During the interval of tranquillity procured by the alliance with Powhatan, an important change was made in the state of the colony. Hitherto no right of private property in land had been established. The fields that were cleared had been cultivated by the joint labor of the colonists; their product was carried to the common storehouses, and distributed weekly to every family, according to its number and exigencies. However suitable such an arrangement might have been deemed for the commencement of a colony, experience proved that it was decidedly opposed to its progressin a more advanced state. In order to remedy this, Sir Thomas Dale divided a considerable portion of the land into small lots, and granted one of these to each individual in full property. From the moment that industry had the certain prospect of a recompense, it advanced rapidly. The articles of primary necessity were cultivated with so much attention as secured the means of subsistence; and such schemes of improvement were formed as prepared the way for the introduction of opulence into the colony.
The increased industry of the colonists was not long before it found a new and somewhat singular channel—the cultivation of tobacco; indeed so inconsiderately and exclusively were their energies directed to that object at this time, that the most fatal consequences were rendered almost inevitable. The land which ought to have been reserved for raising provisions, and even the streets of Jamestown, were planted with tobacco. Various regulations were framed to restrain this ill-directed activity; but, from eagerness for present gain, the planters disregarded every admonition. Tobacco, however, had many trials to pass through before it reached its present established station. King James declared himself its open enemy, and drew against it his royal pen. In the work which he entitled ‘Counterblast to Tobacco,’ he poured the most bitter reproaches on this ‘vile and nauseous weed.’ He followed it up by a proclamation to restrain the disorderly trading in tobacco, as tending to a general and new corruption of both men’s bodies and minds. Yet tobacco, like other proscribed objects, throve under persecution, and achieved a final triumph over all its enemies.
Financially, the colony was now in a flourishing state; politically, it was badly administered. Its president was captain Argal, a rigid master, and absurd tyrant. One of his edicts is worth quoting: it ordered ‘That every person should go to church on Sundays and holidays, or be kept confined the night succeeding the offence, and be a slave to the colony for the following week; for the second offence, a slave for a month; and for the third, a year and a day.’ From the representations made to him of the misrule of this man, lord Delaware embarked a second time for America; but died on the voyage, in or near the bay which bears his name. His death was the signal for renewed outrages on the part of the colonial tyrant, and the office of captain-general was transferred to Mr. Yeardley. He arrived in April, and immediately convoked a colonial assembly, which met at Jamestown on the 19th of June, and was the first representative legislature which assembled in the transatlantic states.
The full tide of prosperity was now enjoyed by the colony. Its numbers greatly increased, and its settlements became widely extended. At peace with the Indians, it reposed in perfect security, and realized the happiness its fortunate situation and favorable prospects afforded, without suspecting the sudden and terrible reverse of fortune it was doomed to experience. Opechankanough, the successor of Powhatan, had adopted with ardor all the early enmity of his native tribe against the settlers; and he formed one of those dreadful schemes, so frequent in Indian annals, of exterminating the whole race at one blow. Such was the fidelity of his people, and so deep the power of savage dissimulation, that this dire scheme was matured without the slightest intimation reaching the English, who neither attended to the movements of the Indians, nor suspectedtheir machinations; and though surrounded by a people whom they might have known from experience to be both artful and vindictive, they neglected those precautions for their own safety that were requisite in such circumstances.
All the tribes in the vicinity of the English settlements were successively gained, except those on the eastern shore, from whom, on account of their peculiar attachment to their new neighbors, every circumstance that might discover what they intended was carefully concealed. To each tribe its station was allotted, and the part it was to act prescribed. On the morning of the day consecrated to vengeance, each was at the place of rendezvous appointed; and at mid-day, the moment they had previously fixed for this execrable deed, the Indians, raising a universal yell, rushed at once on the English in all their scattered settlements, butchering men, women, and children, with undistinguishing fury, and every aggravation of brutal outrage and savage cruelty. In one hour, three hundred and forty-seven persons were cut off, almost without knowing by whose hands they fell. Indeed, the universal destruction of the colonists was prevented only by the consequences of an event, which perhaps appeared but of little importance in the colony at the time when it took place—the conversion of an Indian to the Christian faith. On the night before the massacre, this man was made privy to it by his own brother; but as soon as his brother left him he revealed the dreadful secret to an English gentleman in whose house he was residing, who immediately carried the tidings to Jamestown, and communicated them to some of the nearest settlers, scarcely in time to prevent the last hour of the perfidious truce from being the last hour of their lives.
A bloody and exterminating war followed, in which the English were victorious, but by which they were much reduced in numbers. Famine came in the train of battle, and made additional devastation. A writ of quo warranto was issued against the company, under whose rule these calamities had been suffered. It was brought to trial in the court of king’s bench, and their charter was vacated. A new commission was issued for the government of Virginia, in which the republican tendencies of the previous government were duly restrained.
Charles I. on the demise of his predecessor reduced the colony under the immediate direction of the crown, appointing a governor and council, and ordering all patents and processes to issue in his own name. His first appointment of governor elevated Sir George Yeardley to that office, but he died early, and was succeeded by the despotic Sir John Harvey, who managed to make himself perfectly odious to the people whom he was sent to govern. The public mind became finally so much excited, that even the despotic Charles thought it prudent to recall his minion, and Sir William Berkeley was appointed to succeed him.
Sir William was as eminent, as his predecessor had been deficient, in all popular virtues; and he was the bearer of instructions which directed him to restore the colonial assembly, and invite it to enact a body of laws for the province. Thus unexpectedly the colonists were restored to their old system of freedom, and the consequence was universal gratitude and joy. The king became universally popular, and during the civil wars, the colony continued faithful to the royal cause.
The next incident of great interest in the history of Virginia, is therebellion consequent on the passage of the navigation act; by which the plan of monopolizing to England the commerce of the colonies was perfected and reduced into a complete system.
This oppressive system excited great indignation in Virginia, where the extensive commerce and pre-eminent loyalty of the people rendered the pressure of the burden more severe, and the infliction of it more exasperating. The excitement became general, and was worked up to such a pitch, that nothing was wanting to precipitate the people into the most desperate acts, but some leader qualified to unite and to direct their operations. Such a leader they found in Nathaniel Bacon. He was a lawyer, educated in London, and was appointed a member of the council a short time after his emigration to Virginia. Young, bold, ambitious, with an engaging address, and commanding eloquence, he harangued the colonists upon their grievances; inflamed their resentment against their rulers; declaimed particularly against the languor with which the war, then existing with the Indians, had been conducted; and such was the effect of his representations, that he was elected general by the people. To give some color of legitimacy to the authority he had acquired, and perhaps expecting to precipitate matters to the extremity which his interest required that they should speedily reach, he applied to the governor for an official confirmation of the popular election, and offered instantly to march against the common enemy. This Sir William Berkeley firmly refused, and issued a proclamation commanding the dispersion of the insurgents. Bacon had advanced too far to recede; and he hastened, at the head of six hundred armed followers, to Jamestown, surrounded the house where the governor and council were assembled, and repeated his demand.