Speaker 1: In April sixteen oh six, Sir Thomas Dale returned to
Speaker 1: England along by him in the ship where John Rolfe
Speaker 1: and now Pocahontas known as the Lady Rebecca and their
Speaker 1: infant son Thomas. After a relatively quick passage, the Treasurer
Speaker 1: in the name of the ship docked at Plymouth in
Speaker 1: early June. By far the most valuable cargo unmentioned in
Speaker 1: any of the manifests was Pocahontas, living proof that the
Speaker 1: Pohatan Indians could be converted to Christianity and English ways.
Speaker 1: This was the first time a group of Indians had
Speaker 1: seen England's various countries characterized by distinctive landscapes, communities, and agriculture.
Speaker 1: The journey that they took from Plymouth all the way
Speaker 1: to London, all the way through Devon and Somerset, where
Speaker 1: they saw fertile low coastal lowlands and river valleys lined
Speaker 1: with orchards and rich pastors, past ancient castles and cathedral towns,
Speaker 1: across the great open expanse of Salisbury Plain, the ts
Speaker 1: vistas of wheat fields and sheepwalks, and then of course
Speaker 1: all through the woodlands, through the Thames Valley and on
Speaker 1: to London. The Bahatans were amazed quote at the sight
Speaker 1: of so much corn and trees end quote Throughout the journey.
Speaker 1: Although Indians had been seen in London before, Pocahontas's prestigeous
Speaker 1: Wassenahuk's daughter, together with the port of her marriage and conversion,
Speaker 1: were positively electrifying to the crowds that turned out to
Speaker 1: see her. The high point of her stay came when
Speaker 1: the King and Queen received her at a banquet shortly
Speaker 1: after Christmas for one of the highlights of the yearly
Speaker 1: calendar in England, Twelfth Night. To publicize Pocahontas's appearance in
Speaker 1: England and to attract investors, the company commissioned a young
Speaker 1: Dutch graver, Simon ven dis Pay to sketch her portrait,
Speaker 1: which was then rushed into print. This is the famous
Speaker 1: portrait that if you look up, Pocahontas still today stares
Speaker 1: back at you from the page. It's an intriguing image
Speaker 1: layered with both contrast and symbolic meaning. She's wearing expensive clothes.
Speaker 1: The fine lace and tall hat proclaim her as a
Speaker 1: wealthy english woman dressed in the latest fashion. She has
Speaker 1: pearl earrings, which signified that she was from America, and
Speaker 1: more particularly from Virginia. Her fan of ostrich feathers denotes royalty.
Speaker 1: She's well dressed but not extravagant, and her careful attire
Speaker 1: was designed to suggest affluence but not access. Most striking
Speaker 1: of all is the representation of Pocahontas herself. Van de
Speaker 1: Pessi made no attempt to give her features a European
Speaker 1: look at all. Instead, she has the high cheekbones and
Speaker 1: dark hair typical of the indigenous peoples of her part
Speaker 1: of America. Although she was dressed as an englishwoman, as
Speaker 1: clear she's not English, exactly the message the company wanted
Speaker 1: to convey. They wanted to explain it was possible to
Speaker 1: civilize quote unquote the Indians to make them English less. Predictably,
Speaker 1: Pocahontas does not look modest at all. The dutiful appearance
Speaker 1: of a convert and a wife are nowhere on this page.
Speaker 1: Look as long as you want, you'll never find them. Instead,
Speaker 1: she proudly looks back at the viewer, as if to say,
Speaker 1: it's me the daughter of a king. Now. Captain John
Speaker 1: Smith might have been in Plymouth when the treasurer docs,
Speaker 1: but if he was. He didn't do anything to greet
Speaker 1: Pocahontas or John Rowl for anyone else for that matter.
Speaker 1: In fact, it would be months before the two would
Speaker 1: actually meet. Her. Arrival in England may also have stirred
Speaker 1: up mixed emotions in Captain Smith. If things had might
Speaker 1: worked out differently, perhaps he could have occupied Rolfe's position.
Speaker 1: He could have been received by the King and Queen.
Speaker 1: You'd have been the star of the company. But it wasn't.
Speaker 1: The years since his return to England had been deeply frustrating.
Speaker 1: Despite his eagerness to go back to Virginia, the company
Speaker 1: refused to re employ him. His Map of Virginia and
Speaker 1: Proceedings of English Colony in Virginia, both published in sixteen twelve,
Speaker 1: which together provided the most detailed account of the colony,
Speaker 1: had failed to bring him any tangible mark of favor.
Speaker 1: Fairly or not, Sir Thomas Smith and his associates held
Speaker 1: him partly to blame for the turmoil of Jamestown's first
Speaker 1: few years, a consequence they believed of Smith's headstrong temperament.
Speaker 1: Spurned by the company, Smith eventually managed to line employment
Speaker 1: in the spring of sixteen fourteen. In charge of two
Speaker 1: small vessels chartered for a fishing trip to North Virginia.
Speaker 1: Taking full advantage of this opportunity, he turned the venture
Speaker 1: into a voyage of exploration, carefully mapping the coastline and
Speaker 1: the major rivers of the land that he called New England. Thereafter,
Speaker 1: he had thrown himself with all his old enthusiasm into
Speaker 1: promoting the establishment of a settlement to the north that
Speaker 1: he believed would be more successful in the long run
Speaker 1: than the ailing colony on the Chesapeake Bay. As Smith
Speaker 1: busied himself to raise funds for a second boy, he
Speaker 1: heard news that Pocahontas had arrived in England. Here in
Speaker 1: the company of some friends. Shortly before he was about
Speaker 1: to embark to New England, Smith arrived to pay his
Speaker 1: respects to the Indian princess taken him back after seeing
Speaker 1: him for several years. She was initially able to speak
Speaker 1: to him, and only after a couple hours alone she
Speaker 1: was sufficiently composed to speak to Smith. What followed was
Speaker 1: a difficult and awkward exchange. Pocahontas began by saying, quote,
Speaker 1: they did tell us always you were dead, and I
Speaker 1: knew no other untill I came to Plymouth. He made
Speaker 1: no reply. He had not tried to contact her since
Speaker 1: he left Virginia, probably had not given it much thought,
Speaker 1: considering such a move would have been politically unwise and
Speaker 1: practically impossible. But she continued rather forcefully. You did promise
Speaker 1: Pohawden what was yours should be his, and he the
Speaker 1: like to you. You called him father, being in his
Speaker 1: land a stranger, and by the same reason, so must
Speaker 1: I do you. At this Smith kind of mentioned that
Speaker 1: he quote Durst not allow of that title because she
Speaker 1: was a king's daughter, and quote Pocahontas rebuked him instead,
Speaker 1: now saying, were you not afraid to come into my
Speaker 1: father's country and cause him fear in me and all
Speaker 1: his people? And I fear you here and call you father.
Speaker 1: I tell you here and now that I will call you,
Speaker 1: and you will call me child, and so I will
Speaker 1: be forever and ever your countrymen. Smith was no doubt
Speaker 1: puzzled at this point. He hadn't had any contact with
Speaker 1: Wasasahonas since the spring of sixteen oh nine. What was
Speaker 1: the meaning, though, then, of Pocahontas's reference to Smith and
Speaker 1: her father's pledge to each other. Was it an echo
Speaker 1: of an agreement about what had happened while she was
Speaker 1: in captivity and he was also in cactivity. She obviously
Speaker 1: assumed that there was still a relationship between the two
Speaker 1: of them, that there was a special bond that united them.
Speaker 1: For her, the intervenings years, Smith's falling out with her father,
Speaker 1: his departure from Virginia, and even her marriage to Rolfe
Speaker 1: had not diminished that commitment of support. Now, in all likelihood,
Speaker 1: for Smith there had never been such a commitment. He
Speaker 1: may have been fond of her, but that was as
Speaker 1: far as his connections to Pocahontas went, and for Smith
Speaker 1: that was also kind of the end of the story.
Speaker 1: Smith would never see her again after this single meeting
Speaker 1: in England. In March of sixteen seventeen, Pocahontas died of
Speaker 1: an illness, probably tuberculosis, possibly pneumonia. She was on a
Speaker 1: start of the way back to Virginia, but she would
Speaker 1: never see the continent that she was born on. Instead,
Speaker 1: Pocahontas was buried in a chancel of the parish of
Speaker 1: Saint George. Interestingly, even with Pocahontas present, there was no
Speaker 1: major upsurge in interest in Virginia and that kind of
Speaker 1: makes sense given the perilous straits that the company was in,
Speaker 1: I mean more than fifty thousand pounds of staggering some
Speaker 1: for the time have been invested in the venture since
Speaker 1: sixteen oh nine, but at the end of the seven
Speaker 1: year term placed on the joint stock company there was
Speaker 1: little to show for it. Though. There was one thing
Speaker 1: that came with Pocahontas that everyone was very wrong to
Speaker 1: immediately dismiss the use of, and that was quote exceedingly
Speaker 1: good tobacco end quote. Tobacco had come with Dale and
Speaker 1: Pocahontas back from Virginia. Introduced into England half a century
Speaker 1: before by sailors would sail to the Americas with John
Speaker 1: Hawkins and Sir Francis Drake. Tobacco had become popular with
Speaker 1: fashionable glants and the well to do during the fifteen
Speaker 1: eighties and fifteen nineties after smoking was taken up by
Speaker 1: prominentent then Elizabethan courtiers like Sir Walter Raleigh. Depending on
Speaker 1: its quality and condition, leaf imported legally or sometimes smuggled
Speaker 1: from Spanish counties could cost anywhere from two to four
Speaker 1: pounds per pound. It was a significant amount now Despite
Speaker 1: this expense. Smoking spread rapidly from the gentry to the
Speaker 1: lower classes, so much so that by sixteen fourteen, according
Speaker 1: to one source, there was not a groomsoe Bass who
Speaker 1: quote comes into an alehouse to call for his pont,
Speaker 1: but he must have his pipe of tobacco end quote
Speaker 1: in London alone. The same source claimed there were some
Speaker 1: seven thousand newly erected tobacco houses, where the sales amounted
Speaker 1: to nearly three hundred and twenty thousand pounds per year.
Speaker 1: All of this quote spent in smoke end quote, in
Speaker 1: taverns and inns, during public hangings, floggings and their spectacles.
Speaker 1: Everywhere the English were smoking constantly. Now among those who
Speaker 1: enjoyed a pipe of good tobacco was none other than
Speaker 1: John Rolfe, already a confirmed smoker when he left for
Speaker 1: Virginia with the Gates Fleet in sixteen oh nine. Not
Speaker 1: long after arriving on the James River, he had the
Speaker 1: idea of raising tobacco on a commercial basis. In the
Speaker 1: summer of sixteen twelve, using seeds imported potentially stolen from
Speaker 1: Trinidad and Venezuela, Rolph began experimenting with varieties of a
Speaker 1: mild Spanish leaf, anticipating that this crop would produce a
Speaker 1: leaf more suited to English tastes than the indigenous plants
Speaker 1: smoked by the Indians, which had a rather acrid flavor.
Speaker 1: The challenge was not only to raise a type of
Speaker 1: plant best suited to local conditions, but also to determine
Speaker 1: how harvested leaf could be cured and transported to England
Speaker 1: without spoiling. Whether he learned the art of mystery of
Speaker 1: tobacco husbandry himself or possibly was taught by friendly Polhattan's
Speaker 1: were not really sure, but after a couple of years
Speaker 1: John Rolfe started to have a significant amount of success.
Speaker 1: By early as sixteen fourteen, large quantities of Virginia tobacco
Speaker 1: were reaching London regular literally. Rolf when he arrived with Pocahontas,
Speaker 1: spent his time busily marketing his crop among merchants and
Speaker 1: tobacco sellers. He faced a lot of obstacles for this,
Speaker 1: though none the least of which was, of course, the
Speaker 1: King James. The First James hated tobacco. He hated smoking,
Speaker 1: and so to a large extent, fearful of royal displeasure,
Speaker 1: the Virginia Company discouraged tobacco planting on a large scale,
Speaker 1: and to that extent, the company's leaders in London turned
Speaker 1: their backs on the one commodity that could be produced
Speaker 1: cheaply in the colony, for which there was already a
Speaker 1: strong market and a rapidly growing one in England. That
Speaker 1: being said, the fact that the Virginia Company turned their
Speaker 1: back on tobacco didn't mean that those in Jamestown were
Speaker 1: going to do that or in the Chesapeake as soon
Speaker 1: it would become virtually a factory for the production of
Speaker 1: the addicting leaf. Now Shortly before setting out for England
Speaker 1: in the spring of sixteen sixteen, John Rolf, Secretary of
Speaker 1: the Colony, was instructed by Dale to draw up a
Speaker 1: survey of the space he was returning to. He divided
Speaker 1: Virginia into three types of men, officers, laborers, and farmers.
Speaker 1: Officers were responsible for ensuring that defenses were adequate in
Speaker 1: the settlements and that those under their charge attended to
Speaker 1: their work diligently and obey martial law. Laborers were divided
Speaker 1: into two kinds. Either they were employed in general work
Speaker 1: for the company and were supported from the general store,
Speaker 1: or they were skilled artisans. Here we're talking about like
Speaker 1: blacksmith's carpenters, so on and so forth. Then these men
Speaker 1: mostly maintained themselves. The farmers Rolf thought quote lived at
Speaker 1: most ease end quote. They were obliged to defend the colony,
Speaker 1: of course, and to work for the company one month
Speaker 1: out of the year, but the rest of the time
Speaker 1: they were free to grow their own crops, in the
Speaker 1: condition that each man supported himself and his family delivered
Speaker 1: two and a half barrels of corn to the general
Speaker 1: store annually. Now six settlements were listed. One was at Enrico,
Speaker 1: on the north side of the James River, where thirty
Speaker 1: eight men and boys made up twenty two farmers and
Speaker 1: the rest officers and a few laborers. The most heavily
Speaker 1: populated settlement was at Bermuda. This was on the south bank,
Speaker 1: five miles downriver from Henrico, where one hundred and nineteen
Speaker 1: settlers men and women lived incorporated Bermudez City under the
Speaker 1: authority of Captain yearlea deputy governor in the absence of Dale.
Speaker 1: Most of those settlers were laborers who had certainly contracted
Speaker 1: to work for a period of time. These men were
Speaker 1: engaged in producing things like pitch tar, and charcoal. At
Speaker 1: West Shirley one hundred, located a few miles below Virginia,
Speaker 1: twenty five men were employed in purely cultivating tobacco, and
Speaker 1: on Jamestown Island there were thirty two farmers who tended
Speaker 1: to the crops and looked after the company's livestock. The
Speaker 1: whole colony bore the unmistakable stamp of Dale's reforms in
Speaker 1: shifting the bulk of the population upriver, and that's where
Speaker 1: about seventy percent of all the settlers now resided. From
Speaker 1: sixteen oh nine to sixteen sixteen, approximately fifteen hundred settlers
Speaker 1: have been sent from England, but Rolf could enumerate only
Speaker 1: two hundred and five officers and laborers, eighty one farmers
Speaker 1: and sixty five women and children, making a total of
Speaker 1: three hundred and fifty one, which means over two thirds
Speaker 1: of those who set sail for Virginia had not survived.
Speaker 1: A staggering number. And when we have to consider just
Speaker 1: how difficult life in the early New World was. But
Speaker 1: the key to the colony's prosperity everyone realized was land
Speaker 1: and how best to exploit land. The guarantee of land
Speaker 1: ownership could attract significant and sufficient investment to transport thousands
Speaker 1: of men and women necessary to unlock its riches. Captain
Speaker 1: Samuel Argyle was one of the first beneficiaries of the
Speaker 1: company's new policy. Appointed governor in the winter of sixteen
Speaker 1: sixteen sixteen seventeen, he and his financial backers were signed
Speaker 1: twenty four hundred acres for the transportation of twenty four settlers,
Speaker 1: whom he intended to locate in an area just to
Speaker 1: the west of Jamestown. Now before Argyle was able to
Speaker 1: turn his attentions to the allotments of land as instructed
Speaker 1: by the company, though he had to first address a
Speaker 1: few more important and immediate issues. When he arrived back
Speaker 1: at the colony in mid May, he found once again
Speaker 1: Jamestown's palisades and church falling down the wharf essentially in pieces,
Speaker 1: and only five or six of the house is hospitable.
Speaker 1: Elsewhere in the colony, houses, land ruins, palisades and blockhouses
Speaker 1: had collapsed, and a few of the fortifications were completely inserviceable.
Speaker 1: For whatever reason, colonists and Jamestown had a terribly difficult
Speaker 1: time maintaining the structures that they had constructed, and so
Speaker 1: Argyle pressed ahead with repairs to the various parts of
Speaker 1: Jamestown that he preferred to locations upriver. The deputy governor, though,
Speaker 1: could take some adequate signs and comfort from the reality
Speaker 1: that the economic conditions had started to improve. The settlers
Speaker 1: were now well provisioned. Wheat, barley, corn, and tobacco was
Speaker 1: all thriving. Best, and most importantly of all, the colony
Speaker 1: was able to ship twenty thousand pounds of tobacco to
Speaker 1: London in sixteen eighteen, which it sold for five shillings
Speaker 1: and three pence per pound, realizing about two hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty pounds for its investors. This wasn't a massive sum
Speaker 1: by any stretch of the imagination, but it was a
Speaker 1: mount that actually finding made it look like the colony
Speaker 1: might turn some sort of profit now. Frankly, Argyle arrived
Speaker 1: in the colony a very opportune moment. The country was
Speaker 1: at peace, sellers were producing enough food for their own needs,
Speaker 1: and the company was poised to distribute large amounts of
Speaker 1: land to colonists and investors that would create growing numbers
Speaker 1: of independent planters and companies At Jamestown. The deputy governor
Speaker 1: found quote the marketplace and streets and all other places
Speaker 1: planted with tobacco end quote. As I mentioned before, despite
Speaker 1: admonitions to the contrary, the bottom line was that tobacco
Speaker 1: cultivation had spread rapidly all the way between sixteen fifteen
Speaker 1: and sixteen seventeen. Increasingly settlers discovered they could not only
Speaker 1: grow food stuffs on their farms, but also produce a
Speaker 1: potentially lucrative crop. Virginia was on the threshold of a
Speaker 1: tobacco revolution, and within the space of a few years,
Speaker 1: would transformed the lives of everyone who worked along the
Speaker 1: James River, both the English and the Bahatans. Important changes
Speaker 1: in the way the colony was to be governed were
Speaker 1: also introduced in these years. In sixteen eighteen, the colony
Speaker 1: was divided into four cities or boroughs. There was Kiwakatan
Speaker 1: later called Elizabeth City, James City, Charles City, Enrico. This
Speaker 1: reorganization was for the purpose of correctly assigning workers to
Speaker 1: work on company land. Really, the whole thrust of the
Speaker 1: idea behind making the Virginia Company profitable was transporting settlers
Speaker 1: over to Virginia, settling them on a plot of company land,
Speaker 1: and requiring them to work on that land for a
Speaker 1: period of the year, or potentially the entire year growing
Speaker 1: tobacco and other commodities. This is essentially indentured servitude. If
Speaker 1: you don't know what an entured servitude is, someone who
Speaker 1: can't pay for their passage to the New world offers
Speaker 1: to work for a specific term. The term varies. Usually
Speaker 1: seven years is the sort of rule of thumb, but
Speaker 1: that's not a law by any stretch of the imagination.
Speaker 1: And when the term is over, then that individual is
Speaker 1: supposed to receive an allotment of land, so on and
Speaker 1: so forth, and start a new life. Every hundred laborers
Speaker 1: working on company lands, the estimate was, could generate at
Speaker 1: least one thousand pounds annually, the idea being that there'd
Speaker 1: be at least five hundred men working on company lands
Speaker 1: within a couple of years. By the terms of the
Speaker 1: Great Charter of sixteen eighteen, settlers who had arrived before
Speaker 1: Dale's departure two years earlier, who were now referred to
Speaker 1: as ancient planters, were granted one hundred acres for their
Speaker 1: own use, and if they were investors, an additional one
Speaker 1: hundred acres for every share that they owned in the company.
Speaker 1: Those who arrived April after April six sixteen sixteen, and
Speaker 1: paid their own passage, would receive fifty acres for themselves
Speaker 1: and another fifty for every person they transported. This arrangement,
Speaker 1: known famously as the head right system, which I'll come
Speaker 1: back to you later on, became the primary means by
Speaker 1: which laborers were recruited and sent to the colony for
Speaker 1: the rest of the century. Concerned that the colony's severe
Speaker 1: marshal order code would discourage private investment and certainly discourage immigration,
Speaker 1: the company introduced the Governor Elect, George Yurdley in sixteen eighteen,
Speaker 1: and his mandate was simple to introduce quote just laws
Speaker 1: for the happy guiding and governing of the people end quote.
Speaker 1: Two new councils were also created, a Council of State
Speaker 1: whose members were selected by the Company in London to
Speaker 1: assist the Governor in his duties, and then a General
Speaker 1: Assembly that would include the Council and two burgesses from
Speaker 1: every town one hundred or particular plantation, and these individuals
Speaker 1: would be directly elected by the free inhabitants. This is
Speaker 1: one of the first free legislatures in the New World,
Speaker 1: will later on form the foundation and basis for many
Speaker 1: ideas of American democracy. The General Assembly was supposed to
Speaker 1: convene once a year on less extraordinary occasions, demanded more
Speaker 1: frequent meetings, and was authorized to consider all matters concerning
Speaker 1: the public welfare, anything regarding the colony, and to propose
Speaker 1: such general measures for the better ordering of affairs and conformity,
Speaker 1: especially with the idea of making sure that the laws
Speaker 1: in the Americas stayed consistent with the laws in England.
Speaker 1: Although Burgesses quickly adopted elements of parliamentary practice and developing
Speaker 1: their own procedures, the Assembly was never actually intended to
Speaker 1: be a little parliament, but rather a form of local government. Then.
Speaker 1: The idea here was that shareholders, through these local governments,
Speaker 1: would also will be able to play a more active
Speaker 1: role in the administration of the company. The governor, of course,
Speaker 1: was still all powerful. Everybody recognized that in the dangers
Speaker 1: of the new World, you still had to have someone
Speaker 1: with whom the buck stops. The General retained a right
Speaker 1: of veto, and legislation passed by the Assembly could only
Speaker 1: be enforced if the Governor approved of it, and of
Speaker 1: course if the company approved of it back at London.
Speaker 1: Interestingly enough, in these efforts to recruit new settlers. People
Speaker 1: back in England started to pay attention to a different
Speaker 1: type of group, separatists. Virginia they believed might be any
Speaker 1: attractive haven for religious dissenters. Hundreds of nonconformists embarked for
Speaker 1: the colony between sixteen eighteen and sixteen twenty one, although
Speaker 1: the vast majority did not actually go to Virginia. Many
Speaker 1: went to what was actually now today the area around
Speaker 1: the Bermuda Islands. Some of them went to the Caribbean,
Speaker 1: and others, as we'll discuss next week, found their way
Speaker 1: to New England. In fact, the Pilgrims, you may be
Speaker 1: interested to learn, actually we're attempting to land in Virginia
Speaker 1: and they miss their mark and wound up in what
Speaker 1: is today around Cape Cod not even close now. Besides
Speaker 1: appealing to Puritans, the company launched a broad campaign based
Speaker 1: on recruiting colonists from all over the country, including skilled
Speaker 1: artisans and tradesmen, as well as destitute children on parish
Speaker 1: relief and convicted felons. In sixteen eighteen, six ships embarked
Speaker 1: for the colony, caring about four hundred settlers. The following
Speaker 1: year fourteen left with one thousand settlers, and in sixteen
Speaker 1: twenty thirteen ships carrying more than one thousand, three hundred.
Speaker 1: Between sixteen eighteen and sixteen twenty one, all told, fifty
Speaker 1: ships transported some three thousand, seven hundred and fifty settlers
Speaker 1: to Virginia. Marked that in those three years up against
Speaker 1: the years sixteen oh seven to sixteen twelve, five year
Speaker 1: period when little less than fifteen hundred total showed up. Obviously,
Speaker 1: the pace of migration increased, so did the pace of prosperity.
Speaker 1: Now this is going to be another storyline for a
Speaker 1: future episode. I do want to note that also in
Speaker 1: sixteen nineteen, aboard the now infamous ship the White Lion,
Speaker 1: the first ever enslaved Africans arrived off the coast of Virginia,
Speaker 1: And while they probably got a better deal than where
Speaker 1: they were headed, which was sugar plantations in the Caribbean,
Speaker 1: they still spent the rest of their lives, to the
Speaker 1: best of our knowledge, enslaved working on tobacco fields. Again,
Speaker 1: this is a story that we'll come back to you
Speaker 1: later on. Africans were not the only people forcibly transported
Speaker 1: to the colony. In the fall of sixteen eighteen one,
Speaker 1: John Chamberlain reported that the city of London was shipping
Speaker 1: to Virginia quote one hundred young boys and girls that
Speaker 1: had been starving in the streets, which is one of
Speaker 1: the best deeds that could be done end quote. Over
Speaker 1: the years between sixteen seventeen and sixteen twenty three, hundreds
Speaker 1: of destitute children from the streets of London were swept
Speaker 1: up and shipped to Virginia, personally not having any choice
Speaker 1: in the matter. Now, Virginia would have been an interesting
Speaker 1: place if you walked around it in sixteen twenty In
Speaker 1: early that year, men outnumbered women by about seven to one.
Speaker 1: There were very few young children, almost no elderly people
Speaker 1: living along the James River. The vast majority of settlers
Speaker 1: were between the age of fifteen and thirty five. Alongside
Speaker 1: the English, you could find small numbers of skilled foreign
Speaker 1: artisans French, Germans, Poles and Italians, and thirty two Africans,
Speaker 1: fifteen men and seventeen women who were either enslaved or
Speaker 1: worked as servants. Approximately twelve hundred settlersccupied lands from the
Speaker 1: mouth of the James River to Falling Creek, a few
Speaker 1: miles south of the old fort that was abandoned by
Speaker 1: Dala War, whereas John Rolfe itemized only six settlements four
Speaker 1: years earlier. Now there were more than two dozen. Tens
Speaker 1: of thousands of acres had been granted by the company
Speaker 1: in the area between Jamestown and Enrico in what amounted
Speaker 1: to America's first ever land rush. Much of the expansion
Speaker 1: led by private investors transporting settlers to work on specific plantations.
Speaker 1: Under the impact of this surgeing migration, the colony had
Speaker 1: changed dramatically from the struggling outpost of a few years before.
Speaker 1: Many settlers lived in small clusters of houses within a
Speaker 1: palisaded settlement or near to a fortification such as Jamestown. Others,
Speaker 1: such as the ancient planters I've talked about before, would
Speaker 1: gain their freedom after sixteen sixteen, resided on their own
Speaker 1: individual smallholdings scattered along the rivers and creeks and up
Speaker 1: and down different neighborhoods. During the same period, tobacco's grip
Speaker 1: on the colony continued to tighten. According to John Powy
Speaker 1: quote all our riches for the present do consist in
Speaker 1: tobacco end quote. Between forty thousand and fifty thousand pounds
Speaker 1: of tobacco were exported to England in sixteen. Twenty two
Speaker 1: years later, that figure had risen to sixty thousand pounds.
Speaker 1: Virginia had at last not its profitable commodity. Yet if
Speaker 1: some settlers were getting rich quickly, most weren't. Mismanagement and
Speaker 1: price gouging by colony officials and buoyant tobacco prices in
Speaker 1: England created conditions for gross exploitation of servants, who still
Speaker 1: made up the bulk of the population. Same gentlemen who
Speaker 1: commented on the value of tobacco would also write, quote,
Speaker 1: our principal wealth, I should have said, consisted of servants.
Speaker 1: One man, by his own labor, Hath in one year
Speaker 1: raised himself the value of two hundred pounds sterling. Another
Speaker 1: by the means of six servants Hath cleared at one
Speaker 1: crop one thousand pound English. And quote. The more servants
Speaker 1: you had, the more money you could make, and the
Speaker 1: profits could be substantial. Tobacco had created estates of hundreds
Speaker 1: and thousands of pounds per year for men who had
Speaker 1: gone to Virginia. According to one Sir George Yardley, who
Speaker 1: first arrived in the colony with little more than a sword.
Speaker 1: When he was recently in London, was able to disperse
Speaker 1: nearly three thousand pounds on a visit. No wonder, the
Speaker 1: governor and his deputies, the Treasurer of the colony, the
Speaker 1: Marshal Secretary of all others, demanded that the company satisfy
Speaker 1: this ardent demand that they send more servants, more rants.
Speaker 1: Ostensibly these were to support the cost of these various offices,
Speaker 1: but in reality was to provide incomes. And little wonder
Speaker 1: that the colony's officials soon realized that trading servants was
Speaker 1: as lucrative as selling any other goods imported from England.
Speaker 1: About ninety five percent of those who arrived during this
Speaker 1: period were tenants and servants, and the company had to
Speaker 1: keep shipping them. Mortality among servants after their arrival was
Speaker 1: simply epidemic, major killers being scurvy and the bloody flux,
Speaker 1: though the company did seek to suppress that rumor. Three
Speaker 1: quarters of all servants transported died within a year, most
Speaker 1: within six months. America's addiction to cheap labor had begun,
Speaker 1: but it came with the cost. Now, the end of
Speaker 1: the war with the Bahatan seemed not only to usher
Speaker 1: in a new area of cooperation between the settlers and Indians,
Speaker 1: but also to open the way for rapid expansion of
Speaker 1: English settlement across the region. The initial years of peace
Speaker 1: coincided with dramatic changes in leadership for the Pohatans. Wasasonic
Speaker 1: had fled his capital out of fear of his brother
Speaker 1: opinach Osasonic believed that Opuanoch was conspiring to oust him,
Speaker 1: which may or may not have been accurate. Regardless, was
Speaker 1: Sasonic effectively abdicated his position, delegating the government of his
Speaker 1: territories to his two brothers, and then when he died
Speaker 1: in sixteen eighteen, the effective power resided with Opinac. Now,
Speaker 1: Opinac immediately openly courted English leaders, Having Opanac as their ally,
Speaker 1: Virginia's leaders at last saw the possibility of English settlers
Speaker 1: and Bahatans living together in friendship as one people. As
Speaker 1: we'll find out, though, that's not what Opanoc had in mind.
Speaker 1: Much as Rolf and Dale had hoped, Pocahonnas's adoption of
Speaker 1: Christianity revital interest in England of the godly mission of
Speaker 1: converting the Indians. Over the next four years, the company
Speaker 1: received a steady flow of funds for religious uses that
Speaker 1: by sixteen twenty amounted to buy more than three thousand pounds.
Speaker 1: Others cautioned the company, however, about the unrealistic expectations of
Speaker 1: quick results. Indian parents remained reluctant to part with their
Speaker 1: children on just about any terms. There was a compromise
Speaker 1: that was reached by the governor therefore with Opuanoch, whereby
Speaker 1: the English would build houses and set aside grounds for
Speaker 1: planting corn in their settlements, so that families identified by
Speaker 1: the chief could live among them. Settlers would have an
Speaker 1: opportunity to teach their children Christianity without I mean to
Speaker 1: take them from their parents, and of course with the
Speaker 1: incentives of providing food, clothes, cattle, other necessities. George Thorpe
Speaker 1: was a deeply religious man, and he came to the
Speaker 1: colony convinced that the progress in converting Pohatans had been
Speaker 1: and that it had been slow, specifically because the English
Speaker 1: had been too slow in doing it. It had been
Speaker 1: their fault all along. George Thorpe strongly believed that the
Speaker 1: way to get Native Americans to convert to Christianity was
Speaker 1: to teach them English ways, in other words, to try
Speaker 1: to improve their material lives. The company brought into it
Speaker 1: hook line and sinker. They were now going to be
Speaker 1: deeply invested in bringing Native Americans within their society to
Speaker 1: try to convert them to English customs and Christianity. Opanok
Speaker 1: encouraged this. Little did the company know they were sowing
Speaker 1: the seeds of their own destruction. Openog sought friendship and
Speaker 1: reconciliation with the English for his own reasons, but he
Speaker 1: concealed them skillfully. Although appearing well disposed to the settlers,
Speaker 1: in reality, his view of the post war period was
Speaker 1: radically different from theirs. The English treated the Pohatans like
Speaker 1: a subjective nation, enforcing payment of tribute in corn and
Speaker 1: reducing them to dependence on settlers provisions. In those areas
Speaker 1: where the Indians had been removed from their traditional lands,
Speaker 1: the Chicamanese, Pasa, Hag's, Waywin Knox had all been forced
Speaker 1: off lands, adjoining the growing number of English settlements along
Speaker 1: the James River in the vicinity of Charles City and Enrico.
Speaker 1: The English occupied lands belonging to the Appomattox, the Eratox,
Speaker 1: and the Pohatans. Settlers of Elizabeth City had taken possession
Speaker 1: of the corn rich lands of the Kiotin people and
Speaker 1: colonists on the south bank of the James had begun
Speaker 1: moving into lands belonging to the Quinn, Connox and warasas
Speaker 1: only the Nassimans remained relatively unscathed by the English expansion.
Speaker 1: Opennox experience of tactics employed by Gates and Dale during
Speaker 1: the war left him no doubt that his warriors had
Speaker 1: no chance to prevail against ranks of heavily armored soldiers
Speaker 1: in the field or well armed defenders protected by palisades.
Speaker 1: Neither could the Indians defend their villages and cornlands from
Speaker 1: destructive raids by English soldiers who were able to move
Speaker 1: up and down the rivers with impunity in their ships.
Speaker 1: He realized, perhaps as early as the summer of sixteen fourteen,
Speaker 1: that when he made that deal with Dale to seal
Speaker 1: the peace, that his people had no chance of defeating
Speaker 1: the English from the outside. The Indians had to discover
Speaker 1: a way of getting inside English settlements, of gaining the
Speaker 1: settlers trust. Only then could they strike to good effect,
Speaker 1: that is, before the English had time to defend themselves.
Speaker 1: A measure of the success of open Ox strategy can
Speaker 1: be gauged by the assurance of Governor Wyatt to the
Speaker 1: company in January sixteen twenty two that the country was
Speaker 1: quote in great enmity and confidence with the natives. Openoch
Speaker 1: admitted that his people's religion was not the right way,
Speaker 1: and now suddenly the English felt they had an opportunity.
Speaker 1: If Apanach could be persuaded to accept Christianity and ultimately
Speaker 1: the English way of life, he could be enormously important
Speaker 1: in swaying all the Bahatans generally over to English customs.
Speaker 1: Now Openoch in reality, had no intention of converting to Christianity.
Speaker 1: This was all a clever ruse to get the English
Speaker 1: to lower their guards get used to Native Americans walking
Speaker 1: through their settlements. Nothing out of the ordinary here, but
Speaker 1: in reality he had forged a secret alliance among all
Speaker 1: the peoples throughout the James and York River valleys, united
Speaker 1: by their hatred of the English settlers and their determination.
Speaker 1: When the signal came to be rid of them, shortly
Speaker 1: after dawn on a crisp March morning, groups of Indians
Speaker 1: gathered in woods adjacent into English settlements before setting off
Speaker 1: to the colonist's houses, carrying deer, turkeys, fish, firs, and
Speaker 1: other trade goods. There was nothing unusual about these sorts
Speaker 1: of visits. For the last couple of years. They had
Speaker 1: been encouraged to frequent and sometimes live in English plantations,
Speaker 1: to borrow tools and provisions, and even use settlers boats.
Speaker 1: It would have been familiar to the settlers, who would
Speaker 1: have known them individually by name. But on this morning
Speaker 1: the Indians had come neither to trade nor to borrow,
Speaker 1: taking up the settler's own tools and weapons. A slaughter
Speaker 1: of unimaginable proportions began at first light and carried out
Speaker 1: throughout the day. People quote at their own breakfast tables,
Speaker 1: Edward Waterhouse, a company shareholder, wrote, the Indians quote basely
Speaker 1: and barbarously murdered them, not sparing either age or sex,
Speaker 1: man or woman or child end quote. Many settlers were
Speaker 1: taken so totally by surprise they didn't even realize the
Speaker 1: blow they killed them. They were killed in their houses
Speaker 1: and their yards and gardens, in the fields as they
Speaker 1: planted corn and tobacco, or as they were running errands
Speaker 1: around the plantation. Because of the familiarity with the English
Speaker 1: and their settlements, Indian warriors had a good idea of
Speaker 1: where the colonists would be at the time they launched
Speaker 1: their assault and how to make the attack as deadly
Speaker 1: as possible by this means. Waterhouse continued that by the
Speaker 1: end of the morning on March the twenty second, sixteen
Speaker 1: twenty two, three hundred and forty seven settlers were already bludgeoned, stabbed,
Speaker 1: or hacked to death. Coordinated and organized by Opuannak, the
Speaker 1: main force was made up of approximately five hundred to
Speaker 1: six hundred elite Pahot warriors. Up the river at Enrico
Speaker 1: and beyond. The assault was led by the Bahatans, but
Speaker 1: supported by the Appamotos at Falling Creek. The entire English
Speaker 1: population was killed twenty seven men, women, and children. On
Speaker 1: Enrico Island, only five settlers died, but the Bahatans put
Speaker 1: the settlement to the torch and slaughtered all the livestock,
Speaker 1: leaving behind a smoldering ruin strewn with animal carcasses. Meanwhile, downriver,
Speaker 1: George Thorpe, the one who had encouraged Native Americans to
Speaker 1: come within the settlements in the first place, the one
Speaker 1: that had encouraged this change of attitude towards the Bohatan,
Speaker 1: was not a lucky man. He was at Berkeley when
Speaker 1: news of the attack came, but he refused to heed
Speaker 1: the alarm, not believing that these Indians could ever do
Speaker 1: him any harm. But the Indians quote had no sooner
Speaker 1: killed him than he could or would believe they meant
Speaker 1: any ill against him end quote. Thorpe died, never knowing
Speaker 1: why Appanak had turned against him. Now it was late
Speaker 1: in the day when an alert finally got to Governor Wyatt.
Speaker 1: It was far too late to send out a general warning.
Speaker 1: All the General could do was prepared a defense of
Speaker 1: the town and give warning to a few nearby settlements.
Speaker 1: Four boats full of warriors assaulted Jamestown from the river,
Speaker 1: but were quickly driven off by musket fire. Throughout the day,
Speaker 1: groups of Native American warriors moved from village to village,
Speaker 1: attacking and killing, and then melting back into the woods.
Speaker 1: Abanok knew that to retain the critically important element of surprise,
Speaker 1: his men had to proceed rapidly, not affording the English
Speaker 1: opportunities to warn each other or to regroup into effective
Speaker 1: fighting units. Local Indians made the initial attack and were
Speaker 1: followed by large group of warriors and manywhere from fifty
Speaker 1: to several hundred, who then joined in the fighting, finishing
Speaker 1: off survivors and torching the settlements, Reflecting the English tactics
Speaker 1: of indiscriminate killing employed by Gates and Dale previously. The
Speaker 1: Indian's intention was to kill as many men, women and
Speaker 1: children as possible, destroy their houses, livestock, and property. Any
Speaker 1: English who escaped would simply starve to death later on.
Speaker 1: The attack was a massive and decisive blow designed to
Speaker 1: sweep the intruders from the Phatan lands forever. To show
Speaker 1: their utter contempt for settlers, some corpses, such as the
Speaker 1: aforementioned Thorpes, were mutilated beyond recognition or beheaded. Few prisoners
Speaker 1: were taken, but a group of male captives from Martin's
Speaker 1: Hunward were never seen again and were assumed to have
Speaker 1: been put to death. If the day's events had not
Speaker 1: ended in complete success for the Indians, Jamestown and many
Speaker 1: other settlements remained intact. Nevertheless, by nightfall, about a quarter
Speaker 1: of the settlers from the entire Chesapeake Bay region were
Speaker 1: dead and the colony had been devastated. Nappannock probably didn't
Speaker 1: expect that a single day's attack would succeed in getting
Speaker 1: rid of the English entirely, but by destroying the settler's plantations,
Speaker 1: forcing them to take refuge and confined locations, and so
Speaker 1: in a position where he could once again cut off
Speaker 1: food supplies and lay them under siege. Obanoc hoped the
Speaker 1: English would eventually become so debilitated that they would either
Speaker 1: fall victim to his warriors or decide that enough was
Speaker 1: enough to abandon the colony, as almost happened in the
Speaker 1: starving year of sixteen oh nine sixteen ten. Now panic
Speaker 1: gripped the colonists in the wake of the uprising to
Speaker 1: better protect themselves. Why, in order that the colonists abandoned
Speaker 1: any outlying plantations and withdraw to a fortified location. Now,
Speaker 1: the brilliance of Openox strategy was that it depended above
Speaker 1: all on the English settlers, unquestioning belief in their own
Speaker 1: superiority and their fatal underestimation of Indian tactical and fighting ability.
Speaker 1: It was incomprehensible to men like Thorpe or to company
Speaker 1: leaders in London, that the Indian chief was capable of
Speaker 1: conceiving and mounting such an attack. Not only had the
Speaker 1: colony sustained a great loss of life and property, but
Speaker 1: the English had been totally fooled by the Pottons and
Speaker 1: their allies. News of the uprising reached the company's leaders
Speaker 1: in London in the summer of sixteen twenty two, and
Speaker 1: was greeted with disbelief and outrage. It was aimed both
Speaker 1: at the Pattons, but then also at the colony's leaders,
Speaker 1: who had so foolishly allowed their settlers to be duped
Speaker 1: and allowed so many Englishmen to be slaughtered. Now. Immediately,
Speaker 1: the company realized that the colonies needed help, though, so
Speaker 1: it requested permission from the English government to ship to
Speaker 1: the colony quote certain old caste arms remaining in the
Speaker 1: Tower of London, altogether unfit and of no use for
Speaker 1: modern service and quote. The King was pleased to grant
Speaker 1: this request, and a number of all practically useless European
Speaker 1: arms were sent to the New World, where they could
Speaker 1: still act devastatingly upon the native Americans who didn't wear armor.
Speaker 1: The company, in response to all this, adopted what can
Speaker 1: only be described as a defiant tone. Nothing's wrong, Everything's fine.
Speaker 1: In fact, the uprising might even work to the company's advantage.
Speaker 1: Private investors appeared to be renewing their support for the
Speaker 1: colony and were sending over a large number of settlers
Speaker 1: to replace all those who had been killed. Now, although
Speaker 1: the company could not afford at this point to transport
Speaker 1: its own tenants, the governor and counsel in Virginia were
Speaker 1: encouraged to provide as much assistance as possible to new
Speaker 1: arrivals sent by private ones. Certainly, the uprising had been
Speaker 1: a setback, a major setback. The company conceded that, but
Speaker 1: it was determined that there should be no change. Of course,
Speaker 1: tobacco was making the Chesapeake a gold mine. There was
Speaker 1: no reason to avert course at this point. But there
Speaker 1: was one major change the company realized had to be made,
Speaker 1: and that was very simple. There would be no efforts
Speaker 1: from this point forward to proselytize the Bahatans, teaching the
Speaker 1: Native Americans are ways bringing them into the English settlements.
Speaker 1: Those were ideas that, from the company's perspective, didn't work.
Speaker 1: War worked, And so now we're going to enter yet
Speaker 1: another bloody episode in the history of European settlers vis
Speaker 1: a vi Native Americans. That's going to continue on and
Speaker 1: off again for the rest of really European and then
Speaker 1: eventually American history. Wyat, the governor was ordered now to
Speaker 1: root out the Bahatans by quote surprising them in their habitations,
Speaker 1: intercepting them in their hunting, burning their towns, demolishing their temples,
Speaker 1: destroying their canoes, plucking up their wares, and carrying away
Speaker 1: their corn, and depriving them whatsoever may yield them sucker
Speaker 1: or relief end quote. Company officials were quick to point
Speaker 1: out how the disaster might benefit English ambitions in Virginia.
Speaker 1: Now all the incentive was to take the Native American lands,
Speaker 1: to kill them, to push them off. This would give
Speaker 1: the company more land, more land that could be used
Speaker 1: to cultivate tobacco, needing more servants, more labor, and the
Speaker 1: cycle in the New World begins. What starts with tobacco,
Speaker 1: by the way, is going to end in cotton, and
Speaker 1: the servants will change, but the idea will always remain
Speaker 1: the same. Now, Captain John Smith, he was actually still
Speaker 1: in London when he heard news of the uprising. He
Speaker 1: believed that he should be given command of one hundred soldiers,
Speaker 1: which he would fashion into a running army to harass
Speaker 1: the Indians until they were driven out of English land.
Speaker 1: The company showed no interest in Smith's Please, John Smith
Speaker 1: would not be going back to Virginia. His story was
Speaker 1: over now. Wyatt and the company's leaders, and that particularly
Speaker 1: those in the colony of themselves didn't need any advice
Speaker 1: from the company or anyone else. How to respond, the
Speaker 1: governor declared, quotes, our first work is the expulsion of
Speaker 1: savages to gain free range of the country. Or it
Speaker 1: is infinitely better to have no heed than among us
Speaker 1: who had best were but as borns in our sides,
Speaker 1: than to be at peace and league with them, end quote.
Speaker 1: During the summer and fall, raiding parties were now sent
Speaker 1: out against all the local tribes Bohatan bunkies, Waynox Chicka monkeys, queenahawks,
Speaker 1: warn O sox nasamons to revenge their cruel deeds and
Speaker 1: these raids, the English once again applied the tactics used
Speaker 1: before by Dale and Gates. They sailed freely up and
Speaker 1: down the rivers along the way, destroying Indian villages and
Speaker 1: burning fields after taking corn and other cromps for their part.
Speaker 1: Employing a hit and run approach also developed in the
Speaker 1: previous war, the Bahatans continued what they were doing, picking
Speaker 1: off settlers whenever the opportunity arose in combat. When the
Speaker 1: two sides did actually meet, the casualties were relatively light.
Speaker 1: Indian warriors were very good now at avoiding pitched battles
Speaker 1: in open country, and when they were confronted, English attackers
Speaker 1: were simply too armored to be dented even by Indian bowmen. Now,
Speaker 1: during the winter of sixteen twenty two to sixteen twenty three,
Speaker 1: the colony's second starving time Openox strategy appeared to have
Speaker 1: a chance of success. I mean, we can't forget for
Speaker 1: a moment. Even though there are more English than there
Speaker 1: were in sixteen oh nine sixteen ten, the reality is
Speaker 1: Openox warriors had destroyed the vast majority of the colonist's
Speaker 1: food supplies. They were still extremely vulnerable during that winter.
Speaker 1: In fact, so many English described that it was called
Speaker 1: the quote fearfulest age that ever Christians lived in end quote.
Speaker 1: I will say, as someone who has been doing a
Speaker 1: history podcast for the better part of a decade, now,
Speaker 1: that is quite the statement, because we've got lots of
Speaker 1: history to declare that this is actually or that is
Speaker 1: actually or that one is actually the most fearful time
Speaker 1: that anyone's ever lived in. I can tick off a
Speaker 1: few black plague, mongol invasions, any siege. Literally, if you're
Speaker 1: in the inside of any siege. Ever, that one leads
Speaker 1: the list now. The decisive battle of the war finally
Speaker 1: took place in July of sixteen twenty four. It's not big.
Speaker 1: Wyatt had about sixty men in armor and sailed up
Speaker 1: the Punky River, where he was confronted by about eight
Speaker 1: hundred bowmen and an unspecified number of allies. Both sides
Speaker 1: fought with incredible determination, the Indians to defend their villages
Speaker 1: and a huge quantity of corn, and they also fought
Speaker 1: to defend their reputation as the elite elite of the
Speaker 1: Bahatan warriors. But eventually eliteness and courage counted for nothing
Speaker 1: up against guns and steel. The Indians could not make
Speaker 1: a dent in the English formations, and eventually, after suffering
Speaker 1: heavy losses, were compelled to retire. The English, protected by
Speaker 1: their armor, suffered only light casualties. Whether or not Opanak
Speaker 1: was president at the defeat of his men, we don't know.
Speaker 1: In the past he avoided exposing his warriors to the
Speaker 1: murderous fire of English muskets and frontal assaults, and yet
Speaker 1: on this occasion, the opportunity to inflict a major defeat
Speaker 1: on the colonists and obtain their weapons was probably just
Speaker 1: too tempting for him to resist. From this point of view,
Speaker 1: it's even possible that he planned the confrontation in an
Speaker 1: elaborate ambush, anticipating that the English would sooner or later
Speaker 1: invade their territories and carry off their corn. They had
Speaker 1: no choice. The various tribes banded together and gathered a
Speaker 1: huge force to meet them, confident as they were in
Speaker 1: their numbers that they would win. But either way, the
Speaker 1: defeat of the assembled tribesmen was a major turning point
Speaker 1: in the conflict. Sporadic hostilities would continue for the next
Speaker 1: eight years, but Apuanok must have realized there was little
Speaker 1: hope now of expelling the colonists from his land. The
Speaker 1: defeat that day in July was the beginning of the
Speaker 1: end of the Bahatan Empire. Now. Even though the Bans
Speaker 1: and their allies had been defeated, without question, the most
Speaker 1: serious problem faced by the colonists as they tried to
Speaker 1: recover from the uprising was the heavy loss of new
Speaker 1: arrivals and planters through disease, sickness, and malnutrition. The company
Speaker 1: responded with vigor, sending hundreds of new arrivals to replace
Speaker 1: those killed in the attack. Or that died of scurvy,
Speaker 1: the bloody flux, and other diseases. Between the spring of
Speaker 1: sixteen twenty two and sixteen twenty three, the worst year
Speaker 1: the English had endured in Virginia. At least a thousand
Speaker 1: settlers perished, leaving the survivors fearful and traumatized. But one
Speaker 1: of the biggest concerns here was really about the consequences
Speaker 1: of returning to the way that it had been done before.
Speaker 1: As new settlers came in, the company encouraged and permitted
Speaker 1: them to live on plantations at vast distances from one another.
Speaker 1: The only benefit of the uprising had been to draw
Speaker 1: the planters back in together for better protection. The company
Speaker 1: didn't care about any of that. The company cared about profit,
Speaker 1: and that meant putting as much of the Chesapeake Bay
Speaker 1: land into cultivation as possible, which meant spreading out. If
Speaker 1: a couple thousand people died as a result down the way, well,
Speaker 1: you know, that's just the cost of doing business. Now. Ever,
Speaker 1: since Edwin Sandy's election to the position of treasurer in
Speaker 1: the company in April sixteen nineteen, and he replaced Thomas Smith,
Speaker 1: who we know before, but his election is important why
Speaker 1: because at that point there's massive divisions and fault lines
Speaker 1: showing up within the company, and this is ultimately what's
Speaker 1: going to spell the downfall of the Virginia Company. That's
Speaker 1: guided our story all the way through our Jamestown story.
Speaker 1: Arc here against the backdrop of bitter internal feuding with
Speaker 1: the company, news arrived in London in the spring of
Speaker 1: sixteen twenty three of the terrible loss of life in
Speaker 1: the colony during the winter, and so one of the
Speaker 1: factions within the company wrote a petition to the King
Speaker 1: asking for a formal investigation into the company. The allegations
Speaker 1: of company mismanaged were frequently exaggerated, but there could be
Speaker 1: little doubt that cumulatively, quite frankly, they added up to
Speaker 1: a crushing indictment of company policy. For four years that
Speaker 1: the company had been in direct control, thousands of poorly
Speaker 1: provisioned settlers had been sent to their deaths. The company
Speaker 1: had gone bankrupt multiple times in efforts to create a
Speaker 1: diversified economy and failed completely. By the summer of sixteen
Speaker 1: twenty three, the colony was in a weak and miserable condition.
Speaker 1: According to one report the Court of the King's Bench
Speaker 1: that required the Company to provide reasons immediately why it
Speaker 1: should not surrender its rights to the colony forthwith. And
Speaker 1: so it was the Virginia Company than not the Colony
Speaker 1: that collapsed. When James the First died suddenly in late
Speaker 1: March sixteen twenty five, it was left to his son,
Speaker 1: Charles the First to determine the fate of Virginia. The
Speaker 1: company was disbanded. In its place, Virginia would be run
Speaker 1: by a combination of royal governors and local house suburgenses.
Speaker 1: But that's all the story for another day. I think
Speaker 1: what the story of Jamestown teaches us more than anything else,
Speaker 1: is the power of perseverance, in particular the power of
Speaker 1: the English to be able to just simply feed more
Speaker 1: and more settlers into what looked like a disastrous situation.
Speaker 1: In the end, their numbers stabilized, and as we will
Speaker 1: find out in future episodes, while Jamestown never grew to
Speaker 1: a metropolis, those first settlers who arrived in sixteen oh seven,
Speaker 1: they took the first steps towards massive English colonization in Virginia,
Speaker 1: and that is what matters for the future. Now next week,
Speaker 1: I'm actually going to shift our gaze to the north, because,
Speaker 1: as I'm sure many of us are aware, Virginia is
Speaker 1: not the only English colony to take root on the
Speaker 1: eastern seaboard of what is today the United States. To
Speaker 1: the north, a group of separatists that we call the
Speaker 1: Pilgrims are going to establish their own colony, not were
Speaker 1: they intended to, which was actually Virginia, but far far
Speaker 1: to the north and a place we call Plymouth.