First charter of Virginia, 1606.
The "Sea of Verrazano".
It was very soon after this despatch, on April 10, O. S., that James I. issued the charter under which England's first permanent colony was established. This memorable document begins by defining the territorial limits of Virginia, which is declared to extend from the 34th to the 45th parallel of latitude, and from the seashore one hundred miles inland. In a second charter, issued three years later, Virginia is described as extending from sea to sea, that is, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific. It is not likely that the king and his advisers understood the westward extension of the grant, as here specified, to be materially different from that mentioned in the first charter. The width of the continent between Chesapeake Bay and the valley of the St. Lawrence was supposed to be no greater than from one to two hundred miles. It is true that before the middle of the sixteenth century the expeditions of Soto and Coronado had proved the existence of a continuous mass of land from Florida to California, but many geographers believed that this continental mass terminated at the 40th parallel or even some degrees lower, and that its northern coast was washed by an enormous bay of the Pacific Ocean, called on old maps the Sea of Verrazano. The coast land from Virginia to Labrador was regarded as a thin strip separating the two oceans after somewhat the same fashion as Central America, and hence the mouths and lower reaches of such broad rivers as the Hudson and the Delaware were mistaken for straits. After one has traced the slow development of knowledge through the curious mingling of fact with fancy in the maps of Baptista Agnese published in 1536, and that of Sebastian Münster in 1540, down to the map which Michael Lok made for Sir Philip Sidney in 1582, he will have no difficulty in understanding either the language of the early charters or the fact that such a navigator as Henry Hudson should about this time have entered New York harbour in the hope of coming out upon the Pacific Ocean within a few days. Without such study of the old maps the story often becomes incomprehensible.
Northern and southern limits of Virginia.
As for the northern and southern limits of Virginia, they were evidently prescribed with a view to arousing as little antagonism as possible on the part of Spain and France. Expressed in terms of the modern map, the 34th parallel cuts through the mouth of the Cape Fear River and passes just south of Columbia, the capital of South Carolina; while the 45th parallel is that which divides Vermont from Canada. English settlers were thus kept quite clear of the actual settlements of Spaniards in Florida, and would not immediately be brought into collision with the French friars and fur-traders who were beginning to find their way up the St. Lawrence.
The twin joint-stock companies, and the three zones.
The Virginia thus designated was to be open for colonization by two joint-stock companies, of which the immediate members and such as should participate with them in the enterprise should be called respectively the First Colony and the Second Colony. The First Colony was permitted to occupy the territory between the 34th and the 41st parallels, while the Second Colony was permitted to occupy the territory between the 38th and the 45th parallels. It will thus be observed that the strip between the 38th and 41st parallels was open to both, but it was provided that neither colony should make a plantation or settlement within a hundred miles of any settlement already begun by the other. The elaborate ingenuity of this arrangement is characteristic of James's little device-loving mind; its purpose, no doubt, was to quicken the proceedings by offering to reward whichever colony should be first in the field with a prior claim upon the intervening region. The practical result was the division of the Virginia territory into three strips or zones. The southern zone, starting from the coast comprised between the mouth of the Cape Fear River and the mouth of the Potomac, was secured to the First Colony. The northern zone, starting from the coast comprised between the Bay of Fundy and Long Island Sound, was secured to the Second Colony. The middle zone, from the lower reaches of the Hudson River down to the mouth of the Potomac, was left open to competition between the two, with a marked advantage in favour of the one that should first come to be self-supporting.
The three zones in American history.
It is a curious fact that, although the actual course taken by the colonization of North America was very different from what was contemplated in this charter, nevertheless the division of our territory into the three zones just mentioned has happened to coincide with a real and very important division that exists to-day. Of our original thirteen states, those of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut were founded in the northern zone, and within it their people have spread through central New York into the Far West. In the middle zone, with the exception of a few northerly towns upon the Hudson, were made the beginnings of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland. In the southern zone were planted Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia. Between the three groups the differences in local government have had much significance in the history of the American people. In the northern zone the township system of local government has prevailed, and in the southern zone the county system, while in the middle zone the mixed township-and-county system has exhibited various phases, here and there reaching a very high stage of development.[31]
Government of the two colonies.