.jpg) Original seal of the London Company of Virginia | |
| Virginia Company of London | |
| Company type | Division of theVirginia Company |
| Industry | Maritime transport,trade |
| Founded | (10 April 1606; 419 years ago (1606-04-10)) atWestminster, England |
| Founder | James I |
| Defunct | 24 May 1624 (1624-05-24) |
| Fate | Dissolved |
| Headquarters | London , |
Area served | Virginia |
| Products | Cash crops,timber,tobacco |
| Parent | Virginia Company  |
TheVirginia Company of London (sometimes called "London Company") was adivision of theVirginia Company with responsibility forcolonizing the east coast of North America betweenlatitudes 34° and41° N.[1]
The territory granted to the Virginia Company of London included the eastern coast of North America from the34th parallel atCape Fear north to the41st parallel inLong Island Sound. As part of the Virginia Company and Colony, the Virginia Company of London owned a large portion of Atlantic and inland Canada. The company was permitted by its charter to establish a 100-square-mile (260 km2) settlement within this area. The portion of the company's territory north of the38th parallel was shared with thePlymouth Company, with the stipulation that neither company found a colony within 100 miles (161 km) of the other.
The Virginia Company of London made landfall on 26 April 1607, at the southern edge of the mouth of theChesapeake Bay, which they namedCape Henry, near present-dayVirginia Beach. Deciding to move the encampment, on 4 May 1607 they established theJamestown Settlement on theJames River about 40 miles (64 km) upstream from its mouth at theChesapeake Bay. Later in 1607, the Plymouth Company established itsPopham Colony in present-dayMaine, but it was abandoned after about a year. By 1609, the Plymouth Company had dissolved. As a result, the charter for the Virginia Company of London was adjusted with a new grant that extended from "sea to sea" of the previously shared area between the 38th and the40th parallels. It was amended in 1612 to include the new territory of the Somers Isles (orBermuda).
The Virginia Company of London struggled financially, especially with labor shortages in its Virginia colony. Its profits improved after sweeter strains oftobacco than the native variety were cultivated and successfully exported from Virginia as acash crop beginning in 1612. By 1619 a system of indentured service was fully developed in the colony;[2] the same year the home government passed a law that prohibited the commercial growing of tobacco in England.[3] In 1624, the company lost its charter, and Virginia became a royal colony.
Aspin-off,The Virginia Company of London of The Somers Isles (fully the Company of the City of London for the Plantation of The Somers Isles, but generally referred to as the Somers Isles Company), operated until 1684.
In Renaissance England, wealthy merchants were eager to findinvestment opportunities, so they established several companies to trade in various parts of the world. Each company was made up of investors, known as "adventurers", who purchased shares of company stock. The Crown granted a charter to each company with a monopoly to explore, settle, or trade with a particular region of the world. Profits were shared among the investors according to the amount of stock that each owned. More than 6,300 Englishmen invested in joint-stock companies between 1585 and 1630, trading in Russia, Turkey, Africa, the East Indies, the Mediterranean, and North America.
Investors in theVirginia Company hoped to profit from the natural resources of the New World. In 1606 CaptainBartholomew Gosnold obtained from KingJames I a charter for two companies. The first, the Virginia Company of London (now known generally as the "Virginia Company of London"), covered what is nowMaryland,Virginia andCarolina, between latitude 34° and latitude 41° north. Gosnold's principal backers were SirThomas Gates, SirGeorge Somers,Edward Wingfield andRichard Hakluyt.[4][5]
The second company, thePlymouth Company of London (today known as the "Plymouth Company"), was empowered to settle as far as 45° North, encompassing what is present-dayPennsylvania,New Jersey,New York, andNew England.[6]
The company paid all the costs of establishing each colony, and in return controlled all land and resources there, requiring all settlers to work for the company.[7]
The first leader of the Virginia Company in England was its treasurer, SirThomas Smythe, who arranged the 1609 charter. He had been governor of theEast India Company since 1603 and continued with one break until 1620.[8]
In an extensive publicity campaign, Wingfield, Gosnold and a few others, circulated pamphlets, plays, sermons and broadsides throughout England to raise interest in New World investments. Investors could buy stock individually or in groups. Almost 1,700 people purchased shares, including men of different occupations and classes, wealthy women, and representatives of institutions such as trade guilds, towns and cities. Proceeds from the sale of stock were used to help finance the costs of establishing overseas settlements, including paying for ships and supplies and recruiting and outfitting laborers. A single share of stock in the Virginia Company cost 12 pounds 10 shillings, the equivalent of more than six months' wages for an ordinary working man.[9][10][11]
The largest single investor wasThomas West, Lord de la Warre, who served as the first governor of Virginia between 1610 and 1618. (The English colonists named theDelaware River and Native AmericanLenape tribe, called the Delaware Indians, after him.)
The business of the company was the settlement of the Virginia colony, supported by a labor force of voluntary transportees under the customaryindenture system. In exchange for 7 years of labor for the company, the company provided passage, food, protection, and land ownership (if the worker survived).
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In December 1606,the Virginia Company's three ships, containing 105 men and boys as passengers and 39 crew members,[12]: 601–602 set sail fromBlackwall, London and made landfall on 26 April 1607 at the southern edge of the mouth of what they named theJames River on theChesapeake Bay. They named this shoreCape Henry. They were attacked by Native Americans, and the settlers moved north. On 14 May 1607, these first settlers selected the site ofJamestown Island, further upriver and on the northern shore, as the place to build their fort.
In addition to survival, the early colonists were expected to make a profit for the owners of the Virginia Company. Although the settlers were disappointed that gold did not wash up on the beach and gems did not grow in the trees, they realized there was great potential for a wealth of other kinds in their new home. Early industries, such as glass manufacture, pitch and tar production for naval stores, and beer and wine making took advantage of natural resources and the land's fertility. From the outset, settlers thought that the abundance of timber would be the primary leg of the economy, as Britain's forests had long been felled. The seemingly inexhaustible supply of cheap American timber was to be the primary enabler of England's (and then Britain's) rise to maritime (merchant and naval) supremacy. However, the settlers could not devote as much time as the Virginia Company would have liked to developing commodity products for export. They were too busy trying to survive.
Within the three-sided fort erected on the banks of the James, the settlers quickly discovered that they were, first and foremost, employees of the Virginia Company of London, following instructions of the men appointed by the company to rule them. In exchange, the laborers were armed (thoughgunpowder was stored separately at the powder magazine, to be distributed in definite quantities monthly for hunting purposes, or by a high order in case of other necessity, otherwise the settlers were forbidden to store gunpowder at home) and received clothes and food from the common store. After seven years, they were to receive land of their own. The gentlemen, who provided their armor and weapons, were to be paid in land, dividends, or additional shares of stock.
Initially, the colonists were governed by a president and a seven-member council selected by the King. Leadership problems quickly erupted. Jamestown's first two leaders coped with varying degrees of success with sickness, assaults by Native Americans, poor food and water supplies, and class strife. Many colonists were ill-prepared to carve out a new settlement on a frontier. WhenCaptain John Smith became Virginia's third president, he proved the strong leader that the colony needed. Industry flourished and relations withChief Powhatan's people improved.
After so many failed colonizing attempts in the 16th century such as theRoanoke Colony, and with the ascension ofKing James to the throne of England on 24 March 1603, the effort to colonize was renewed, but this time in the form of joint-stock companies, which did not involve the king's treasury, also known as the public treasury. Thus it became, from a royal perspective at least, a largely risk-free endeavor. Although a profit-driven enterprise, the king was motivated by international rivalry and the propagation of religion, and the individuals who ventured to the New World were motivated by a chance to improve their economic and social standing.
Thus King James awarded a patent to a group of investors which included detailed instructions for everything from where to place watchmen and with how many, to where to plant. It instructedChristopher Newport, captain of theSusan Constant, andBartholomew Gosnold, captain of theGodspeed and leader of the expedition of three ships, on their duties upon reaching the land they named Virginia. There were no instructions for administration or governance.[13]
The First Virginia Charter established provisions for the governance of the colony. It was to be governed by a colonial council, which proved ineffective. A governor,Lord De La Warr, was dispatched in 1610 to provide firmer governance of the colony. The council back in London whose directives and interests Lord De La Warr represented was composed of knights, gentlemen and merchants who had invested in the company. This charter also limited the jurisdiction of the Virginia Company of London to 100 miles from the seaboard and from 38 degrees to 45 degrees latitude north.[14]
In 1609, the Virginia Company received its Second Charter, which allowed the company to choose its new governor from among its shareholders. Investment boomed as the company launched an intensive recruitment campaign. Over 600 colonists set sail for Virginiabetween March 1608 and March 1609.[15]
SirThomas Gates, Virginia's deputy governor, bound for the colony in theThird Supply aboard theSea Venture, was shipwrecked inBermuda, along with the admiral of the company, SirGeorge Somers, Captain Newport, and 147 other settlers and seamen. When Gates finally arrived to take up his new post in 1610, with most of the survivors of theSea Venture (on two new ships built in Bermuda, theDeliverance and thePatience), he found that only 60 of the original 214 colonists had survived the infamous"Starving Time" of 1609–1610.[16] Most of these were dying or ill. Despite the abundance of food which Gates' expedition brought from Bermuda (which had necessitated the building of two ships), it was clear the colony was not yet self-sufficient and could not survive.
The survivors of Jamestown were taken aboard theDeliverance and thePatience, and the colony was abandoned. Gates intended to transport all the settlers back to England, but the fortuitous arrival of another relief fleet, bearingGovernor Lord De la Warre, granted Jamestown a reprieve. All the settlers were put ashore again, and Sir George Somers returned to Bermuda aboard thePatience to obtain more food. (Somers died there, and his nephew,Matthew Somers, the captain of thePatience, sailed the vessel toLyme Regis in England instead, to claim his inheritance.)
The third Virginia Charter or Charter of 1612, was essentially the same as the Charter of 1609, with the difference being territorial jurisdiction, expanding it to the Atlantic Islands such as Bermuda.[17] In "domestic correspondence" written byJohn Chamberlain to The Right HonorableSir Dudley Carlton, Knight, His Maties [read: Majesty's] Ambassador at Venice dated 12 February 1612,[18] Chamberlain wrote:
2. There is a lotterie in hand for the furthering of the Virginia viage, and an vnder companie erecting for the trade of the Bermudas, wch have changed theyre name twise within this moneth, beeing first christnedVirginiola as a member of that plantation, but nowlastly resoued to be called Sommer Islands, as well in respect of the continuall temperat ayre, as in remembrance of SrGeorge Sommers that died there.
This is also quoted inBermuda under the Sommer Islands Company 1612–1684[19] by A. C. Hollis Hallett:
The contemporary letter-writer and social commentator, John Chamberlain, wrote that the Islands were "first christened Virginiola as a member of [the Virginia] plantation, but now lately resolved to be called Sommer Islands, as well in respect of the continual temperate air, as in remembrance of Sir George Sommers that died there".
Administration of the Somers Isles, alias Islands of Bermuda, was in fact transferred in 1615 to a spin-off of the Virginia Company of London titled theCompany of the City of London for the Plantacion of The Somers Isles, which administered that colony until losing its royal charter in 1684. Bermuda remained strongly linked to Virginia (the nearest English territory to it untilCarolina Colony was settled from Bermuda in 1670 underWilliam Sayle); however, until theAmerican War of Independence, when rebel GeneralGeorge Washington of Virginia would address a letter[20] to the people of Bermuda seeking their aid in the war:
To THE INHABITANTS OF THE ISLAND OF BERMUDA
Camp at Cambridge 3 Miles from Boston, September 6, 1775.
Gentn: (In the great Conflict, which agitates this Continent, I cannot doubt but the Assertors of Freedom and the Rights of the Constitution, are possessed of your most favorable Regards and Wishes for Success. As Descendents of Freemen and Heirs with us of the same Glorious Inheritance, we flatter ourselves that tho' divided by our Situation, we are firmly united in Sentiment; the Cause of Virtue and Liberty is Confined to no Continent or Climate, it comprehends within its capacious Limits, the Wise and good, however dispersed and separated in Space or distance.) You need not be informed, that Violence and Rapacity of a tyrannick Ministry, have forced the Citizens of America, your Brother Colonists, into Arms; We equally detest and lament the Prevalence of those Councils, which have led to the Effusion of so much human Blood and left us no Alternative but a Civil War or a base Submission. The wise disposer of all Events has hitherto smiled upon our virtuous Efforts; Those Mercenary Troops, a few of whom lately boasted of Subjugating this vast Continent, have been check'd in their earliest Ravages and are now actually encircled in a small Space; their Arms disgraced, and Suffering all the Calamities of a Siege. The Virtue, Spirit, and Union of the Provinces leave them nothing to fear, but the Want of Ammunition, The applications of our Enemies to foreign States and their Vigilance upon our Coasts, are the only Efforts they have made against us with Success. Under those Circumstances, and with these Sentiments we have turned our Eyes to you Gentlemen for Relief, We are informed there is a very large Magazine in your Island under a very feeble Guard; We would not wish to in volve you in an Opposition, in which from your Situation, we should be unable to support you: – We knew not therefore to what Extent to sollicit your Assistance in availing ourselves of this Supply; – but if your Favor and Friendship to North America and its Liberties have not been misrepresented, I persuade myself you may, consistent with your own Safety, pro mote and further this Scheme, so as to give it the fairest prospect of Success. Be assured, that in this Case, the whole Power and Execution of my Influence will be made with the Honble. Continental Congress, that your Island may not only be Supplied with Provisions, but experience every other Mark of Affection and Friendship, which grateful Citizens of a free Country can bestow on its Brethren and Benefactors. I am &c.
By this Charter, neither the stock issue of 1609 nor the authorized lottery system mitigated the shortage of cash flow.[21][full citation needed]
This was an ordinance and constitution that proceeded from a set of instructions issued in 1618 to the governor and theCouncil of Virginia known as An Ordinance and Constitution of the Virginia Company in England on 24 July 1621.[22] This document replaced military law with common law, and provided for land ownership for settlers living in the colony.[23]: 283 It is also of great significance for it provides governance independent of the Crown. An assembly took place in a church composed of Governor SirGeorge Yeardley and 22 select men representing seven regions. They then organized into a legislative body, establishing a precedent for self-governance, a pivotal point in American history.[24]
After 1620, with growing demand for tobacco on the continent, the company arranged to sell Virginia tobacco in the Netherlands, but the next year and despite company pleas to maintain the privilege of freedom of trade, the Privy Council forbade the export of any product of Virginia to a foreign country until the commodities had been landed in England, and English duties had been paid.[3] By 1621, the company was in trouble; unpaid dividends and increased use of lotteries had made future investors wary. The company debt was now over £9,000. Worried Virginians were hardly reassured by the advice of pragmatic TreasurerEdwin Sandys who warned that the company "cannot wish you to rely on anything but yourselves". In March 1622, the company's and the colony's situation went from dire to disastrous when, during theIndian massacre of 1622, thePowhatan confederacy killed one-quarter of the European population of the Virginia colony.
When the Crown and company officials proposed a fourth charter, severely reducing the company's ability to make decisions in the governing of Virginia, subscribers rejected it. King James I forthwith changed the status of Virginia in 1624, taking control of it as aroyal colony to be administered by a governor appointed by the King. However, the government's colonial policy of export restrictions did not change. The Crown approved the election of a Virginia Assembly in 1627. This form of government, with governor and assembly, would oversee the colony of Virginia until 1776, excepting only the years of theEnglish Commonwealth.
Bermuda had been separated from the Virginia Company in 1614, when the Crown briefly took over its administration. In 1615, the shareholders of the Virginia Company created a new company, theSomers Isles Company, which continued to operate Bermuda. It was subsequently, also known officially asThe Somers Isles (for the Admiral of the Virginia Company,Sir George Somers) until being dissolved in 1684 and made a royal colony. Meetings were held at town hall to discuss the distribution of the tobacco.
The instructions issued to SirThomas Gates, on 20 November 1608, called for a forcible conversion ofNative Americans toAnglicanism and their subordination to the colonial administration. The records of the company record a discussion during one of its first meetings about publishing a justification of their business enterprise methods to "give adventurers, a clearness and satisfaction", a public debate where Catholics and neutrals might attack them. Whereas Catholic arguments would be in support of Spanish legal claims to theNew World under theTreaty of Tordesillas, it was feared that the neutral "pen-adversaries" might "cast scruples into our conscience" by "criticising the lawfulness of the plantation." It was decided to forego such a publication of a justification.
In 1608, SirEdward Coke, in his capacity asLord Chief Justice, offered a ruling inCalvin's Case that went beyond the issue at hand: whether a Scotsman could seek justice at an English Court. Coke distinguished between aliens from nations at war with England and friendly aliens, those from nations in league with England. Friendly aliens could have recourse to English courts. But he also ruled that with "all infidels" (i.e. those from non-Christian nations), there could be no peace, and a state of perpetual hostility would exist between them and Christians.[25]
In 1609, the company issued instructions to settlers to kidnap Native American children so as to educate them with English values and religion. These instructions also sanctioned attacking theIniocasoockes, the cultural leaders of the localPowhatans. Only afterThomas West, 3rd Baron De La Warr arrived in 1610, was the company able to commence a war against the Powhatan with theFirst Anglo-Powhatan War. De La Warr was replaced by SirThomas Dale, who continued the war, which continued until a truce was made with the marriage ofPocahontas toJohn Rolfe in 1614.
The military offensive was accompanied by a propaganda war: Alderman Robert Johnson publishedNova Britannia, in 1609, which compared Native Americans to wild animals—"heardes of deere in a forest". While it did portray the Powhatan as peace-loving, it threatened to deal with any who resisted conversion to Anglicanism as enemies of their country. (Johnson was the son-in-law ofSir Thomas Smythe, treasurer of the company in London and leader of its "court" faction.)
The company began to turn a profit after 1612, when planting a couple of new varieties of tobacco yielded a product that appealed more to English tastes than the native tobacco. Tobacco became the commodity crop of the colony, and settlers were urged to cultivate more. The colony struggled with labor shortages as mortality was high.
In 1622, theSecond Anglo-Powhatan War erupted. Its origins are disputed. English apologists for the company say thatOpchanacanough initiated the war.Robert Williams, a 21st-century Native American law professor, argues that Opchanacanough had secured concessions from Governor Yeardley which the company would not accept. Thus, Opchanacanough'sattack, on 18 April 1622, may have been a pre-emptive attempt to defeat the colony before reinforcements arrived.[25]: 213–217
In about a day, the Powhatan killed 350 of 1,240 colonists, destroying some outlying settlements. The Virginia Company quickly published an account of this attack. It was steeped inCalvinist theology of the time: the massacre was the work ofProvidence in that it was justification for the destruction of the Powhatan, and building English settlements over their former towns. New orders from the Virginia Company of London directed a "perpetual war without peace or truce" "to root out from being any longer a people, so cursed a nation, ungrateful to all benefitte, and incapable of all goodnesses".[26] Within two years, the Crown took over the territory in 1624 as aroyal colony.
