London Company
The London Company (also called the Virginia Company of London) was an English joint stock company established by royal charter by James I on April 10 1606 with the purpose of establishing colonial settlements in North America. It was one of two such companies, along with the Plymouth Company, that was granted an identical charter as part of the Virginia Company. The London Company was responsible for establishing the Jamestown Settlement, the first permanent English settlement in North America, in 1607.
The territory granted to the company included the coast of North America from 34th parallel (Cape Fear) north to the 41st parallel (in Long Island Sound), and all the way up to the 48th parallel, thus including all of Atlantic Canada. The company was permitted by its charter to establish a 100 mile square settlement within this area. The portion of the company's territory north of the 38th parallel was shared with the Plymouth Company, with the stipulation that neither company found a colony within 100 miles of each other.
In 1607, the company established the Jamestown Settlement on the James River in Chesapeake Bay. By 1609, the Plymouth Company had abandoned its effort to establish the Popham Colony and had dissovled. As a result, the charter was adjusted for the London Colony with a new grant that extended from "sea to sea" between the 34th and 40th parallel.
History of the London Company
The business of the company was the settlement of the Virginia colony using indentured servants as the labour force. The instructions issued to Sir Thomas Gates on November 20 called for a forcible conversion of Native Americans to Anglicanism and subordination to the colonial administration. The records of the company record a discussion during one of their first meetings about publishing a justification of their business enterprise and methods "give adventurers, a clearness and satisfactione, for the justice of the action, and so encourage them". Others opposed this, arguing that "there is much a confession in every apology" and called for "quietness and no doubting" not wanting to create a public debate where Catholics and neutrals might attack them. Whereas Catholic arguments would be in support of Spanish legal claims to the New World under the Donation of Alexander, it was feared that the neutral "pen-adversaries" might "cast scruples into our conscience" by criticising the lawfulness of the plantation. It was decided to forego such a publication of a justification.
However in 1608 Sir Edward Coke, in his capacity as Lord Chief Justice offered a ruling in Calvin's Case which went beyond the issue at hand: whether a Scotsman could seek justice at an English Court. Coke distinguished between aliens from nations at war with England and friendly aliens, those from nations in league with England. Friendly aliens could have recourse to English courts. But he also ruled that "all infidels" (i.e. those from non-christian nations) there can be no peace and a state of perpetual hostility would exist between them and Christians.
In 1609 the company issued instructions to kidnap Native American children so as to indoctrinate them with English values and religion. These instructions also sanctioned attacking the Iniocasoockes, the cultural leaders of the local Powhatans. However it was only when Thomas De La Warr arrived in 1610 that the Company was able to commence a against the Powhatan with the First Anglo-Powhatan War. De La Warr was replaced by Sir Thomas Dale, who continued the war. It was during this period that Pocahontas married John Rolfe.
The military offensive was accompanied by a propaganda war: Alderman Robert Johnson published Nova Britannia in 1609 which compared Native Americans to wild animals - "heardes of deere in a forest". While it portrayed the Powhatans as peace loving, it nevertheless threatened to deal with any who resisted conversion to Anglicanism as enemies of 'their' country. (Johnson was the son-in-law of Sir Thomas Smith, leader of one of the court factions within the Company in London.)
In 1622 the Second Anglo-Powhatan War was started. Its origins are disputed. English apologists for the company say that Opchanacanough initiated the war. Robert Williams, a contemporary Native American Law Professor argues that Opchanacanough had secured concessions from Governor Yeardley which the company would not accept. Thus Opchanacanough attack on March 22 1622 may have been an attempt to defeat the colony before reinforcements arrived. 350 out of 1,240 colonists were killed. The Virginia Company quickly published an account of this attack which was steeped in Calvinist theology - the massacre was the work of providence in that it gave an excuse for thecomplete genocide of the Powhatan, and the building of settlements on their former towns. New orders called for a "perpetuall warre without peace or truce" "to roote out from being any longer a people, so cursed a nation, ungratefull to all benefitte, and incapable of all goodnesses."
However despite clearing the land, the London Virginia Company was suffering internal problems at home. Sir Thomas Smith fell out with Robert Rich, the Earl of Warwick (owner of the ship the Treasurer which brought the first African slaves to Virginia. Whilst Rich and Smith were both part of the court faction, their argument allowed Sir Edwin Sandys of the parliamentary faction to supplant Smith as treasurer. Nicholas Ferrar, an associate of Sandys, wrote a pamphlet (only published in 1990 accusing Smith of trying to reduce indentured servants to perpetual slavery. In particular he referred to the enslavement of "Pollanders" (i.e. Poles) who were sold to Dr Woodall, surgeon of the East India Company (Sir Thomas Smith was a director of this organisation too). Ferrar also accused Smith and Johnson of running a company within a company to embezzle the profits. The dispute ended with the closing of the London Virginia Company. The king dissolved the London Virginia Company and made it a royal colony in 1624.
External links
- National Park Service brief (http://www.nps.gov/colo/Jthanout/VACompany.html)
- The Dissolution of the Virginia Company of London (http://www.dinsdoc.com/osgood-8-3-4-2.htm) Chapter 2 of The American Colonies in the Seventeenth Century by Herbert L. Osgood
- Library of Congress (http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/mtjhtml/mtjser8.html) images of manuscript and printed editions of the Records of the Virginia Company of London
- The Anglo-Powhatan Wars (http://www.virginiaplaces.org/nativeamerican/anglopowhatan.html)
Further reading
- The Three Charters of the Virginia Company of London edited and introduction by Samuel M. Bemiss, published by Virginia's 350th Anniversary Celebration Corp, 1957, Williamsburg, Virginia. ISBN 0806350881
- Dissolution of the Virginia Company: The Failure of a Colonial Experiment by Wesley Frank Craven, published by Oxford University Press, 1932, New York
- The Virginia Company of London, 1606-1624, by Wesley Frank Craven, published by University Press of Virginia, 1957, Charlottesville, Virginia. ISBN 0806345551
- The First Seventeen Years: Virginia, 1607-1624, by Charles E. Hatch, Jr. ISBN 0806347392
- History of the Virginia Company of London with Letters to and from the First Colony Never Before Printed, by Edward D. Neill, originally published by Joel Munsell, 1869, Albany, New York, reprinted by Brookhaven Press ISBN 1581034016