On the death of Yeardley, John Harvey, who had been for several years a member of the council, and an extremely unpopular man, was nominated governor by the king; but as he was not then in the colony, some time elapsed before he appeared to assume his authority.
It was at this period that Lord Baltimore visited Virginia. He fled hither as a persecuted man, and was hospitably received; nor must it be forgotten that, as regarded the pilgrims of Plymouth rock, they were invited to leave that sterile and inhospitable region, and plant themselves in the milder regions of Delaware Bay. Puritanism was evidently at that time not persecuted in Virginia, though “needless novelties” in worship had been prohibited by law for some years.
In the autumn of 1629, Harvey, the new governor, arrived. He was unwelcome from various causes; he belonged to the faction to which Virginia ascribed her earliest sorrows; he had rendered himself extremely unpopular as a member of the council; besides which, it had been well pleasing to the colony that King James, on assuming supreme authority, had entrusted the government to impartial agents; but now the appointment of Harvey indicated a change of policy. His arrival among them was naturally cause neither of satisfaction nor of rejoicing, nor does he appear to have conciliated their favour. The older historians charge him with arbitrary and tyrannical conduct; yet it may be questionable whether he was quite deserving of the ill-will with which he was regarded, as the revised code of laws, which was published with consent of the governor and the council, neither abrogated nor abridged any of the civil rights of the colonists.
His administration, however, was disturbed by disputes respecting land-titles under the royal grants, and principally in consequence of the grant of Maryland to Lord Baltimore, which caused the first European blood to be shed by Europeans on the banks of the Chesapeake. Harvey not seconding the claims of Virginia against the royal grant, was considered by the colonists to have betrayed their interests; and full of indignation against him, they “thrust him out of his government,” says the old chronicle, and “appointed Captain John West governor in his stead till the king’s pleasure should be known.” Harvey consented to go to England to meet his accusers there, but, as might have been expected, no accusations would be received there against the man who had been merely acting according to royal instructions. The commission of accusation could not even obtain a hearing. Harvey returned to occupy his former post, and remained in office till 1639, when Sir Francis Wyatt succeeded him. Two years afterwards, Sir William Berkeley was appointed governor. The civil condition of Virginia was greatly improved; the laws and customs of England still further introduced; cruel punishments were abolished; old controversies adjusted; a more equitable system of taxation was introduced; taxes being assessed not in proportion to numbers, but “to men’s abilities and estates;” the rights of property and the freedom of industry were secured, so that Virginia enjoyed all the civil liberties which a more free form of government could have conferred. The Virginians seem early to have understood the true elements of political economy. In a petition addressed to England, in 1642, they asserted the necessity of the freedom of trade, “for freedom of trade,” say they, “is the blood and life of a commonwealth.” And as regarded self-government, they argued with the force of truth, “there is more likelihood that such as are acquainted with the clime and its accidents may, upon better grounds, prescribe our advantages, than such as sit at the helm in England.”
Spite of the liberality which had been exhibited in the colony towards diversities of religious opinion, which had led the excellent Whitaker to say, “let neither surplice nor subscription be spoken of here;” which had caused an invitation to the pilgrims of New Hampshire to remove within the precincts of Virginia; a spirit of intolerance was now manifested by the legislative assembly, and it was ordained that “no minister preach or teach except in conformity to the Church of England.” Whilst puritanism and republicanism were working together for the downfall of monarchy in England, Virginia showed the strongest attachment to the cause of episcopacy and royalty.
The hostility of the settlers against the natives remained year by year unabated. Twenty-one years after the massacre, it was enacted in the assembly that no terms of peace should be entertained with the Indians. Now, therefore, the Indians, hearing that troubles and dissensions were arising in England, resolved once more on a general massacre, hoping, that by destroying the corn-fields and cattle, they might cause any remnant who remained to perish by famine. The eighteenth of April was fixed upon as the fatal day; the attack commenced on the border frontiers; but the Indians themselves, filled as it were by a consciousness of their own weakness and dread of the consequences, had scarcely begun to shed blood when they fled. The number of victims was again about three hundred. The colonists roused themselves at once, and war commenced again vigorously against the Indians. The aged Opechancanough, the successor of Powhatan, was soon taken prisoner, and with his death peace was secured to the English.
This fierce warrior, and implacable enemy of the whites, was now nearly one hundred years of age, and his once stately form was wasted with the fatigues of war and bent with the weight of years. Unable to walk, says the historian of Virginia, he was carried from place to place by his followers. His flesh was almost wasted away from his bones, and his eyelids were so powerless, that he could only see when they were lifted by his followers.
After a long and rapid march, Sir William Berkeley, with a party of horse, surprised the aged warrior at some distance from his residence, and took him prisoner to Jamestown, where he was exhibited as an object of curiosity and of triumph to the victor. The old monarch of the forest, retaining a spirit unbroken by the decrepitude of the body, bore his calamities of fortune with a proud though melancholy mien. Hearing footsteps in the room where he lay, he requested his eyelids to be raised, when perceiving a crowd of spectators, he called for the governor, and upon his appearance said with calm dignity, “Had it been my fortune to have taken Sir William Berkeley prisoner, I would have scorned to have made a show of him.”
About a fortnight after the noble old chiefs capture, one of his guards, from private revenge, shot him in the back, and after languishing for some time of his wound, the old man died.
The Indians were completely subdued, and a cession of land was the terms on which peace was granted to the original possessors of the soil. The red man began to pass away from the precincts of the white. Within a short period, comparatively speaking, but few memorials of their former existence remained, saving the euphonious or sonorous names of rivers and mountains, the great imperishable features of nature, which thus became their monuments.