Notable Events from 1616-1620

The following list of events occurred between May 1616 through 22 July 1620: The individual name links  are connected to their pages at Wikitree for genealogical purposes and for more historical information. Once connected to Wikitree on this page, the individual's name will not bear a link again on this page.

Palisade Reproduction

1616: Bermuda Hundred was enclosed by fences (palisades) and several dozen Englishmen were established on the eight square miles of land by this year. The population at this time was 119 people, 17 of which were engaged in farming. John Rolfe, his wife, Pocahontas (Rebecca), and their son, represented one such family involved in Sir Thomas Dale's venture, as Rolfe used his land to continue growing his new strain of tobacco. Note the reproduction shown here is located at Jamestown, but it is a representation of what the palisades might have been like at Bermuda Hundred.

The Treasurer

May 1616: Governor Sir Thomas Dale, John Rolfe, Pocahontas, and ten other Powhatan Indians sail for England aboard the Treasurer, and they arrived in June.* George Yeardley served as Jamestown's deputy governor while Dale was in England. Dale was recalled under criticism, and in an effort to redeem his leadership Rolfe wrote A True Relation of the State of Virginia, Left by Sir Thomas Dale, Knight, in May last, 1616. Rolfe first published this treatise, meant to protect Dale from scrutiny, while in England, and it was first published in 1617. "This current transcription comes from the June 1839 edition of the Southern Literary Messenger, the editors of which claimed to have 'carefully transcribed' a version archived in the British Museum. The two are not identical, however.'" See also: A Proclamation Giving License to Any Who Are in Virginia, to Return Home, 1616/17.

* Although not previously noted, this is the same ship that Captain Samuel Argall used to capture Pocahontas in 1613, shown above in an engraving. Also, this is the same ship that escorted Angolans to the colony following the White Lion in 1619. See August 1619 below. 

Man Smoking a Longpipe

Summer 1616: Relations with the Chickahominy Indians failed rapidly under Deputy Governor George Yeardley's term. Jamestown busied itself with growing Rolfe's new strain of tobacco rather than food. The Chickahominy Indians refused to feed the colonists after numerous requsts, so Yeardley and a group of men killed between twenty and forty of the tribe members. This slaughter led the Chickahominy to return to Powhatan's protection.

The tobacco growth was unfortunate financially, despite the colonists' concentration on the crop. The Company failed to win a monopoly in tobacco trade from the Crown while Rolfe was in England. It wasn't that this particular tobacco wasn't a prime selection...the obstacle was James I, who had a strong dislike for the smoking habit. In 1604, the King wrote a Counterblaste to Tobacco to prove his antipathy to the product. Despite his distaste, tobacco exports grew from a total of twenty-five hundred pounds in 1616 to a total of fifty thousand pounds in 1628.

The King eventually relented, adopting tobacco imports from the colonies as a major import during the 1620s. Tobacco cultivation, Virginia's version of gold, would lay the foundation for the initial success of England's American colonies. However, tobacco did not feed the colonists in 1616.

James Bracken's
 Indenture

The Virginia Company, meanwhile, created a subsidiary joint-stock company called the "Magazine", or Society of Particular Adventurers for Traffic with the People of Virginia in Joint Stock. This company, which was almost completely independent of the Crown, obtained a monopoly in supplying Jamestown and outlying settlements with products. This was the first time the director and courts met without oversight from the Virginia Company. The Virginia Company did not profit from this new enterprise.

November 1616: Not surprisingly, the end of the first seven-year period in the Jamestown venture failed to yield dividends to the Virginia Company's investors. Instead, the Company offered land in Virginia, by distributing acreage as private plantations called "hundreds", as noted previously with Dale's Bermuda Hundred in 1613.

The Crown made land grants available initially to several of the Company's major adventurers (investors). Thereafter, some people purchased stock for the specific purpose of obtaining private land grants so they, too, could share in the wealth of the colonial elite. After 1618, English settlements significantly encroached on Indian territories, especially along the Chickahominy and James Rivers. Most of these encroachments are due to private land grants by the Company, but another viable reason existed for the land grabs...tobacco production rapidly exhausts nutrients in the soil, so it was imperative for the colonists to expand to continue to plant this new crop with superior results.

Bermuda Hundred Map

1617: Johannes Vingboons, a mapmaker for the Dutch West Indies Company, created a navigation chart of the James River. Among the sites listed on the map is Bermuda Hundred. The map shown here is a detail from the Fry-Jefferson map of Virginia, drawn in 1751. It also shows the Bermuda Hundred settlement at the confluence of the James and Appomattox rivers. If you look at the center of the map, you can see the settlement clearly (you probably can see it more clearly if you go to the Bermuda Hundred Map link listed below under "Illustrations").

21 March 1617: While visiting Gravesend, England, with her husband and son, Pocohontas died from illness at about age 21. Her father, Powhatan, ceded power this year to Opitchapan (or, Itopan) Powhatan, who was then succeeded by Opechancanough Powhatan. These men were all related.

April 1618: Weroance Wahunsenaca "Mamanatowick, Wahunsonacock, Ottaniack, Mamauatonick" Powhatan, father of Pocahontas, died at Pamunkey River, Virginia. He was approximately 73 years old.

December 1618: The Crown recognized tobacco as a medium of exchange. This was a fortunate turn, as the Virginia Company officials in London discovered that the investors' original outlay of seventy-five thousand pounds was almost entirely lost. Despite setbacks and hardships the previous decade, this year marked the "Great Migration," which grew the Virginia colony's population to about forty-five hundred individuals. The enticement of land proved irresistible to investors and adventurers. By 1618, each immigrant brought to Virginia, no matter what their age or sex, entitled the investor paying their way to 100 acres of land.*

* "By 1618, the Virginia Company was forced to change course again. The Company had not solved the problem of profitability, nor that of settlers' morale. [In 1619: see below] Sir Edwin Sandys became Company Treasurer and embarked on a series of reforms. He believed that the manufacturing enterprises the Company had begun were failing due to want of manpower. He embarked on a policy of granting sub-patents to land, which encouraged groups and wealthier individuals to go to Virginia. He sought to reward investors and so distributed 100 acres of land to each adventurer. He also distributed 50 acres to each person who paid his or her own way and 50 acres more for each additional person they brought along. This was known as the Virginia headright system."

Jamestown circa 1619

1619: The palisades at Bernuda Hundred fell into ruin, but the population continued to grow.

23 April 1619: Sir Edwin Sandys, a west English merchant with Puritanical leanings, was elected treasurer of the Virginia Company at a quarterly court. Sandys, who never visited the Virginia colony, is known to be largely responsible for having established the colony's representative government. He immediately called for a decrease in tobacco cultivation, the creation of industries such as the reestablishment of the glassworks and saltworks (which had fallen away), the production of naval stores, an ironworks, sawmill, silkworming, and vineyards. He called for the cultivation of subsistence crops and of the neglected Company or "public" lands in Virginia. Women were recruited in London to go to the colony and marry. Sir Thomas Smyth, Sandys's predecessor (second treasurer) and political enemy, became head of the Bermuda Company.

John Ferrar was elected deputy treasurer, and it appears he never traveled to the colonies, either. One of his known four sons, William Farrar, adventured to Virginia, and died there about 1637. William immigrated to Virginia on 16 March 1618 aboard the Neptune with Lord de la Warr, the "first lord governor and captain-general of Virginia for life," who died at sea on the journey. William arrived in Virginia in August 1618 and later settled in Henrico County.

Governor Sir George Yeardly

Also in April 1619, Governor Sir George Yeardley was empowered to charge and try Governor Samuel Argall for neglect of duty and malfeasance. Yeardley had been governor from April 1616 to May 1617 and was succeeded by Argall, who had returned from England. Argall established harsh martial law during his tenure, which caused adverse publicity for the Company in London.

Finally, this month also saw Christian ideals that were established to maintain rule of law based upon English practice and precedent. This was the first time in the colony's short history that law adopted morality. These Great Reforms of 1619 were designed to underpin a Christian commonwealth in Virginia that would guarantee the wellbeing of settlers and also those Indian peoples who converted to the Anglican Church and English ways. "The fundamental principle that governments depended on the consent of the people and the rule of law applied equally to everyone, originated in the Great Reforms of 1619."

30 July 1619: "The first General Assembly met in the “quire” (choir) of the what was then the newly-built wooden church at Jamestown on July 30, 1619." In session from July 30 to August 4, 1619, the General Assembly was the first representative governing body to meet anywhere in the Americas, and that has continued to meet to the present day. John Rolfe, who returned from England, became one of the Council members. He married Jane Pierce, the daughter of Captain William Pierce who was a passanger on the Sea Venture. You can view various members of the Captain's two households and the ships they arrived if you click on his name.

The Virginia company's duty-free status ends, and the Crown expected from this point forward to derive revenue from the colonists in the form of custom duties.

White Lion Arrives

August 1619: Captain John Colyn Jope brought the first Africans to Point Comfort, Virginia in the White Lion, an English privateering ship based in the Netherlands. The human cargo had come from the port city of Luanda, now the capital of present-day Angola. It is believed that most of the Africans were captured during an ongoing war between Portugal and the kingdom of Ndongo, as John Thornton wrote in the The William and Mary Quarterly in 1998. Between 1618 and 1620, about 50,000 enslaved people, many of whom had been prisoners of war, were exported from Angola. An estimated 350 of these captives were loaded onto a Portuguese slave ship called the São João Bautista (commonly known as the San Juan Bautista*). That ship was en route to the Spanish colony of Veracruz when the White Lion and another English ship, the Treasurer, intercepted it and seized a portion of the Angolans on board. According to James Horn, President and Chief Officer of Jamestown Rediscovery, both ships were owned by a powerful English nobleman, the Earl of Warwick Robert Rich. Rich was anti-Spanish and anti-Catholic (a Puritan, actually), and profited from thwarting Spanish shipping in the Caribbean. The White Lion, which flew under the flag of a Dutch port known for its pirates, arrived first to Virginia in late August 1619. The Treasurer followed four days later.

First Africans Historical Marker

Governor Yeardly and a merchant, Abraham Piersey, exchanged food for twenty souls, and some of them were named.** Anthony and Isabella (or "Isabela") stayed in present-day Hampton in an area then known as Elizabeth Cittie (now known as Hampton). They worked for William Tucker, a Virginia Company of London stockholder, and had a son also named William Tucker. Another woman who came off the Treasurer was identified as Angelo, and a 1625 census places her in William Pierce's house in an area outside the James Fort city called New Towne (the man being Rolfe's then-current father-in-law).The initial plan was for the Africans to become indentured servants, like the white individuals who traded passage for some years of servitude. Black slavery took root in the American colonies slowly, however. Historians now know that small numbers of Africans lived in Virginia before 1619...But it was not until the 1680s that Black slavery became the dominant labor system on plantations there. As late as 1640, there were probably only 150 Blacks in Virginia and in 1650, 300. But by 1680, the number had risen to 3,000 and by 1704, to 10,000." Some individuals in the initial arrival were set free after a few years, so the indentured aspect had some merit. However, this event in 1619 is marked as the first step in the long history of American slavery. See also: Hampton.gov's 1619: First African Landing.

Saint John the Baptist Replica

* The San Juan Bautista was one of the first Japanese-built galleons, constructed in 1613. She was sold to Spain in 1617. Learn more about her and her adventures at the link provided above.

** Abraham Piersey was no mere merchant. His land-holdings became enormous. He owned Flowerdieu Hundred (1000 acres), which he purchased from Yeardley in 1624, and Weyanoke (2,200 acres), and by 1626 has acquired an additional 1,150 acres "uppon Apmatuck".

20 January 1620: The Virginia Company dissolved the "Magazine", which fell into financial ruin. Free trade then prevailed in supplies to the colony.

17 May 1620: Sir Edwin Sandys described the impoverished state of Jamestown and its outer settlements for officers and members of the Virginia Company. He noted the growth of private plantations at the expense of the Company's lands. He was especially dismayed by the colonists' persistent attention to tobacco cultivation. Records of the Virginia Company, 1606-26, Volume III: Miscellaneous Records | The Court Book, Part A 

Edwin Sandysshire

Later, that month on 31 May, the Virginia Company discussed in a court meeting the use of Virginia and Bermuda (Somer's Island) as bases for piracy against the Spanish, for which Sir Edwin Sandys, the Company Treasurer, was recently rebuked before the court of James I. Sandys recognized that the colonists welcome pirates for the "Comodities they bringe unto them, . . . ." Records of the Virginia Company, Volume I

One month later, on 20 June 1620, the Earl of Southampton (Henry Wriothesley) replaced Sir Edwin Sandys, as treasurer of the Virginia Company. Sandys continued to exercise considerable influence on Company policy, however.

22 July 1620: The Virginia Company issued a pamphlet "A Declaration of the State of the Colony and Affairs in Virginia", that summarized the previous year's accomplishments.

Return to Main Page of Events

Illustrations:

• Palisade Reproduction: Highsmith, C. M., photographer. (2019) Stockade fence at Historic Jamestowne, a preservation and continuing excavation site at the location of the James Fort, near the later 17th-century and present-day city of Jamestown, Virginia. Virginia United States Jamestown, 2019. -11-24. [Photograph] Library of Congress.
• The Treasurer: Shown in The Abduction of Pocahontas by Johann Theodore de Bry after Georg Keller, 1624 engraving, based on 1617 engraving. Encyclopedia Virginia, the Virginia Historical Society.
• Man Smoking Longpipe, Seated at Table With Book, Candle and 2 More Long Pipes, 1659. Photograph. Library of Congress.
• Jamestown circa 1619: Illustration at Wikitree's entry for Jamestown, Virginia Colony.
• James Bracken's Indenture: Image showing actual contract of a linen weaver who arrived in Virginia from Armaugh, Northern Ireland, in the late 1700s aboard the Washington. He served Enoch Stickney, who probably paid for his transport. Mr. Bracken had rights to "meat, drink, apparel, and lodging" during his term of servitude, which was four years. At the end of his term, he was to be set free. The document was dated 20 May 1784. James signed with "X", his mark. I only wish I could find him on Wikitree, as there's an interesting signature at the bottom for Samuel Bracken. Possible father? What was James' age? Certain details always seem to go missing.
• Bermuda Hundred Map: Fry-Jefferson map of Virginia 1751, Joshua Fry and Peter Jefferson, cartographers (1751); Thomas Jefferys, engraver and printer (1753). This edition published 1755. Engraved map with outline color and watercolor. Encyclopedia of Virginia.
• Governor Sir George Yeardley: Sir George Yeardley: Engraving of the First Virginia Assembly, Governor Yeardley presiding (in center) by F. Luis Mora - Harper's Weekly (Jan 1901) via Stanard, Mary Newton. The story of Virginia's first century. London, J.B. Lippincott, 1928. Page 147., Public Domain. Wikipedia.
• White Lion Arrives: Engraving by Howard Pyle (1853-1911), "Landing Negroes at Jamestown from Dutch Man-of-War, 1619." Public Domain. Wikimedia.
• First Africans Historical Marker: Photograph by DrStew82 - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0. Wikimedia.
• San Juan Bautista Replica: Photograph by "no machine-readable author provided". Per Honor et Gloria assumed (based on copyright claims), Public Domain. Wikipedia.
• Sir Edwyn Sandys: Engraving by Valentine Green, Public Domain. Notes Edwyn is the son of Archbishop Sandys. Wikimedia.