The Virginia Company
-Chrissie
Listen here: https://www.spreaker.com/user/ufpearth/hwts052
England was the last of the major European powers to get involved in colonizing the Americas. Their first attempts were unsuccessful, to say the least. The Roanoke Colony, set up by Sir Walter Raleigh in 1587, famously disappeared. The English efforts were also done by private adventure companies which were little coordinated and, while they required approval from the Crown, did not get any funding from them. The Virginia Company of London was no different. It received its charter from King James I in 1606 and then set about gathering funds. Lacking the funds available to colonists from other countries, the planners set up a joint-stock company which sold shares in the venture to private individuals. People who saw value in colonization efforts could contribute and profit without having to move across the ocean. They could also lose their money if the venture failed. Despite their private finding, the company’s directors were appointed by King James and the government was involved in the choice of settlement locations. After all, the land which they would be colonizing was under the auspices of the English government. Any interactions with natives and with other Europeans had to follow the Crown’s policies and law.
By the autumn of 1606, they had raised enough money to set out. Three ships, carrying 144 men and boys, left England in December 1606. They disembarked at what would become Jamestown the following May. Their purpose was not to set up a colony for its own sake, but also to establish an English presence on the American coastline, which would (hopefully) prevent the Spanish from moving further north. It was also expected the colony would facilitate trade with local tribes and with that trade, their conversion to Anglican Christianity (as opposed to Spanish Roman Catholicism). An established settlement could also provide trade in natural resources sent back to the home country and in finished goods sent to the colonies. The colonies would also be a place for England to send people classified as “excess population,” consisting of the poor, indebted, and criminal. Last, no matter what else the colonists did, it was expected they would create a healthy profit for the company and its shareholders.
Unfortunately for the colonists and the investors, the initial focus of the Jamestown settlement was mere survival. The colonists faced regular attacks from the local Powhatan tribe, on whose land they were living, which made foraging, hunting, and farming difficult at best. Even after a truce of sorts was agreed upon, the colonists were not able to produce enough food, making them reliant upon supply ships from England and trade with local tribes. More colonists arrived on the Company’s ships in 1608 and 1609, the latter under the guidance of a renewed charter for the company. These new colonists came with few supplies, meaning they added mouths to feed but with little benefit. This, combined with a drought in the summer of 1609, led to the Starving Time, during which almost the entire colony was wiped out. Of the 500 people living in Jamestown at the beginning of the winter of 1609, only 61 survived to the spring. While the Company was able to mitigate the spread of information about this famine, they could do nothing about the report of one of their ships being lost in a storm, which caused them to lose a great deal of money. It turned out that the report was false, but the damage was done.
Despite these setbacks, in 1612 the Crown was willing to authorize a third charter, seeing there was still potential for profit. This mollified the unhappy investors waiting for a return on their shares. The Company also offered those who were willing to take payment on their shares in the form of land an opportunity to join the colony. This was a more attractive than it had been even a two years previously because successful tobacco crops had improved the outlook for both the survival of the colony and the company. Some of those who took the land ended up with a great deal more money from tobacco farming than they would have gotten from the expected return on their shares. The company also held a lottery in which people could win land in the colony or money, but it was overshadowed by accusations of corruption and was ended before the prizes were given out.
A final charter was approved in 1618, which passed governance of the colony away from the company to the colonists. Once this was approved, the colonists elected representatives who worked in concert with a governor sent from England. Over the next few years, expansion of the colony caused more frequent interactions with the local tribes, which grew more violent with time. This culminated in 1622 with the Jamestown Massacre, which prompted the crown to take full control over the colony two years later. The Virginia Company was dissolved at the same time.