatank, although the English proposedto take the area whether Opechancanough accepted the offer or not. Twenty-four years had elapsed before English settlement jumped from theJames to the York. Now, ten years after the first settlements on theYork, Virginians were settling on the next great river to the north, theRappahannock. By the time Berkeley arrived, some settlers hadestablished themselves in the area, and many more had claimed grants. Indian hostility was great, however, and soon a number of the settlersreturned to more secure areas of the country. 

Berkeley, working with the Assembly of March 1643, obtained a law whichprovided that the Rappahannock River region should remain "unseated, "though grants might be tentatively claimed in the area, until theGovernor, Council, and Burgesses, that is, the Grand Assembly, shouldauthorize settlement there. The Governor was attempting to regulate theexpansion of the colony so that the twin goals of security for theEnglish and justice for the Indians could both be secured. In this hewas not entirely successful, since he could only guide, not arbitrarilydirect, the representatives of the people. The rich, virgin land of thefrontier exerted a continuing attraction to the tobacco planters, andfive years later, in 1648, the restrictions on settlement in theRappahannock region, as well as in the Potomac region, were officiallylifted. 

Many other important policy decisions were made at the March 1643meeting of the Grand Assembly. One of these decisions concerned churchgovernment. The first act provided for the establishment of churchgovernment according to the Anglican form. Virginia was not formed as aprotest against the Church of England, as were the Puritan colonies inNew England in large measure. Conformity in religious matters wasconsidered a virtue in Virginia. The Assembly, indeed, enacted thatnonconformist ministers be compelled to depart the colony, an act whichdid much to sour Virginia's relations with New England. What wassignificant about the act, however, was that, with certain exceptionsand qualifications, it gave the vestry of every parish power to electthe minister of the parish. Because established landlords and noblesdid not exist to build and endow churches as in England, therepresentatives of the people, in the vestry, had to assume the role ofpatron, to build the church, and to provide for the support of theminister. In such circumstances it was natural that much of the powerthat remained in the hierarchy of church, state, and society in Englandshould, in Virginia, pass to the ordinary people and be exercisedthrough their representatives--the vestry and Burgesses. The people, notthe King, became the patron of the Church of England in Virginia. Popular responsibility replaced clerical responsibility and added onemore phase of life to those controlled directly by the people in the NewWorld. It is significant that Patrick Henry, years before theRevolution, should first have asserted the doctrine of popularresponsibility and authority in a case--the celebrated "Parsons'Cause"--involving the people's authority over the church. 

An even more significant indication of the shift in power in thegovernment was the provision in one of the acts of the Assembly of 1643that appeals from the General Court (composed of the Governor andCouncil, all appointees of the Crown) should be made to the GrandAssembly (composed of the representatives of the people plus theGovernor and Council). 

Still another demonstration of the _de facto_ shift in power from theCrown to the people was the third act of the 1643 Assembly whichdeclared that the Governor and Council "shall not lay any taxes orimpositions upon this collonie their lands or comodities otherwise thenby the authority of the Grand Assembly to be leavied and imployed as bythe Assembly shall be appointed. " The first such law had been passed inMarch 1624 and renewed in February 1632. The process of wresting controlof the purse strings from the representatives of the Crown was to be along-drawn-out process in America, as indeed it was in England. InVirginia the battle was won without a fight either because the Governorswere unable to oppose the power of the Burgesses or because theyidentified their interests with those of the people. In the case of therights won by the people of Virginia during Sir William Berkeley'sgovernorship, these seem to have been the results as much of theGovernor's benevolence as of the Burgesses' power. 

The colony also took its economic welfare into its own hands in theearly years of Berkeley's administration. Dutch traders were encouragedby an act which made it free and lawful for any Dutch merchant orshipowner to bring merchandise into the colony and to take tobacco outof it. Means were provided to ease the difficulty caused by therequirement that the Dutch give security for payment of the King'scustoms at the port of London. 

THE GREAT MASSACRE AND INDIAN WAR, 1644-1646

On April 18, 1644, occurred the second great Indian massacre inVirginia's history. Opechancanough, King of the Pamunkey Indianconfederation, planned and executed the massacre, which most historiansattribute to the steadily increasing pressure exerted by the English onthe Indians' lands. The white population had increased from 3, 000 in1630 to 8, 000 in 1640, and more were pouring in yearly. Nearly fourhundred English, living in exposed areas of the colony, reportedly losttheir lives in the massacre. The gallant young Berkeley, as proficient asoldier as he was a playwright and courtier, struck back hard at theIndians. The entire colony was put on a war footing. Campaigns, usuallyby small mobile forces, were conducted against the Indians where theycould be found. The June Assembly passed an act for "perpetuall warrewith the Indians" promising to "pursue and root out those which have anyway had theire hands in the shedding of our blood and massacring of ourpeople. "

As in the case of so many Indian wars, there was a difference of opinionas to which Indian nations were guilty of the attack. The Assembly's actattempted to restrict reprisals to those who had actually perpetratedthe massacre. Some individuals, however, like Col. William Claiborne, seem to have desired to extend the reprisals to the Indians livingbetween the Rappahannock and the Potomac, where the land interests ofClaiborne and others were concentrated at this time. 

Little progress was made in defeating the enemy in the early months ofthe war. The Assembly, meeting in June 1644, foreseeing ruin anddesolation unless the colony could be furnished with a greater supply ofarms and ammunition, entreated Governor Berkeley to return to Englandand implore His Majesty for assistance to the country. The Assembly alsocommissioned Mr. Cornelius Lloyd as agent for the colony to obtain whatsupplies he could from the Dutch plantation in Hudson's River, from theSwedish plantation on the Delaware, and from the New Englandsettlements. 

It does not seem, from the records available, that either mission wassuccessful. Governor Berkeley found England involved in full-scale warbetween the forces of the King and those of Parliament. Instead ofreceiving aid from the King, Berkeley lent his own assistance to theKing's cause in his English campaigns. Berkeley returned to Virginia ayear later. 

The mission of Virginia's agent to the northern colonies apparently metwith similar lack of success. Governor John Winthrop of MassachusettsBay attributed the massacre to Virginia's expulsion of certain "godlyministers" sent from New England a short time before, and told theVirginia agent that Massachusetts could not spare the powder requested. When Massachusetts' principal powder store shortly thereafter blew up, Winthrop wondered whether God's wrath might not have been kindledagainst the Bay Colony for her refusal to provide powder to fellowEnglishmen in need. 

The war with Opechancanough continued throughout the fall and winter of1644 and into the spring of 1645. At the Assembly of February 1645provision was made for sending out the usual military parties. But inaddition three forts were ordered built: one in the Pamunkey territory, one at the falls of the James, and a third along the Chickahominy. 

Efforts were made to see that the expenses of the war were equitablyshared. The settlers at Northumberland, on the south bank of thePotomac, were ordered to contribute to the cost of the war on the northside of the James. Chickacoan, as the area was known at first, hadserved for several years as a rallying point for Protestants disaffectedwith the government of Lord Baltimore, but this was the first officialnotice of the settlement by the Virginia Assembly. Settlement along thePotomac was significant, of course, because it placed a body of citizensfarther from effective control than any had been in the past. It hadbeen hard enough for Harvey to control the citizens on the south side ofthe York River; now two broad rivers, the York and Rappahannock, laybetween the frontier settlements and Jamestown. 

The Assembly of February 1645 found time to deal with matters other thanthe conduct of the war. It passed an act providing "That Free trade beallowed to all the inhabitants of the collony to buy and sell at theirbest advantage. " Because some questions had been asked by the merchantsof London concerning a rumored prohibition of trade with them, it wasthought fit to explain that Virginia's free trade extended to them as toother Englishmen. 

Following Sir William Berkeley's return from England June 7, 1645, vigorous measures were taken to end the protracted war withOpechancanough, and a new Assembly was called to reform abuses which hadsprung up. This Assembly met in November and passed reform laws whichdemonstrate the concern Berkeley had for satisfying all the legitimategrievances of the people. Action was taken against innkeepers whocharged unreasonable rates and fraudulently mixed their wines andliquors with water. Similar action was taken against millers whoovercharged the people. Attorneys at law who charged fees for theirservices were expelled from office, the colony having become outragedat their exactions. The prohibition against professional attorneyscontinued for a number of years before it was finally relaxed. Strictregulations were instituted to curb the abuses of administrators ofdeceased persons and orphans. Because of the trouble and charge toplaintiffs and defendants of coming to Jamestown to attend the GeneralCourt, county courts were allowed power to try all causes at common lawand equity. The tradition that appeals should lie from county courts tothe General Court and from the General Court to the Assembly wasreaffirmed. General poll taxes, which had been reintroduced, wereabolished on the grounds that they were "inconvenient" and had "becomeinsupportable for the poorer sorte to beare. " All levies were ordered tobe raised "by equall proportions out of the visible estates in thecollony. " Exemptions from taxation extended to members of the Councilwere canceled for the duration of the war. It is not hard to imagine thepraise that would have been heaped on the initiator of such reforms, hadit seemed that they were the result of a democratic uprising. 

In March 1646 the Assembly met again. The policy of building forts hadevidently been considered successful enough to encourage the Assembly toorder another, Fort Henry, constructed at the falls of the Appomattoxfor the defense of the inhabitants on the south side of the James Riverand to deprive the Indians of their fishing in the area. The war hadbeen going on for a year and a half and the enemy forces were still notdestroyed. The Assembly, considering the vast expense that the conflicthad caused and considering "the almost impossibility of a furtherrevenge upon them, they being dispersed and driven from their townes andhabitations, lurking up and downe the woods in small numbers, and that apeace (if honourably obtained) would conduce to the better being andcomoditie of the country, " authorized Capt. Henry Fleet, the colony'sinterpreter, and sixty men, to go out and try to make a peace withOpechancanough. If they could not make such a peace, they were to erecta fort on the Rappahannock River or between it and the York. 

The "break" in the war came with the daring capture of Opechancanoughhimself by Governor Berkeley. Berkeley, who frequently led the troops ofthe colony in the field, was apprised of the Indian leader'swhereabouts, and with characteristic boldness led a troop of men in araid on his headquarters. The raid was successful: Opechancanough wascaptured and brought back to Jamestown. The old chief, said to be over100 years, acted the part of Emperor of the Indian confederation withgrave dignity. The historian Robert Beverley tells us that one day thenearly blind warrior heard "a great noise of the treading of peopleabout him; upon which he caused his eye-lids to be lifted up; andfinding that a crowd of people were let in to see him, he call'd in highindignation for the Governour; who being come, Opechancanough scornfullytold him, that had it been his fortune to take Sir William Berkeleyprisoner, he should not meanly have exposed him as a show to thepeople. " Berkeley accepted the rebuke, and ordered him treated with allthe dignity due his position as the leader of many Indian nations. Unfortunately the life of Opechancanough was shortly after snuffed outby one of his guards who shot him in the back, despite his defenselesscondition. 

Peace was concluded with Necotowance, Opechancanough's successor, by thefirst act of the October 1646 Assembly. The treaty is a document ofhistoric importance. Under its provisions Necotowance acknowledged thathe held his kingdom from the King of England and that his successorsmight be appointed or confirmed by the King's Governors. Twenty beaverskins were to be paid to the Governor yearly "at the going away of thegeese" in acknowledgment of this subjection. Necotowance and his peoplewere given freedom to inhabit and hunt on the north side of York Riverwithout interference from the English, provided that if the Governor andCouncil thought fit to permit any English to inhabit the lower reachesof the peninsula, where land grants had been made before the massacre, Necotowance first should be acquainted therewith. Necotowance in turnsurrendered all claim to the land between the falls of the James and theYork rivers downward to Chesapeake Bay. Indians were not allowed on thisland unless specially designated as messengers to the English. Similarlyit was a felony for an Englishmen to repair to the north side of theYork River except temporarily under special conditions authorized by theGovernor. 

The significance of the treaty lies in the fact that the Indians were tobe treated as equals, with equal rights to live on the land with theEnglish and to enjoy the rights of human beings. They were no longerconsidered as vermin to be exterminated whenever the opportunitypresented itself. For the first time in Virginia's history, the Indianwas considered to have an unquestioned legal right to the land. Thesetting aside of a reservation for the Indians into which Englishintrusion was forbidden marked the end of the "perpetual enmity" policyof earlier days. When differences arose, they might still be settled bypeace or by war, but the right of either side to exist would not bequestioned. 

Despite the improvement in the status of the Indian nations occasionedby the treaty of 1646 it proved impossible to preserve their rights inthe face of the enormous increase in English population. The fate of theeastern Indians proved identical to the fate of their western brothersin the nineteenth century, when white population increased around theareas set aside for Indian occupancy. But in Virginia the attempt wasmade to establish a fair settlement, and Governor Berkeley honestly andcourageously labored to keep faith with the Indians, even though he lostpopularity and eventually his position as a result. 

The Assembly of October 1646 also provided for the maintenance of theforts built during the war. This was done by granting the land on whichthey were built, plus adjoining acres, to individuals who wouldguarantee to maintain the forts and to keep a certain number of menconstantly on the place. By this method the valuable forts of thecolony were preserved, yet the people were spared the heavy taxes thatwould normally have been necessary to maintain them. 

The Assembly made further provision that those who had settled along thePotomac in Northumberland should not be allowed to avoid taxes as theyhad done during the war. The English in this remote area had evidentlyignored the act of the February 1645 Assembly which attempted to taxthem, and followed instead their own interests, free from any effectivecontrol by Virginia's government during the conflict withOpechancanough. 

Finally the October Assembly enacted the strictest and most democraticvoting law ever made in Virginia. Not only were all freemen (as well ascovenanted servants) allowed to vote, but they were fined 100 pounds oftobacco for failing to do so. This act seems to have continued in effectuntil 1655 when the Assembly prohibited freemen from voting unless theywere also householders. 

THE ADMINISTRATION OF BERKELEY IN 1647-1648: TRADE AND EXPANSION

Following the war Virginia returned to its two great peacetimeinterests--trade and expansion. In the Assembly of April 1647 Berkeley, the Council, and the Burgesses joined in a declaration which reveals theextent to which the colony relied on Dutch traders. It noted that"absolute necessities" had caused earlier Assemblies to invite the Dutchto trade with the inhabitants of Virginia, "which now for some fewyeares they have injoyed with such content, comfort and releife thatthey esteeme the continuance thereof, of noe lesse consequence then as arelative to theire being and subsistence. " Rumors had been raised, thedeclaration went on, that by a recent ordinance of Parliament, allforeigners were prohibited from trading with any of the Englishplantations "which wee conceive to bee the invention of some Englishmerchants on purpose to affright and expell the Dutch, and make way forthemselves to monopolize not onely our labours and fortunes, but evenour persons. " The declaration noted the baneful effects on the colony ofthe greed of the English merchants and pointed out that by ancientcharter and right the inhabitants of Virginia were allowed to trade withany nation in amity with the King. It would be inconceivable thatParliament would abridge this right "especially without hearing of theparties principally interested, which infringeth noe lesse the libertyeof the Collony and a right of deare esteeme to free borne persons:_viz. _, that no lawe should bee established within the kingdome ofEngland concerninge us without the consent of a grand Assembly here. "But since they had heard nothing officially concerning the rumored act, "wee can interprett noe other thing from the report, then a forgerye ofavaritious persons, whose sickle hath bin ever long in our harvestallreadye. " To provide for Virginia's subsistence the Governor, Council, and Burgesses ordered that the right of the Dutch nation to trade withVirginia be reiterated and preserved, and her traders given everyprotection. 

Virginia's other great problem, that of unregulated expansion, was dealtwith by the Grand Assembly of November 1647 in an extraordinary way. TheGovernor, Council, and Burgesses ordered that persons inhabitingNorthumberland and "other remote and straying plantations on the southside of Patomeck River, Wicokomoko, Rappahannock and Fleets Bay" bedisplanted and removed. They justified this act on the basis of frequentinstructions from the King to Berkeley and the Council directing thatthe planters not be allowed to scatter themselves too widely, and alsobecause they considered such settlement "pernicious" and "destructive"to the peace and safety of the colony, animating the Indians to attack, and thus imbroiling the country in troublesome and expensive wars. Sincewinter was approaching, the inhabitants were allowed one year to removethemselves to the south side of York River. 

The same session of the Assembly authorized Capt. Edward Hill and othersto establish, at the head of Rappahannock River, a military and tradingoutpost which was deemed valuable to the peace and safety of the colony. Hill and his associates were to provide forty men to man the fort whichwas not to exceed five acres at most, on pain of having the grantrevoked. 

It was a brave and sensible policy which Berkeley and the Assemblypursued, but one that was destined to be overridden by the power, self-interest, and numbers of the thousands of new members of thecolony, both those being born in Virginia in ever-increasing numbers, and those who had left behind them the civil strife of England. In lessthan a year the Assembly enacted that the tract of land between theRappahannock and Potomac rivers should be called Northumberland and thatit should have power to elect Burgesses. The reasons of "state" that hadconvinced the Assembly of November 1647 to order the utter dissolutionof the Northumberland settlements were thus thrown to the winds by thenext Assembly. No doubt the pressure of the inhabitants, would-beinhabitants, and speculators, in addition to the difficulty of enforcingthe decision, caused the repeal of the act. The restraining hand of theGovernor was never again to be felt as it had been in the periodfollowing the 1646 peace. The explosive growth of settlement in Virginiahad proved impossible to control. 

The justification of the settlement south of the Potomac River was notthe only victory of the people in the Assembly of October 1648. Upon therepresentation of the Burgesses to the Governor and Council complainingof the worn-out lands and insufficient cattle ranges of the earliersettlements, the Governor and Council, after long debate, joined theBurgesses in authorizing settlement on the north side of the York andRappahannock rivers. The act declared, however, that "for reasons ofstate to ... [the Governor and Council] appearing, importing the safetyof the people in their seating, " no one was to go there before the firstof September of the following year. Surveys of the area were allowed atonce, however, and land patents were authorized to be taken out. The actmaking it a felony to go to the north side of York River was repealed. The settlers' and speculators' victory was complete. Reasons of "policy"and "state" proved only of sufficient power to delay the inevitable. 

EXECUTION OF CHARLES I AND CAPTURE OF COLONY BY PARLIAMENTARY FORCES, 1649-1652

On January 30, 1649, King Charles I was beheaded by the Parliamentaryforces. It was a logical climax to the turmoil into which Englishinstitutions and values had been cast by the long years of civil warthat preceded the deed. The execution of the King shocked Englishmen aswell as foreigners. The reaction of the Virginians came in the form ofAct I of the Assembly of October 1649 which hailed "the late mostexcellent and now undoubtedly sainted king, " denounced the perpetratorsof the deed, and declared that if any person in the colony should defend"the late traiterous proceedings ... Under any notion of law andjustice" by words or speeches, such person should be adjudged anaccessory _post factum_ to the death of the King. Anyone who expresseddoubt, by words and speeches, as to the inherent right of Charles II tosucceed his father as King of England and Virginia, was likewise to beadjudged guilty of high treason. 

The death of Charles I left the Parliamentary forces supreme in England. Some royalists retired to the continent of Europe, and some came toVirginia. England became a Commonwealth without a King; Oliver Cromwellwas later named Protector. The new government, after consolidating itspower in England, attempted to extend its control over the colonies, some of which, like Virginia, continued to demonstrate their loyalty toroyal authority. On October 3, 1650, Parliament, as a punitive measure, prohibited the trade of the colonies with foreign nations except as theParliamentary government should allow. "This succession to the exerciseof the kingly authority, " wrote Jefferson later, "gave the first colourfor parliamentary interference with the colonies, and produced thatfatal precedent which they continued to follow after they had retired, in other respects, within their proper functions. "

The reaction of the Virginia Burgesses to this act was as violent astheir reaction to the beheading of Charles I. Their temper on bothoccasions owed much to the eloquence of their Governor, and to theadmiration in which he was held by the people. In March 1651 they met toconsider the Parliamentary threat to their beliefs and to theirlivelihood. Sir William Berkeley spoke to them on the subject ofParliament's claim to speak for the English nation. Said the Governor:

 If the whole current of their reasoning were not as ridiculous, as their actions have been tyrannicall and bloudy, we might wonder with what browes they could sustaine such impertinent assertions: For if you looke into it, the strength of their argument runs onely thus: we have laid violent hands on your land-lord, possessed his manner house where you used to pay your rents, therfore now tender your respects to the same house you once reverenced.... They talke indeed of money laid out on this country in its infancy: I will not say how little, nor how centuply repaid, but will onely aske, was it theirs?... Surely Gentlemen we are more slaves by nature, then their power can make us if we suffer our selves to be shaken with these paper bulletts, and those on my life are the heaviest they either can or will send us. 

Berkeley was confident that if Virginia put up a determined resistance, the new English rulers would beg the colony to trade with them. Hecompared the state of England with the state of Virginia, to thedisadvantage of the former. The Parliamentary government of England, heasserted, did not represent the will of the people who would not enduretheir "slavery, if the sword at their throats did not compell them tolanguish under the misery they howrely suffer. " As for Virginia, "thereis not here an arbitrary hand that dares to touch the substance ofeither poore or rich. " Berkeley called on the Burgesses to support hisstand against the act, asking:

 What is it can be hoped for in a change, which we have not allready? Is it liberty? The sun looks not on a people more free then we are from all oppression. Is it wealth? Hundreds of examples shew us that industry and thrift in a short time may bring us to as high a degree of it, as the country and our conditions are yet capable of: Is it securely to enjoy this wealth when gotten? With out blushing I will speake it, I am confident theare lives not that person can accuse me of attempting the least act against any mans property. Is it peace? The Indians, God be blessed round about us are subdued; we can onely feare the Londoners, who would faine bring us to the same poverty, wherein the Dutch found and relieved us; would take away the liberty of our consciences, and tongues, and our right of giving and selling our goods to whom we please. But Gentlemen by the Grace of God we will not so tamely part with our King, and all these blessings we enjoy under him; and if they oppose us, do but follow me, I will either lead you to victory, or loose a life which I cannot more gloriously sacrifice then for my loyalty, and your security. 

The speech being ended the House of Burgesses, unanimously with theGovernor and Council, agreed to reject the Parliamentary act of October3, 1650, as illegal, and to continue in allegiance to King Charles II, always praying for his restoration to the throne and for the repentanceof those who, "to the hazard of their soules" opposed him. The Assemblyproclaimed that they would continue to trade freely with all persons ofwhatever nation who came to trade with them, not excluding theLondoners. 

This assertion of Virginia's traditional freedom and rights was, ofcourse, a direct challenge to the Parliamentary government. In the fallof 1651 that government determined to chastise the rebellious colony andsubject it by force. A fleet was dispatched in October to conquerVirginia and Barbados, another rebellious colony. Robert Dennis, RichardBennett, Thomas Stegge, and William Claiborne were chosen commissionersto take over the government of Virginia once it had been conquered. Bennett and Claiborne were living in Virginia at the time. 

Part of the fleet arrived in Virginia waters in January 1652. Berkeleycalled upon the people to prepare for resistance. One thousand troops, it is said, gathered in James City for the purpose. Five hundred Indianallies of the colony promised their aid. Berkeley denounced the leadersof the Parliamentary expedition as bloody tyrants, pirates, and robbers. He warned the Virginians that, if they did not repel the attack, theirland titles would be thrown into doubt and they would be brought under acompany of merchants who would order them at their pleasure and keepthem from trade with all others. To counteract the Governor's influence, the Parliamentary commissioners circulated letters and declarationsthroughout the country denying any such evil intentions. Finally, onJanuary 19, they sent a summons to the Governor and Council tosurrender, and set sail from the lower reaches of the James toJamestown. A milder answer than expected was returned, setting forthvarious demands and privileges desired by the Virginians. 

The commissioners' reply to these proposals was favorable enough tocause Berkeley to call an Assembly, and negotiations were entered intobetween the Governor, Council, and Burgesses on the one hand, and theParliamentary commissioners on the other. Articles of submission wereagreed upon which were honorable to both sides, Virginia receivingguarantees of the privileges of freeborn people of England, authorityfor the Grand Assembly to continue to function, guarantees of immunityfor acts or words done or spoken in opposition to Parliament, guaranteesof the bounds of Virginia, of the fifty-acre headright privilege, and ofthe right to "free trade as the people of England do enjoy to all placesand with all nations according to the lawes of that commonwealth. "Special provisions were made which allowed the Governor and Council torefrain from taking any oath to the Commonwealth for one year andguaranteed them for one year from censure for speaking well of the Kingin their private houses. Berkeley and the Council were given leave tosell their estates and quit Virginia, either for England or Holland. Nopenalties were to be imposed on those who had served the King. 

The commissioners of Parliament considered that they had been lucky toreduce the colony without bloodshed, even though forced to agree to suchmild terms. At the same time the event suggests that the bitternesswhich existed in England between Roundheads and Cavaliers was not quiteso extreme in the colonies, where little blood had been shed for thecause of either. The colonies had interests of their own which rancounter to those of the mother country, whether in the hands of King orParliament. Governor, Council, and Burgesses in Virginia were closer toeach other economically and politically than they were to theirrespective counterparts in England. What held the colonies to the mothercountry was not self-interest but ties of historical tradition andracial patriotism. The execution of Charles I and seizure of the colonyby the Parliamentary fleet loosened these ties. The Crown, symbol ofcontinuity with past ages of English subjects and of unity among all theKing's realms, was now not only removed but denounced by those who haddone the deed. 

Virginia never showed sympathy for those who had killed the King, andthe Assembly took to heart Governor Berkeley's warning of 1651 that theblood of Charles I "will yet staine your garments if you willinglysubmit to those murtherers hands that shed it. " It is true thatfollowing the surrender the Parliamentary commissioners agreed with therepresentatives of the people on a provisional government for Virginia, but the bonds that held Virginia to England had lost much of the cementof love and tradition. Local and self-interest were now to dominate to agreat extent Virginia's actions. Such motives had always been latent, and indeed active. But under royal government, the Governor could oftenexert a countervailing force to prevent such interests from overridingthe interests of nation and morality. 

Under the terms of the settlement the Grand Assembly was to continue tofunction, and the Assembly and commissioners agreed that RichardBennett, one of the commissioners, should act as Governor for a year. Itwas expected that orders would shortly arrive from England establishingnew patterns of government. Such instructions were especially necessaryto determine the role and authority of the Governor and Council, formerly appointed by the King. The new rulers in England were madeaware of the need for a new policy for the colonies, but they neverfound time to make the necessary decisions. At intervals the colonistswere informed that Cromwell had not forgotten them and that His Highnesswould soon let them know his pleasure. But instructions never cameexcept spasmodically and inadequately. The merchants who stood to gainfrom the Navigation Act of 1651, which generally excluded foreign shipsfrom the colonies and attempted to restrain colonial trade with foreigncountries, complained at the failure of the colonists to obey the actand demanded that orders be sent to enforce it, but no adequateprovisions were ever made. 

Thus the colony was left to its own devices during the period. Virginiatraders paid little attention to Parliamentary restrictions on theircommerce. They insisted that the provision of the Articles of Surrenderallowing them free trade with all nations according to the laws of theCommonwealth did not prevent them from trading with foreigners. Theyargued that since the first article of the surrender agreementguaranteed them the rights of freeborn Englishmen, an act discriminatingagainst them in matters of trade because they happened to live in thecolonies was illegal. Dutch ships called often, though perhaps not sofrequently as some have believed, and individual Virginians traded asthey pleased with the Dutch and English colonies in America. 

EXPANSION IN VIRGINIA, 1650-1656

The existence of a weak executive, dependent on the people for hisauthority, inevitably brought about a dispersal of power and authorityfrom the center to the outer edges of settlement. The explosive forceof expansion was no longer limited by the strong hand of a royalGovernor, and each increment of population in the colony and power inthe hands of the local authorities added fuel to the combustion. 

One of Virginia's frontiers at this time was the Eastern Shore. It was afrontier community because the law of the colonial government inJamestown rarely extended to it. The local commissioners of the countycourt, later called "justices, " provided what justice existed on theEastern Shore. But since these commissioners were sometimes the worstoffenders against the policies of the Governor, Council, and Burgesses, justice was often sacrificed to interest, especially when Indians wereinvolved. The leaders on the Eastern Shore, like Edmund Scarborough, were among the richest men and greatest landowners of the colony. Theyconducted the county's business as if it were their own, which indeed itwas to a great extent. Their oppression of the Eastern Shore Indiansmakes a sorry history, despite the efforts of Governor Berkeley torestrain them. In April 1650, for example, Berkeley was forced to writeto the commissioners of Northampton asking them not to allow any land tobe taken from the Laughing King Indians. Berkeley pointed out thatduring the massacre of 1644 these Indians had remained faithful to theEnglish. How could Virginia expect them to do the same again, askedBerkeley, "unless we correspond with them in acts of charity and amity, especially unless we abstain from acts of rapine and violence, whichthey say we begin to do, by taking away their land from them, bypretence of the sale of a patent. "

Honest attempts were made both before and after the retirement of SirWilliam Berkeley in 1652 to restrain the frontier barons in their savageattacks on unsuspecting Indian towns. But often the law was too weak andthe guilty too strong. Neither the Indians in front of them nor thegovernment behind them had the power to curb their desires except in alimited fashion. This was one of the benefits--to the frontiersmen--ofliving under English law. The government could not effectively restrainthe Englishman nor protect the Indian. As a result the recklessexpansion went on into the lands of other tribes. As each new Indiantribe was reached the same dismal pattern of subjugation or extirpationwas repeated, despite the efforts of the Governor and Council to seethat the rights of the Indians were preserved. 

Every extension of settlement strengthened local rule. In May 1652 thepeople of Northampton County, which comprised the whole of the EasternShore of Virginia, protested to the Assembly against a tax levied onthem, asserting that since they had not sent representatives to theAssembly since 1647, except for one Burgess in 1651, they did not thinkthe Assembly could tax them. They asked that they be allowed to have aseparate government and the right to try all causes in their own courts. Although Northampton was not allowed to dissociate itself entirely fromthe rest of Virginia, acts of 1654 and 1656 allowed the county toconstitute laws and customs for itself on matters dealing with Indiansand manufactures. 

Virginia's most important frontier region in the 1650's was the areaalong the Potomac River, although settlement went on simultaneouslywestward up the James, York, and Rappahannock, southward into Carolina, and northward up the Eastern Shore to Maryland. Sometimes individualsobtained grants to explore, settle, and monopolize the trade of theseregions. But usually the expansion was catch as catch can. Since landtravel was still more difficult than water travel, expansion up thePotomac, the last great unsettled tidewater river, was fastest. Individuals who already had plantations in the older areas of settlementaround Jamestown sailed their barques up the Potomac and, withoutbothering to go ashore, took the bounds of likely pieces of land. Thebest spots were often the corn fields of the Indians and sometimes thevery towns where they lived. The fact that the Indians occupied the landcounted for little in the thoughts of the settlers and speculators whoflocked to the area. Following their surveys, the explorers rushed backto James City and put in claims for the waterfront acreages, presentingone "headright"--proof that someone had been imported into the colony bytheir agency--for every fifty acres. The Patent Books of the colonyfrequently show signs of fraud in the presentation of headrights. Occasionally more land was granted than the claimant was entitled to onthe basis of the headrights he presented. But the headright system, evenimperfectly administered, remained during the Parliamentary period asone of the elements of restraint on the unbounded desires of theplanters. Land acquisition was thus tied in a fixed ratio to populationincrease. There was, as a result, some assurance that land acquiredwould be populated and farmed. It was not until late in the seventeenthcentury that anyone could buy land for money alone, a practice whichenabled some individuals in the eighteenth century to obtain holdingsexceeding 100, 000 acres. In the middle of the seventeenth century 10, 000acres was a practical "top" limit. 

At the beginning of the Commonwealth period in Virginia a number of newcounties were set up. The Assembly of April 1652 listed two new ones:Gloucester, north of the York, and Lancaster, north of the Rappahannock. The Assembly of November 1652 listed Surry, south of the James, for thefirst time. Settlers had moved into these areas earlier when they wereparts of other counties, and in two cases the county organization mayhave been set up prior to April 1652. The Assembly of July 1653, inaddition to authorizing exploration and settlement on the Roanoke andChowan rivers in present-day North Carolina, and exploration into theAppalachian Mountains, ordered that a county to be called Westmorelandshould be set up west of Northumberland County on the Potomac, withboundaries from Machodoc River to the falls of the Potomac above thetown of the Anacostan Indians. It was thus intended not only to includein the new county all the lands of the Doeg Indians, but also those ofthe Anacostans. The Assembly of November 1654 authorized theestablishment of New Kent County along both sides of the upper YorkRiver and far up the Pamunkey and Mattaponi rivers. 

The Assembly of November 1654 also authorized the three new northerncounties of Lancaster, Northumberland, and Westmoreland to march againstthe Rappahannock Indians to punish various "injuries and insolenciesoffered" by them. One hundred men were to be raised in Lancaster, fortyin Northumberland, and thirty in Westmoreland. The commissioners ofthese counties were authorized to raise the troops, and one of theirnumber was appointed commander-in-chief of the expedition. He was tomarch to the Rappahannock Indian town and demand and receive "suchsatisfaction as he shall thinke fitt for the severall injuries done untothe said inhabitants not using any acts of hostility but defensive incase of assault. " The charge of the war was to be borne by the threecounties concerned. This expedition was like many others that bothpreceded and followed it. In each case, enormous authority andresponsibility were given to local officials who were themselvesfrequently the leading oppressors of the Indians. Such expeditions notinfrequently took on the character of private wars between the biglandowners of the frontier and the Indian towns in the vicinity. TheGovernor, Council, and Burgesses frequently heard the complaints of thelocal settlers, but rarely the complaints of the Indians. Theauthorization to the local community to administer justice to theIndians often proved a cover for their expulsion or extirpation. 

The usual grievances of the settlers against the Indians were not theviolent murders and massacres so often associated in the public mindwith Indian-white relations, but minor irritations concerning propertyand animals. The settlers let their hogs run wild. The hogs would getinto the Indians' corn. The Indians would kill the hogs. The settlerswould demand satisfaction. Many acts of the Assembly testify to the factthat shooting of wild hogs was one of the most frequent points ofdispute not only between the English and the Indians but among theEnglish themselves. It was one reason why early Assemblies providedstrict rules for erecting adequate fences around cultivated fields andestablishing lines of responsibility for damage caused by strayingcattle or hogs. On the frontier, however, such refinements ofcivilization as fences were long in coming. What was more natural thanthat the same conflicts which arose among the English in the early yearsof settlement should arise between the English and the Indians on thefrontier. The tragedy was that English-Indian conflicts were notnormally settled in the courts as were conflicts between Englishmen. Thecourts did deal with Indian-white conflicts to a certain extent, but, asnoted before, the local justices were often the very persons the Indiansaccused of oppressing them. Sometimes the Indians were able to bringtheir complaints before the General Court in Jamestown. But often thedispute was settled in the wilderness in the traditional frontier way:by violence. Since the settlers had weapons of violence superior tothose possessed by the Indians, it was not very frequently that theIndians won their "case. "

In the Assemblies of these years there is occasional mention of thesplitting of counties in two parts, or of the formation of new parishes. Usually these divisions were made along rivers or streams. Suchlegislation suggests that settlement was spreading back from the waterroutes into the land area between streams. The early counties werenormally set up to embrace the area on both sides of watercourses, evenbroad rivers like the James and York. The rivers were, in the earlyperiod of settlement, bonds that linked the settlers on either side toeach other. It was natural that rivers should be the principalthoroughfares of the country. But as settlement spread into theinterior, up the tributary streams that issued into the larger rivers, the natural social unit that developed was that of communities on thesame side of the river. Hence the gradual conversion of rivers intopolitical boundaries. 

The Assembly of March 1655, for the first time in Virginia's history, restricted the voting privilege to "housekeepers whether freeholders, leaseholders, or otherwise tenants. " Freemen who could not qualify ashouseholders, even though they may have been grown sons living in theirfather's house, could not vote. It is significant that this firstrestriction on the right to vote in Virginia came not under a royalgovernor, but under so-called "Parliamentary" rule. So unpopular wasthis enactment that it was amended by an act of the Assembly of March1656 on the grounds that "we conceive it something hard and unagreeableto reason that any persons shall pay equall taxes and yet have no votesin elections. " Freemen were again allowed to vote provided that they didnot do so "in a tumultuous way. "

The Assembly of March 1656 passed an act which attempted to solve theIndian problem in a way that had never been tried before but has beenfrequently tried since. The plan was to encourage the growth of anacquisitive spirit among the Indians to serve as a counterweight to theacquisitive spirit of the English. The preamble to the act asserted thatthe danger of war from the Indians stemmed from two causes: "ourextreame pressures on them and theire wanting of something to hazard andloose beside their lives. " Therefore the Assembly enacted that for everyeight wolves' heads brought in by the Indians, the King or great man ofthe Indians should have a cow delivered to him at the public charge. "This will be a step to civilizing them and to making them Christians, "the act went on; "besides it will certainly make the comanding Indianswatch over their own men that they do us no injuries, knowing that bytheire default they may be in danger of losing their estates. " TheAssembly also attempted to make the lands possessed by the Indians underthe seal of the colony inalienable to the English. Otherwise, constantpressure on the Indians by the settlers would force them over and overagain to dispose of their lands. 

Many people fail to realize that the Indians of Virginia lived inwell-defined towns or settlements. It was, indeed, the Indians who livedan "urban" life in the seventeenth century while the English settlerswere usually scattered about the countryside. The conventional pictureof the Indian roaming the forests, living solely by hunting and fishing, is mistaken. The Indian did hunt and fish, as many of us do today. Buthis support came in large measure from the corn and vegetables growingin the fields which adjoined every Indian town. The Indians had aclose-knit and harmonious community life. They were only indirectlytouched by the white man's money economy and were usually content toraise only what food they needed for their own consumption. They werenot infected with the restless, individualistic spirit of the whitesettler who constantly worked to accumulate a monetary surplus from thereturns on his single cash crop, tobacco. 

Like later attempts to destroy the group-centered society of the Indiansin favor of a self-centered society, this attempt of 1656 was notcompletely successful. 

INDIAN TROUBLES, 1656-1658

Early in 1656 word was received that six or seven hundred strangeIndians from the mountains had come down and seated themselves near thefalls of the James. The March Assembly, considering how much blood ithad cost to "expell and extirpate those perfidious and treacherousIndians which were there formerly, " and considering how the area laywithin the limits "which in a just warr were formerly conquered by us, "ordered the two upper counties under Col. Edward Hill to send 100 men toremove the intruders peacefully, making war only in self-defense. Messages were sent to obtain the aid of the Pamunkeys, Chickahominies, and other neighboring Indians. Tottopottomoy, the King of the Pamunkeys, joined Hill with 100 of his warriors, although only the summer beforehis brother had been murdered by an Englishman. 

The western Indians had apparently come down to treat with the Englishabout trade, bringing with them many beaver skins to begin thecommerce. Col. Hill, however, despite the Assembly's command to avoidthe use of force, perfidiously had five of the kings who came to parleywith him put to death. "This unparalleled hellish treachery andanti-christian perfidy more to be detested than any heathenishinhumanity, " a contemporary wrote, "cannot but stink most abominably inthe nosetrils of as many Indians, as shall be infested with the leastscent of it, even to their perpetual abhorring and abandoning of thevery sight and name of an English man, till some new generation of abetter extract shall be transplanted among them!" In the fight thatensued Tottopottomoy lost his life fighting bravely for the English. Despite his fidelity, neither he nor his tribe was honorably treated bythe English, the very land he owned being extorted from him and hissuccessors. 

Hill himself was found guilty by the unanimous vote of the Burgesses andCouncil of "crimes and weaknesses" in his conduct of the campaign. Hewas ordered suspended from all offices, military and civil, and madeliable for the charge of procuring a peace with the Indians with whom hehad so treacherously dealt. 

The disgraceful episode of Hill's campaign may have caused somesoul-searching in the Assembly that met following the event, for, inaddition to censuring Hill, it repealed an act which had made it lawfulto kill an Indian committing a trespass. It pointed out that since theoath of the person killing the Indian was considered sufficient evidenceto prove the alleged trespass, killing Indians, "though never soinnocent, " had come to be of "small account" with the settlers. Sincethe colony would probably be involved in endless wars and might "expecta success answerable to the injustice of our beginning if no act be madefor the future to prevent this wanton and unnecessary shedding ofblood, " the Assembly attempted to provide some protection for theIndians. 

That expansion into the Indians' territory continued is shown by theauthorization given by this same Assembly of December 1656 to form thecounty of Rappahannock on both sides of the Rappahannock River aboveLancaster County. Confirmation of the movement towards the frontier isshown in the report to the same Assembly by the sheriffs of Isle ofWight County and Elizabeth City County, both at the mouth of the JamesRiver, that their counties were overrated in the tax lists of "tithable"persons by thirty-eight and thirty-two persons respectively. TheAssembly ordered that their tax allotments should be reduced accordinglyand laid upon Lancaster County "where they are increased since the lastyear's list 152 persons. " An act of the Assembly of March 1658 similarlytook note of the numbers of inhabitants who had "deserted theirplantations and receded into the bay of Chisapeake" without havingsatisfied their creditors. It prescribed penalties for removing withoutnotice. 

Bills guaranteeing the Indians their lands, justice, and personalfreedom continued to pass. The acts freely admitted that previousguarantees to this effect had been ineffective and that "manie Englishdoe still intrench upon the said Indians' land, " which the Assemblyconceived to be "contrary to justice, and the true intent of the Englishplantation in this country. " Nevertheless attempts to legislate justicefor the Indians continued. It could not be done. The power of theAssembly's acts was not equal to the power of the frontiersmen'smuskets. However, the acts of the Assembly were not without effect, andin many cases served their purpose. One of the most notable acts of thisAssembly provided that no grants of land should be made to anyEnglishman in the future until the Indians had first been guaranteedfifty acres for each bowman. The good intent of this act seems to havebeen a direct consequence of the practice that had arisen in thepreceding years of granting patents to Englishmen for land occupied bythe Indians. It was an attempt to make sure that the Indians would notbe wholly dispossessed to satisfy the land hunger of the English. 

[Illustration: National Portrait Gallery, London

OLIVER CROMWELL

Painting by Robert Walker]

PARLIAMENTARY GOVERNORS, 1652-1659

Early writers on Virginia history tended to overemphasize how completelyaffairs in Virginia during the Commonwealth and Protectorate periodswere in the hands of the House of Burgesses. Still, the House did assumeto itself many of the powers of government in the period and assertedits ultimate authority in all other matters. It took this position outof necessity, and always with the proviso that, should instructions comefrom the supreme power in England, it would obey them. 

The first Governor under the Commonwealth, Richard Bennett, wasappointed by an act of Assembly on April 30, 1652, his term to last forone year or until the following meeting of the Assembly, with thefurther proviso that the appointment should be in effect "untill thefurther pleasures of the states be knowne. " Bennett, a planter ofNansemond County, was a Puritan in his religious outlook and was one ofthose who had invited New England to send ministers to Virginia in theearly 1640's. When Parliament decided to conquer the colony in 1651 itappointed him one of the commissioners for the enterprise. It isprobable that the secret instructions issued to Bennett by theParliamentary authorities required him to come to some agreement withthe Burgesses on who should be Governor until a more formal commissionfor the office should issue from the supreme power in England. However, as the years passed, and as instructions from England failed to dealwith Virginia's problems, the House of Burgesses asserted itsprerogative more and more. 

On March 31, 1655, Edward Digges was elected Governor by the Assembly toreplace Bennett. Digges was the son of Sir Dudley Digges, Master of theRolls under Charles I. He came to Virginia sometime before 1650 andbought a plantation on the York River, subsequently known as"Bellfield. " The plantation become famous for the quality of the tobaccogrown there, and was also the scene of Digges's efforts at silkproduction, in the culture of which he employed three Armenians. WhenDigges decided to return to England in 1656, Samuel Mathews was electedto succeed him. There is some confusion as to whether Governor Mathewswas the man who so bedeviled Sir John Harvey in the 1630's, or his sonof the same name. 

When Mathews and the Council attempted to dissolve the Assembly on April1, 1658, the Burgesses answered that the Governor's action was illegal, and that they would remain and complete their work. Mathews refused toconcede their point formally, though he declared his willingness toallow them to continue in fact while the dispute was submitted to theLord Protector in England. The Burgesses declared his answerunsatisfactory. They demanded a specific acknowledgment that the Houseremained undissolved. Mathews and the Council finally agreed to revokethe declaration of dissolution, but still insisted on referring thedispute to the Lord Protector. The House rejected this answer as well, asserting that the present power of Virginia resided in the Burgesses, who were not dissolvable by any power extant in Virginia but themselves. They directed the High Sheriff of James City County not to execute anywarrant but from the Speaker of the House. In addition, they orderedCol. William Claiborne, the Secretary of the Council, to surrender therecords of the country into the hands of John Smith, the Speaker of theAssembly, on the basis of the Burgesses' declaration to hold "supreamepower of this country. "

That the House of Burgesses did not mean its actions to be in defianceof the power that existed in England, however, is shown by its agreementto proclaim Richard, son of Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector when theGovernor sent down, at the March 1659 session, an official letter fromHis Highness' Council requiring that it be done. Immediately afteragreeing to proclaim Richard, the Burgesses decided to address the newLord Protector for confirmation of the privilege granted to theAssembly, perhaps under the terms of Bennett's secret instructions, toelect its own officers. Although the Speaker of the House assured theBurgesses that the Governor was willing to join them in such a request, some of the Burgesses expressed a desire to hear the assurance from theGovernor's own lips. Accordingly, he was sent for and, to thesatisfaction of the Burgesses, "acknowledged the supream power ofelecting officers to be by the present lawes resident in the GrandAssembly. " He promised to join them in requesting confirmation of theseprivileges from His Highness. 

The Assembly, at this same session, passed an act electing MathewsGovernor again for two years "and then the Grand Assembly to elect aGovernour as they shall think fitt. " The act was to be in force "untilhis Highness pleasure be further signified. " William Claiborne wasappointed Secretary of State on his acknowledgment that he received theplace from the Assembly, and with the proviso that he should continueSecretary until the next Assembly or until the Lord Protector's pleasureshould be further signified to the colony. 

The Assembly of 1659 marks the high water point of local government inVirginia. Not only were the Burgesses supreme in matters of generallegislation, compelling the Governor and Secretary to bow to theirsovereign power, but in their home counties affairs were conducted muchas the local justices saw fit. The Assembly of 1659 even authorized freetrade with the Indians by anyone in any goods--even guns and ammunition. Never before had regulation on a point of such vital interest to thesecurity of the colony been so utterly abandoned. 

RECALL OF SIR WILLIAM BERKELEY BY THE ASSEMBLY, 1659-1660

Soon after the Assembly of March 1659 ended, Richard Cromwell resignedthe reins of government in England. The English nation was again plungedinto turmoil. Letters arriving in Virginia spoke of the people divided"some for one Government some for another. " The prospect of London"burned into Ashes and the streets running with blood" was held alikely outcome of the divisions. 

In the midst of this troublous situation, Governor Mathews died. Thenext Assembly met in March 1660. In a move that has astonishedhistorians since that time it asked Sir William Berkeley, the royalGovernor whom its former leaders had deposed, to govern Virginia again. No royal banners were unfurled; Charles II was not proclaimed King. TheHouse of Burgesses, holding the supreme power in the colony, merelyoffered the governorship to the man who had been universally admired forhis justice, humanity, and willingness to sacrifice his own interest tothat of the colony. 

Berkeley had been unwilling to disavow his loyalty to the Crown in 1652and he was not prepared to do so now. He replied to the Burgesses'invitation by saying that he would not dare to offend the King byaccepting a commission to govern from any power in England opposed tohim. He urged them to choose instead a more vigorous man from amongsttheir own number. But he did offer to accept the governorship directlyfrom the House of Burgesses if the Council would concur with theBurgesses in offering it to him. He promised that if thereafter anysupreme power in England succeeded in re-establishing its authority inVirginia he would immediately lay down his commission and "will livemost submissively obedient to any power God shall set over me, as theexperience of eight yeares have shewed I have done. " He would not refusetheir call, he wrote, if they accepted his conditions, for "I should beworthily thought hospitall mad, if I would not change povertie forwealth, --contempt for honor. "

The Council on March 21, 1660, unanimously concurred in the Burgesses'choice of Berkeley as Governor, and the King's loyal servant wasthereupon installed in the office. 

Some historians have seen the election of Berkeley as the signal for aroyalist purge of the Parliamentary influences that were thought tohave existed in the colony since 1652. A study of the membership of theHouse of Burgesses, Council, and county courts, however, shows acontinuity of membership which extends from before the Parliamentaryseizure of the colony until after the restoration of King Charles II. The evidence suggests that there was no violent division betweenroyalists and Parliamentarians in Virginia. The people were Virginiansfirst and royalists or Parliamentarians second. The solidarity of theirpolitical interests was a harbinger of the American independence thatwas slowly to mature in the next century. 

On May 29, 1660, the birthday of Charles II, that monarch returned toLondon and was restored to the throne of England. Word of therestoration was received in Virginia in the fall, and Berkeley orderedthe sheriffs and chief officers of all counties to proclaim Charles IIKing of England, and to cause all writs and warrants from that time onto issue in His Majesty's name. The Assembly of March 1661, taking intoconsideration the fact that the colony, by submitting to the "execrablepower" of the Parliamentary forces, had thereby become guilty of thecrimes of that power, enacted that January 30, the day Charles I wasbeheaded, should "be annually solemnized with fasting and prayers thatour sorrowes may expiate our crime and our teares wash away our guilt. "Another act declared May 29, the day of Charles II's birth andrestoration, a holy day to be annually celebrated "in testimony of ourthankfulnesse and joy. "

Thus ended the brief period in which Virginia's government was turnedupside down and permanent alteration caused in her relations withEngland. Although the King once more became the symbol of the unity ofthe colony and the mother country, the royal prerogative would neveragain be blindly accepted by the people of either place. Largerdevelopments in the economic, social, and intellectual spheres werebringing to an end the era of all-powerful Kings. Power had descended tothe lower ranks of society, and that power was beginning to be broughtinto play. 

This larger shift of power has been chronicled in the story of Virginiafrom 1625 to 1660. It is the story of a small community of Englishmentransplanted to American shores, living for a time subject totraditional English restraints, then, in a period of rapid expansion, losing their cohesiveness and their values under the impact of theAmerican experience and their own natures. Their political expressionsoon passed from a passive to an active mode. The law became somethingthey made, not something someone else applied to them. Land wassimilarly not something bestowed on them by generous parents, butsomething one took from Nature, or Nature's surrogate, the Indian. Laborwas no longer a privilege allowed the individual by the community, but aprecious gift contributed by the individual to the community. In sum, the ordinary people who had removed themselves to the New World soondiscovered that they were no longer humble servants of great lords, butwere themselves lords of the American earth. If they had the power whynot exercise it? The process by which the rulers of the people wereforced to become the "servants" of their "subjects" thereupon began. Theculmination of this rearrangement of the political atoms of society wasthe War for Independence of 1776. Whether the swing from authority toliberty was for good or for evil is not for the historian to say. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Another booklet in this series contains a selected bibliography of workson seventeenth-century Virginia. The interested student should consultthat booklet for a more detailed listing of works used in preparing thisaccount of Virginia in the period 1625-1660. 

The best secondary account of Virginia in the period covered by thisbooklet is Wesley Frank Craven, _The Southern Colonies in theSeventeenth Century, 1607-1689_ (Baton Rouge, 1949). Craven skilfullycombines research in Virginia local history with a broad understandingof developments in England and in other colonies. He points out thesocial and political significance of many hitherto ignored aspects ofVirginia history. Other important works include Charles McLean Andrews, _The Colonial Period of American History_, I (New Haven, 1934), ThomasJefferson Wertenbaker, _Virginia under the Stuarts_ (Princeton, 1914), Herbert L. Osgood, _The American Colonies in the Seventeenth Century_, 3vols. (New York, 1904-1907), and Edward D. Neill, _Virginia Carolorum:The Colony under the Rule of Charles the First and Second, A. D. 1625-A. D. 1685_ (Albany, 1886). 

Any study of colonial Virginia must begin with a perusal of PhilipAlexander Bruce, _Economic History of Virginia in the SeventeenthCentury_, 2 vols. (New York, 1895), and his _Institutional History ofVirginia in the Seventeenth Century_, 2 vols. (New York, 1910). Bruce'swork is the indispensable platform upon which political and socialaccounts of the period must rest. Morgan Poitîaux Robinson, _VirginiaCounties: Those Resulting from Virginia Legislation_ [Virginia StateLibrary, Bulletin, IX, Nos. 1-3] (Richmond, 1916), is a carefullydocumented study of the growth of Virginia as evidenced by the formationof its counties. Maps showing the area of settlement at frequentintervals give a graphic account of the nature and extent of Virginia'sexpansion. 

There are a number of local histories chronicling the growth ofparticular regions in Virginia. An outstanding local history is FairfaxHarrison, _Landmarks of Old Prince William_ (Richmond, 1924), whichanalyzes the growth of settlement in the Potomac River valley. Historiesof the Eastern Shore are numerous: Susie M. Ames, _Studies of theVirginia Eastern Shore in the Seventeenth Century_ (Richmond, 1940), Jennings Cropper Wise, _Ye Kingdome of Accawmacke, or the Eastern Shoreof Virginia in the Seventeenth Century_ (Richmond, 1911), and Ralph T. Whitelaw, _Virginia's Eastern Shore_, 2 vols. (Richmond, 1951). 

A reading of but a few works in Virginia history will be enough to showthat the interpretations and conclusions of the authors must be acceptedwith extreme caution. There are two conflicting interpretations fornearly every important event in Virginia's history. History may bedefined as the attempt to state what happened in the past on the basisof inadequate evidence existing in the present. The reader should keepalways in mind that historical writing is largely a series of guessesmore or less intelligently elaborated. 

Much of the original manuscript material upon which an account of theperiod must be based has been published in the following sources:William Waller Hening, _The Statutes at Large; being a Collection of allthe Laws of Virginia_, Vol. I (Richmond, 1809), H. R. McIlwaine, _Minutes of the Council and General Court of Colonial Virginia, 1622-1632, 1670-1676_ (Richmond, 1924), H. R. McIlwaine, _Journals ofthe House of Burgesses of Virginia, 1619-1658/59_ (Richmond, 1914), NellMarion Nugent, _Cavaliers and Pioneers: Abstracts of Virginia LandPatents and Grants, 1623-1666_ (Richmond, 1934), _Virginia Magazine ofHistory and Biography_ (Richmond, 1893 to present), _William and MaryQuarterly_ (Williamsburg, 1892 to present), _The Southern LiteraryMessenger_, January 1845 (documents on the recall of Governor Berkeleyby the Burgesses and Council of Virginia in 1660), and W. NoelSainsbury, _Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series, 1574-1660, Preserved in the State Paper Department of Her Majesty's Public RecordOffice_ (London, 1860). The essential guide to most of this material isEarl G. Swern, _Virginia Historical Index_, 2 vols. (Roanoke, 1934). 

The most important unpublished manuscript materials of the period arethe county records, some of which are complete from the earliest periodof settlement. Originals or transcripts of the county records areavailable in the Virginia State Library, Richmond. Another importantsource of unpublished manuscript material for the period is the"Virginia, Book No. 43" manuscript in the Library of Congress, Washington, D. C. , which contains numerous commissions and proclamationsfor the period 1626-1634. Among the Virginia papers of the Barons ofSackville, Knole Park, are a few documents relating to the period whichhave not been printed either in the documentary articles in the_American Historical Review_, XXVII (1922), Nos. 3-4, or elsewhere. Theyare now available on microfilm in the Library of Congress, having beenphotographed by the British Manuscripts Project of the American Councilof Learned Societies. 

Important unpublished dissertations include James Kimbrough Owen, "TheVirginia Vestry: A Study in the Decline of a Ruling Class" (Ph. D. Dissertation, Princeton University, 1947), and Edna Jensen, "Sir JohnHarvey: Governor of Virginia" (M. A. Thesis, University of Virginia, 1950). 

[Illustration: Virginia Farrer Map of Virginia, 1651, showing commongeographical misconceptions of the period. ]