Volume 1, Part 2, The Southern Colonies in the Seventeenth Century
Chapter 3, The Virginia Company
The Virginia colony did not enter existence as a new entity in a new world devoid of the
shackles of tradition.
The two key areas of policy, land and commerce, were already clearly established before the
Virginia Company was planned and before the Virginia colony was established.
In the period immediately preceding the formation of the Virginia Company and Colony, a policy
toward colonial land, commerce, government, natives and colonists became well established.
A primary purpose for colonization was the belief that England was highly overpopulated
and that colonies were a suitable outlet for the surplus poor of England.
In 1603, the government issued an order for the forcible transportation of sturdy beggars,
vagrants and other troublesome persons to the English plantations across the sea in Ireland.
During the preceding decade, Ireland had suffered the ravages of the English army battling against
a movement of national liberation seeking self-government, freedom of religion and abandonment
of the Plantation of English Colonists on Irish Lands.
The defeat of the Irish in 1603 by the studied English policy of destruction of crops, cattle,
homes and people opened Ireland to renewed colonization by the English government.
The Irish had no land rights.
They were mere tenants at the will of their lords.
The system of plantations in Ireland provided the pattern for establishing plantations in
America. Grants of land were made to courtiers, privileged companies, and purchasers of feudal
domains with feudal powers. Like the American Indians, the Irish were subjected to raids
whose purpose was to destroy their subsistence in shelter and to drive them out of the proposed
Area of Plantation. These new feudal domains were settled by the poor of England who were
subjected to feudal disabilities. In consequence, these poor not only did not own their own
lands, they barely owned themselves. The colonial government of Ireland remained the despotism
that was established by the Tudors. Since the English government was deeply engaged
in the development of a program for Irish colonization when the Virginia Company was
being organized.
There were complaints that the proposals for American colonies would interfere with the
plantation of Ulster.
It was absurd folly to run over the world in the search of colonies in Virginia or Guiana
whilst Ireland was lying desolate.
However, colonies in Virginia or Guyana would not only contribute to the decrease of the burden of overpopulation, they would also be a source of important tropical or semi-tropical products that were objectives of the privileged trading companies of London.
The London financiers purchased from the government the right to retain general customs as well as tobacco duties, since tobacco was becoming a significant imported commodity.
Spanish America, especially the lands and islands about the Caribbean, was the source of tobacco, and its use in England grew rapidly once trade was established with Spain in 1604.
However, the use of tobacco was much disliked by James I because it not only was a drain
of money from England to Spain, but also was considered poisonous and a sign of intemperance
and vice by which Englishmen allowed themselves to be debased by the barbaric practices of
the Indians, but the habit became widespread and an important source of tax revenue.
In 1604, the English government initiated new increases in the customs duties, making
the farming of the duties even more profitable.
Tax farming was the sale by government of the right to tax.
At the same time, the increases in tariffs made smuggling such a profitable business that
it became organized on a professional basis.
The smuggling business was a well-organized system of purchase, transportation, delivery
and distribution in which the free trader was not only sailor and merchant but also
policeman to protect his property from attacks by government officials.
Tobacco became one of the most important of the basic items for smuggling.
Besides increasing direct taxation, the government, in effect, encouraged smuggling through indirect
Taxes via Sale of Monopoly Privileges. James I's first parliament in 1604 established
the tone for the future parliaments of the 17th century, opposition to the government.
The parliament of 1604 strongly stated the grievances felt against the government and
among the fiscal reforms demanded by the House of Commons was the abolition of the foreign
A committee under the chairmanship of Sir Edwin Sandys presented a bill for all merchants to have free liberty of trade into all countries as is used in all other nations.
Sandy said, all free subjects are born inheritable as to their land, as also to the free exercise of their industry in those trades whereto they apply themselves and whereby they are to live.
The Parliament of 1605 continued to state the grievances of the people against the monopolies of London financiers.
After the closing of parliament, the government sought to quiet opposition by co-opting provincial capitalists into the monopoly privileges.
However, the desire for the advantages of freedom of trade outweighed the advantages of monopoly privileges,
and the attempt to force the investors of the West Country ports such as Plymouth and Bristol into the London monopolies proved unsatisfactory.
Thus, the colonization activities of the West Country promoters had to be separated from
those of the London colonial promoters.
This resulted in the creation of two Virginia companies and charters, September 1605 and
April 1606.
In 1606, the Parliament declared void the charters of the monopoly companies trading
with Southern Europe, which action freed and opened that trade to all English merchants.
In response, the government refused to call parliament for almost three years, hoping
to raise money by prerogative power, by increasing the duties on imports and exports without
parliamentary consent, and by the creation or extension of monopolies.
The Parliament of 1610 protested the imposition of increased taxes and deprivation of civil
liberties by the prerogative courts and refused to vote any taxes.
The government continued to gain its income by prerogative power, granting increased privileges
in 1612 to such companies as the Virginia Company and the East India Company.
Despite the financial manipulations of the government, its debt more than doubled, and
it sought to gain taxes by controlling elections to the House of Commons. But a House opposed
to the government was elected, and by a unanimous vote, it criticized the imposition of taxes
by the government. Sir Edwin Sandys said of the monopolies in taxes imposed by the government
that what in the past had been done only temporarily and in emergencies was now being claimed by
right. The Parliament refused to pass any legislation or approve any taxation until
the grievances of the people were redressed by the Government. The Government dissolved
the Parliament and over a dozen members were punished by the Government by imprisonment
or House Arrest, including Sir Edwin Sandys.
Although the government continued to create and enlarge its inspections, regulations,
controls and monopolies, the rationalization of government power was further undermined
in 1614 by common law court decisions against monopolies.
During the constitutional struggle of the 17th century, the common law was often used
against the government's positive laws. An important aspect of the struggle was the provision
of Magna Carta, guaranteeing complete freedom of trade as part of the protection of liberty
and property. Any interference in economic activity by the government or by any group
privileged by the government constituted restraint of trade contrary to the principles of common
and the Common Law. It became evident that there could not be any restraint of trade
without government action and the common law courts refused to enforce the monopolies whenever
the government did not interfere with the freedom of the courts. Among the bills failing
passage in 1614 was one for a navigation act. Following the peace of April 1609 between
In 1609, between Spain and the Netherlands, the Dutch were able to compete favorably with
English shipowners in the fishing, coastal and distant trades because of cheaper costs
due to more efficient construction.
The English government occasionally harassed Dutch shipping at the insistence of English
shippers by intermittently enforcing old laws and collecting fines.
Although in 1602 the English government had insisted to Denmark that the law of nations
alloweth the fishing in the seas everywhere, the increased competitive ability of the Dutch
caused the English government to issue a contrasting proclamation in May 1609.
This proclamation claimed that the English government had dominance and political authority
over those high seas in which England possessed exclusive fishing rights. Therefore the Dutch
should withdraw from these seas or pay taxes to the English government. To the Dutch the
fishing industry was highly important and thus the English sought to strike at the basis
of Dutch prosperity. After 30 years the fantasies of the magician Dr. John Dee had become the
The Program of the English Government
A program for which Englishmen would be forced to sacrifice their lives.
In place of that spirit of freedom and mutual advantage of the intercursus magnus, which
had guided English maritime policy for over one hundred years and would remain the letter
of the law for another several decades, there was entering into the policy of the English
in the 17th century, aimed especially at the Dutch. In opposition to the claims of exclusive control of the high seas by England in the North Sea, and the North Atlantic, and by Spain and Portugal in the East and West Indies, the Dutchman Hugo Grotius, who was a member of the Dutch government in the 17th century, was also a member of the Dutch government in the 17th century.
contended for the freedom of the seas in his work, Mare Liberum, 1609.
That the seas were to be open to all and free from government control was an idea that Grotius, the founder of international law,
derived from Spanish philosophical thought, especially from the work of Francisco Suarez.
Sures had established the basis for international law by deducing from the variety of peoples
and states that the unity of the human race can only be represented by a general, rational
international law and not by a general political organization or domination, whether over the
lands or over the seas.
In 1613, a Dutch diplomatic delegation, including Hugo Grotius, came to London to negotiate
for improved commercial relations, and one of the matters raised was the possibility
of greater cooperation between the Dutch and English East India companies, which had traded
together in the Indies in Amity.
There was heavy Dutch investment in England because of the higher interest rates there,
The English East India Company was one of the businesses in which the Dutch had invested
heavily. Because of the adoption of a permanent joint stock, similar to that of the more advanced
Dutch business organization, and the common concern of defense against Portuguese fleets,
there was increased Dutch interest in the English East India Company. A merger of the
was proposed that would have maintained the autonomy of the English body.
Although the English would have benefited from the superior Dutch capacity,
trading experience in the Indies and technical competence,
the English East India directors rejected this proposal
and engaged in armed conflict with the merchants and ships of the Dutch East India Company.
Apparently, the English preferred the returns of hostile conflict to the profits of peaceful
cooperation.
This hostility would have been increased and generalized by the proposed Navigation Act
of 1614 that would have imposed upon English merchants the requirement to ship English
goods on English ships.
The English ship owners had maintained that English regulations forced them to use uneconomical
The regulations required that ships be built so that they could be transformed into auxiliary warships built for speed and maneuverability rather than for carrying cargoes at low operational cost.
The English shippers desired compensation in the form of a Navigation Act forcing English merchants to use the uneconomical English ships rather than the more efficient Dutch ships.
In reply to the ship owners and the monopoly companies, the merchants said the navigation acts were poison that would destroy the competitive position of the English merchants in foreign trade and reduce the standard of living of the English public as consumers of imports and producers of exports.
In other words, to use English ships with their much larger crews and smaller capacities,
the merchants insisted, would greatly raise their cost and thus reduce English competitive
ability in the world market.
The monopoly companies headed by Sir Thomas Smith became the focus of increasing popular
criticism leveled against the government's attempt to expand further the system of privileges.
The representative of the literate attacks on monopoly and the Navigation Acts in the Commons was The Trades Increase, 1615, which centered its attack upon the power nucleus of the London financiers headed by Thomas Smith and the East India Company.
The pamphlet declared that monopoly privileges were contrary to the freedom of Englishmen,
and that no one should be barred from carrying on trade equally in all parts of the world.
The East India Company directors considered the pamphlet particularly dangerous, even
treasonable, and commissioned the writing of an answer, the defense of trade.
The trades increase favored the establishment of colonies in America, but charged that
the growth of colonies there had been stunted by the grants of monopoly privileges that
discouraged settlement.
In fact, the Virginia colony was not doing very well in drawing off England's surplus
poor.
Besides transporting vagrants and criminals to Virginia, the London Company and the City
of London agreed to transport poor children from London to Virginia. However, the poorest
refused the proffered boon and the company moved to obtain warrants to force the children
to migrate. It seemed indeed that the Virginia colony, failing also to return profits to
the company investors, was becoming a failure on every count. The survival of the Virginia
The economy hung, in fact, for years by a hair-breath. The colonists were not accustomed to the labor required of a pioneer, and malaria decimated the settlers.
Of the 104 colonists who reached Virginia in May 1607, only 30 were still alive by that fall, and a similar death rate prevailed among new arrivals for many years.
As late as 1616, only 350 colonists remained of a grand total of over 1,600 immigrants.
One major reason for the survival of this distressed colony was the changes that the company agreed to make in its social structure.
The bulk of the colonists had been under indenture contracts and were in servitude to the company for seven years
in exchange for passage money and maintenance during the period, and sometimes for the prospect of a little land at the end of their term of service.
The contract was called an indenture because it was originally written in duplicate on a large sheet, the two halves separated by a jagged line called an indent.
While it is true that the original contract was generally voluntary, it is also true that
a free society does not enforce even temporary voluntary slave contracts, since it must allow
for a person to be able to change his mind and for the inalienability of a person's
control over his will and his body.
While a man's property is alienable and may be transferred from one person to another,
A person's will is not. The creditor in a free society may enforce the collection of
payment for money he may have advanced, in this case, passage and maintenance money,
but he may not continue to enforce slave labor, however temporary it may be. Furthermore,
many of the indentures were compulsory and not voluntary. For example, those involving
Political prisoners imprisoned debtors and kidnapped children of the English lower classes.
The children were kidnapped by professional spirits or crimps and sold to the colonists.
In the concrete conditions of the colony, slavery, as always, robbed the individual
of his incentive to work and save and thereby endangered the survival of the settlement.
The new charter granted in 1609 by the Crown to the Company, now called the Virginia Company,
added to the incentives of the individual colonist by providing that every settler above
the age of ten be given one share of stock in the Company.
At the end of seven years, each person was promised a grant of one hundred acres of land
and a share of assets of the company in proportion to the shares of stock held.
The new charter also granted the company more independence and more responsibility to its
stockholders by providing that all vacancies in the governing royal council be filled by
the company, which would thus eventually assume control.
The charter of 1609 also stored up trouble for the future by adding wildly to the grant
of Land to the Virginia Company. The original charter had sensibly confined the grant to
the coastal area to 100 miles inland, the extent of English sovereignty on the continent.
But the 1609 charter grandiosely extended the Virginia Company from sea to sea, that
is westward to the Pacific. Furthermore, its wording was so vague as to make it unclear
The Charter of 1612 added the island of Bermuda to the vast Virginia domain, but this was
soon farmed out to a subsidiary corporation.
The incentives provided by the Charter of 1609, however, were still only future promises.
The colony was still being run on communist principles. Each person contributed the fruit
of his labor according to his ability to a common storehouse run by the company. And
from this common store, each received produce according to his need. And this was a communism
not voluntarily contracted by the colonists themselves, but imposed upon them by their
The result of this Communism was what we might expect. Each individual gained only a negligible amount of goods from his own exertions, since the fruit of all these went into the common store, and hence had little incentive to work, or to exercise initiative or ingenuity under the difficult conditions in Virginia. And this lack of
under the difficult conditions in Virginia, and this lack of incentive was doubly reinforced
by the fact that the colonist was assured, regardless of how much or how well he worked,
of an equal share of goods from the common store. Under such conditions, with the motor of incentive
gone from each individual, even the menace of death and starvation for the group as a whole,
and even a veritable reign of terror by the governors could not provide the necessary spur
for each particular man.
The communism was only an aspect of the harshness of the laws and the government suffered by
the colony.
Absolute power of life and death over the colonist was often held by one or two counselors
of the company.
Thus, Captain John Smith, the only surviving royal council member in the winter of 1609,
read his absolute powers to the colonist once a week.
There are no more councils to protect or curb my endeavors, he thundered, and every violator
of his decrees would assuredly expect his due punishment.
Professor Thomas Gates, appointed Governor of Virginia in 1609, was instructed by the
company to proceed by martial law as of most dispatch and tenor and fittest for this government
of Virginia. Accordingly, Gates established a code of military discipline over the colony
in May 1610. The code ordered strict religious observance, among other things. Some twenty
Some twenty crimes were punishable by death, including such practices as trading with Indians without a license, killing cattle and poultry without a license, escape from the colony, and persistent refusal to attend church.
One of the most heinous acts was apparently running away from this virtual prison to the supposedly savage Indian natives.
Captured runaway colonists were executed by hanging, shooting, burning or being broken on the wheel.
It is no wonder that Gates' instructions took the precaution of providing him with a bodyguard to protect him from the wrath of his subjects.
For, as the succeeding governor wrote in the following year, the colony was full of mutiny and treasonable inhabitants.
The directors of the Virginia Company decided, unfortunately, that the cure for the grave ailments of the colony was not less, but even more disciplined.
Accordingly, they sent Sir Thomas Dale to be governor and ruler of the colony.
Dale increased the severity of the laws in June 1611. Dale's laws, the laws divine, moral and martial, became justly notorious. They provided, for example, that every man and woman in the colony be forced to attend divine service, Anglican, twice a day or be severely punished.
For the first absence, the culprit was to go without food, for the second to be publicly
whipped, and for the third to be forced to work in the galleys for six months.
This was not all.
Every person was compelled to satisfy the Anglican minister of his religious soundness
and to place himself under the minister's instructions.
of this duty was punished by public whipping each day of the neglect.
No other offence was more criminal than any criticism of the 39 articles of the Church
of England.
Torture and death were the lot of any who persisted in open criticism.
This stringent repression reflected the growing movement in England of Puritans and other
Dale's Laws also provided that no man speak impiously against the Holy and Blessed Trinity
or against the known articles of the Christian faith upon pain of death, that no man shall
No man shall use any traitorous words against his majesty's person or royal authority upon pain of death.
No man shall dare to detract, slander, culminate, or utter unseemly speeches, either against counsel or against committees, assistants, and others.
First offense to be whipped three times, second offense to be sent to galleys, third offense, death.
Offenses such as obtaining food from the Indians, stealing food, and attempting to return to
England were punishable by death and torture.
Lesser offenses were punished by whipping or by slavery and irons for a number of years.
Governor Dale's major constructive act was to begin slightly the process of dissolution
of communism in the Virginia colony.
To stimulate individual self-interest, he granted three acres of land and the fruits
thereof to each of the old settlers.
Dale's successor, Captain Samuel Argle, a relative of Sir Thomas Smith, arrived in 1617
and found such increased laxity during the interim administration of Captain George Yardley
that he did not hesitate to re-impose Dale's laws.
Ergold ordered every person to go to church Sundays and holidays or suffer torture and
be a slave the week following. He also imposed forced labor more severely. Fortunately for
the success of the Virginia Colony, the Virginia Company came into the hands of the Puritans
in London. Sir Thomas Smith was ousted in 1619 and his post as Treasurer of the Company
was assumed by Sir Edwin Sandys, a Puritan leader in the House of Commons who had prepared
the draft of the amended Charter of 1609.
Sandys, one of the great leaders of the liberal descent in Parliament, had helped to grow
up the remonstrance against the conduct of James I in relation to the King's First Parliament.
Sir Edwin had urged that all prisoners have benefit of counsel, had advocated freedom
The regime of trade and opposed monopolies and feudalism had favored religious toleration,
and generally had espoused the grievances of the people against the crown.
For Virginia, Sandys wanted to abandon the single-company plantation and to encourage
private plantations, the ready acquisition of land and speedy settlement.
The relatively liberal Puritans removed and attempted to arrest Argyle, and sent Sir George
Yardley to Virginia's Governor. Yardley at once proceeded to reform the despotic laws
of the colony. He substituted a much milder code in November 1618, called by the colonists
the Great Charter. Everyone was still forced to attend Church of England services, but
only twice each Sunday, and the penalty for absence was now reduced to the relatively
Innocuous Three Shillings for Each Offense, Yardley also increased to 50 acres the allotment
of land to each settler, thereby speeding the dissolution of communism and also beginning
the process of transferring land from the company to the individual settler who had
occupied and worked it. Furthermore, land that had been promised to the settlers after
for a seven-year term was now allotted to them immediately.
The colonists themselves testified to the splendid effects of the yearly reforms in
a declaration of 1624.
The reforms gave such encouragement to every person here that all of them followed their
particular labors with singular alacrity and industry, so that within the space of three
In the years our country flourished with many new erected plantations. The plenty of these
times likewise was such that all men generally were sufficiently furnished with corn and
many also had plenty of cattle, swine, poultry and other good provisions to nourish them.
In his greater charter, Yearley also brought to the colonists the first representative
The governor established a General Assembly, which consisted of six counselors appointed
by the company and burgesses elected by the freemen of the colony.
Two burgesses were to be elected from each of eleven plantations, four general plantations
denoting sub-settlements that had been made in Virginia, and seven private or particular
Plantations, also known as hundreds. The four general plantations, or sub-settlements,
each governed locally by its key town or city, were the city of Henrico, Charles City, James
City, the capital, and the borough of Kecoughton, soon renamed Elizabeth City. The assembly
was to meet at least annually, make laws, and serve as the highest court of justice.
The governor, however, had veto power over the assembly, and the company's edicts continued
to be binding on the colony.
The first assembly met at Jamestown on July 30, 1619, and it was this assembly that ratified
the repeal of Dale's laws and substituted the milder set.
The introduction of representation thus went hand in hand with the new policy of liberalizing
the laws. It was part and parcel of the relaxation of the previous company tyranny.
The other major factor in the survival of the colony was the discovery by John Rolfe
about 1612 that Virginia tobacco could be grown in such a way as to make it acceptable
to European Tastes. Previously, Virginia tobacco had been regarded as inferior to the product
that had been introduced to the old world by the Spanish colonies in America. By 1614,
Rolfe was able to ship a cargo of tobacco to London and meet a successful market. Very
rapidly Virginia possessed a staple and an important economic base. Tobacco could be
was very readily exported to Europe and exchanged for other goods needed by the colonists.
By 1617, tobacco was being planted even in the streets of Jamestown.
An index to the extremely rapid rate of growth of the tobacco production is the quantity
of Virginia tobacco imported by England, two and a half thousand pounds in 1616, fifty
1616, 50,000 pounds in 1618, 119,000 pounds in 1620, and 203,000 pounds in 1624.
Even though tobacco was truly the lifeblood of the little colony, the government of Britain
and of Virginia could not keep from trying to cripple its growth.
King James was aesthetically offended by the spread of the fashion for that idle vanity,
smoking, and so placed a heavy duty on tobacco to limit its import. In that way, presumably,
Englishmen would only smoke with moderation to preserve their health. Sir Thomas Dale,
alarmed at the prospects of monoculture, decreed it a crime for a planter not to raise an additional
two acres of corn for himself and each servant. Presumably, no person was to be trusted with
the far more efficient procedure of raising tobacco and with the proceeds buying his own
corn from whomever he desired. Even the patron saint of Virginia tobacco, John Rolfe, was
appalled at its rapid spread, thus showing a far skimpier knowledge of economics than
of the Technology of Tobacco. Even the liberal Sir Edwin Sandys took this position and deplored
the spread of tobacco and the de-emphasis on corn. Only Captain John Smith showed economic
sense by pointing out that the reason for the colonists' seemingly peculiar emphasis
The first General Assembly added to the regulations on tobacco. Every settler was forced to plant each year a certain quota of other plants and crops. The price of tobacco was fixed by law, and any tobacco judged inferior by an official government committee was ordered burned.
The latter regulation was the first of continuing attempts by tobacco planters to restrict the supply of tobacco, in this case low-priced inferior leaf, in order to raise the price received from the buyers and ultimately from the consumers.
If tobacco was partly responsible for the survival of the colony, it was also indirectly responsible for the introduction into America of grievous and devastating problems.
For one thing, the natural process of transferring the land from a ruling company to the individual
settler, roughly to the extent to which he brought the land into use, was sharply altered
and blocked.
Tobacco farming required much larger estates than truck or other individual farms.
Hence, the wealthier tobacco planters sought and obtained very large land grants from the
company.
One method of obtaining land was distributing to the colonist by head-right. That is, each
immigrant received 50 acres and anyone who paid for an immigrant's passage received
50 acres of land per immigrant from the company. As a result, the wealthier planters could
acquire vast tracts by accumulating numerous head-rights. Furthermore, large grants of
Each land was made to leading stockholders of the company. For one thing, each individual
planter received a grant of 100 acres for each share of stock he held in the company.
To raise cash for its hard-pressed finances, the company also sold bills of adventure,
entitling the holders not to stock, but specifically to 100 acres of Virginia land per bill. Each
Each bill was the same denomination as a company share, 12 pounds 10 shillings.
Often bill holders joined together to take up allotments of lands to be held for speculation.
As a result of these practices, several particular plantations emerged as settlements in large land grants,
presided over by the private government of the grantee.
The largest particular plantation was Berkley's 100, 4,500 acres on the north side of the upper James River, granted as a first dividend to five prominent stockholders headed by the Berkley's and settled in 1619.
Other plantations were Smith's 100, Martin's 100, Bennett's Plantation and Martin's Brandon.
Brandon. Arbitrary land allocations were also made by the governor and the assembly, thus
3,000 acres in the capital and three other general plantations were reserved to the company,
with the settlers being confined to tenants. The proceeds were to go toward the expenses
of government. Land was also reserved for support of the local officials and ministers
and as a subsidy for local artisans. A substantial grant was given to Governor Yeardley and 10,000
acres was reserved for a proposed university at Henrico. The crucial point, however, is
that the planters would not have been able to cultivate these large tobacco plantations
and therefore would not have been moved to acquire and keep so much land if they had
had to rely on free and independent labor.
So scarce was such labor in relation to land resources that the hiring of free labor would
not have been economically feasible.
But the planters then turned to the use of forced labor to render their large plantations
profitable, specifically the labor of the indentured servants and of the even more thoroughly
coerced negro slaves.
In slavery, the laborer is coerced not only for a term of years or for life, but for the
lives of himself and all his descendants.
It was an ironic commentary on the later history of America that 1619, the very year of the
yearly reforms, saw the first slave vessel arrive at Jamestown with twenty negroes aboard
to be sold as slaves to the tobacco planters.
Until the mid-seventeenth century, the planters preferred to rely on indentured serf labor.
These white servants, once their term had expired, could obtain their land, generally
fifty acres each, on the western fringe of the settlement and become independent settlers.
But Negro slavery, unlike indentured service, had no means of dissolving into the general
Social Society. Once introduced, it became the backbone of the Virginian and other southern
labor system. It could only remain as a continual canker on the American body social.
The tiny colony was apparently not too young to have foreign affairs, and indeed it learned
all too quickly the ways of interstate relations. French settlers had the temerity to found
in the colony of their own, at Mount Desert, in what was later to be Maine, and on the banks of the Bay of Fundy, in what was later to become Nova Scotia.
This trespassed upon the land that King James had arbitrarily granted to the Plymouth Company, which had not yet made any settlement in North America.
It also trespassed on the greater glory of England.
and so Southern Virginia did the honors. Captain Samuel Argyle, disguising his ship as a fishing vessel, sailed from the colony up to Mount Desert in 1613, eradicated the French settlement and kidnapped 15 French settlers, including two Jesuit priests.
Hauled to Virginia, the prisoners were badly treated. Over a dozen of the hapless French
settlers were turned loose by Argaud on the Atlantic in an open boat, but they had the
good fortune to be rescued by fishing vessels. Later in the year, Argaud returned north and
expanded his work of destruction, putting to the torch the settlements of St. Croix in
in Port Royal, the latter in Nova Scotia, and driving the settlers into the woods.
A few years later, Captain Argyle, now governor of Virginia, continued the tradition by participating
in piratical activities against Spanish shipping. He sailed under the aegis of the king's favorite
among the company stockholders, the Earl of Warwick.