While on a trading expedition on the Potomac, Argall captured Pocahontas and brought her as a prisoner to Jamestown in an attempt to deal with her father, Powhatan. Pocahontas was no stranger at Jamestown. She had often visited there before, once in the spring of 1608 to seek some of her countrymen held as hostages in the fort.
In 1613, Pocahontas was well received at Jamestown, where she had not been for some time; and when her father refused to pay the price asked for her ransom, she was detained. Later, she preferred life with the English and did not wish to return to her native village. She was placed under the tutelage of Rev. Alexander Whitaker who instructed her in the Christian faith. Eventually Pocahontas was baptized. In April 1614, in the church at Jamestown, she married John Rolfe, one of the settlers. This was a celebrated marriage that did much to improve relations with the Indians. About 1616, the couple went to England where Pocahontas was entertained at court. She died there as she was about to return to Virginia, in 1617, and her body rests at Gravesend. She had one son, Thomas Rolfe, who later came to Virginia. Through him many today can trace their ancestry to Pocahontas.
After the death of Pocahontas, John Rolfe came back to Virginia alone to resume the work which he had begun there as early as 1610. Perhaps he continued his work with tobacco which had already resulted in a plant that could compete in taste and quality with that which had given the Spanish a monopoly of the tobacco market.
Monument to Pocahontas, by William Ordway Partridge, near the entrance to Jamestown National Historic Site.
In the first years of the settlement every effort had been made to find products in the New World that would assure financial success for the settlers and the company. Pitch, tar, timber, sassafras, cedar, and other natural products were sent in the returning ships. Attempts to produce glass on a paying scale proved futile, as did early efforts to make silk, using the native mulberry trees growing in abundance. The glass furnaces fell into disuse, and rats ate the silkworms. The native tobacco plant, found growing wild was “... not of the best kind ... [but was] poore and weake, and of a byting tast ...” and held little promise.
About 1610-11, the seed of a different species of the plant was imported from Trinidad, then famous for the quality of its tobacco. Later some came from Venezuela. These were planted and a process of selection and crossbreeding began which resulted in the commercially valuable Virginia leaf. John Rolfe, a smoker himself, has been credited as the pioneer English colonist in this experimentation.
In addition to the improvement of the plant, Rolfe was one of the first regularly to grow tobacco for export and as such was the father of the Virginia tobacco trade and industry. The first experimental shipment of the newly developed Virginia leaf came about 1613, and because of its pleasant taste it was well received in some quarters. Production was slow for several years. Dale restricted its cultivation until basic commodities, such as corn, were well advanced. In the 1615-16 period only 2,300 pounds reached London from Virginia. Capt. George Yeardley, the next to govern, gave the new crop his whole-hearted support, with the result that in 1617 exports reached the 20,000 pound total, and by 1619 this had been more than doubled. Thus, a new trade and industry were born in the colony, which proved to be the economic salvation of Virginia, and provided a means for making slavery profitable. Tobacco and slavery together led to the development of important characteristics of the whole social, political, and economic structure of the Old South. One of the immediate effects of tobacco culture in Virginia was the impetus it gave to the expansion of the area of settlement and to the number of settlers coming to Virginia.
Tobacco cultivation as practiced at Jamestown. (A conjectural painting by Sidney E. King.)
Jamestown was planned as the first permanent English settlement in Virginia. The fixed intention was to establish other seats as soon as possible. As the limitations of Jamestown became obvious, the desire for other townsites was intensified. Soon after the settlement was made at Jamestown, temporary garrisons were placed at outlying points for protective and administrative reasons—at Kecoughtan (Hampton-Newport News), Cape Henry, and at the falls of the James. The first efforts in this direction, except at Kecoughtan, ended in the autumn of 1609 under pressure from the Indians. With the arrival of Delaware, Kecoughtan (renamed Elizabeth City in 1619) was established as a permanent settlement. Dale and Gates went on to establish the city of Henricus (Henrico) well up the James near the falls. Then came Charles City (the earlier Bermuda Nether Hundred) which developed into the last of the four settlements established by the company, each of which had the designation “city.” These four settlements were the only towns specifically set up by the company and consequently under its complete control. These later came to be mentioned in the records as the “Four Ancient Boroughs” or “four ancient Incorporations.” As one of these, Jamestown became the center of the political subdivision that developed into one of the original Virginia shires in 1634. Within the next decade the term county replaced that of shire, and today, although Jamestown has ceased to exist as a corporate organization, James City County continues to function as the oldest governing unit in English America.
Although the four “cities” constituted the first settlements in Virginia and were the only ones established directly under company control, they were but the beginning. About 1616, a new plan gave rise to the creation of settlements known as “particular plantations,” sometimes called “hundreds” as a result of the practice of awarding land on the basis of 100 acres or of sending settlers in groups of the same number. These were established with company permission, which included a grant of land made to individual groups of stockholders organized for the purpose of setting up a specific settlement. The first of these was Martin’s Hundred, in 1617, and others followed rapidly. By the summer of 1619, there were seven particular plantations already functioning, in addition to the original “cities,” a term sometimes thought to derive from the form of government being used by the “City of Geneva” in Switzerland which was held in high esteem by some of the company officials, particularly by Sir Edwin Sandys who became Treasurer of the Virginia Company in 1618.
With the spread of settlement east and west along the James and outward along its rivers and creeks as well, Jamestown lay approximately in the center of an expanding and growing colony. It was the capital town and the principal center of the colony’s social and political life. In size it remained small, yet it was intimately and directly related to all of the significant developments of the 17th century. Its physical aspects changed with the evolution of 17th century architectural patterns and designs. Life in the town was varied and perhaps representative of the best in the colony for almost a century. As wealth accumulated, the manner of living broadened and improved. There is strong evidence that Jamestown was the first to feel the impact of the advantages and efforts that this produced, particularly in the first half century of its existence. Material progress is evident as early as 1619 in the letter of John Pory, secretary of the colony, written from Virginia late in that year:
Nowe that your lordship may knowe, that we are not the variest beggars in the worlde, our cowekeeper here of James citty on Sunday goes accowtered all in freshe flaming silke; and a wife of one that in England had professed the black arte, not of a schollar, but of a collier of Croydon, weares her rough bever hatt with a faire perle hatband, and a silken suite thereto correspondent.
In 1618, there were internal changes in the Virginia Company that led to the resignation of Sir Thomas Smith as treasurer, and to the election of Sir Edwin Sandys as his successor. This roughly corresponded to changes in company policy toward the administration of the colony and to intensified efforts to develop Virginia. It led to the abolition of martial law, to the establishment of individual property ownership, and greater freedom and participation in matters of government. Virginia already enjoyed a high degree of religious freedom due, perhaps, to the fact that a number of company officers were strongly under the influence of the puritan element within the Church of England. This, together with the fact that Virginia was not settled purely for religious reasons, caused less stress to be put on absolute uniformity in church matters. Sir George Yeardley, recently knighted, returned to Virginia as governor in April 1619, and was the first spokesman in the colony for the new policy toward Virginia. In England it had been ably advanced on behalf of the colony by Sir Edwin Sandys, the Earl of Southampton, and John and Nicholas Ferrar.
Soon after his arrival, Yeardley issued a call for a representative legislative assembly which convened at Jamestown on July 30, 1619, and remained in session until August 4. This was the earliest example of our present system of representative government in America. The full intentions behind the moves that led to this historic meeting may never be known. It seems to have been an attempt to give to the Englishmen in America those rights and privileges of Englishmen that had been guaranteed to them in the original company charter, rather than a planned attempt to establish self-government in the New World on a scale that might have been in violation of English law and custom at the time. Whatever the motive, the significance of this meeting in the church at Jamestown remains the same. This body of duly chosen representatives of the people has continued in existence and its evolution leads directly to our State legislatures and to the Congress of the United States.
Another significant development of 1619 was the sending by the company of maidens to Virginia to be wives of the settlers. Although many women were already established with their families in the Jamestown colony, the company recognized that homes and children for all the men would be conducive to established family life and permanent residence. Under this new project, the first maidens arrived in May and June 1620. Others followed, as ships brought more and more young women seeking their fortunes in Virginia.
The third momentous event in 1619 was the arrival of Negroes in a Dutch warship. They remained in Virginia, some finding homes, and some as indentured servants even as some white men were at that time. Nevertheless, this first arrival of Negroes was to lead to the introduction of slavery into the colony. It was more than a generation before the institution of slavery began to be entrenched as the backbone of the economic life in Virginia, yet this event of 1619 was the first move in that direction.
A typical view of the landscape on Jamestown Island. The high ground is principally along low ridges, sometimes called “fingers,” divided by marshes or very low ground.
Under Dale, the emphasis on colonization was away from Jamestown, yet later governors found the original seat desirable. Capt. Samuel Argall, who succeeded Yeardley as deputy governor in 1617, wrote that he advanced physical improvements prior to his hasty withdrawal from Virginia in the spring of 1619 to avoid arrest under charges of mismanagement of company affairs. Argall had been the first to prescribe limits for Jamestown. Yeardley followed him as governor, and for the next few years Jamestown, at this time most often called “James City,” witnessed considerable growth and activity. The town, long before, had expanded outside of the fort and spread along the shore on the extreme west end of the island. The borough or incorporation, of which it was the center, extended west to the Chickahominy River and downriver beyond Hog Island. Its territory was along the north side of the river and included the south side as well—the area that later became Surry County. West toward the Chickahominy the area adjacent to Jamestown Island became rather heavily developed and was referred to as the “Suburbs of James City.”
The period from 1619 to 1624 was one of considerable activity for Virginia in general and Jamestown in particular. The reorganized Virginia Company, following its political changes, renewed its efforts to expand the colony and to stimulate profitable employment. Heavy emphasis was placed on new industries, particularly iron and glass, the latter evidently attempted a second time on Glasshouse Point. The planting of mulberry trees and the growing of silkworms were advanced by the dispatch of treatises on silk culture and silkworm eggs in a project in which King James I himself had a personal interest. Immigration to the colony was increased, and measures were taken to meet the religious and educational needs of the settlers. This was the period that saw the attempt to establish a college at Henrico.
The industrial and manufacturing efforts of these years, however, were not destined to succeed. This condition was not due to any laxity on the part of George Sandys, resident treasurer in Virginia, who was something of an economic on-the-spot supervisor for the company. Virginia could not yet support these projects profitably, and interest was lacking on the part of the planters who found in tobacco a source of wealth superior to anything else that had been tried. Tobacco was profitable, and it was grown, at times, even in the streets of Jamestown. It was the profit from tobacco that supported the improved living conditions that came throughout the colony.
These Englishmen who came to settle in the wilderness retained their desire for the advantages of life in England. Books, for example, were highly valued, and with the passage of the years were no uncommon commodity in Virginia. As early as 1608, Rev. Robert Hunt had a library at Jamestown, which was consumed by fire in January of that year. Each new group of colonists seemingly added to the store on hand—Bibles, Books of Common Prayer, other religious works, medical and scientific treatises, legal publications, accounts of gardening, and such. In 1621, the company wrote to the colonial officials regarding works for a new minister being sent to the colony that: “As for bookes we doubt not but you wilbe able to supplie him out of the lybraries of so many that have died.” By this date there was local literary effort, too, such as that by Treasurer George Sandys who continued his celebrated translation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses in the house of William Pierce at Jamestown. Then, too, in March 1623, a gentleman of the colony sent from “Iames his Towne” the ballad “Good Newes from Virginia” in which, among other things, he describes the arrival of the governor’s wife at Jamestown and uses this to prod others to support the colony and to settle in Virginia.
But last of all that Lady faire,
that woman worth renoune:
That left her Country and her friends,
to grace braue Iames his towne.
The wife unto our Gouernour,
did safely here ariue:
With many gallants following her,
whom God preserue aliue.
What man would stay when Ladies gay,
both liues and fortunes leaues:
To taste what we haue truely sowne,
truth never man deceaues.
(From The William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd Ser., V, 357-8)
It is in the 1619 to 1624 period that the first clear picture of Jamestown emerges, for this period corresponds with the earliest known property records that exist. The town had outgrown the original fort in some years past and now appeared as a fairly flourishing settlement. The records reveal that many of the property owners were yeomen, merchants, carpenters, hog-raisers, farmers, joiners, shopkeepers, and ordinary “fellows,” as well as governors and colonial officials. The “New Towne” section of James City developed in this period as the old section proved too small and the residents began to build more substantial houses, principally frame on brick foundations. The Indian massacre of 1622, that wrought such heavy devastation in the colony, did not reach Jamestown which was warned through the efforts of the Indian, Chanco. It did temporarily cause congestion in the Jamestown area, however, as the survivors from the more distant settlements fell back for safety and to regroup. The punitive Indian campaigns that followed were directed from Jamestown by the governor, who resided there.
The population figures taken in these years give a good idea of the size of Jamestown in this period. In February 1624, it is recorded that 183 persons were living in Jamestown and 35 others on the island outside of the town. These are listed by name, as are the 87 who died between April 1623 and the following February. The death toll suggests that the mortality rate was continuing high and that it was still difficult for newcomers to adapt themselves to the Virginia environment. In the “census” of January 1625, a total of 124 residents are listed for “James Citty” and an additional 51 for the island. In the over-all total of 173, 122 were males and 53, females. At that time, Governor Sir Francis Wyatt and former Governor Yeardley had two of the largest musters for the town, which included women, children, indentured servants, and Negroes. Nine Negroes were listed for Jamestown and the island, evidently some of those brought there in 1619.
Aside from the population statistics, the musters of January 1625 give much more information. Jamestown had a church, a court-of-guard (guardhouse), 3 stores, a merchant’s store, and 33 houses. Ten of the colony’s 40 boats were here, including a skiff, a “shallop” of 4 tons, and a “barque” of 40 tons. There were stores of fish (24,880 pounds to be exact), corn, peas, and meal. There were four pieces of ordnance, supplies of powder, shot and lead, and, for individual use, “fixt peeces,” snaphances, pistols, swords (to the number of 70), coats of mail, quilted coats, and suits of armor (35 of them complete). The bulk of the colony’s livestock seems to have been localized in the Jamestown area—about half (183) of the cattle, a little more than half (265) of the hogs, and well over half (126) of the goats. The one horse listed for the colony was at Jamestown.
The “census” clearly indicates that the population of Jamestown was not keeping pace with that of the colony. The needs of tobacco culture—open fields and new soil—and the abundance of navigable waters in the rivers, bays, and creeks of tidewater Virginia led to a scattered population, based on the plantation system. These factors prevented the rise of trade centers and large towns for almost a century, despite the best efforts of both home and colonial officials. The idea was to make Jamestown the center of social, political, and economic life and to develop it into a city of some proportions. In size, it never attained that of a city and it failed to dominate trade and commerce. It was, however, the hub of political and social life for as long as it was the capital of Virginia—92 years. Hence, its story is vital to an understanding of American beginnings. Its citizens, in their daily life and work, developed the origins of many of our institutions, styles, and customs in speech, in architecture, in dress, and in government organization.
The Virginia Company established the first permanent English settlement in America, but did not reap the profits that it had expected. Despite reorganization and large expenditures, it never achieved its full objective and was increasingly subject to criticism. Matters reached a head in 1624 when James I dissolved the company, thereby removing the hand that had guided Virginia affairs for 17 years. With this act Virginia became a royal colony and continued as such until the American Revolution made it free and independent. From the point of view of operations in the colony the change was almost painless although there was concern over land titles and a continuance of the assembly which had already voiced its feeling on taxation without representation. The company governor gave way to the royal appointee, but most institutions were left intact.
The remains of a brick and tile kiln (c. 1650) found at Jamestown. This is the best preserved and most complete of several kilns that have been uncovered, showing that the Jamestown residents manufactured many of their bricks and roofing tiles.
Sir Francis Wyatt was the last company governor, and he continued in office for a while as royal governor. When he left for England, in 1626, Yeardley again became governor and served until he died at Jamestown the next year. Capt. Francis West was named to the post as deputy. Another deputy, Dr. John Pott, followed next in turn, and he was replaced by the royal appointee, Sir John Harvey.
Sir John Harvey first came to Virginia in 1624 as a member of a committee to report on conditions in the colony. It was in 1630 that he returned as royal governor and settled himself at “James cittie, the seate of the Governor.” In 1632, he had a commodious house here and was complaining of the expense of the entertainment that he had to finance in “the Governors owne house.” Whether because of his personal nature, his own view or interpretation of government, or because of the severe opposition that confronted him, he managed to become thoroughly disliked throughout the colony. His high-handed and autocratic methods arrayed even his council against him.
In the end, his council, in meetings at Jamestown, moved to depose him, naming another to act in his stead—a bold measure, indeed. The assembly, in May 1635, approved this action, and Harvey was returned to England to answer the charges placed against him there. The King, it is true, returned Harvey to his post as royal governor in 1637, but undoubtedly both he and Harvey were impressed by the action that the colonists had taken to redress their grievances—they had deposed a royal governor.
When Governor Harvey reached Jamestown in January 1637 he made a special effort to promote the growth of the town. The assembly passed an act offering a “portion of land for a house and garden” to every person who would undertake to build on it within 2 years. This was the beginning of considerable activity at Jamestown. A number of new patents were issued, and, in January 1639, the governor and his council could report that 12 houses and stores had been constructed and others had been begun. One of those already built was the house of Richard Kemp, secretary of the colony. His house was described as “one of brick” and “the fairest ever known in this country for substance and uniformity.” Kemp’s house is the earliest all-brick house in Virginia that it has been possible to date conclusively up to the present time. It was in 1639, too, that the first brick church was begun, and a levy was collected for the acquisition of a statehouse. Among the new land holders at Jamestown in this period of activity were Capt. Thomas Hill, Rev. Thomas Hampton, and Alexander Stoner, a “brickmaker.” As the area along the river was occupied, additional patentees obtained holdings just outside of the town proper and others settled in the few lots that were not in use. Sir William Berkeley, who became governor in 1641, continued the emphasis on the construction of substantial houses. In that same year, the colony acquired its first statehouse, formerly the property of Harvey and a building in which public business had been transacted for, perhaps, as much as 10 years.
In March 1646, measures were taken to discourage the sale of liquors on the island, and a system of licensed ordinary keepers was adopted. Later in the year, houses for the encouragement of linen manufacture were projected for Jamestown. In 1649, the General Assembly established a market and near the market area was the landing for the ferry that ran across the James to Surry County. Even this new action, however, failed to develop a town of any great extent. The same was true of the Act of 1662 which attempted to encourage a substantial building program for the capital town. Only a few houses were erected before the new impetus had spent itself, and, in 1676, it is known that the town was still little more than a large village. One of the more detailed descriptions at this time relates that “The Towne ... [extended] east and west, about 3 quarters of a mile ... [and] comprehended som[e] 16 or 18 houses, most as is the church built of brick, faire and large; and in them about a dozen families (for all the howses are not inhabited) getting their liveings by keeping of ordnaries, at extreordnary rates.”
The decade of 1650-60 corresponds to the period of the Commonwealth Government in England. Virginia, for the most part, appeared loyal to the crown, yet in 1652 the colony submitted to the new government when it demonstrated its power before Jamestown. Governor Berkeley withdrew to his home at Green Spring, just above Jamestown, and the General Assembly assumed the governing role, acting under the Parliament of England. Virginia was given liberal treatment, with considerable freedom in taxation and matters of government. The governors in this interval, elected by the assembly, were Richard Bennett, Edward Digges (an active supporter of the production of silk in Virginia), and Samuel Mathews. In 1660, on the death of Mathews, the assembly recalled Berkeley to the governor’s office, an act that was approved by Charles II, who was restored to the English throne in that year. The decade passed quietly for the colony, although, in the years that followed, it had occasion to remember the liberal control that it had enjoyed. It had witnessed an increased wave of immigration that brought some of those who were fleeing from England, and this more than offset the loss of the Puritans whom Berkeley had forced out of the colony prior to 1650.
In matters of religion, Virginia continued loyal to the Church of England, although there was considerable freedom for the individual. The Puritans found it uncomfortable to remain, however, and two Quaker preachers, William Cole and George Wilson, soon found themselves in prison at Jamestown. Writing “From that dirty dungeon in Jamestown,” in 1662, they described the prison as a place “... where we have not the benefit to do what nature requireth, nor so much as air, to blow in at a window, but close made up with brick and lime....” Lord Baltimore (George Calvert) did not find the colony hospitable when he visited Jamestown with his family in 1629, for, being a Roman Catholic, he could not take the Oath of Allegiance and Supremacy which denied the authority of the Pope.
Bacon’s Rebellion, one of the most dramatic episodes in the history of the English colonies, stands out as a highlight in 17th-century Virginia. It broke in spectacular fashion and is often hailed as a forerunner of the Revolution. It constituted the only serious civil disturbance experienced by Virginia during its entire life as a British colony. It occupies a prominent spot in the annals of the times, and in any chronicle of Jamestown its significance can be multiplied many times, for a number of its stirring events took place at the seat of government and resulted in excessive physical destruction in the town.
The rebellion had its origin in Indian frontier difficulties and a royal Governor (Sir William Berkeley) who, possibly as a result of his involvement in the Indian trade, had become somewhat dictatorial, tyrannical, and a firm advocate of the status quo. The leader for the exposed frontiersmen and the generally disgruntled Virginians came in the person of Nathaniel Bacon, a young man of good birth, training, and education who had come to Virginia in 1674. A distant kinsman of Lord Chancellor Francis Bacon and a relative of another Nathaniel Bacon, who was a leading citizen of Virginia, he soon became established as a first-rate planter at Curles, in Henrico County, and was admitted to the Governor’s Council not long after his arrival.
Considerable underlying discontent had been aroused in Virginia by the low prices for tobacco, the cumulative effects of the Navigation Acts, high taxes, and autocratic rule by Berkeley, whose loyal supporters permeated the government structure and had not allowed an election of burgesses for 15 years. The spark came from the depredations of the Susquehanna Indians who were being forced south by the powerful Iroquois. They made attacks all along the Virginia frontier. Berkeley ordered a counterattack, but cancelled it in favor of maintaining a system of forts along the edge of the western settlements. In March 1676, the Assembly at Jamestown made plans for new forts; this measure, however, was both time-consuming and ineffective. Among the leaders who assembled at the falls of the James for consultation regarding the Indian menace was the young Nathaniel Bacon. William Byrd I was there, too, and, even though he was the officer who had been named to guard the frontier, Bacon was placed in command of the men sent to attack the enemy Indians. A messenger left to request a commission for him from the governor. Berkeley replied that he would discuss the matter with his Council. Bacon then set out with his men to collect allies from among the friendly Indians. While Bacon was on the march he received word from Berkeley ordering him to return or be declared a rebel. Bacon did not turn back but continued into the wilderness in search of the enemy. Action came at Occaneechee Island. Bacon returned with captives and was hailed as a hero by those who had heard of his exploits.
Governor Berkeley realized that the situation was becoming critical and that he could lose control of his government. Prompt action was necessary. He dissolved the House of Burgesses and ordered a new election. The result was that many of his loyal adherents were replaced by representatives, some of whom were unfriendly, even hostile, to him. The new assembly convened in the Statehouse at “James Citty” on June 5, 1676, and among the burgesses was the defiant Bacon who had been returned by the voters of Henrico. An announced rebel and not yet formally removed from the council, it is doubtful that he was eligible for his seat, yet he determined to go to Jamestown and present his credentials.
He boarded his sloop, accompanied by about 40 supporters, and sailed down the James. When near Jamestown he sent ahead to inquire whether he would be allowed to enter the town in peace. A shot from a cannon in the fort gave the negative answer. Despite this, Bacon secretly went ashore at night to confer with two of his friends then living in Jamestown—William Drummond, a former governor in Carolina, and Richard Lawrence, a former Oxford student. Later that night he returned to his boat and started back up the James, but was taken by an officer whom Berkeley had sent out to apprehend him. A dramatic scene followed at Jamestown.
Bacon was brought before the governor, paroled, and restored to the council. Berkeley knew that his opponent had the upper hand and that the House of Burgesses, then in session, was against him. Bacon seemingly could have remained in the capital and personally directed a full program of economic and political reform. This evidently was not his aim. He demanded a commission to go against the Indians, and, when Berkeley delayed, he disappeared from Jamestown, later saying that his person was in danger, although this appears unlikely. Bacon now entered a course from which he could not turn back. With a sizable group of supporters, on June 23, he returned again to Jamestown. He crossed the isthmus “... there le[a]veing a party to secure the passage, then marched into Towne, ... [sent] partyes to the ferry, River & fort, & ... [drew] his forces against the state house.” In the face of this show of force, the governor gave him a commission, and the burgesses passed measures designed to correct many old abuses. Among the new laws was one establishing the bounds of Jamestown to include the entire island and giving the residents within these bounds the right, for the first time, to make their own local ordinances.
By this time Bacon and his men were arrayed solidly against both governor and royal government. The issue was defeat or independence for Virginia, but Virginia was not yet ready and did not elect to face the issue. Bacon, it seems, wanted extreme measures, and there is evidence to indicate that he visualized the formation of an American Republic. Yet when Bacon established himself as the opponent of royal government in Virginia and subordinated his role as supporter of the frontier settlers against misrule, he lost popular support. Had he lived and succeeded in arms, it is questionable that the people would have backed him, for they had not shown much disposition to defy royal authority. The discontent at this time was not so much against that authority as against the misuse of it by Sir William Berkeley.
The issues having been drawn, Bacon pursued his course to the bitter end. He returned to Henrico. When about to move a second time against the Indians, news came that Berkeley was attempting to raise troops in Gloucester County. Consequently, it was to Gloucester that Bacon first moved, only to find that his opponent had withdrawn to Accomac, on the Eastern Shore of Virginia. On August 1, at Middle Plantation (later Williamsburg), Bacon sought to administer his oath of loyalty and to announce his “Declaration of the People” to those assembled there at his summons. His next move was against the Pamunkey Indians. Then it seemed necessary that he move again on Berkeley who now had returned to Jamestown.
A prepared drawing of the plat of a survey made for William Sherwood at Jamestown in 1680. “Roades” indicates the course of the “Greate Road” that connected the town with the mainland. On the left the isthmus that joined the “Island” to Glasshouse Point is shown.
On September 13, 1676, he drew up his “few weake and Tyr’d [tired]” men in the “Green Spring Old Field,” just above Jamestown, and posted lookouts on Glasshouse Point. Then he ordered the construction of a trench across the island end of the isthmus. A raiding party advanced as far as the palisade, near the edge of Jamestown proper. Berkeley ordered several ships brought up as close to the shore as possible. Their guns and the small arms of the men along the palisades opened fire against Bacon, but proved ineffective in routing him from his entrenchments. On September 15, Berkeley organized a sally, “with horse and foote in the Van,” which retreated under hot fire from Bacon’s entrenchments. At this point Berkeley’s force lost heart, while his opponent’s spirit reached a new high. In any event, after a week of siege, the governor felt compelled to withdraw from Jamestown. This he did, by boat, with many of his supporters. This was the high point of Bacon’s fortune in arms, and a costly one. Seemingly, it was during the fatiguing siege, which came “in a wett Season,” that he contracted the illness that caused his death and brought an abrupt end to the rebellion.
Following Berkeley’s withdrawal, Bacon and his tired force marched into Jamestown for rest. Wholesale destruction followed. As a contemporary put it, “Here resting a few daies they concerted the burning of the town, wherein Mr. Laurence [Richard Lawrence] and Mr. [William] Drummond owning the two best houses save one, set fire each to his own house, which example the souldiers following laid the whole town (with church and State house) in ashes....” It is known from the records that the destruction was systematic and that the town suffered heavily from the burning. Among those losing homes and possessions of high value were Col. Thomas Swann, Maj. Theophilus Hone “high sheriff of Jamestown,” William Sherwood, and Mr. James’ “orphan,” the last to the value of £1,000. It was estimated that total losses reached a value of 1,500,000 pounds of tobacco. Again the idea was advanced to move the seat of government from Jamestown to some more desirable location. A little later, Tindall’s (now Gloucester) Point, on the York, was given preferential consideration by the assembly as a fit location. The move was not made, however, and the capital remained at Jamestown for another quarter of a century.
From Jamestown, Berkeley moved once more to the Eastern Shore. Bacon, whose men pillaged Green Spring (Berkeley’s home on the mainland, just above Jamestown) on the way, marched to Gloucester, where he became ill and died on October 26, 1676. The rebellion, now without a real leader, quickly collapsed. Joseph Ingram, successor to Bacon, and Gregory Wakelett, cavalry leader in Gloucester County, surrendered in January 1677; Lawrence disappeared in the Chickahominy marshes; and Drummond was promptly hanged. Berkeley moved with haste to silence his opponents, making ready use of the death sentence.
Accommodations for the conduct of government were now wholly inadequate at Jamestown. Consequently, Berkeley called the assembly to meet at Green Spring, which functioned for a time almost as the temporary capital. In February 1677, the commissioners who were sent to investigate Bacon’s Rebellion arrived in Virginia. With them came about 1,000 troops who encamped at Jamestown for the remainder of the winter and ensuing spring. The commissioners, among them Col. Herbert Jeffreys, the next governor, finding so much ruin and desolation at Jamestown, made their headquarters in the home of Col. Thomas Swann across the James from the capital town. Berkeley left for England in May, and Jeffreys took control in Virginia. It was not until March 1679, however, that definite action (following a recommendation of the investigating commissioners) was taken for the restoration of Jamestown. Then it was ordered, in England, that the town be rebuilt and made the metropolis of Virginia “as the most ancient and convenient place.”
A section from the “Plan du Terrein a la Rive Gauche de la Riviere de James vis-a-vis James-Town en Virginie ...” done by Colonel Desandrouins, of the French Army, in 1781.
Lord Culpeper reached Virginia in May 1680, with instructions to rebuild Jamestown and to develop it into an urban center. In 1683, he was able to report that he had given all possible encouragement to this enterprise and that, although he himself was living at Green Spring, considerable activity had begun. He mentioned specifically that Nathaniel Bacon (the kinsman of the rebel), Joseph Bridger, and William Sherwood had substantial work under way. A little later the fourth statehouse was completed, as was the church. By 1697 the town had been rebuilt and boasted of a statehouse, country house, church, fort, powder magazine, and 20 or 30 houses. In this period William Sherwood, for a time attorney general for the colony, was a major landholder on the island and in the town. Others included Robert Beverley, author of one of the early histories of Virginia; William Edwards, clerk of the Council; Henry Hartwell; and John Page. It was in 1686 that John Clayton, minister at Jamestown, offered proposals for draining the marshes nearby to improve the healthfulness of the spot, a project that never materialized.
On October 31, 1698, a fire consumed the Statehouse, prison, and probably other buildings at Jamestown, although the records and papers were saved. This fire led to the removal of the seat of government to Middle Plantation (Williamsburg)—a spot favored by the Governor, Sir Francis Nicholson. Thus, Jamestown was abandoned as the seat of government after 92 years. Its mission had been accomplished, and it had seen Virginia grow from the small settlement of 1607 into a colony of great extent, with a population of perhaps 80,000.
The removal of the capital ultimately proved the death blow for Jamestown, for this eliminated the primary reason for its existence. Decline set in immediately, but Jamestown retained a seat in the assembly for another three-quarters of a century. Its end as a town, legally and physically, may be given as the period of the American Revolution. There was a military post here early in that struggle. Later, it became a point of exchange for American and British prisoners of war, and it featured in the maneuvers leading to the Siege of Yorktown. It witnessed the movement of Cornwallis’ army across the James and was a landing and resting point for American and French soldiers being sent to join Washington’s allied army.
A watercolor by Robert M. Sully showing the shoreline at Jamestown in 1854 at a point just above the Old Church Tower. In this period erosion was slowly destroying the west end of the site of “Old James Towne.” (Original in the collection of the late Miss Julia Sully, Richmond, Va.)
Even before 1700, property on Jamestown Island was being consolidated into a few hands. The consolidation continued unabated after this date, and before the middle of the 18th century the major part of the island was in the hands of two families—Ambler and Travis—each of which had its own “mansion.” The Travis family estate at Jamestown had grown slowly since before 1650, and Richard Ambler, of Yorktown, acquired, through marriage, the extensive Jaquelin, formerly Sherwood, holdings. After 1830, the island came under a single ownership. Under the Amblers and Travises and later owners of the island, even parts of the townsite itself became farm land and functioned as an integral part of the plantation system which earlier events at Jamestown had helped so materially to create.
The fields, and woods, and marshes lay quietly on the James for generations, contributing in a small, but important, manner to a growing country. Americans often remembered the early years of the colony and the momentous events that had taken place on the island, and joined here to commemorate the deeds of their forefathers. There was the Bicentennial of 1807, the Virginiad of 1822, the 250th anniversary in 1857, and the Tercentennial of 1907. In the years between these events there were thousands who came individually and in small groups, the famous and those now unknown. It was this remembrance and loyalty to one of its great landmarks that led to the establishment of Jamestown Island as a national historic shrine.
The first organized effort toward saving the Jamestown area came in 1893 when the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities acquired 22.5 acres of the old townsite. This land, donated for preservation by Mr. and Mrs. Edward E. Barney, embraced the Old Church Tower, the graveyard, and the west end of the townsite.
The Association which was chartered in 1889 is better known, perhaps, as the APVA. It is a non-profit organization interested in the acquisition, preservation, and restoration of “ancient historic grounds, buildings, monuments, and tombs in the Commonwealth of Virginia” and in the collection and care of relics associated with them or with the history of the State. Its Jamestown property is one of a number of holdings which it administers. Another is the 17th-century Warren House on the Rolfe property in Surry County just across the James River from Jamestown.
Until 1934 the Association was the sole active agency working at Jamestown to conserve and interpret the site for the American people. As the custodian of a significant part of the site of old “James Towne,” it continues working to promote measures insuring the protection of the site and making it available for your use and inspiration. Landscaping, limited reconstruction, some restoration, and the stabilization of the remains of the Old Church Tower, the tombs, and foundations have all been a part of its program, together with the acquisition and display of Jamestown relics. In its work, it has solicited and received aid from various organizations, particularly patriotic societies, in the placement of memorials, and related activities. The Memorial Church was constructed by the National Society of the Colonial Dames of America. The Association was especially active in preparation for the Jamestown Exposition in 1907.
The Association was successful in its efforts to encourage the United States Government to construct the seawall which was built by Col. Samuel H. Yonge in 1900-1901 to halt bank erosion by the James River along the Association grounds. Colonel Yonge became a serious student of Jamestown history and wrote The Site of Old “James Towne,” 1607-1698, a work still available through purchase from the Association. In 1907, the Association made available the grounds on which the Tercentenary Monument was erected, and again in 1956 it provided land on which to place the Jamestown Visitor Center.
In 1940 the Association entered into agreement with the United States of America, through the Secretary of the Interior, to provide for a unified program of development and administration for the island. It was at this time that the APVA grounds were designated as Jamestown National Historic Site. The joint cooperative agreement continues in force and the Association and the National Park Service are working together to preserve, maintain, and interpret this historic area.
In 1956 it became possible to present the townsite as a single unit when the ferry to the island and the State highway crossing the island were moved upriver above Jamestown. The APVA and the Service then combined their separate museum exhibits to form the displays now seen in the Visitor Center, and consolidated other operations at the center where both are hosts to Jamestown visitors.