Virginia and the Southern Colonies
In 1605 Captain George Weymouth sailed across the sea and spent a
summer month in North Virginia--later, New England. Weymouth had
powerful backers, and with him sailed old adventurers who had been
with Raleigh. Coming home to England with five Indians in his
company, Weymouth and his voyage gave to public interest the needed
fillip towards action. Here was the peace with Spain, and here was
the new interest in Virginia. "Go to!" said Mother England. "It is
time to place our children in the world!"
The old adventurers of the day of Sir Humphrey Gilbert had acted as
individuals. Soon was to come in the idea of cooperative action--the
idea of the joint-stock company, acting under the open permission of
the Crown, attended by the interest and favor of numbers of the
people, and giving to private initiative and personal ambition, a
public tone. Some men of foresight would have had Crown and Country
themselves the adventurers, superseding any smaller bodies. But for
the moment the fortunes of Virginia were furthered by a group within
the great group, by a joint-stock company, a corporation.
In 1600 had come into being the East India Company, prototype of
many companies to follow. Now, six years later, there arose under
one royal charter two companies, generally known as the London and
the Plymouth. The first colony planted by the latter was
short-lived. Its letters patent were for North Virginia. Two ships,
the Mary and John and the Gift of God, sailed with over a hundred
settlers. These men, reaching the coast of what is now Maine, built
a fort and a church on the banks of the Kennebec. Then followed the
usual miseries typical of colonial venture--sickness, starvation,
and a freezing winter. With the return of summer the enterprise was
abandoned. The foundation of New England was delayed awhile, her
Pilgrims yet in England, though meditating that first remove to
Holland, her Mayflower only a ship of London port, staunch, but with
no fame above another.
Virginia and the Southern Colonies
- Commercial enterprise in Virginia
- Maryland, refuge of Roman Catholics
- The Reign of Berkeley in Virginia
- Eighteenth Century Virginia
- Maryland after the Restoration
- The Carolinas
-
Early Settlements of the Carolinas
- Albemarle, Virginian back-country
- Cape Fear, Barbadians
- Charleston, colonists from England
- Locke's "Fundamental Constitutions"
- Pirates, heretics, radicals from Europe, and restless Virginians
- The founding of Georgia, 1733
-
Early Settlements of the Carolinas
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