V

THE PLANTING OF THE COLONIES

Early in the seventeenth century England's efforts at colonization in America began to be successful, and before the century closed twelve colonies had been planted and the English power had been established along the Atlantic seaboard from Nova Scotia to Florida. In this chapter and in the next the story of the planting of these colonies will be briefly told.

VIRGINIA

The first permanent colony planted by the English was a business enterprise. In 1606 some "knights, gentlemen, merchants, and other adventurers" obtained from James I permission to plant colonies on the American coast between the Cape Fear River and Halifax. This vast stretch of territory, called Virginia, was to be taken possession of by two jointstock companies, the Plymouth Company and the London Company. The Plymouth Company attempted to establish a colony called Sagadahoc, on the coast of Maine, but the undertaking quickly came to grief. The London Company sent out a colony of 120 persons, 104 of whom reached the capes at the entrance of the Chesapeake Bay at daylight on May 6, 1607. Ascending The a river which they called the James, the colonists landed on a of small peninsula and began the building of a town which they town called Jamestown. Unfortunately the place selected for a settlement was extremely unhealthy, and by September (1607) one half of the settlers had died. Those who survived were idle and incapable and wholly unfit for pioneer life. Most of them were unaccustomed to manual labor. At one time the colony consisted of one mason, one blacksmith, four carpenters, fiftytwo "gentlemen," and a barber!

Beginning

James

ment

How was this motley collection of isolated Englishmen to Governbe governed? The government of the colony was planned by King James himself. Supreme authority was placed in the hands of a general council, which was to reside in England.

Business Features

The

New
Charter

This general council was appointed by the king and was directed by his instructions. A second council, also appointed by the king and subject to his instructions, was to reside in the colony and have the direct management of colonial affairs. Thus the government was so planned that all power flowed from the king.

The business affairs of the colony were to be conducted by the chosen agents of the company. The colonists themselves, even when they were stock-holding members of the company, were to be forced to work. Each able-bodied man had to work at the task assigned him, and the products of the labor of all were to be thrown into a common stock for five years. Out of this common stock the colonists were to be fed and supported. If after the needs of the settlers were supplied there should be a surplus, this was to be sent to England in the vessels of the company and sold for the benefit of the merchant adventurers who risked their capital in the enterprise. The colony, therefore, was planted primarily not for the benefit of those who went over the seas but for the benefit of those who remained at home.

In 1609 the company secured a new charter providing for a council of fifty members who were to hold their sessions in London, and abolishing the colonial council already existing in Virginia. The council in London was to appoint a governor for the colony, and he in return was to appoint a colonial council and the other necessary officers. Thus under the new charter the company gained for itself important power which before had been reserved for the king. It also secured a much larger grant of land, for under the new charter the territory of Virginia was to extend along the coast two hundred miles each way from Old Point Comfort and "up into the land throughout from sea to sea, west and northwest."1 Moreover, under the charter of

1 The vague expression "west and northwest" led to serious controversies respecting the boundaries of Virginia. "If the northwest line was drawn from the southern end of the 400 miles of coast, and another boundary line was drawn westward from the northern extremity of the coast, the domain thus limited would constitute a triangle of moderate area. If, on the other hand, one line was drawn westerly from the southern of the two points fixed in the coast and the remaining boundary was drawn northwesterly from the fixed point north of Old Point Comfort, the included territory would embrace a great part of the continent and extend from sea to sea. This was the construction given by Virginia to the language of the charter." Avery, II, 52.

For several years things went extremely hard with the colonists at Jamestown. At one time their distress was so great that they decided to return to England. But there was a good turn of luck and the colony was not abandoned. Gradually its foothold became firmer, and by 1616 its prosperity was so great that the settlers were glad to remain in Virginia. With the founding of Jamestown the English had come to America

of the Woods

Ohio

GULF OF MEXICO

to stay.

The thing that did most for early Virginia was tobacco, which could be Tobacco shipped to England and sold at a good price. So profitable was the cultivation of the plant that the raising of food-products was neglected. The settlers would plant all their land in tobacco and trade their firearms to the Indians for food. The colonial authorities tried to compel the planters to raise more grain and less tobacco,

Extent of Virginia according to another interpretation of the Charter of 1609.

Slavery in

Virginia

tative Govern

ment

but their efforts in this direction did not meet with much

success.

The wide-spread cultivation of tobacco created a brisk demand for laborers, and there were not enough white men in the colony to supply the demand. So the planters had recourse to the labor of negro servants. The first negroes who came to Virginia were twenty that were brought in a Dutch man-of-war in the year 1619. These negroes were held in a condition of temporary servitude as many whites were held. In the early days negroes were brought to Virginia only in small numbers, but by 1660 the blacks had become so numerous that they presented a labor problem which was solved by changing the negro's condition of temporary servitude to one of perpetual servitude. Thus negro slavery was regularly established.

In 1619, the company in London having decided that the Represen- planters were henceforth to have a voice in the governing of themselves, there was called a general assembly consisting of the governor and his council and two burgesses from each plantation (or agricultural settlement) freely elected by the inhabitants thereof. Delegates from eleven plantations were at once elected, and the first assembly met (July 30, 1619) in the wooden church at Jamestown. The proceedings of this assembly were the beginnings of representative government in the New World.

Virginia

a political Community

In 1624 James deprived the company of its charter and brought Virginia under his direct control. He was preparing a new form of government for the colony, but he died before the plan was finished. His son and successor, Charles I, dealt with the royal province in a liberal and friendly manner. He retained for himself the power of appointing the colonial governor and the colonial council, but he allowed the colony to have its own assembly and to govern itself by its own laws. Upon the whole the change in government was favorable to the colony, for under this new order of things Virginia was a political community; it was no longer a mere group of distant colonists laboring for the benefit of a trading corporation in London.

THE COMING OF THE FRENCH AND THE DUTCH With the weakening of the Spanish power upon the seas the French and the Dutch as well as the English sprang forward to secure a foothold upon the American continent. In 1608 Samuel Champlain, a French explorer, planted the French flag on the bold headland of Quebec and there laid the foundations of a town which was given that name and which became the cornerstone of the French power in Canada. From Quebec Champlain pushed his explorations in almost every direction. In 1613 he ascended the Ottawa River, hoping that by following this stream he would surely find the long-sought way to China. By 1615 he had in person pushed west as far as the shores of Lake Huron, and before he died (in 1635) the French flag waved in the far-off wilds of Michigan and Wisconsin. The French power was thus spread over a vast extent of territory, but it was not rooted in the earth. The English in Virginia looked to the soil as the source of their fortunes, while the French gave all their energies to the fur-trade. This was profitable, indeed, but it could not lead to the building up of a permanent and populous civilization. Quebec twenty years after its foundation had but two permanently settled families.

The

French

in

Canada

in New

lands

In the year following the founding of Quebec Henry Hud- The son, an English navigator in the service of the Dutch, entered Dutch New York Bay in his ship the Half Moon and sailed up the Nethermagnificent river that bears his name to a point where the city of Troy now stands. Like Champlain, Hudson sought a passage to China. Finding himself baffled in his quest, he retraced his course and sailed back to Holland, taking with him a fine cargo of otter and beaver. The Dutch were quick to take advantage of the fur-trade, concerning which Hudson gave a glowing report. In 1612 they began to build huts on Manhattan Island for the storage of furs. An English captain when sailing by the island saw these huts and warned the settlers that they were trespassing upon English territory, but the Dutch gave no heed to the warning. In 1623 the Dutch West India Company sent out colonists to make a permanent settlement in a region which