At the beginning of the seventeenth century all the eastern
portion of North America, which afterward became the thirteen original states,
was known as Virginia. Great interest in American colonization was awakened
throughout the kingdom by a little book on "Western Planting," inspired
by Raleigh and written by Richard Hakluyt. Several voyages were made before any
permanent settlement was established.
These voyages, undertaken by individuals, had not been
successful financially or otherwise. From this cause others were deterred from
risking their fortunes in similar enterprises. But the success of various commercial
companies which had multiplied in the last half century for the purpose of
trading with distant countries, especially of the East India Company, chartered
in 1600, naturally suggested similar enterprises for the western world. And
further, the corporation as a form of local subordinate government had long
been familiar to the English merchant, and readily lent itself to plans of
colonial extension.
Accordingly, in 1606, two companies were formed, Virginia
was divided into two parts and a part granted to each, the London Company and
the Plymouth Company. They obtained a royal charter enabling each to found a
colony, granting the right to coin money, raise revenue, and to make laws, but
reserving much power to the king. Each was given a block of land a hundred
miles square, and the settlements were to be at least one hundred miles apart.
The London Company had permission to plant a colony anywhere on the coast
between the thirty-fourth and forty-first degrees north latitude, and to what
they did we now direct our attention.
Great haste was now made by the London Company in preparing
for colonization in America, and on the 19th of December, 1606, three small
ships bearing one hundred and five colonists and commanded by Christopher
Newport, a famous sea captain, set out upon the wintry sea for the New World.
The largest of the vessels, the Susan Constant, was of one hundred tons burden
and the smallest of but twenty tons. The voyage was long and dreary, and it
consumed the remainder of the winter. On reaching the American shore the weary
voyagers were greeted by the singing of birds and the fragrance of flowers.
Entering Chesapeake Bay they named the two projecting points at its sides, Cape
Henry and Cape Charles, after the two young sons of the king. They chose out
one of the great rivers flowing into the bay, left upon it the name of King
James and followed it for about thirty miles, and founded a town which also
they called after the name of their king.
Thus was founded the first of the permanent settlements which
were to multiply and expanded and in three hundred years to grow into the
greatest nation of the earth. Let us take a glance at the colonists. It would
be difficult to imagine a set of men less fitted to build a colony and found a
nation than were those who settled at Jamestown in 1607. Among them were but
twelve laborers, a few carpenters, a blacksmith, a mason, a barber, and a
tailor, while more than fifty were "gentlemen," that is men without
an occupation, idle, shiftless
men who had joined the enterprise without realizing that
years of labor were essential to success. But there were a few men of worth in
the company. There was Wingfield, who became the first president of of the governing
council, the hero of many strange adventures. They soon erected a few tents and
small cabins; some, however, found a dwelling place by burrowing into the
ground. For a church they nailed a board between two trees, stretched a canvas
over it, and beneath this the Rev. Robert Hunt held services according to the
rites of the Church of England.
Captain Newport, after spending some weeks exploring the
James River, returned with his ships to England, promising to come again as
soon as practicable. The colony was soon in a pitiable condition. Arriving too
late to plant springs crops, and finding little cleared land fit for
cultivation, the men were soon reduced to short rations. The allowance to each
man for a day was a pint of wormeaten barley or wheat, made into pottage.
Governor Wingfield lacked the ability to rule the men, and there were constant
quarrels among them. To their other misfortunes was added a continual fear of
Indian attacks; and owing to their
exposure in the swamps and their lack of proper food, they
were attacked by fevers. They died sometimes three or four in a night, and
before the end of September half of the little colony, including Gosnold, had found
a grave in the wilderness.
The entire colony would no doubt have perished before the
return of Newport but for the courage and vigor of one man, the most notable
and conspicuous character in the early colonial history of America -- John Smith.
Smith was still a young man, but according to his own story, his record was an
extraordinary one. When scarcely beyond boyhood he joined the French army and
later that of the Netherlands in which he
served for several years. He then embarked on the
Mediterranean and was thrown overboard as a heretic, swam to an uninhabited
island, was picked up by a vessel and carried to Egypt. We next find him
traversing Italy on foot, slaying three Turks successively in single combat in
Transylvania, and at length captured by the Turks and sold into slavery. He slew
his master with a flail, escaped into the Scythian Desert, wandered through
every country of Europe, and joined the Virginia colonists soon after reaching
his native land. It was now left for his sojourn in the American forest to
furnish the crowning romance of his life.While exploring the Chickahominy River
he was taken captive by the Indians. After entertaining his captors for several days with a pocket compass and such curios, he
was condemned to death by the savages. His head was laid on the block when at
the last moment a little daughter of the chief, named Pocahontas, rushed
forward, laid her head upon the head of the intended victim, and begged that
his life be spared. Her request was granted, and he was sent back rejoicing to
his people.
This romantic story, as also the account of his other
adventures above mentioned, rests wholly on Smith's own testimony, and most
historical writers in recent years are disposed to discredit them, especially
the story of his rescue by the Indian girl. It seems clear that John Smith gave
a highly colored narrative in relating his adventures, but there is reason to
believe that the story of his rescue by Pocahontas is true.The only ground for
doubting the story is Smith's well-known spirit of boasting and the fact that
in his first account of his capture by the Indians he does not mention
this incident. On the other hand, there is one powerful argument, which seems
almost conclusive, in favor of the truth of the story. It was not an unusual occurrence
among many Indian tribes, when they were about to put a captive to death, for
some impulsive Indian, usually a female and in most cases a member of the
chief's family, to be the life of the intended victim at the last moment.7 Such
a request was seldom denied, and the rescue was usually followed by a formal
adoption of the rescued one into the tribe; and this is exactly what Smith
claimed was done in his case, though he was given his freedom to return to his
colony. How could he have invented a story coinciding so perfectly with an
Indian custom with which he could not have been familiar? Such a thing is far less
credible than the story itself. It is not disputed, however, that John Smith
was a man of wonderful energy, and that he did more for Virginia than any other
of the early settlers. He soon became governor of the colony, and he saved the colonists
from starvation by trading with the Indians for corn. He succeeded above all
others in keeping the men at work and thus laid the foundations for future
prosperity. Smith later explored Chesapeake Bay and its rivers and afterward
the New England coast, and he made maps of them that are remarkable for their accuracy.
Of Pocahontas it is known that although she was a
rollicking, romping girl who often visited Jamestown and amused the colonists
with her pranks, she grew into stately womanhood and married one of the
colonists, John Rolfe, a widower -- that she accompanied her husband to
England, where she was received with great favor, and that she died in England
after giving birth to a son who afterward made Virginia his home and became the
ancestor of several of the most prominent families of the state.
Let us return to our colony. Life in the forest bore heavily
on the little band, and but thirty-eight of them were alive when, in January,
1608, Captain Newport returned with food supplies and one hundred and twenty more
colonists. Others came from time to time, and in 1609, when John Smith returned
to England, the colony numbered five hundred. The government had been placed,
by the first charter, in the hands of a council of thirteen, resident in
England, and appointed by the King, which should cooperate with a local council.
But a new charter was granted in 1609 by which the council in England,
originally distinct from the company, now became a part of it,8 while the local
council was abolished, being superseded by a governor. By this charter the
bounds of the settlement were enlarged to four hundred miles along the coast, two
hundred miles each way from Old Point Comfort, and extended "up into the
land throughout from sea to sea west and northwest." The company was also
given much greater power than that granted by the charter of 1606.Lord de La
Warr, of Delaware, was appointed governor of Virginia under the charter of
1609. He embarked with nine ships and five hundred men and women for Virginia;
but encountering a terrible storm off the Bermuda Islands, he was delayed at
those islands for many months -- and woe to Virginia in consequence!
The "Starving Time" came. The Indians were now
hostile and no food could be obtained from them. Men with blanched faces
wandered about actually dying for food. The death rate was frightful. Of the
five hundred left by Smith the fall before only sixty remained alive in the
spring of 1610. These now decided to abandon Virginia and embark in the four
little pinnaces that were left them, hoping to reach dear old England. Early in
June they gathered together their meager possessions, and with the funeral roll
of drums left their cabins behind. Sadly, yet joyfully, they floated down the
river to its mouth, when lo! far off in the horizon they beheld a moving speck
-- and another and another! They waited -- and up the bay swept the ships of
Lord Delaware! They all now returned to Jamestown, and the colony of Virginia
was born again. How slender the thread on which hung the infant life of the
firstborn of the United States!
Delaware soon had the colony on its feet, but the next year
he returned to England and sent Sir Thomas Dale to govern in his stead. Dale
was a man of much ability and strength of character, and as Fiske aptly puts
it, "Under his masterful guidance Virginia came out from the valley of the
shadow of death." He introduced several radical reforms, the most
important of which was the partial abolishing of communism. Before his coming
the land and other possessions were held in common; no one owned private
property; each man was a servant of the state, and the tendency of many was to
do as little as possible. Dale gave each of the old settlers three acres of
ground with the right of possessing private property. The effect was to stimulate
industry, and from this time there was never a scarcity of food in Virginia.
The new governor also
established other settlements along the James, and although
he was an austere man, ruled with a hand of iron, and was merciless in his
punishment of criminals, his years' stay wrought a great change for the better in
Virginia.
In 1612, during the incumbency of Dale, a third charter was
granted to Virginia. This charter added the Bermuda Islands to Virginia,
empowered the company to raise money by means of lotteries, and was far more
liberal than either of its predecessors in granting governmental powers. It is
interesting to note the first steps toward democratic government in America as
shown by the rapidly succeeding charters of Virginia. King James, blindly
devoted to the autocratic theory of government, refused to embody any democratic
features in the first charter. The local council was subject to a superior
council resident in England, and both were under the instructions of the king.
The charter guaranteed the rights of Englishmen to the people, but gave them no
voice in their own government. But the colony came to the verge of failure, and
in the belief that a more liberal government would enhance the prospects of
success, a second charter was applied for and granted. By this charter of 1609,
all vacancies in the council, as also the executive office, were to be filled
by the vote of the stockholders. This gave the company the character of a body
politic, the right of self-government. It was a great advance over the first
one in the process of transplanting English government to American soil, a great step toward the more important charter of 1612. By
this third charter all governmental power, including the making of their own
laws and the choosing of all officials, was given into the hands of the stockholders.
But the company did not immediately extend this right to the colonists; it
placed local affairs in the hands of a governor of its own choosing. A few
years later, however, the liberal element, led by Sir Edwin Sandys, gained
control of the company, and to attract new settlers, as well as to curb the
power of a profligate or tyrannical governor, the company instructed its
governor to call an assembly of the settlers and give them a share in the
government. This became the House of Burgesses -- the first representative body
in America. Meantime the white and red races were united in Virginia by the
marriage of Rolfe and the daughter of the Indian chief Powhatan. This secured
peace with the Indians for eight years until the death of Powhatan.
About 1616 tobacco became the staple product of the colony.
The English learned its use from the Indians, and marvelously soon after the
discovery of the weed, the use of it spread through every civilized land. It was
the one thing that found a ready sale in England. Every farmed raised tobacco,
and it was grown in the streets of Jamestown; it even became the money of the
colony, and the minister and public officers were paid their salaries in
tobacco.
The colony was, on the whole, a disappointment to the
company that had founded it. One of the main object was the same that had lured
Pizarro and De Soto -- a desire for gold. They were not content with the sassafras
roots and cedar logs that their ships kept bringing, nor even with the tobacco.
When, therefore, the London Company, or Virginian Company, as named by the
second charter, were convinced that gold could not be found in that part of
America, their interest in the colony was greatly diminished, and to this fact was
due much of the anarchy and disorder in Virginia.
After the departure of Dale, the colonists suffered severely
for a few years at the hands of a wicked governor, Samuel Argall, who robbed
and plundered them in every way in his power. But better times were at hand. At
about this time, Sir Edwin Sandys gained the ascendency in the Virginia
Company, and his energy and wisdom were soon felt in the colony. One of his
first acts was to send the colony, in 1619, one of its best governors, Sir
George Yeardley, who became the first to introduce popular government into America.
The most memorable year in the early history of Virginia was
1619. It was this year that witnessed the beginnings of two institutions,
opposite in character, each of which was destined to play a great part in the future
development of the new nation that was now struggling to be born. The first was
government by the people, and the second the institution of slavery. The first
was to increase and expand until it developed into the greatest self-governing
people in the world's history; the second was to fasten itself like a blight on
the free institutions of the same people and in the end to bring about the
sacrifice of tens of thousands of human lives. In November of the preceding
year the Virginia Company had issued an order limiting the power of the
governor of the colony and establishing a legislature of burgesses to be
elected by the people.
The first House of Burgesses, composed of twenty-two
delegates, met in July, 1619, soon after the coming of Yeardley, and before
long the people were living under the laws of their own making, and a "government
of the people, for the people, and by the people" thus gained its first
foothold on American soil. This granting of a share in the government to the
people attracted new settlers, who, from this time, came in ever increasing
numbers. This same year of 1619 witnessed the coming of ninety young women to
be wives of the colonists. To secure one of these prizes the bachelor planter
was required to win the maiden's consent and to pay her passage across the sea
(about one hundred and twenty pounds of tobacco), and as there were many more men
than maidens, the courtship must have been very interesting. Other women were
brought from time to time, and family life was soon firmly established in the
new colony.
Indeed, from this time forth life in Virginia had its attractions
as well as its hardships. The lowing of the herds, the chattering of the fowls,
the shouts of playing children, the sound of the builder's hammer, and of the
woodman's ax ringing out from the depth of the forest, bespoke a happy and
prosperous community. But colonial life still had its misfortunes. A great
calamity befell the people of Virginia in 1622 in the form of an Indian
massacre. The friendly chief Powhatan was dead, and his brother Opekankano, who
had never been friendly to the English, now reigned in his stead. This chief
now instituted a massacre in which three hundred and forty-seven of the settlers were killed. The
blow was a dreadful one; but the whites, recovering from the shock, pursued the
savages with merciless fury, putting to death a far greater number than they had
lost. Twenty-two years later this same chief, now an aged man, made a second attack
on the settlement, killing over two hundred, but his tribe was again put down
with a firm hand and himself taken captive and put to death.
In 1624, the Virginia Company, after a severe struggle with
the Crown, was deprived of its charter. The chief cause of this was that the
Puritan element, which formed the backbone of the opposition in Parliament, had
also gained the ascendency in the Virginia Company. Nor did James likes the
action of the company a few years before in extending representative government
to the colonists. The result was the loss of the charter. Virginia became a
royal colony and so it continued to the war of the Revolution. But the change
had little effect on the colony, for Charles I, who soon came to the throne,
was so occupied with troubles at home that he gave less attention to the
government of Virginia than the company had done, and popular government continued
to flourish. Of the six thousand people who had come from England before 1625
only one fifth now remained alive, but this number was rapidly augmented by
immigration. Governor Yeardley died in 1627, and John Harvey, a man of little
ability or character, became governor. Harvey kept the Virginians in turmoil
for some years, but the colony was now so firmly established that his evil
influence did not greatly affect its prosperity.
And that was the Virginia that welcomed our ancestors Robert
and Sarah (Greniffe) Rockhould and their children.
[I realize that my narrative is not in any particular order,
I simply work on a given topic for a while and when it looks like it has became
somewhat organized, I publish it here,.
If someday in the future I have the opportunity (time and energy) I will
organize it all in correct order and maybe even publish it. If not, oh well, it's been a real adventure
to research it all. Other segments can
be found in previous posts. Thanks to
all who have reviewed and commented on the post. MDR]
