University of Virginia Library

HISTORY OF VIRGINIA

CHAPTER I

MOTIVES BEHIND THE COLONIZATION
OF VIRGINIA

Far removed from the impulse of mere adventure, which
had always been a powerful influence with the Anglo-Saxon
people in their migrations, was the spirit which led persons
of that race to cast a lustful eye upon the North American
continent long before any part of its soil had been taken up
by Englishmen. Being a people of imperturbable common
sense then as now, the supreme motive which governed them,
in their earliest explorations in those remote regions, was of
a thoroughly robust and practical nature. It was only to be
expected that the reports, exaggerated in the transmission, of
the incredible wealth drawn by the Spaniards from the mines
of Peru and Mexico would have inflamed to fever pitch the
cupidity of a daring and enterprising trading folk like the
Englishmen of the sixteenth century. It was the hope of
discovering gold and silver that chiefly prompted the first
adventurers to set out for that shadowy land, which Elizabeth,
with a splendid royal egotism, had named Virginia, in
commemoration of her own immaculate state.

The most extravagant and intoxicating impression of the
richness of this untouched soil in the precious metals prevailed
in the English public mind. "I tell thee," says one of the
characters in the contemporary drama of Westward Ho, "gold
is more plentiful in Virginia than copper is with us. All
their dripping pans and chamber-pots are of pure gold, and

all the chains with which they chain up the streets are massive
gold. All the prisoners they take are fettered in gold; and for
rubies and diamonds, they go forth in holidays and gather
them by the seashore to hang on their children's coats and
stick in their children's caps, as commonly as our children
wear saffron, gilt brooches, and groats."

Ralph Lane, after picturing, in enthusiastic language, the
beautiful flowers, the lofty trees, the fat soil, the abundance
of wild fruits, the infinite varieties of bird and animal life, to
be seen along the coast which he explored as the admiral of
Raleigh's first fleet, regretfully acknowledged that the finding
of a gold mine in that bountiful region would be more effective
than all nature's wonderful, spontaneous gifts, so conspicuous
there, to bring it into request as a site for an English settlement.
And another writer of those times, equally shrewd,
confirmed Lane's opinion by asserting that, for every subscriber
to an expedition to be dispatched to that as yet unused
land, before gold or silver had been unearthed there, one hundred
would spring forward to put down their money for a
second expedition, should the first announce on its return
that these metals had actually been found.

Hardly less effective in promoting the earliest exploration
of Virginia was the eagerness to discover a new, a nearer, and
a more convenient route to the South Sea. This intense
desire had its origin in the predominant trading instincts of
the English people. The Orient was the factory for all those
costly fabrics, and its soil the hotbed of all those rare spices,
which the pampered sense of luxury in European society was
demanding with ever growing insistence. The marine highway
around the Cape of Good Hope was in the grip of the
Portuguese; and apart from their hostility to the intrusion
of rivals in those seas, this ocean-road was disheartening
because of its extraordinary length. The route overland trod
by the caravans of Venetian and Genoese merchants, through
so many opulent centuries, was now constantly open to interruption
by the sudden and ruthless dashes of the wild horsemen

of the desert. Painful voyages beyond the North Cape
had disclosed the insuperable impediments in iceberg and
icefloe that blocked those somber waters throughout the year.
Was it practicable to find a passage for the coveted products
of the Far East through some navigable channel that pierced
the region of the still unknown Virginia? If the existence of
such a channel could be proven beyond doubt, then that region
would at once offer a commercial advantage to the English
people, which would more than compensate for its possible
barrenness in gold and silver, and other natural products
smaller in value.

The information which the Indians on the Virginian coast
gave Ralph Lane created the impression, when reported in
England, that the Roanoke River had its principal fountain
in hills bordering on the waters that spread away to the
islands off the Asiatic continent. Captain Newport, as we
shall see, pushed the prow of his vessel up the Powhatan to
the falls, in the hope that, by this channel, the long desired
goal beyond the vast South Sea might ultimately be safely
reached. And Captain John Smith, and his brave companions,
in their open boat threaded the morasses of the Chickahominy
under the alluring influence of the same will o' the wisp.

The Indians soon detected this obsession in the minds of
the English, and craftily encouraged it, as if in a mood of
sardonic and revengeful humor, by asserting, with solemn
positiveness, that the distance to those remote oceans could
be traversed in a journey of a few days. It was a statement
of this kind by the savages which led Captain Newport, during
his second visit to Virginia, to construct a barge that could
be borne on the shoulders of his men across the high neck of
land that was expected to confront them when the watershed
between the fountains of the Powhatan and the fountains of
the streams flowing westward had been reached. This burning
desire to discover a passage through Virginia was kept
alive during many years by the practical interest which the
East India Company showed in the success of the earliest

settlements. As late as 1621, it was a cause for congratulation
among the members of that powerful association, and also
among the leading English merchants in general, that a treaty
of peace had been made with the Indians, since it was anticipated
that this event would allow the renewal of the quest
for the water highway to the South Seas, without the risk, as
formerly, of an assault upon the explorers by those swarthy
warriors. And even in 1669, two generations after Jamestown
was founded, Governor Berkeley planned for an expedition
that was not to halt until its members had debouched
from the forests upon the shores of that mighty world of
waters.

The third motive in which the settlement of Virginia had
its beginning was less speculative in its character than the
possible discovery of gold or the South Sea passage-way.
During the sixteenth century, and in the early part of the
seventeenth, the English people were dependent upon the
natural resources of other nations for many materials which
could not be dispensed with without serious damage, if not
destruction, to their commercial welfare. All kinds of naval
stores, as well as glass and soap-ashes, were imported from
Russia and Poland; copper from Sweden; iron, figs and raisins
from Spain; wine and salt from France; silk and velvet
from Italy. The acquisition of these varied articles was made
precarious by the constant possibility of numerous casualties
and interruptions. There were perils of ocean storms and
ruthless piracy, the rivalry of other trading countries, the
occurrence of wars, and the imposition of unreasonable foreign
port duties. So heavy and dark was the cloud of these
drawbacks that it was apprehended in 1609 that the English
merchants would become disheartened, and cease to try to
procure the numerous articles which they had been bringing
into the Kingdom from abroad at so much risk to their own
fortunes. This fear was especially pertinent to copper, steel,
lumber, masts, yards, cordage, and soap-ashes. The reports
brought back by Sir Humphrey Gilbert and Captain Ralph

Lane gave a clear idea of the wealth in these natural products
which the Atlantic Coast, from Newfoundland to the modern
Carolinas, had to offer. That coast was covered with magnificent
forests of pine and oak; it was overrun here and there
with grape-vines and drug-bearing shrubs and silk grass; its
thickets teemed with animals clothed in the most valuable
furs; whilst the seas off shore swarmed with the noblest
varieties of eatable fish. There were perceptible outcroppings
on every side of the most precious metals. Rev. Daniel Price
summed up the natural gifts of this virgin country by asserting,
in the course of one of his sermons, that it offered many
signs of being the equal of Tyre for dyes, Basan for woods,
Persia for oils, Arabia for spices, Spain for silks, Narsis for
shipping, Bonoma for fruit, and by tillage, Babylon for corn.

The fourth motive lurked in the mistaken opinion held in
that age that the commercial situation of a nation was one
of great peril if the balance of trade was against it. In selling
their commodities to the English, the people of the different
continental lands refused to accept merchandise in exchange.
Coin alone would be received, and the constant drain upon the
metallic resources of the kingdom which resulted was an
unceasing source of apprehension to the statesmen of England.
If a new fountain of supply could be created for English
merchants and manufacturers by the erection of English
colonies, then there would be no unfavorable balance of trade
at all. An equal exchange of colonial products for English
goods, and English goods for colonial products, would be the
permanent status of the commercial intercourse between
mother and daughter. There would be no necessity whatever
for passing a single shilling by either, and, in consequence,
England's hoard of coin would be subjected to no depletion
at all, to the immense advantage of that country in the view
of its leading economists.

The founding of new communities in the Far West would
arouse a greater demand for English shipping by providing
a larger number of cargoes for transportation. Time would

be certain to increase that number, and also to add to their
bulk. The rivalry of the Dutch, which had already begun to
damage the prosperity of English shipping, could be entirely
shut out of this trade. A new school for the training of
English sailors would be brought in existence, and the ability
of the English Kingdom to defend itself against attack would
thus be sensibly increased.

A sixth motive lay in the ample outlet for the surplus
population of the English parishes which colonization would
throw open. It was thought in those times that the terrible
plagues, which so often decimated the inhabitants of the
towns, had their seeds in the overcrowded houses and alleys.
Thousands of children were turned loose in the narrow,
undrained streets to become vicious and riotous as they grew
older, or to burden the parish revenues with excessive charges
for the care of the diseased. With an opportunity opened up
to them to find work beyond the Atlantic, under more wholesome
skies and more favorable economic conditions, they stood
a good chance of growing into useful and thrifty citizens and
loyal subjects of the crown.

A seventh motive was entirely political in character. Colonization
of that remote coast with all of its extraordinary
elements of natural wealth, would put a bit in the arrogant
mouth of the Spanish monarch, the most formidable and the
most sinister enemy of England in that age, and the one who
aroused the most constant suspicion and apprehension in the
minds of English statesmen. An English community in that
region would bar the further spread of the Spanish Power
in the West; and by its nearness to the ocean route by which
the Spanish communications with South America were kept
open, would create a strategic naval advantage over the
detested enemy capable of being turned to quick use in case
of actual hostilities.

Finally, there was an eighth motive for colonization which
made a particular appeal in those unskeptical times. Beneath
all that commercial and adventurous spirit which then prevailed

so universally, there was a religious consciousness
which colored more or less every great public movement. An
honest interest was felt in the conversion to Christianity of
the aboriginal people, who were known, even before the first
expedition, to occupy that distant country. This interest was
expressed clearly in the letters-patent of 1606. The thoughtful
instructions which were drawn up for the guidance of the
voyagers to Virginia in the course of that year closed with
the pious invocation that the President and Council of the
projected colony should see to it that the word and service of
God were "preached, planted, and used" among the neighboring
Indians, and that these heathens were treated "with
unfailing kindness and helpfulness" by the white settlers.