THE COLONIZATION OF THE SOUTH.
(1606-1700.)
27. References.
Bibliographies.--S. Kingsbury, _Introduction to Records of Virginia
Company_, 207-214; P. Bruce, _Economic History of Virginia_, I. xv.-xix.;
N. Mereness, _Maryland_, 521-524; E. Whitney, _Government of South
Carolina_, footnotes; Avery, _United States_, II. 411-417, 434-438, III.
407-410, 412, 413; Larned, _Literature of American History_, 100-106;
Winsor, III. 153-166, 553-562, V. 335-356; C. Andrews, _Colonial
Self-Government_, 351-354; Channing and Hart, _Guide_, §§ 97-102.
Historical Maps.--Nos. 2 and 3, this volume (_Epoch Maps_, Nos. 2, 3);
Doyle, _English Colonies_, I.; MacCoun, Winsor, and school histories cited
in our ch. i.
General Accounts.--Lodge, _English Colonies_, chs. i., iii., v., vii.;
Doyle, as above, I.; H. Osgood, _American Colonies in Seventeenth Century_;
Avery, as above, II. chs. ix., x., III. chs. i.-iii.; Channing, _United
States_, I. chs. v.-ix.; Andrews, as above, chs. ix., xiii.-xv.; Greene,
_Provincial America_, chs. i.-v.; Winsor, as above, III. chs. v., xiii., V.
ch. v.
Special Histories.--Virginia: Brown, _First Republic in America_, and
_English Politics in Early Virginia History_; Bruce, as above; Fiske, _Old
Virginia and Her Neighbors_; J. Cooke (Commonwealths); L. Tyler, _Cradle of
the Republic_, and _Williamsburg_; R. Pryor, _Birth of the Nation_; J.
Wayland, _German Element in Shenandoah Valley_.--Maryland: Browne
(Commonwealths), Scharf, Bozman, Mereness, as above; C. Hall, _Lords
Baltimore_; B. Steiner, _Beginnings of Maryland_.--Carolinas: J. Moore, I.
chs. i.-iii.; C. Raper; E. McCrady, _South Carolina under Proprietary
Government_; S. Ashe, _North Carolina_, I. Lives of Smith by Bradley,
Roberts, and Smith.
Contemporary Accounts.--Reprints of Smith's _True Relation_, and other
early documents: Force, Tracts; publications of historical societies and
commissions of the several states; Carroll, _Historical Collections_;
Brown, _Genesis of United States_; Kingsbury and Osgood, _Records of
Virginia Company_; Jameson, _Original Narratives of Early American History;
American History told by Contemporaries_, I. part iv; _American History
Leaflets_, No. 27.
28. Reasons for Final English Colonization.
Sidenotes: Over-population of England in the seventeenth century.
Colonization as a means of relief.
By the beginning of the seventeenth century it was quite evident to
thoughtful men that England needed room for growth. The population of the
island had greatly increased during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
The extension of the wool trade had encouraged the turning of vast tracts
of tillable ground into sheep-pastures, which elbowed large communities of
farm-laborers out of their calling. England at large waxed great, the
condition of the merchant and upper classes was improved, but the peasant
remained where he was, the gulf widening between him and those above him.
The growth of the merchant class and their appearance on the scene as large
landholders, still further lessened the feudal sympathy between peasant and
landlord. The land abounded with idle men. Everywhere was noticed the
uneasiness which frets a people too closely packed to find ready
subsistence. Starvation induced lawlessness. Colonization was thought by
many to be the only means of obtaining permanent relief from the pressing
political and economic dangers of pauperism; and naturally America, from
which Gosnold, Pring, and Weymouth had but recently brought favorable
reports, was deemed most available for the planting of new English
communities.
Sidenote: Chartered trading companies undertake the task.
But the temper of Englishmen had somewhat changed since the days of
Raleigh's brilliant enterprises. A spirit of sober calculation had
succeeded with the increase of the mercantile habit. Raleigh was out of
favor, and there were no longer any private men who would undertake the
task of colonization. If it were to be done at all, it must be by chartered
trading companies; and naturally they looked upon all ventures with
merchants' eyes rather than statesmen's. The career of the Muscovy Company,
which had been profitably trading to Russia for a half century, and the
rapid successes achieved by the East India Company, founded in 1599, were
pointed to as examples of what could be done in this direction; although
the obvious fact that Russia and India were old and wealthy countries,
while America was a wilderness peopled by savages, appears not to have been
considered.
29. The Charter of 1606.
Sidenote: The London and Plymouth Companies organized.
Gosnold, returning from his voyage to New England, was ardent in the desire
to establish a colony in the milder climate of Virginia, and easily won to
his support six representative Englishmen,--Richard Hakluyt, then
prebendary of Westminster, and now famous as an editor of the chronicles of
early voyages; Robert Hunt, a clergyman; Sir Thomas Gates and Sir George
Somers, two "brave and pious gentlemen;" a London merchant named Edward
Maria Wingfield; and John Smith, a soldier. As a result of their
endeavors,--seconded by Sir John Popham, chief justice of England, and Sir
Ferdinando Gorges (page 41, § 15),--a charter was granted by King James
(April 10, 1606) to a company with two subdivisions,--1. The London
Company, composed of London merchants, who were to establish a colony
somewhere between the 34th and 41st degrees of latitude; that is, between
the southern limit of the North Carolina of to-day and the mouth of Hudson
River. 2. The Plymouth Company, composed chiefly of traders and country
gentlemen in the West of England, with chief offices at Plymouth, who were
to plant a settlement somewhere between the 38th and 45th degrees; that is,
north of the mouth of the Potomac, and south of the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
But neither was to make a planting within one hundred miles of the other,
although their assigned territories overlapped each other three degrees.
Later (1609), the southern colony was given bounds in more specific
terms,--it was to extend two hundred miles along the coast in either
direction from Old Point Comfort, and "up into the land from sea to sea,
west and northwest;" this latter phrase being the foundation of the later
claim of Virginia to the Northwest.
Sidenote: How the colonies were governed.
King James, unlike Elizabeth, did not favor colonization; but he was
induced to yield his consent to this undertaking. The colonies established
under the charter were directly under the king's control, and not under
that of Parliament. The government of the two proposed colonies was placed
in the hands of two resident councils, of thirteen members each, nominated
by the Crown from among the colonists; while above them was a general
council of fourteen in England, also appointed by the king. Afterwards,
eleven other persons, similarly selected, were added to the council in
England.
Sidenote: Royal instructions to the Virginia colonists.
The resident council was to govern according to laws, ordinances, and
instructions dictated by the Crown. The royal instructions sent out with
the first colonists to Virginia stipulated that the Church of England and
the king's supremacy must be maintained, but the president of the council
must not be in holy orders. The land tenure was to be the same as in
England. Jury trial was guaranteed. Summary punishment must be enforced for
drunkards, vagrants, and vagabonds, while the death penalty was prescribed
for rioting, mutiny, and treason, murder, manslaughter, and offences
against chastity. The resident council might coin money and control the
extraction of all precious metals, giving one fifth to the Crown. It might
also make provisions for the proper administration of public affairs; but
all laws were to remain in vogue only conditionally, till ratified by the
general council in England or the Crown. In another clause the king
declared that all ordinances should be "consonant to the laws of England
and the equity thereof." All trade was to be public, and in charge of a
treasurer or cape merchant,--an officer chosen by the resident council from
its own membership. All the produce of the colony was to be brought to a
magazine, from which settlers were to be supplied with necessaries by the
cape merchant. Doyle says: "The company ... was to be a vast joint-stock
farm, or collection of farms, worked by servants who were to receive, in
return for their labor, all their necessaries and a share in the proceeds
of the undertaking." As a pious afterthought, the colonists were admonished
"to show kindness to the savages and heathen people in those parts, and use
all proper means to draw them to the true knowledge and service of God."
Sidenote: The rights of the patentees.
The rights given to the patentees, represented in the general council in
England, were: free transport of emigrants and goods, the right to exact a
duty of two and one half per cent on trade with the colony by Englishmen,
and five per cent on trade by foreigners. For twenty-one years the proceeds
of the enterprise were to accrue to the company; after that, to the Crown.
Sidenote: The king is granted too much power.
It should be noted that this patent, given by James to the combined London
and Plymouth companies, differed greatly from that granted by Elizabeth to
Gilbert and Raleigh, for it prescribed a constitution for the colonies, and
left but little to the judgment of the patentees. The latter, in their
eagerness to get a commercial charter, had allowed the king to assume an
undue political control over their establishment. It was fortunate for
Englishmen, both in America and England, that James was a weak monarch. He
might readily have used his supreme power over the Virginia colonists, not
only to browbeat them at will, but to tax them unmercifully for the purpose
of raising money, with which he would be the better enabled to bid the home
Parliament defiance while attacking the liberties of his people. He did not
lack desire, but was wanting in courage and astuteness, and allowed those
shrewder than himself gradually to re-shape the American charter until,
within twenty years, Virginia had emerged into practical independence.
30. The Settlement of Virginia (1607-1624).
Sidenotes: The London Company first in the field.
Character of the colonists.
The London Company, of which Hakluyt, Somers, and Gates were the most
active spirits, was first in the field. A hundred and forty-three colonists
were gathered aboard three ships,--the "Discovery," the "Good Speed," and
the "Susan Constant,"--which on the 19th of December, 1606, sailed down the
Thames, on the way to Virginia. The composition of the party was not
promising. Most of them were "gentlemen," unused to and scorning manual
toil; only twelve were laborers; and among the artisans were "jewellers,
gold-refiners, and a perfumer." Adventure, mines, and golden sands were in
the minds of the company, and the "gentlemen" doubtless thought they were
out for a holiday excursion. The fact that there were neither women nor
children in the expedition shows how little conception these people had of
the true mission of a colony. The little fleet was in charge of Christopher
Newport, a seaman of good reputation, with whom Gosnold was associated.
Sidenote: John Smith.
Among the party was one of the patentees,--Captain John Smith. He was the
son of a Lincolnshire gentleman; and being a soldier of fortune, had
travelled and experienced adventures in many European countries,--a brave,
robust, self-reliant, public-spirited, enterprising, humane, and withal a
boastful Englishman, he has come down to us as one of the most romantic
figures in American history. Smith's active temperament was not at first
appreciated by his fellow-colonists, and in a fit of jealousy on shipboard
they put him into irons upon a silly charge of conspiracy; and though he
had been named a councillor by the king, he was not allowed to participate
in the government for nearly a month after landing.
Sidenote: Jamestown settled.
On the sixteenth of April, 1607, land was sighted, and the adventurers soon
entered Chesapeake Bay, naming the outlying capes, Henry and Charles, after
the king's sons, and the river, which they soon ascended, the James, in
honor of the monarch himself. Fifty miles above the mouth of the river is
"a low peninsula half buried in the tide at high water," which they
unfortunately selected as the site of a town; and landing there on the
thirteenth of May, they called the place Jamestown. Wingfield, one of the
patentees, was chosen president of the resident council, exploring parties
were sent out, fortifications were begun, and a few log-huts reared. The
colonists had been instructed by the English council to search for water
passages running through to the Pacific. A party soon set out, under
Newport and Smith; but on reaching the falls of the James turned back. At
first they were troubled by Indians; but peace had been made with the
neighboring chief before Newport left for England, the twenty-second of
June.
Sidenote: A dismal summer.
The marshes were rank, the water was bad, and food scanty at Jamestown. The
colonists were for the most part a shiftless set, lacking the habit of
industry. The heat was so intense during the first summer that few houses
were built, and the tents were rotten and leaky. The natives, being
ill-treated, soon broke out again into hostilities. When autumn came, fifty
of the colonists had died. "Some departed suddenly," wrote a chronicler,
"but for the most part they died of mere famine. There were never
Englishmen left in a foreign country in such misery as we were in this new
discovered Virginia.... It would make ... hearts bleed to hear the pitiful
murmurings and outcries." The only men in office who had not in some degree
succumbed to the miseries of the situation were Gosnold, a man of really
superior ability, and Smith himself, the latter having now attained to
supreme control by common consent. Smith compelled his people to
labor,--"he that will not work shall not eat," was his dictum,--maintained
trade with the Indians, among whom he became popular, drilled the little
garrison, kept up the fortifications, explored and mapped the country and
the coast, wrote appeals for assistance to London, and was the life and
soul of the colony for two years.
Sidenote: Smith the savior of the colony.
In 1609 Newport had come out with supplies and one hundred and twenty
emigrants, who again were mainly "gentlemen, goldsmiths, and libertines;"
and he promptly sailed back with a load of worthless shining earth. Smith
found the new-comers seized with a frenzy for discovering gold mines, and
his troubles increased. The company, impatient for returns, were
disappointed because he insisted on having the people cultivate the rich
soil, build houses, trade with the natives, and explore, rather than go
seeking for gold where there was none. He appears to have been the only man
of authority in the enterprise who understood the true conditions of
colonization. He had repeatedly urged the patentees in London to cease
sending him gentlemen, idlers, and curious handicraftsmen, and instead of
such to ship "carpenters, husbandmen gardeners, fishermen, blacksmiths,
masons, and diggers up of trees' roots;" and insisted that they "as yet
must not look for profitable returning." To Smith we owe it that Jamestown
lived through all its early disasters, so that when he left it, in October,
1609, it had acquired a foothold and was the nucleus of permanent
settlement in Virginia. He never again returned to the colony, although in
later years we find him diligently exploring the New England coast.
Sidenotes: The king yields some of his prerogatives.
Administrations of Delaware and Dale.
With the following year began a new order of things. The London Company,
stimulated by ill success, had gained from the king many of the powers
heretofore reserved to himself, and secured the appointment of Lord
Delaware as governor and captain-general; he was authorized to rule by
martial law, thus depriving the turbulent colonists of numerous privileges
heretofore given them. Delaware was in Jamestown but for one year, being
succeeded by Sir Thomas Dale (1611), who found the colony in ill condition;
many of its servants had defaulted, and there was a large deficiency. In
March following (1612), the company obtained a fresh charter, giving it
still further powers of self-direction and of dealing with crime and
insubordination, and adding to its domain the Bermudas, or Somers
Islands,--called thus after Sir George Somers, who had touched at them in
1609 while on a voyage of relief to Virginia. Dale, now possessed of
enlarged authority, met with excellent success in bringing the unruly mob
of settlers under control of the military code, and induced fresh
immigration of a somewhat better class. He caused the abandonment of the
non-progressive and unsatisfactory system of communal proprietorship,
introduced individual allotment, and broadened the foundations of a
prosperous State.
Sidenote: Liberals gain control of the company.
Samuel Argall, "a sea-captain of piratical tastes," followed Dale in the
governorship (1617), but was soon recalled (1618), because the settlers
complained bitterly of tyrannical and mercenary treatment at his hands. The
liberals in England--prominent among whom were Sir Edwin Sandys and the
Earl of Southampton--had now gained control of the corporation, and were
fighting the king through the colony, with the result that Virginia gained
in the next few years political privileges which were never after wholly
relinquished; the colonists, too, had, in the case of Argall, learned the
power of organized resistance,--a lesson which long stood them in good
stead.
Sidenotes: First meeting of the assembly.
Indented servants.
Introduction of slavery.
The colony was granted a representative assembly,--the first in
America,--called the house of burgesses, which was first convened in June,
1619. In the words of the "briefe declaration," written a few years later,
"That they might have a hande in the governinge of themselves, y{t} was
graunted that a general Assemblie shoulde be helde yearly once, whereat
were to be present the Gov{r} and Counsell w{th} two Burgesses from each
Plantation, freely to be elected by the Inhabitants thereof, this Assemblie
to have power to make and ordaine whatsoever lawes and orders should by
them be thought good and profitable for our subsistance." In this assembly
Governor Yeardley (arrived April, 1619) and his council had seats and took
active part. The effect of this convention, composed of twenty-two
burgesses, representing eleven "cities," "hundreds," and "plantations," was
greatly to restrict the governor's power, heretofore quite absolute.
Yeardley was a judicious executive, and the settlement, in spite of many
difficulties, prospered under his rule. Men with families began to come out
from England; but an unfortunate element in the immigration of the time was
the class of indented servants, which not only included convicts and
vagabonds, but was largely made up of boys and girls entrapped on the
London streets by press-gangs and hurried off to Virginia to be forcibly
placed in servitude for long terms of years,--the nucleus of the "poor
white" element in the South. Another and far worse disaster befell the
colony this year (1619). Twenty African slaves, the first in America, were
landed and sold in Jamestown from a Dutch man-of-war. This was the
beginning of a large and wide-spreading traffic in human beings throughout
the Southern colonies.
Sidenote: Further political concessions.
In 1622 Sir Francis Wyatt succeeded Governor Yeardley, and brought out with
him, as a gift to the colonists, a most unexpected political
concession,--confirmation of all liberties previously granted, and definite
assurances and provisions for the regular assemblage of the house of
burgesses. It is no wonder that the king declared the London Company, with
its free debates and bold experiments in popular government in Virginia, "a
seminary for a seditious Parliament."
Sidenote: Virginia becomes a royal province.
The following year (1623) the Indians combined against the whites, who had
persistently maltreated them, and more than three hundred settlers were
killed. This loss, which was a serious blow to the colony, was one of the
grounds urged by James in annulling the company's charter (1624). Thereupon
the settlers passed under the immediate control of the king,--which was, on
principle, an improvement over government by a profit-seeking commercial
company, however liberal the tendencies of the latter. The growing of
tobacco had by this time become an important industry in Virginia,--forty
thousand pounds being shipped to England in 1620,--and both James and his
son and successor, Charles, received a considerable revenue from taxes on
the product.
31. Virginia during the English Revolution
(1624-1660).
Sidenote: Harvey's administration.
After a succession of inefficient governors, Sir John Harvey came out in
1629, being the first serving under direct royal appointment. Harvey proved
obnoxious to the colonists because of his despotic rule and constant
attempt to browbeat the house of burgesses; by the latter he was "thrust
out of his government" in 1635, whereupon he hastened to England to plead
his cause before Charles. The king, much incensed at the unruly temper of
his people, ordered the governor back; but four years later, desirous of
mollifying the Virginians, upon the profits of whose tobacco-raising he had
an eye, the king supplanted Harvey, and again sent out Wyatt. Under his
mild rule the colony once more lifted its head.
Sidenote: Berkeley's first term.
Sir William Berkeley succeeded Wyatt in 1642. While frequently quarrelling
with the assembly, as all the royal governors did, and eager for the spoils
of office, he was an educated, courtly gentleman and a courageous
statesman, though often unscrupulous and overbearing. A man of strong
passions and convictions, he was a pitiless hater of enemies of the State;
and in his estimation Puritans and Catholics were more prominent in that
category than the marauding savages who skulked in the forests. A second
Indian uprising (1644) was vigorously suppressed by the governor.
Sidenotes: During the Long Parliament.
Virginia a refuge for Cavaliers.
During the great struggle in England between Charles I. and the Long
Parliament (1642-1649), public sentiment in Virginia was with the king.
There were but few Puritans in or about Jamestown, and they had for the
most part come in from New England under Harvey's administration; their
missionary labors in the conservative South were unwelcome, and they were
warned "to depart the collony with all conveniencie,"--while the Papists,
who had settled Maryland in 1634 under Lord Baltimore, were not tolerated
in Virginia under any conditions. The execution of Charles (1649) naturally
aroused deep indignation among the colonists, refugee Cavaliers from
England soon joined them by thousands, and Berkeley seriously, but in vain,
invited Charles II. to take up his abode among his American subjects. The
extent of this sudden influx of Cavalier immigration to the colony was so
great that while the population of Virginia was but fifteen thousand in
1650, it had increased to forty thousand by 1670.
Sidenote: Parliamentary commissioners take possession.
Parliament, however, was not disposed to allow Virginia to become a
breeding-place for disloyalty to the Commonwealth, and appointed
commissioners (1652), to whom the colony was surrendered possession with
surprising promptness. "No sooner," wrote Lord Clarendon, "had the 'Guinea'
frigate anchored in the waters of the Chesapeake than all thoughts of
resistance were laid aside." The Puritan party at once took charge of the
government, ruling with moderation and wisdom; and the colony, now allowed
the utmost freedom in the conduct of its home affairs, prospered
politically and financially under the Protectorate.
Sidenote: Claiborne's quarrel with Maryland.
Among the commissioners was William Claiborne, an able, resolute, and
passionate Virginian, who was the leader of the Puritan party, and carried
on a considerable trade with Nova Scotia, New England, and Manhattan. He
had been much before the public of late years. The grant of Maryland to
Lord Baltimore was regarded by Virginians as an invasion of their
territory; and Claiborne, holding a royal license to trade in that region,
had planted a settlement (1631) on Kent Island, in Chesapeake Bay, within
the limits now claimed by Baltimore. Not acknowledging Baltimore's
proprietorship there, he was summarily ejected. The following year (1635)
he led a party of rangers against Maryland, compelled the Catholic
governor, Calvert, to fly to Virginia, and seized the government himself;
being soon expelled, however, by Calvert, who had now secured Berkeley's
support. As one of the Roundhead commissioners to settle the affairs of the
colonies, the turbulent Claiborne proceeded promptly to pay back some of
his old debts against the Maryland Catholics. In 1654, Puritan invaders of
Maryland, headed by Claiborne, who was now Secretary of the Province of
Virginia, met the Catholics near the mouth of the Severn River and worsted
them, thus again obtaining temporary control of the northern colony. Three
years later a compromise was reached between Baltimore and the Puritans.
Sidenote: Governors under the Commonwealth.
Richard Bennett was the first governor of Virginia under the Commonwealth
(1652), being elected by the burgesses and receiving his authority from
them. He was succeeded by Edward Digges (1655) and Samuel Matthews (1656),
both similarly chosen. They quarrelled with the burgesses, like the
governors of old, but were worthy and sensible men, and when outvoted
generally yielded with grace. Claiborne's affair with Maryland and an
unimportant Indian panic (1656) were the only clouds upon the horizon
during this tranquil period.
32. Development of Virginia (1660-1700).
Sidenotes: Berkeley recalled.
The Restoration.
When Oliver Cromwell died (1658), his successor, Richard, was accepted in
Virginia without question; but when the following year the latter
abdicated, Berkeley was quickly recalled, as "the servant of the people,"
from peaceful retirement on his country estate; and upon the Restoration
(1660) the king's party was suffered again to take control of the
government, and Claiborne was dismissed from the secretaryship. The return
of the Royalists to power was accompanied in Virginia by harsh measures
against Dissenters, by the enforcement of the Navigation Act under which
the colonists were obliged to ship their tobacco to English ports alone,
and to import no European goods except in vessels loaded in England, and by
the gift of the entire province to Lords Arlington and Culpeper. The
Puritans, angered by the harshness and profligacy of the church, by
economic distress occasioned by the navigation laws, and by the ruthless
invalidation of long-established land-titles, rose against the provincial
government in 1663, and were not repressed until several of their leaders
were hanged. The government became corrupt and despotic, and for many years
the people were denied the privilege of electing a new house of
burgesses,--the Royalist house chosen at the time of the Restoration
holding over by prorogation.
Sidenotes: The Bacon rebellion.
Berkeley recalled by the king.
The Bacon rebellion (1676) was an outgrowth of the general discontent. The
Indians were murdering settlers in the frontier counties; but Berkeley,
accused of having fur-trade interests at stake, and perhaps fearing to have
the people armed, dismissed the self-organized volunteers who proposed to
go out against the savages. Nathaniel Bacon, a popular young member of the
council, honest and courageous, but indiscreet, took it upon himself to
raise a small force for the purpose. Berkeley refused Bacon a military
commission, and declared him and his rangers rebels, and sought to crush
them with the regular militia. Through the succeeding four months Virginia
was thrown into confusion by a warfare which resembled the stormy military
duels with which the South American republics have been so often harassed.
The opposing forces had varying fortunes, and the fickle militiamen rallied
under one standard or the other, according to the direction of the wind.
Harrying Berkeley out of Jamestown, Bacon burned the capital to ashes,
"that the rogues should harbor there no more." In October he died, either
from poisoning or swamp-fever. His adherents, having no other cohesion than
their sympathy for him, now scattered, and were caught by Berkeley, who
executed twenty-three of them, and returned to Jamestown to renew his
tyrannical policy for a time undisturbed. But even Charles tired of his
governor's harsh and bloody doings, saying: "That old fool has hanged more
men in that naked country than I have done for the murder of my father."
Berkeley was summoned to England, his departure being celebrated by the
colonists with salutes, bonfires, and general rejoicings. The king refused
him an audience upon his arrival in London, and Berkeley died (1677) "of a
broken heart."
Sidenote: A sorry time under the Royalists.
The Royalists were now in full power, the friends of Bacon discreetly held
their peace, and the governors were allowed to browbeat and rob the
province at their will. The successor to Berkeley was Colonel Sir Herbert
Jeffries (1677); after him came Sir Henry Chicheley (1678), Thomas Lord
Culpeper, one of the proprietors under the king's patent (1679), Lord
Howard of Effingham (1684), Sir Francis Nicholson (1690), Sir Edmund Andros
(1692) and Nicholson again (1698). During the administration of Culpeper,
who was a greedy extortionist, the tobacco-planters rose in rebellion
because of the disaster to their industry brought on by the attempt of
government to regulate prices and establish ports of shipment. The governor
hanged a number of the offenders, and still further added to his
unpopularity as a ruler and his notoriety as a rascal by arbitrarily and
for his own gain raising and lowering the standard of coinage.
These closing years of the seventeenth century were sorry times for
Virginia. Riots and consequent imprisonments and hangings were ordinary
events. Nicholson told the gentlemen of the province that he would "beat
them into better manners," or "bring them to reason with halters about
their necks." The people were discontented, the province grew poorer as
each new governor introduced some fresh extortion, immigration practically
ceased, and the spirit of political independence was torpid.
Sidenotes: Virginia in the Albany Council.
Establishment of William and Mary College.
Arrival of Huguenots.
There were two or three gleams of sunshine during this period of almost
total darkness. Delegates were sent to Albany in 1684 to represent the
province at the famous council to consider a plan of union for repressing
Indian outbreaks. It was one of the earliest attempts at the confederation
of the colonies,--a scheme which Governor Nicholson persistently fostered,
in the vain hope, it is said, of being placed at the head of the united
provinces as governor-general. Again, under Nicholson's rule (1691), the
house of burgesses sent Commissary Blair to England to solicit a patent for
a college. This was obtained, and in 1693 the agent returned with the
charter of "William and Mary," the second university in America,--Harvard,
in Massachusetts, being the first and Yale, founded in 1701, the third. The
new college was set up at Williamsburg, whither Governor Nicholson had
removed the capital of the province. Another event, quite as significant,
signalized the close of the century. De Richebourg's colony of Huguenots
settled (1699) on the upper waters of the James and "infused a stream of
pure and rich blood into Virginia society."
Thus, in the ninety years from 1607 to 1697, the population of Virginia had
increased from a few score to nearly a hundred thousand; the dreams of
speedy wealth entertained by the patentees had been idle, but the hard
labor of Englishmen, supplemented by the forced service of negroes, had
built up a prosperous agricultural community. More important still was it
that, through all the vicissitudes of control, of government in England,
and of party in America, the germ of popular government had grown into an
established system, jealously watched by the colonies.
33. Settlement of Maryland (1632-1635).
Sidenote: George Calvert, Lord Baltimore.
George Calvert, Lord Baltimore, had been one of the members of the London
Company as well as a councillor in the Plymouth Company. From the beginning
of the century he had taken a strong interest in English colonization
schemes. A staunch Roman Catholic, he was (1618-1625) principal Secretary
of State to James I. Baltimore's observation of the turbulent career of
Virginia had convinced him that a commercial colony could not be
successful, because of divided administration and the mercenary aims of
non-resident stockholders. He went out with a colony to Newfoundland (1621)
under a proprietary patent, but the inhospitable climate was against the
project. In 1629 he landed at Jamestown with forty Catholic colonists; but
the Protestant Virginians made it uncomfortable for the Romanists, and they
returned to England.
Sidenotes: Secures a charter for Maryland.
His son Cecil succeeds him.
Provisions of the charter.
Baltimore thereupon secured a charter from King Charles I. for a tract of
country north of Potomac river, the limits being imperfectly defined,--on
the north, the fortieth degree of latitude (the southern boundary of the
Plymouth Company's patent); on the west, a line drawn due north from the
head of the Potomac. The lands embraced in this grant were within the
bounds of Virginia, as specified in 1609, but had thus far not been
occupied. At the king's request the country was named Maryland, in honor of
his queen, Henrietta Maria. Lord Baltimore died before the charter had
passed the seal, and was succeeded in his rights and titles by his son
Cecil. The province of Maryland being made a palatinate, Lord Baltimore was
given almost royal powers, the Crown reserving feudal supremacy and
exacting a nominal yearly tribute. The proprietor could declare war, make
peace, appoint all officers, including judges, rule by martial law, pardon
criminals, and confer titles. He was to summon the freemen to assist him in
making laws, which were to be similar to those of England, but did not
require the king's confirmation, and need not be sent to England. It was
therefore impossible for the Privy Council to check or inaugurate
legislation in Maryland. The relations between the Crown and his lordship
being thus established, it was left for the colonists and the proprietor to
settle their relation under the charter; but no tax could be levied without
consent of the freemen.
Sidenotes: St. Mary's founded.
Quarrel with Claiborne.
In November, 1633, Cecil sent out his brother Leonard with two hundred
colonists,--some twenty of whom were gentlemen, and the others laborers and
mechanics,--and in March following they founded a town near the mouth of
the Potomac, calling it St. Mary's. The troubles with Claiborne, the
Virginian who had made a settlement on Kent Island, in the Chesapeake and
within Baltimore's grant, have already been alluded to (page 77, § 31). The
dispute was a protracted one, and gave rise to much ill-feeling and some
bloodshed.
Sidenotes: Religious toleration.
Humane treatment of Indians.
The settlers of good quality.
Many of Baltimore's colonists were Protestants. He was, however, sincere in
his desire for complete religious toleration, and did not appear to concern
himself in what his subjects believed. The Jesuit priests accompanying the
party exerted their influence in behalf of a humane treatment of the
Indians, and a cordial friendship was soon established with the resident
tribes. As for the settlers, they were thrifty and industrious, held their
land in fee-simple, and up to the Commonwealth period there was prosperity
and content.
Sidenote: Legislative dispute with the proprietor.
The colonists were, however, not blind to their political rights, in the
midst of this economic security. In primary assembly, in which proxies were
allowed, the freemen adopted a code of laws (1635) which the proprietor
rejected because the former had presumed to take the initiative, and for
two years the province was self-governed under the English common law. In
1638 a set of laws drafted by the proprietor was promptly vetoed by the
assembly, and thus a deadlock was created. The matter was soon arranged by
compromise, with the utmost good-nature on both sides; there was created a
representative house of burgesses,--in which, however, individual freemen
might also appear,--Baltimore was granted a poll-tax subsidy, and the
people reserved to themselves the rights of self-taxation and legislative
initiative. The anomalous system of allowing both freemen--of whom there
were but one hundred and eighty-two in 1642--and their representatives to
sit in the general assembly continued, with some variations, until 1647,
when that body became truly representative. Three years later (1650), the
legislature was divided into two houses, the burgesses sitting in the lower
chamber, and the councillors and others especially summoned by the
proprietor in the upper.
34. Maryland during the English Revolution (1642-1660).
Sidenotes: Religious dissensions arise.
Claiborne drives out Calvert, but the latter eventually wins.
As in the other colonies, the outbreak of the civil war in England resulted
in serious dissensions in Maryland. The Puritan party waxed strong, and
sympathized with Claiborne's intruding Protestant colonists on Kent Island.
The seizure of a Parliament ship by Deputy-Governor Brent, under orders
from King Charles, resulted in popular disturbances. Claiborne, taking
advantage of the disorder and coming over from Virginia, seized the
government at St. Mary's. Governor Calvert fled to Virginia, where Governor
Berkeley gave him shelter until he was able to march back at the head of a
large force and suppress the Claiborne administration, which was weak and
mercenary, and had not commended itself to the people.
Sidenote: Growth of the Protestant party.
Leonard Calvert died in 1647. William Stone, a Protestant, appointed
Governor in 1648, favored Parliament as against the king, but was sworn by
the proprietor to protect Catholics and give them an equal chance with
other colonists. The Protestant party grew apace; but while represented by
the governor and council, was in the minority in the assembly. In 1649 a
"Toleration Act" was passed, by which Sunday games, blasphemy, and abuse of
rival sects were severally prohibited. "Whereas the enforcing of the
conscience in matters of religion," ran the preamble, "hath frequently
fallen out to be of dangerous consequence, ... and the better to preserve
mutual love and amity among the inhabitants of the province," no person
professing to be a Christian shall be "in any ways molested or
discountenanced for or in respect of his or her religion, nor in the free
exercise thereof."
Sidenote: Under the Protectorate.
The Parliamentary commissioners sent to reduce the colonies (1652)
displaced Stone; but his great popularity caused them to reinstate him.
Stone, however, now sided with the proprietor, who wished to banish all
colonists who would not take the oath of fidelity to his lordship. The
governor proclaimed the Puritan leaders as seditious, and ejected many. The
Puritans therefore rose and called in Claiborne, who was one of the
Parliamentary commissioners, to help them. In a pitched battle at
Providence (1655) the Protestants won, and followed up their victory by the
execution of several of Stone's followers and the sequestration of their
estates. Stone himself, though sentenced to death, was reprieved. The party
of Cromwell was now in full power in the palatinate. Claiborne renewed his
claim to Kent Island; but the Commissioners for Plantations do not appear
ever to have recognized it.
Sidenote: Baltimore restored to his proprietorship.
Baltimore was finally restored to his proprietorship by the English
Commissioners for Plantations (1657), the assembly accepted the situation,
an Act of Indemnity was passed, the right of the colonists to
self-government was reaffirmed, and the policy of toleration was again
adopted. The result of the proprietor's restoration was to enlarge the
political privileges of the people, and toleration succeeded Catholic
supremacy in Maryland,--a reflex of the tendencies of the Great Rebellion
in the mother-land.
35. Development of Maryland (1660-1715).
Sidenote: Charles Calvert as governor.
In 1661 Charles Calvert, eldest son of Lord Baltimore, became governor of
the province. His admirable administration lasted for fourteen years,
during which the colony greatly prospered, there being a considerable
immigration of Quakers and foreigners,--Maryland, with its religious
toleration and beneficent laws, becoming widely known as a haven for the
oppressed of all nations. Unhampered by the proprietor, the assembly was
reasonable in its dealings with him, and harmony prevailed between them.
The crops, particularly of tobacco, were profitable, the Indians were never
a source of serious disturbance, and the people were contented and loyal.
Sidenotes: A spirit of unrest.
The Fendall and Coode revolt.
Maryland declared a royal province.
By the death (1675) of Cecil, Lord Baltimore, Charles fell heir to the
family title and estates. Thomas Notly was sent out from England as
deputy-governor. In 1681 the new proprietor secured the passage of a law
limiting the suffrage to those having freeholds of fifty acres or other
property worth forty pounds. There was some popular uneasiness over this,
as well as over the encroachments on the Maryland grant made by William
Penn; the Navigation Act, compelling the planters to sell their tobacco in
English ports alone, was also fretting the people; while the Protestants,
most of whom were now of the Church of England, and bitter against Puritans
and other Dissenters, as well as Catholics, deemed the Toleration Act an
impious compact. Taking advantage of this spirit of unrest, and smarting
under old grievances, Josias Fendall, an unworthy demagogue, intrigued with
a retired clergyman named John Coode and instigated a revolt, in which the
aid of some Virginians was obtained. The uprising was promptly suppressed;
but under the influence of the revolution in England (1688) Coode again
headed an insurrection under the auspices of the Association for the
Defence of the Protestant Religion. In 1689 the associators seized the
government of Maryland, under the flimsy pretext that they were upholding
the cause of William and Mary. They at first won the favorable
consideration of the king; but in 1691 Maryland was declared a royal
province, and Sir Lionel Copley came out as the first royal governor.
Baltimore's interests were respected, but he now became a mere absentee
landlord. The powers of government rested in the Crown, the Church of
England was established, and other Protestant sects were discountenanced
while practically tolerated, but Catholics were persecuted.
Sidenote: Annapolis becomes the capital.
The capital was removed from St. Mary's, the centre of the Catholic
interest, to Annapolis,--first settled by Puritans, and now controlled by
the adherents of the establishment. Maryland's prosperity, heretofore
unrivalled in the colonies, now suffered a check, and for a term of years
the royal administration was signalized by religious persecution and a low
political and social tone, till in 1715 the proprietorship was
re-established. In 1729 the city of Baltimore was founded as a convenient
port for the planters. The settlement and growth of Maryland had enforced
two lessons which were never wholly forgotten,--the possibility, under
official toleration, of bringing members of different religious sects
together in one civil community and government; and the comfort and
prosperity attainable in a well-governed colony.
36. Early Settlers in the Carolinas (1542-1665).
Sidenote: Early colonial attempts.
Between Virginia and Spanish Florida a broad belt of territory lay long
unoccupied. A Huguenot colony in 1562 had had a brief existence there, and
in consequence France claimed the country as her share of Florida. But the
Spaniards drove out the French, and thus unwittingly left the field to the
north clear for the English. In 1584 Amadas and Barlowe led a prospecting
party to Roanoke Island (p. 38), and here also (1585, 1587) two of
Raleigh's ill-fated colonies spent their strength. The swamp-girted coast
had few harbors, the colonizing material did not possess staying qualities,
the ill-treated Indians turned on the invaders of their soil, the sites of
settlements were ill-chosen. For a long period of years after the failure
of these enterprises a prejudice existed against the middle region as a
colonizing ground.
Sidenotes: Adventurous Virginians explore North Carolina.
Roger Green plants Albemarle.
But before Jamestown was two years old restless Virginians had explored the
upper waters of some of the southern rivers, and by 1625 the region was
fairly familiar to hunters and adventurous land-seekers as far south as the
Chowan. In 1629 Charles I. gave "the province of Carolana" to Sir Robert
Heath, his attorney-general; but nothing came of the grant. The Virginia
Assembly took it upon itself to issue exploring and trading permits in the
southern portion of the Virginia claims, often called Carolana, to certain
commercial companies, with the result that the character of the country
became generally known. In 1653 a small colony of Virginia dissenters,
harassed by the Church of England party at home, were led by Roger Green to
the banks of the Chowan and Roanoke; and there they planted Albemarle, the
first permanent settlement in what is now North Carolina.
Sidenotes: Miscellaneous colonizing parties.
New Englanders at Cape Fear River.
Colonists from Barbadoes at Clarendon.
Numerous colonizing parties and individual settlers ventured into North
Carolina during the next twenty years, and purchased lands of the Indians.
Among these were many Baptists and Quakers who had found life intolerable
in the northern settlements. The story goes that in 1660 a number of New
Englanders, desiring to raise cattle, settled at the mouth of Cape Fear
River; but they incurred the hatred of the Indians, and the colony soon
melted away. The survivors, upon taking their departure, affixed to a post
a "scandalous writing, ... the contents whereof tended not only to the
disparagement of the land about the said river, but also to the great
discouragement of all such as should hereafter come into those parts to
settle." This was said to have been found in 1663 by a company of wanderers
from the English community on the island of Barbados, which had been
founded in 1625. These West Indian colonists, headed by a wealthy planter,
Sir John Yeamans, established themselves (1664), to the number of several
hundred, on the Cape Fear, in the district which soon came to be known as
Clarendon.
37. Proprietorship of the Carolinas (1663-1671)
Sidenotes: The Lords Proprietors acquire the Carolinas.
Early prosperity.
It is probable that Charles II. knew little of these infant settlements of
Virginians and Barbados men at Albemarle and Clarendon,--which were some
three hundred miles apart,--or of the numerous small holdings between them;
but he cautiously confirmed all private purchases from the Indians, in
giving Carolina (1663) to a coterie of his favorites. Chief among these
were the Earl of Clarendon, the Duke of Albemarle, the Earl of Shaftesbury,
and Sir William Berkeley, then governor of Virginia. The proprietaries had
been commanded to recognize the land-claims of the settlers already on the
ground. William Drummond, a Scotch colonist in Virginia, was made governor
of Albemarle, while Yeamans remained governor of Clarendon, these two
districts roughly corresponding to the North and South Carolina of to-day.
The proprietaries at first authorized a popular government on the simplest
plan, and the settlers, particularly in Albemarle, looked forward to a
prosperous career. A considerable trade in lumber and fur at once sprang
up, and the crops were good; for the soil proved richer than in any other
of the American colonies then occupied.
Sidenotes: An enlargement of bounds.
Immigrants attracted.
In 1667 Samuel Stephens succeeded Governor Drummond, who went to Virginia,
where he became a leader in the Bacon rebellion. The Lords Proprietors in
1665 secured a charter, with enlargements of their bounds; their new grants
in terms included the present territory of the United States between
Virginia and Florida, to the Pacific. In 1670 was added the
Bahamas,--neither the claims of Virginia nor of Spain being considered in
the grants. Stephens was assisted by a council of twelve, his own
appointees when the proprietaries did not choose them. The assembly, of
twelve members chosen by the people, was a lower house. This first
legislature met in 1669; and actuated by a desire to attract immigrants,
declared that no debts contracted abroad by settlers previous to removal to
Carolina could be collected in their new home. As a consequence, along with
many desirable colonists flocking in from the Bermudas, Bahamas, New
England, and Virginia, came others who were not worthy material for a
pioneer community. The proprietaries themselves were quite liberal in their
land-grants to inhabitants.
Sidenote: Locke's Fundamental Constitutions.
Unfortunately for the Carolinians, the Lords Proprietors engaged John
Locke, the famous philosopher, to devise for them a scheme of colonial
government (1669). It was a complicated feudal structure, entitled the
Fundamental Constitutions, not suited to any community, old or new, and now
chiefly interesting as a philosophical curiosity. The province was to be
divided into counties, and they into seignories, baronies, precincts, and
colonies; and the people were to be separated into four estates of the
realm,--proprietaries, landgraves, caciques, and commons. Locke defined
"political power to be the right of making laws for regulating and
preserving property." The objects sought to be attained in his constitution
were avowedly the "establishing the interest of the lords proprietors," the
making of a government "most agreeable to the monarchy, ... that we may
avoid erecting a numerous democracy," and the connecting political power
with hereditary wealth. The leet-men, or tenants, were to be kept from
asserting themselves by rigid feudal restrictions: "nor shall any leet-man
or leet-woman have liberty to go off from the land of their particular lord
and live anywhere else without license obtained from their said lord, under
hand and seal. All the children of leet-men shall be leet-men, and so to
all generations." The plan was the dream of an aristocrat; it was an
attempt to reproduce the thirteenth century in the seventeenth; it was
artificial and unwieldy. While the rough backwoods-men could not grasp its
intricacies or understand its mediæval terms, they instinctively felt it to
be a useless bit of constitutional romancing, and would have little to do
with it.
The only important result of the attempt was to unsettle existing
conditions and, especially in Albemarle, to create a contempt for all
government; while the attempt of the proprietaries to regulate trade
strengthened the too-prevalent spirit of lawlessness. Their officious
lordships had set out to establish the Church of England; but the result of
their interference was that the Quakers, elsewhere despised, took advantage
of the spirit of dissent and obtained a firm hold over the Carolinians.
Sidenote: The planting of Charleston.
During this period of unrest in the northern settlements William Sayle, who
had explored the coast in 1667, planted (1670-1671) a colony "on the first
highland" at the junction of the Ashley and Cooper rivers,--the site of the
Charleston of to-day.
38. The Two Settlements of Carolina (1671-1700).
Sidenotes: North Carolina neglected by the proprietaries.
The Culpeper rebellion.
The settlements at Cape Fear and Charleston being more orderly and
promising than that at Albemarle, the proprietaries were henceforth more
considerate towards them. North Carolina, as it was ultimately called, was
practically left to take care of itself for upwards of a decade, during
which the neglected colonists made a rough struggle for existence upon
their crude clearings in the wilderness, those nearest the coast eking out
their scanty income by trafficking with New England smugglers. Throughout
the rest of the seventeenth century the proprietaries had but a nominal
hold upon the people of the northern colony. In 1676 Thomas Eastchurch was
appointed governor of Albemarle, but he ruled only through deputies. Deputy
Miller, collector of the king's customs, a drunken, vicious fellow, added
to his unpopularity by attempting to browbeat the assembly. The colonists
rose in arms (1678), imprisoned Miller, chose one Culpeper as collector of
customs, and convened a new assembly, which confirmed the revolutionary
proceedings and controlled affairs until 1683, when Seth Sothel was sent
out as governor. Sothel won the reputation of being an arbitrary and
rapacious official, and in 1688 the unruly assembly deposed and banished
him, despite the feeble remonstrance of the proprietaries.
Sidenote: Charleston aided by the proprietaries.
Meanwhile, Sayle's colony at Charleston made good progress, the
proprietaries being lavish in their aid of the enterprise. While it was
found that but few features of Locke's elaborate constitutions could be put
into practice in a frontier settlement, their lordships minutely managed
the affairs of the colony, leaving little to the judgment of the
inhabitants. Sayle died the first winter, and Yeamans, the founder of the
Cape Fear colony, succeeded him as governor (1672). Two years later (1674),
the unpopularity of Yeamans led to his being supplanted by Joseph West, who
ruled in a wholesome manner for twelve years.
Sidenote: Thrifty condition of Clarendon.
In 1682 the Clarendon settlements, now chiefly centred at Charleston, which
had an excellent town government, embraced about three thousand persons.
Despite trade restrictions, the exports of furs and timber were large for
the time, much live-stock was reared, the cultivation of tobacco was
extensively engaged in, and the supply of fish was abundant.
Sidenotes: Arrival of Huguenots.
Scotch Presbyterians routed by the Spanish.
The settlers were of various types,--among the colonists being groups of
Englishmen from the Bahamas, Barbados, Virginia, and New England; while in
1679 French Huguenots began to arrive in considerable numbers, and had a
permanent effect upon the character of the province. A small party of
Scotch Presbyterians, flying from persecution at home, established
themselves at Port Royal,--the southernmost of the English settlements. Two
days' sail to the south lay the Spanish town of St. Augustine. The
Spaniards, jealous of this encroachment, and suffering as well from the
raids of pirates who made their headquarters in Charleston, fell upon the
little outpost of Port Royal (1686) and completely destroyed it. It was
long held as a cause of complaint in the Carolinas that the proprietaries
peremptorily forbade the colonists chastising the Spanish, on the principle
that a dependency had no right to carry on war against a country with which
the home government was at peace.
Sidenote: Colonial grievances in South Carolina.
The Huguenots, who had settled chiefly in Craven County, were for a time
denied all political rights, although the proprietaries favored them. The
buccaneers, who frequently appeared in Charleston, were continually preying
on Spanish commerce, and causing their lordships much trepidation lest
these sea-rovers should bring on a war with Spain. The dissenters, who were
in the majority, were constantly warring with the Church of England party,
represented by the proprietaries. The trade restrictions were exceedingly
unpopular. Proprietary interference, even when well intended, unsettled the
public mind. The colonists, while conducting their local political affairs
on independent English models, were continually apprehensive of a change in
the form of government, and in general nursed many grievances, petty and
great.
Sidenotes: A period of turbulence.
The Carolinas reunited.
After the close of West's first term (1683) there was some turbulence, and
within the following seven years a succession of unsatisfactory governors.
Sothel (1690) was driven out by the Southern colonists in 1691, as he had
been by the Northern (page 93, § 38), and Philip Ludwell came on from
Virginia to assume control. The proprietaries had at last changed their
policy, and determined to rule both Carolinas, as one province, Ludwell
being the first governor (1691) of the united colonies. He was weak,
however, and unable to restore order and public confidence. Under his
successor, Thomas Smith, the assembly was granted a share in initiating
legislation.
Sidenote: The century closes with improved conditions.
It was not until John Archdale, a sound-headed and conservative Quaker,
himself one of the proprietaries, came out (1695) as governor that the
colonists ceased their bickerings and the province settled down into a
condition of peace and good order. Joseph Blake, Archdale's nephew,
succeeded him (1696). Under Blake's benign rule the century closed in the
Carolinas with a better popular feeling towards the Huguenots, complete
religious toleration to all Christians except Catholics, and a marked
increase in the material prosperity of the settlers.
The Carolinas, which had been planted sixty years later than Virginia, were
in 1700 still feeble; and it was half a century before they began to be
important colonies. The chief interest of the Carolinas in the development
of America is the failure of the proprietors to stem or to deflect the tide
of local government. Nowhere does the innate determination of the
Anglo-Saxon to control his own political destiny more strikingly appear
than in the contentions of the Carolinians with their rulers in England.