In 1635, in one of the most famous incidents in Virginia's early
history, Governor Harvey was deposed by his Council. Many historians
have assumed that Harvey was deposed by a spontaneous uprising of the
people no longer able to bear his oppressive government. There is,
however, little justification for this view. Many more accusations have
been hurled at Harvey by later historians than by his contemporaries,
and it is undoubtedly Harvey's position as a royal Governor and his
quick temper that have caused historians to take such a hostile view of
him. Ever since the successful American Revolution of 1776, American
historians, in interpreting the events of the colonial period, have
jumped at any evidence of discontent as an anticipation of, and
justification for, the War for Independence. They have not stopped to
determine whether the charges hurled at the royal Governors were true or
not. It is enough that someone accused them of oppression.
The causes of the revolt against Harvey were various. Of first
importance was the continual opposition that existed between the
Governor and his Council. The revolt was not primarily a revolt of the
people but a revolt by certain members of the Council who attempted to
give their particular insubordination the appearance of a general
rebellion.
Harvey's commission was such that he could do nothing except by majority
vote of himself and the Council sitting as a single body. The Council
frequently outvoted him, effectively blocking his proposals. Harvey
bitterly disputed the Council's power to thwart his will. He pointed out
that the King had sent him to Virginia not only as the new Governor but
with the specific duty of correcting the abuses that were reported to
have existed under previous Governors, especially those abuses for which
members of the Council were responsible. Previous to his arrival the
government had been in the hands of Francis West and Dr. John Pott,
elected to office by the other members of the Council. Pott, whose
reputation has been mentioned earlier, was not pleased to be brought to
justice for his dishonest actions. Nor was Samuel Mathews, an important
member of the Council, pleased to be brought to justice for withholding
the cattle and property of other men. (Mathews, the richest man in the
colony, successfully resisted all legal attempts to divest him of this
property.) Nor were the Council members pleased when, in accordance with
His Majesty's commands, Harvey attempted to punish those responsible for
the ill treatment of William Capps, sent earlier by the King to start
production of tar, potash, salt, pipe staves and other commodities. The
Council had discouraged him from his mission, except in so far as it
concerned the production of salt, and Pott had issued an order
preventing him from leaving the colony to report to the King.
Another cause for grievance against Harvey was the peace he made with
the local Indians. The colonists distrusted the Indians more than they
distrusted other Europeans. The great massacre of 1622, when the Indians
made a desperate attempt to destroy the English settlement, had placed
Indian-white relations on a basis of perpetual enmity. Legally, the
Indians had never been considered to have the same rights as the
English. English law throughout the seventeenth century maintained the
doctrine that between Christians and infidels there could exist nothing
but perpetual enmity, a view which was a hangover from the period of the
Crusades, wars against the Turks, and expansion by militant Christian
nations into heathen lands during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
It is true that practical co-operation and on-the-spot recognition of
Indian rights had developed in Virginia in the early years. The massacre
of 1622, however, gave Virginians an excuse for abandoning all forms of
co-operation with, and respect for, the Indians. Deceit and breach of
faith were elevated into acknowledged instruments of policy. The right
of 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 English
refused to recognize _in law_ either their existence or their title to
land. Total extirpation was resolved against those Indian nations which
had taken part in the massacre. "Marches" were periodically ordered
against the various tribes with the purpose of destroying or seizing
their corn, burning their shelters, and killing as many members of the
tribe as possible.
Governor Harvey reversed this policy and made peace with the Indians
against the advice of Dr. Pott and other Councilors. He also attempted
to see that some measure of equity was extended to Indian-white
relations. As a result, the more aggressive planters accused him of
promoting a second massacre.
What really set off the revolt against Harvey, however, was the
injection of the hottest issue of the day into the controversy: whether
Harvey was "soft" on Catholicism. This issue was brought to a head
because of the grant of a portion of Virginia's original territory to
George Calvert, first Lord Baltimore. Harvey had extended a helping hand
to Baltimore's colonists. Although his actions in this regard were
specifically required of him by the King, and although he received
especially warm commendation from the English government for doing so,
the Virginia colonists objected. The King's grant, for one thing, had
been carved out of the Virginia Company's old bounds which had been left
undisturbed when the Company lost its right to govern the area. Already
Virginians were beginning to eye the benefits of settlement in the
northern reaches of Chesapeake Bay. One, Colonel William Claiborne,
Secretary of the colony, had obtained a royal commission to trade in the
area and had established a settlement on Kent Island, opposite the
present Annapolis, far up Chesapeake Bay. By acting on the King's
instructions and supporting Baltimore's authority in the area against
Claiborne's claims, Harvey turned the second most important man in the
colony against him.
Harvey at first backed the Virginia Council's assertion that Kent
Island was a part of Virginia, and not part of the supposedly
uncultivated wilderness granted to Baltimore by the King. But in the
face 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 trading
post lay within the limits of Baltimore's jurisdiction. Irritation
between the two men increased when Harvey attempted jointly with the
Maryland authorities to conduct an examination of charges that Claiborne
was stirring up Maryland's Indians against the new settlers. Claiborne
was accused of telling the local Indians that the new settlers were not
Englishmen but Spaniards. The investigation which ensued was hampered at
every turn by Claiborne and his friends on the Virginia Council.
The Virginians were most concerned not by the apparent violation of
Virginia's territorial integrity, but by the fact that the new
settlement was being established and settled by Roman Catholics. The
Virginians were less tolerant than the King in wishing success to Lord
Baltimore, a Catholic, and his fellow religionists, in establishing a
colony on their northern border. The Virginia Council wrote Charles in
1629 thanking him for "the freedome of our Religion which wee have
enjoyed," and asserting proudly that "noe papists have beene suffered to
settle amongst us." They insisted upon tendering the oaths of supremacy
and allegiance to Lord Baltimore when he arrived in Virginia in October
1629 to consider a possible settlement, and reported to the King that he
had refused to take those oaths. Charles I had married a Catholic,
Henrietta Maria of France, and, like his father, James I, was not
disposed to allow too rigorous penalties against those who professed
religious allegiance to Rome. But the Parliament, and the people in
general, feared and hated Catholics, believing their religious beliefs
to be incompatible with loyalty to a Protestant state.
By means of the oaths of allegiance and supremacy Catholics were
required to recognize the English sovereign as their rightful ruler in
matters spiritual and ecclesiastical as well as temporal, to repudiate
the papal claim to depose heretical princes, to promise to fight for the
King in case of rebellion caused by a papal sentence of deposition, and
to denounce the doctrine that princes, being excommunicated, could be
deposed or murdered, or that subjects could be absolved from their oath
of allegiance. The oaths were based on a real fear which identified
Roman Catholicism with treason. Protestants felt that Catholics owed
their highest allegiance to a foreign power, and hence were not good
Englishmen. The problem was a complicated one, and much debated at the
time and since. Now it is generally accepted that one can owe spiritual
allegiance to Rome while remaining a faithful subject of a non-Catholic
state. In England in the seventeenth century, however, the Church of
Rome was too closely identified with England's mortal enemies to allow
her freely to tolerate Catholics in her midst. For a long period England
had feared Spain as the greatest threat to her existence. Even after the
defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 this fear persisted and to a
certain extent was transferred to France, another Catholic power. The
measures taken against the Catholics in England were similar to those
taken against Communists in this country today, and they were taken for
the same reason: the fear that the followers of a universal ideology
would turn against their local allegiance if the two ever came in
conflict.
Eventually Charles's easy attitude towards Catholics helped bring about
his downfall. In a similar way Harvey's compliance with the King's
instructions to aid and respect Baltimore's colonists weakened his
popularity in Virginia.
As the locus of power in England shifted from the King and his lords
towards the Parliament and the people, a stronger Protestant and
democratic policy became necessary. The eventual result of this shift in
power became evident with the beheading of Charles I in 1649 and, later,
with the Glorious Revolution of 1689 and the crowning of William and
Mary as constitutional symbols of the power of the English nation.
So great was the popular feeling in Virginia against the "Papists" in
Maryland that many, in casual conversation, exclaimed that they would
rather knock their cattle on the head than sell them to Maryland. To
accommodate the needs of the new settlers in Maryland, Harvey sent them
some cows of his own and did his best to ease their early struggles, in
accordance with the King's commands. He could not do all he wished,
however, because he was frequently outvoted at the Council meetings on
anything that had to do with Maryland.
The deposition of Governor Harvey had its origin on April 27, 1635, in a
mutinous gathering held in the York River area, Virginia's first
frontier settlement outside the James River. The ring-leader seems to
have been Francis Pott, brother of Doctor Pott, who harangued the
meeting about the alleged injustice of Governor Harvey, and about the
Governor's toleration for Indians, which he said would bring on another
massacre. Francis Pott had formerly been commander of the fort at Point
Comfort but had a short time before been discharged by Harvey for
misbehavior.
Harvey ordered the principals in the York meeting arrested, and called
the Council together to consider what action should be taken against
them. The Council opposed Harvey's desire to proceed against them by
martial law, and began to excuse the dissidents on the grounds of the
many complaints the people had about the government. Harvey thereupon
demanded opinions in writing on what should be done with the mutineers.
George Menefie, the first Councilor of whom Harvey demanded such a
written statement, said he was but a young lawyer and dared not give a
sudden opinion. A violent debate ensued. The rest of the Council also
refused to put their opinions in writing. At the next meeting of the
Council, Menefie began to recount the grievances of the country, naming
Harvey's detention of the Assembly's letter to the King as the principal
one. The original of this letter, refusing the King's propositions
concerning a tobacco contract, Harvey had retained, as likely to
infuriate the monarch and do the country no good. Instead he had sent a
copy of the letter to the Secretary of State. At Menefie's words,
Harvey, in a rage, brought his hand down sharply on the Councilor's
shoulder and said, "Do you say so? I arrest you on suspicion of treason
to his Majesty." Then Capt. John Utie and Capt. Samuel Mathews seized
Harvey and said, "And we you upon suspicion of treason to his Majesty."
Secretary Richard Kemp immediately stepped between the men and told Utie
and Mathews that Harvey was the King's Lieutenant and that they had done
more than they could answer for. Mathews and Utie released their hold on
the Governor but demanded that he go to England to answer the people's
complaints. To emphasize their demand Dr. John Pott signaled forty
soldiers who had been concealed outside the Governor's house (where the
meeting was held) to march up to the door, apparently as a form of
threat, although the mutineers protested that the guard was for the
Governor's safety. More days of negotiations passed. The rebellious
Council called an Assembly to hear charges against Harvey, and chose
Capt. John West to be Governor until His Majesty's pleasure might be
known. Finally Harvey agreed to return to England. Francis Pott went on
the same ship home.
In England the Privy Council heard the charges against Harvey and his
defense. None of the accusations stood up, and he was able to show why
the Council had private reasons to desire his removal. The King directed
him to return to his government with increased power, and ordered the
Councilors who had been instrumental in deposing him to be sent to
England for trial. Harvey was able to collect some of his back pay and
to obtain the King's agreement that he should return in a ship of war.
Unfortunately, an old and unseaworthy prize ship was provided him which
had to turn back shortly after its departure, and Harvey was forced to
take passage on an ordinary merchant ship which arrived in Virginia
January 18, 1637. Harvey suffered great losses because of the
unseaworthiness of the prize ship, and petitioned the King for
recompense. He was, however, ordered to pay out of his own pocket all
the losses he had sustained by the affair, although he was authorized to
collect an equivalent amount from the estates of the mutinous Councilors
should they be convicted.
The sending of the mutinous Councilors--Capt. John West, Samuel Mathews,
John Utie, and William Pierce--as prisoners to England, strangely enough
allowed them to accomplish what they had been unable to do in Virginia.
So many and so powerful were their friends, so wealthy were they
themselves, and so many were the charges that they contrived against
Harvey now that he was back in the colony and unable to answer them,
that the King soon reversed himself and ordered Harvey relieved of his
post. The King's action illustrates one of the little appreciated
factors in American colonial history: the role played by petitions to
the King. Three thousand miles of ocean, and months, even years, in
time, separated the assertion from the proof, encouraged the most
exaggerated charges, and contributed to the unjustified sympathy
extended by the King to many petitioners who did not deserve such
consideration. Some of the "crimes" charged against Harvey were even
discovered to have their origin in the King's own commands or in earlier
acts of Assembly. Yet they contributed to clouding the atmosphere and
blinding the lords of England to the true worth of their representative
in Virginia.
On the basis of unjustified or unsupported charges concerning Harvey's
alleged misappropriation of the mutinous Councilors' estates, which had
been seized for the King pending their trial, the King, on May 25, 1637,
ordered these estates returned to their owners. Harvey complied
immediately as far as four of the Councilors were concerned, but he had
already allowed legal action to be directed against Mathews' estate by
those who had claims against Mathews, and judgments had been made in
favor of the plaintiffs. When the English government heard he had not
turned back Mathews' property, it promptly ordered that he do so without
delay, which order Harvey then tried to put into effect as best he
could. The damage had been done, however, and the impression created
that he had willfully misappropriated Mathews' property and disobeyed
the King's commands.
Harvey's fight against the charges his enemies brought against him in
England suffered another blow when Mr. Anthony Panton, a minister who
had been twice banished from the colony, returned to England to add his
complaints to those of the others. Harvey was not given a chance to
defend himself against the new charges, and on January 11, 1639, Sir
Francis Wyatt was appointed to succeed him.
On Wyatt's arrival Harvey's estate was seized and the old Governor
prevented from returning to England until he could satisfy his
creditors. To meet their demands, Harvey, in 1640, was forced to sell
all his land and much of his personal property. The fact that he was in
debt to many persons in the colony is itself a significant indication
that he had not abused the powers of his office. It is a curious fact
that both Governor Sir William Berkeley and Governor Harvey were much in
debt when the rebellions against their rule began, while their principal
enemies were among the wealthiest men in the colony.
Harvey was finally able to return to England, probably in 1641. There he
found Anthony Panton continuing his campaign of defamation against him.
Panton was not content to accuse the previous government in Virginia of
every sort of general crime (although he failed to cite any specific
instance of oppression) but charged that the commission the King had
granted to Sir William Berkeley in August 1641 to replace Wyatt had been
surreptitiously obtained. The House of Lords therefore ordered
Berkeley's voyage delayed while they examined the case. The House of
Commons, on the basis of an earlier petition from Panton, had similarly
prevented the return to Virginia of Richard Kemp, Secretary of the
colony, and Christopher Wormeley. Both Berkeley and the two Virginians
presented counterpetitions, the one pointing out that he was charged
with nothing and hence desired not to be held up on his costly voyage,
the others asserting that all Panton's accusations were untrue and
similarly requesting permission to leave. The House of Lords thereupon
granted these petitions, sending Panton's charges to the Governor and
Council of Virginia for a decision.
THE EARLY ADMINISTRATION OF SIR WILLIAM BERKELEY, 1642-1644: AN ERA OF
GOOD FEELING
In March 1642 Sir William Berkeley took up his duties in Virginia and
began a career which ended both gloriously and ignominiously thirty-five
years later. Berkeley came from a distinguished family, was a graduate
of Oxford and the Inns of Court, a playwright, and a courtier much
admired by the King. Men frequently wondered why he chose to waste his
talents in the American wilderness when he might have achieved eminence
at Court. The mystery will probably ever remain. In Virginia Berkeley
had to work with many of the same Councilors who bedeviled Harvey, but
Berkeley was able to get along well with them and with the Assembly and
people of Virginia. No Governor of Virginia in the seventeenth century
was ever so well or so deservedly loved by the people. Since he ended
his long career as Governor amidst a colonial rebellion against his rule
in 1676, historians have found it hard to determine whether to bestow
praise or blame upon him. Usually he is praised for his early years in
the 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 on
Governor Berkeley, however, and his character may prove to be more
consistent than historians have realized.
Berkeley's first action was to join the Burgesses and Council in a
violent denunciation of those who were attempting to reinstitute the old
Virginia Company's control over the colony. In a "Declaration against
the Company" Berkeley and the Assembly asserted that government under
the Company had been intolerable and if introduced again would destroy
all the democratic rights allowed by the King's instructions, such as
legal trial by jury, the right to petition the King, and yearly
Assemblies. The readmission of the Company would also, the declaration
asserted, impeach the "freedom of our trade (which is the blood and life
of a commonwealth)." The declaration went on to order that anyone who
promoted the restoration of the Company's power would, upon due
conviction, 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 four
pounds of tobacco per poll which formerly had been levied for the
Governor's use. The Assembly acknowledged this as "a benefit descending
unto us and our posterity ... contributed to us by our present
Governor." Berkeley abolished certain other valuable emoluments due him
by virtue of his office "wherein," the Assembly declared, "we may not
likewise silence the bounty of our present Governor in preferring the
public freedom before his particular profit." Finally Berkeley
recommended that taxes be proportioned in some measure "according to
mens abilities and estates" rather than by the old poll tax system, and
the new scheme was, for a brief period, put into effect.
Governor Berkeley not only showed himself selfless in restraining his
own opportunities for profit, but fearless in restraining the colonists'
itch for land. A few months before his arrival, the Assembly had
authorized settlement both on the north side of the York and in the
Rappahannock area, if it could be done in great enough force.
Opechancanough was to be offered fifty barrels of corn a year for the
area between the York and the Piankatank, although the English proposed
to take the area whether Opechancanough accepted the offer or not.
Twenty-four years had elapsed before English settlement jumped from the
James to the York. Now, ten years after the first settlements on the
York, Virginians were settling on the next great river to the north, the
Rappahannock. By the time Berkeley arrived, some settlers had
established themselves in the area, and many more had claimed grants.
Indian hostility was great, however, and soon a number of the settlers
returned to more secure areas of the country.
Berkeley, working with the Assembly of March 1643, obtained a law which
provided that the Rappahannock River region should remain "unseated,"
though grants might be tentatively claimed in the area, until the
Governor, Council, and Burgesses, that is, the Grand Assembly, should
authorize settlement there. The Governor was attempting to regulate the
expansion of the colony so that the twin goals of security for the
English and justice for the Indians could both be secured. In this he
was not entirely successful, since he could only guide, not arbitrarily
direct, the representatives of the people. The rich, virgin land of the
frontier exerted a continuing attraction to the tobacco planters, and
five years later, in 1648, the restrictions on settlement in the
Rappahannock region, as well as in the Potomac region, were officially
lifted.
Many other important policy decisions were made at the March 1643
meeting of the Grand Assembly. One of these decisions concerned church
government. The first act provided for the establishment of church
government according to the Anglican form. Virginia was not formed as a
protest against the Church of England, as were the Puritan colonies in
New England in large measure. Conformity in religious matters was
considered a virtue in Virginia. The Assembly, indeed, enacted that
nonconformist ministers be compelled to depart the colony, an act which
did much to sour Virginia's relations with New England. What was
significant about the act, however, was that, with certain exceptions
and qualifications, it gave the vestry of every parish power to elect
the minister of the parish. Because established landlords and nobles
did not exist to build and endow churches as in England, the
representatives of the people, in the vestry, had to assume the role of
patron, to build the church, and to provide for the support of the
minister. In such circumstances it was natural that much of the power
that remained in the hierarchy of church, state, and society in England
should, in Virginia, pass to the ordinary people and be exercised
through their representatives--the vestry and Burgesses. The people, not
the King, became the patron of the Church of England in Virginia.
Popular responsibility replaced clerical responsibility and added one
more phase of life to those controlled directly by the people in the New
World. It is significant that Patrick Henry, years before the
Revolution, should first have asserted the doctrine of popular
responsibility 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 the
government was the provision in one of the acts of the Assembly of 1643
that appeals from the General Court (composed of the Governor and
Council, all appointees of the Crown) should be made to the Grand
Assembly (composed of the representatives of the people plus the
Governor and Council).
Still another demonstration of the _de facto_ shift in power from the
Crown to the people was the third act of the 1643 Assembly which
declared that the Governor and Council "shall not lay any taxes or
impositions upon this collonie their lands or comodities otherwise then
by the authority of the Grand Assembly to be leavied and imployed as by
the Assembly shall be appointed." The first such law had been passed in
March 1624 and renewed in February 1632. The process of wresting control
of the purse strings from the representatives of the Crown was to be a
long-drawn-out process in America, as indeed it was in England. In
Virginia the battle was won without a fight either because the Governors
were unable to oppose the power of the Burgesses or because they
identified their interests with those of the people. In the case of the
rights won by the people of Virginia during Sir William Berkeley's
governorship, these seem to have been the results as much of the
Governor's benevolence as of the Burgesses' power.
The colony also took its economic welfare into its own hands in the
early years of Berkeley's administration. Dutch traders were encouraged
by an act which made it free and lawful for any Dutch merchant or
shipowner to bring merchandise into the colony and to take tobacco out
of it. Means were provided to ease the difficulty caused by the
requirement that the Dutch give security for payment of the King's
customs at the port of London.