["Bermuda Citty" (Charles City) Incorporation (19)]
In 1612 Marshal Thomas Dale drove the Indians from their habitation about the "curls" of the James and the Appomattox, the river that bears their name. Seeing it to be good ground, he determined to possess it and to establish a settlement here. As Ralph Hamor relates: "I proceed to our next and most hopefull habitation, whether we respect commodity, or security (which we principally aime at) against forraigne designes, and invasions, I meane the Bermuda Citty, begun about Christmas last [1613]...." The initial settlement was near the Appomattox, on its west side, some five miles from Henrico but 14 by the circuitous river route.
Dale was very hopeful of the "new Bermudas" and proceeded to annex "to the freedom, and corporation ... many miles of champion, and woodland, in several Hundreds" on both sides of the James. These Hamor enumerated as the "[1] Upper and [2] Nether Hundreds, [3] Rochdale Hundred [4] Wests Sherley Hundred, and [5] Diggs his Hundred." Evidently a settlement was begun in each of these areas all of which kept active till the massacre.
It was in the Nether Hundred, which became Bermuda Hundred and later the "Neck-of-Land" in Charles City, that settlement was first initiated "for there [according to Hamor in 1614] lyeth the most convenient quantity of corne ground." With a "pale" from river to river but two miles in length it was possible to secure some eight miles of "exceeding good corne ground." Houses were built one-half mile from each other on "the verge of the river." In 1614 these were described as "faire houses, already builded." There were others as well totaling "not so few as fifty." Gates' lieutenant, George Yeardley, was then in charge.
This plantation, just west of Nether (Bermuda) Hundred, was gotten underway about the same time. A "crosse pale," about four miles long, was, in 1614, already built "with bordering houses along the pale." It was in this Hundred that the "hogges, and other cattell" had a 20 mile circuit in which to graze securely.
The "chiefe Citty," when Hamor left, was not yet ready. Its construction, at a point across the Appomattox from Bermuda Hundred, while begun, was not pushed until the fall of 1614. Here Bermuda City was fashioned to be "an impregnable retreat, against any forraign invasion, how powerfull so ever." This became the fourth and last of the public, or general, corporations taking its place with James City, Kecoughtan, and Henrico. Within a few years its name would change from Bermuda to Charles City to honor Prince Charles as Henrico had been named for Prince Henry his brother, both being royal sons. Hamor, in 1614, spoke of "Bermuda Citty," evidently meaning to include Bermuda Hundred as well, as "a business of greatest hope, ever begunne in our territories their." At the same time he mentions the special "pattent," or agreement, made between Dale and the people there, "termes and conditions they voluntarily have undertaken."
When Dale assigned small parcels of ground to planters for their own use prior to, or in, 1613, he did much for the Colony. It stopped some of the drain on the common "magazine" and allowed room for individual profit and enterprise. It also freed the colonists from Company service except in emergencies and for one month a year. In making this arrangement, however, he excepted the Bermuda Incorporation people with whom he made a special contract. They were bound to three years of almost continuous public service in the Bermuda City project "before they have their freedom." At the end of their term, however, they claimed their rights of freedom and the Governor, then Samuel Argall, could not deny their claim. On November 30, 1617, he reported in reply to the "citizens of Bermuda hund[red]" that he would "not infringe their rights being a member of that City himself" but begged that the Colony servants "may stay their this year." Evidently these Bermuda people began to enjoy the rights and freedoms that did not become general until the Company division and "Greate Charter" which evolved in 1618 and 1619.