The center of gravity in the Colony in the 1611-16 period was upriver in the Henrico and Bermuda City area. In Rolfe's report of 1616 "Bermuda Nether Hundred" was by far the most active and most heavily populated area. Its 119 people was much in excess of the 50 at Jamestown which stood second among the 6 populated points. Bermuda's population then embraced chiefly the members of the Corporation although there were 17 "farmers" and a few "who labor generally for the Colony, amongst whom, some make pitch and Tarr, Pott-ashes, Chark-coale, and other workes, and are maintayned by the magazin, but are not of the Corporation." Capt. George Yeardley, who was deputy governor and deputy marshal, "for the most part" lived here as did Alexander Whitaker who had the "ministerall chardge."
The "Cities of Henrico & Charles [Bermuda]" were the best fortified points in the Colony standing "upon high ground the cliffes beinge steepe but of a claye mould the ayre good and wholesome." Also "about those places [there were] good quantities of cleared groundes." Fortifications were by "trench and pallizado" with "great timber" blockhouses athwart "passages and for scouring the pallizadoes." There, too, was "access to shipping."
Much official business was transacted here where the Governor was in residence much of the time. Courts, on occasion, convened here and official proclamations and documents were issued from the hand of various governors and from the pen of the Colony's secretary. Such was the commission to William Cradock made "provost marshall of Bermuda City and of all the Hundred thereto belonging" from Samuel Argall "Admirall and for the time present principal Governor of Virginia" issued at "Bermuda City" on February 20, 1618 over John Rolfe's signature as "Secretary and Recorder."
It appears to have been Argall that did much to return the emphasis to Jamestown and away from Bermuda. In 1617 he wrote that he preferred Jamestown and proposed to strengthen it as a good healthy site. Charles City remained active, however, and the largest seat in the Colony. In 1619 Samuel Sharpe and Samuel Jordan represented the Bermuda area in the Assembly. It is not known whether they voted for the measure that required all persons from Charles City and other points who were going down river below the Capital to touch "first here at James Citty to knowe whether the Governor will command him any service." By this time Bermuda Hundred and Bermuda City were most often designated "Charles City and Hundred."
It was in 1621 that the Company undertook to establish and build the East India School and to locate this "free schoole in Virginia" at Charles City. A grant of 1,000 acres was set aside and a few workmen were sent to the Colony. For a time it looked as if this center to encourage the "rudiments of learning" and "principles of Religion, civility of life, and humane learning" would materialize. It did not, however, survive the massacre. When the workmen reached Virginia, they were placed among the College tenants and later transferred to Martin's Hundred.
The massacre of 1622 appeared to have been devastating in the Bermuda area and led to its temporary abandonment. The list of those killed is, however, rather light in comparison with settlements such as Martin's Hundred. There were twenty-seven at four specified points. It leads one to doubt that a full list of names was submitted.
Thought soon turned to a repair of the damages. It was judged "very necessarie to raise new workes especiallie at Henrico & Charles Citty" which according to one report were "utterlie demolished by the Indians." This destruction, at least some of it, followed the abandonment of the posts. Houses were burned and "poultry, hoggs, cowes, goates, and horses" were killed in number "to the greate griefe as well as ruine of the olde inhabitants...."
There was a return to the land in some large measure after the massacre. In 1624 a list of 41 residents was given for "the Neck of Land" in Charles City Corporation and the census of 1625 showed 44 in this old Bermuda Hundred area. In 1624 Luke Boys and Thomas Harris sat in the Assembly at Jamestown and may have helped to enact the measure that required "courtes [to be] kept once a moneth in the Corporations of Charles Cittie & Elizabeth Cittie" to handle cases involving petty offenses and sums up to 100 pounds of tobacco. The muster of January 24, 1625 shows the "Neck-of-Land" to have been very well established. Its 44 people had 16 houses and good supplies of corn, fish, livestock, poultry and arms. In May, 1625, ten individual grants (ranging from 50 to 1,150 acres and totaling 2,900) were listed as located here in addition to the corporation and common land.
At the time of the massacre Abraham Piercey had a plantation adjacent to the Appomattox River and, perhaps, somewhat upstream from the James. Here "at Master Abraham Pierse his plantation some five miles off the Colledge people" four persons, 3 men and a boy were killed. Piercey, a prominent merchant, named to the Council in 1624, may have laid out his acres here, "in lieu of his Long service done the Company," as early as 1620. The holding, in May, 1625, was defined as 1,150 acres obtained by patent. A place name here "Peircies Toyle" Creek very likely is a result of his activity in this area.