This 3rd post about Jamestown covers its growth as a town and how it evolved over the years as it became the first capital of Virginia. We’re back in the Archaearium, an archaeological museum of early Jamestown history.
The museum explores both the James Fort excavations and those of Jamestown. The Statehouse, the first building built specifically for government in English North America, was built on this location in the 1660s.
tobacco as a crop in Virginia
At least 2000 years ago, tobacco arrived in Virginia from South America where it was first cultivated for ceremonial use. American Indians used tobacco for recreation and religious purposes.
When the first settlers came to Virginia, smoking tobacco in clay pipes was commonplace in England. Explorers introduced the practice to the English after they observed the American Indians using pipes on Roanoke Island in 1585.
A year later in 1612, Rolfe shipped 4 barrels of his tobacco to England, and shortly after the “golden leaf” became the colony’s most successful crop. From 1614 to 1622, English settlers built tobacco plantations all along the James River Valley on lands taken from the Powhatans (sounds like trouble to me).
But preparing and planting fields, tending them, and then harvesting the crops required hard physical labor that was first done by indentured servants. As demand for tobacco increased, settlements spread west and north to meet the demand, and the need for a larger labor force grew.
Beginning in 1619, more laborers were needed, and a small number of African slaves (more about them later) supplemented the work force.
Mixed fortunes came out of the rapid expansion of tobacco cultivation in Virginia. With the high price of tobacco on the London market during the 1620s, planters who had land and laborers saw a high profit. However, poor indentured servants, making up the bulk of the labor force, along with enslaved Africans and the Powhatans—whose prime lands along the James River Valley had been taken from them—did not prosper.
Tobacco isn’t good for even the most fertile soil. Every 3 or 4 years, planters required fresh acres for their crops, triggering conflict and violence between them and the Powhatans.
Small planters and ex-servants, however, became impoverished. In the 1660s, tobacco, by far the colony’s leading export, was described as “worth nothing.” With the continuing decline in tobacco prices, together with planters’ grievances about the high taxation rates and corrupt leaders, led people on both sides of the issue to the brink of revolt.
1619 – a pivotal year
Change 1: This is the year of huge political changes starting in Virginia. The Great Reforms of 1619 led to the creation of the first democratic form of government in America. A series of instructions issued by the Virginia Company of London to the Governor, Sir George Yeardley, led to the introduction of the rule of law (based on English practice and precedent), protections for individual rights and private property, and the establishment of a General Assembly that represented the colonists’ interests.
In July, the House of Burgesses meets for the first time in the Jamestown church; its first law requires tobacco to be sold for at least 3 shillings per pound.
Change 2: In the summer of 1619, two English privateers attacked a Spanish slave ship and took around 60 Africans. The ships arrived in Virginia, and about 30 of the Africans were sold for food. This was the beginning of slavery in Virginia and the colonies—all because of the need for strong, cheap labor for growing tobacco.
The death by starvation of many indentured workers (bound to 7- to 9-year terms of labor) created a labor crisis. The company found it hard to recruit people to a life that’s certain to be hard and brief. Hence the 3rd change in 1619.
Change 3: In 1919 the Assembly recommended bringing unmarried women and poor children to the colony to boost the population. The next year, some 90 young women arrive in Virginia to make wives for planters and stabilize the colony with families; the Virginia Company prices them at “one hundredth and fiftie [pounds] of the best leafe Tobacco.” Finally, civilization will come to Virginia! (My little joke.)
Many of the punitive laws were relaxed for the indentured servants so that when they completed their terms of indenture, they could purchase their own land.
1620s
In 1621, the Virginia Company sent William Claiborne to survey land grants resulting from the headright system (a legal grant of land to settlers that originated in Jamestown). He soon began laying out lots to the east of James Fort that became known as “New Towne” and what we know as Jamestown.
Lots were purchased to build homes and businesses, including a pottery shop and a gunsmith. Ships from England brought settlers seeking opportunities and wealth. These settlers brought with them tools, fruit trees, pets, and domestic animals, including peacocks.
In 1624, King James I revoked the charter of the Virginia Company and made Virginia a royal colony. The General Assembly remained in existence to the relief of the colonists.
1630s
In the early 1630s, former sea captain Sir John Harvey promoted Jamestown development by pushing through legislation to make Jamestown the sole port of entry for ships arriving in Virginia. He also realized that with so many men planting tobacco for quick cash, other businesses that would support a town weren’t being established.
Remember, this colony was founded by men who wanted to make money for England and for themselves. Creating a city wasn’t high on their to-do list.
Sir Harvey served as governor of Virginia from 1628 to 1640 and requested the London’s Privy Council to send tradesmen to Virginia, including tanners, brick workers, and shipwrights.
In the following picture of Harvey’s land was a brick kiln (center, back structure) with its waste pit (in front of the kiln) brewery (right of the kiln), and a warehouse (right front) were in operation.
1660s
Charles II, England’s newly-crowned king, was eager to see Virginia become an urban society—a far cry from James Fort and a one-crop Jamestown! He passed an Act for Building a Towne in 1662.
the statehouse
In 1663, the General Assembly ordered funds to be set aside to build a statehouse.
While many good laws were passed, from the 1660s to the 1690s, highly discriminatory legislation was enacted that entrenched slavery and racism that affected the lives of both countless Africans who were brought here without their permission and Indian peoples.
Bacon’s rebellion in 1676
Remember we previously mentioned a rebellion in 1676. Here’s the story behind it. What started as a dispute between settlers and Indians along the Virginia-Maryland border in the fall of 1675 quickly erupted into a full scale rebellion against Governor Berkeley and his government.
Bacon appealed to the people in August 1676 in a searing critique of the government. On September 18, his men, including former slaves and indentured servants, torched Jamestown, including the statehouse, as the government officials fled for their lives
The following month Bacon died suddenly and the rebellion lost momentum. His rebellion was over by January 1667, but the white elite in Virginia feared a similar revolt and pushed the elite of Virginia toward a harsher, more rigid system of slavery.
This was the first rebellion in the American colonies in which discontented frontiersmen took part; the rebellion marked the end of Governor Berkeley’s rule and clipped the wings of Virginia’s grandees.
legacy of Jamestown
Even as the new capitol in Williamsburg was under construction, Jamestown’s role in the history of English America was being commemorated. Governor Nicholson recommended that celebrations be held at Jamestown in 1707 to mark the 100th anniversary of the colony.
looking back – the 4 firsts
In the first 20 years of Jamestown, 4 firsts can be identified.
1st entrepreneurs
When the first settlers came in 1607, the Virginia Company expected them to find precious metals. When this didn’t happen, the settlers found other ways to make money for the Company: glassblowing, vineyards, silkworm farming, and tobacco planting—the real gold.
1st brides
By 1619, settlement leaders were beginning to worry about replacing those who were dying of disease, hunger, and violence. They wanted a real town, and for that, families were needed. So the company brought over a ship of brides who also wanted a new life in the new land.
The first ship brought 90 women in the summer of 1619 and the spring of 1620; 49 more arrived in the summer of 1621. By December 1621, all of the women were married, and the extinction crisis disappeared.
1st General Assembly
America held its first representative legislative government at a wooden church at Jamestown in the summer of 1619. The assembly met as a single body and included the Governor, Sir George Yeardley, his 4 councilors, and 22 burgesses who were chosen by the free, white men in every borough and private plantation. This would be the first time that the settlers were able to participate in their own legislation in the new colony.
This general assembly became the basis for the new democratic society that was based on the rule of law and consent of the governed.
1st Africans
The nation’s first Africans came by force to Virginia at the end of August 1619 after the English privateer slave ship who had stolen them from the Spanish brought 20-30 to land to pay for food. They were sold to wealthy and well-connected English planters like Jamestown’s governor, Sir George Yeardley.
summary
On May 13, 1607, 100 English men and 4 boys set foot on James Island, establishing James Fort, the first permanent English settlement in North America. That small fort built here on the James River evolved into the United States of America.
Jamestown’s legacies include the introduction of representative government, English culture and heritage, and Protestant religion.
Jamestown’s other legacies include the conflicts between colonists and Virginia Indians and the plight of Africans caught in the development of race-based slavery in England’s American colonies.
The good and the bad.
