17

FIRST COLONY

RALEIGH GILBERT’S RETREAT from Sagadahoc was a heartbreaking setback for the merchants and courtiers of the Plymouth Company, but Ferdinando Gorges exaggerated the wider significance of the failure on England’s efforts to establish a colony in the New World. This is because the London Company had already embarked on a rival colonial project, 750 miles farther south along the coast.

It was better resourced, better managed—by Sir Thomas Smythe—and better staffed than the Plymouth Company. The captain of the fleet was Christopher Newport, one of England’s most experienced Atlantic sailors. He had been a prominent privateer during England’s long sea war with Spain. In one escapade, he had engaged in a fierce battle with Spanish treasure ships and his right arm was “strooken off.” This did not slow him down, however. In 1592, the one-armed captain commanded one of the ships that seized the Madre de Dios, and took charge of sailing the prized vessel into port.¹ His second-in-command was Bartholomew Gosnold, who left his mark on the landscape of North America when he named Cape Cod and Martha’s Vineyard during his only other voyage across the Atlantic four years earlier.²

Richard Hakluyt had expected to make the journey to the new colony, where he was to serve as chaplain, and James I gave him express permission to do so.³ The preacher-writer had come close to joining Humphrey Gilbert on his ultimately disastrous voyage to Newfoundland in the 1580s. In the end, however, he did not step on board Gilbert’s ship—and nor did he go this time. By now in his mid-fifties, he was married, well-to-do, and well-established. Perhaps he felt he had more to lose than to gain by joining a risky venture. He did, nevertheless, throw himself into the preparations for the voyage and almost certainly took a leading role in drafting some of the company’s instructions to Newport and his fellow leaders.⁴

Newport’s fleet of three ships—the Susan Constant, the Godspeed, and the Discovery, a twelve-ton pinnace—set sail from Blackwall on Saturday, December 20, 1606, with a contingent of 144 men and boys.⁵ They followed the southerly route, but avoided the Spanish and the fate that had befallen Henry Challons in late 1606, and on April 26, 1607, reached the coastal headland at the entrance to what is now Chesapeake Bay, in present-day Virginia. Newport and thirty of the colonists stepped ashore and named the place Cape Henry, after James I’s eldest son and heir to the throne.

The “certain orders and directions” for the settlers created by the London Company’s leaders had some striking new features. Newport was put in “sole charge” of everyone on board—even the aristocrats and gentlemen—from the moment of departure to “such time as they shall fortune to land upon the coast of Virginia.” Then, once the ships reached their destination, his exclusive authority was to cease and power was to be transferred to a governing body, the Council of Virginia (not to be confused with the King’s Council). Thomas Smythe and the rest of the King’s Council had already chosen the members of the council that would run the colony in Virginia. But their names were kept secret and placed in a sealed package that was not to be opened until the colonists reached their destination. This strategy had been developed by Smythe and the other managers of the Muscovy and East India Company ventures, who had found it helped prevent the kind of corrosive conflicts that might otherwise lead to mutiny.⁶

Once they reached Cape Henry, Newport opened the sealed package as instructed and read the list of council members. Newport himself was named, as were Gosnold and Edward Maria Wingfield, who had experience as a colonizer in Ireland. They were joined by John Martin (whose father, Richard, had served as Lord Mayor of London and governor of the Company of Mineral and Battery Works) and George Kendall, a soldier and sometime government spy. Also, the supremely self-confident John Smith, an experienced adventurer and military man, was named to the Council. Surprisingly, Gabriel Archer, who had accompanied Gosnold on his previous visit to America, was excluded. So, too, was George Percy, an aristocrat with impressive connections. His elder brother, the Earl of Northumberland, was a friend of Walter Ralegh and patron of Thomas Harriot.

The councillors now chose Wingfield as their president. His election showed a certain deference to age and status. By then in his mid-fifties, he had royal connections: his grandfather had served as lord deputy of Calais and his father was the godson of Henry VIII’s sister Mary, hence his middle name “Maria.” In his youth, he attended Lincoln’s Inn, but thereafter pursued a military career, serving not only in Ireland but also in the Low Countries.⁷

Under his leadership, the councillors turned to the pressing matter of choosing a suitable place for the plantation. The instructions advised them to take their time, so that they could be certain that their preferred location was “the strongest, most wholesome and fertile place.” Ideally, the site would be “a hundred miles from the river’s mouth, and the further up the better” so as to be out of reach of enemy attack, either by sea or by land. Also, the colonists were directed to set up a lookout station at the entrance to the river, so that ample warning of an attack could be given to the settlement farther upstream.

Following these instructions, the colonists departed Cape Henry and entered the wide estuary of a river that they named the James, after the king. They then proceeded upriver, searching for a good location, and finally reached an island close to shore that was deemed to be “a very fit place for the erecting of a great city.”⁸ The colonists named the site James Towne.

Having done this, they divided themselves into three groups of workers—again, as instructed. The first group set about constructing a series of buildings: a fort, a storehouse for victuals, and other facilities for “public and necessary use.” The second group began to farm the land, sowing seeds and planting “corn and roots.” The third group was tasked with searching for minerals and a passage to the East, which the King’s Council believed might run straight through the middle of the American landmass and empty into the Pacific.⁹ Led by Newport, these explorers ventured deep into Indian territory, a land known as Tsenacommacah. They had several peaceful encounters with Indians, and heard encouraging stories about mineral mines. But when they returned, they found to their horror that Indians had attacked the newly built fort at Jamestown. Eleven colonists had been wounded, one mortally, and one boy was killed outright.¹⁰

It was an ominous start to the life of the colony.

AT THE END of July 1607, having spent less than two months in Jamestown, Christopher Newport returned to England to deliver a progress report to the King’s Council. (There was no news yet from the Popham group in New England.) Newport had been warned not to “write any letter of any thing that may discourage others.”¹¹ It was one of the lessons Thomas Smythe and the other leaders had learned from the original Roanoke Colony, whose members returned home with tales of woe and undermined efforts to attract new investors.

Newport presented the King’s Council with a letter from Wingfield and his fellow councillors that glowed with enthusiasm. The colonists had settled on the bank of an exceptional river sixty miles inland, where they were “fortified well against the Indians.” They enjoyed a “good store of wheat,” plenty of fish, and they were convinced that Virginia “would flow with milk and honey” if—and only if—the council sent a resupply mission. This, they warned, needed to be done quickly, because the “all devouring Spaniard” was still interested in Virginia.¹²

Newport brought evidence of commercial opportunity: two tons of sassafras, which continued to be a sought-after commodity, and some clapboard—long thin planks of wood cut from oak, pine, and spruce trees and used for the walls and roofs of buildings. Also, he presented samples of an ore that he believed might contain traces of gold. But this mineral caused no great euphoria. Ever since the days of Frobisher’s failed expeditions, investors had greeted claims of gold with a measure of skepticism. This time Sir Walter Cope wrote to Cecil, explaining that if they were to believe what the colonists told them, then “we are fallen upon a land that promises more than the land of promise.” Instead of milk, Cope wrote, “we find pearl,” and instead of honey, gold. He cautioned, however, that they should learn from experience—“the wisest schoolmistress”—and be “of Slow belief.” Cope’s circumspection soon proved well-founded when, the very next day, the council received the results of an assay on the ore. As Cope suspected, there were no traces of copper, never mind gold.¹³

Even so, Cecil was sufficiently encouraged to sanction a resupply mission, and he did not wish to waste time. He was rightly concerned that the Spanish were preparing to destroy Jamestown, occupy the land, and seize the riches that it had to offer. In September 1607, Pedro de Zúñiga, the Spanish ambassador, wrote to Philip III, suggesting that “it would be very advisable for Your Majesty to root out this noxious plant while it is so easy.” Wait much longer, he warned, and “it will be more difficult to get them out.”¹⁴

Smythe took charge of organizing the resupply mission. He had no intention of repeating Ralegh’s administrative failures, which had undermined the Roanoke Colony. He exerted his influence with some fifty London merchants of the East India Company to raise capital for the effort, and by October—just two months after Newport’s arrival in England—two ships, led once again by Newport, were ready to sail for Virginia with 120 men and supplies for the fledgling colony. Smythe’s masterful management so impressed his fellow councillors that Cope suggested that Cecil should offer “a word of thanks” for the merchant’s “care & diligence.”¹⁵

NEWPORT REACHED VIRGINIA on January 2, 1608—while the Challons crew was still being held in Spain and the Popham Colony was enduring a bitterly cold winter. But if he expected to find a vibrant colony full of festive cheer, he was sorely disappointed by what he found. The colony was on the brink of collapse. The previous summer, while he was sailing back to England with promising news of Jamestown, the colonists had suffered an onslaught of “the bloody flux”—dysentery. So many fell sick and died that those who lived “were scarce able to bury the dead.”¹⁶ Bartholomew Gosnold was one of the victims of that dreadful time.

As the sickness swept the colony, the leaders bickered and the government disintegrated. “After Captain Gosnold’s death,” wrote George Percy, “the Council could hardly agree,” and they started to divide into factions.¹⁷ Three councillors—Kendall, Martin, and Ratcliffe—accused Wingfield of hoarding oatmeal, beef, eggs, and aqua vitae for his personal consumption and forced him from office.¹⁸ Ratcliffe became president and then moved to strengthen his position, arresting Kendall, whom he accused of being a Spanish spy, and eventually having him executed before a firing squad.¹⁹

With the colonists in distress and their leaders in disarray, the controversial John Smith stepped into the breach. At twenty-seven years old, he was the youngest of the councillors, but his youth belied his vast experience. Humbly born, he left England to make his fortune. Not long after turning twenty, he was fighting as a mercenary in the Christian forces warring against the Ottoman Turks in Eastern Europe. It was during this campaign that he came of age, displaying such bravery that he was granted a coat of arms—and, with it, the status of a gentleman.

Newport disliked the cocksure Smith. On the first voyage to Jamestown, Smith’s abrasive self-assurance had so enraged his fellow councillors that he was charged with mutinous activities, chained in the ship’s hold, and narrowly escaped hanging. But as the colony fell into crisis, Smith, demonstrating his natural leadership, started venturing out of the fort and travelling up the James River to trade for corn with Indians. There were about thirty tribes of the Powhatan group in the eastern Virginia region, a total of some 14,000 Indians. They spoke various dialects of the Algonquian language, controlled a land known as Tsenacommacah that encompassed some eight thousand square miles, and lived in a kind of confederacy under the authority of Wahunsonacock, a great chief, whom the English knew as Powhatan.²⁰

It was on one such upriver foray that Smith had the encounter that has entered into American legend. After paddling up the James River with a party of colonists, he split off with two men, in order to explore the nearby woods on foot. Within a few minutes, they were ambushed, Smith’s companions were slaughtered—one had “20 or 30 arrows in him”—and he was captured. He was marched to meet the brother of Wahunsonacock, who greeted him with surprising cordiality. Smith was served “great platters of fine bread” and “more venison than ten men could devour.”²¹ Then he was taken to meet Wahunsonacock, who resided at Werowocomoco, the capital of the Powhatan people north of Jamestown. There, some Indians forced Smith’s head onto “two great stones,” and he assumed that they were about “to beat out his brains.” Smith begged for his life, and just when it looked as if “no entreaty could prevail,” an Indian girl, perhaps ten years old, rushed forward. She took “his head in her arms, and laid her own upon his to save him from death.” The girl’s name was Matoaka. But Smith would know her as Pocahontas, a pet name for a cheeky, playful child. Smith was set free and returned to Jamestown in January 1608, arriving just a few hours before Newport’s ships hove into view.²²

Newport’s new settlers and fresh supplies bolstered the resolve of the survivors. With a population of around 160 people, the colony had never been so strong. To make it stronger still, Newport went in search of gold mines and a fast passage to the Pacific. He took Smith with him, despite his personal dislike of the young captain. He knew Smith had greater knowledge of the locality than anyone else.

This search proved fruitless. But the expedition did mark a new chapter in the relationship between the English and the Powhatans. Until then, the English had typically captured or cajoled Indians, transporting them back across the Atlantic in order to display them as proof of discovery and to better understand their land, their language, and their culture. Now, with Smith’s help, Newport cut a deal with Wahunsonacock: Thomas Savage, a thirteen-year-old English boy, was handed over to the Powhatans in exchange for the chief’s loyal servant, Namontack. The teenaged “go-between,” the first of many who would be swapped, was to live with the Indian leader, learn the Algonquian language and, ultimately, become an interpreter. It was a remarkable gesture that was meant to engender trust and goodwill.²³

In April 1608, Newport departed for England once again, accompanied by Namontack and Edward Wingfield, the deposed president. Five months later, with Newport and Wingfield gone, Smith was formally installed as president. He took a tough line with the gentlemen colonists who, he wrote, “would rather starve and rot with idleness” than do their fair share of the work.²⁴ He warned them, “He that will not work shall not eat.” He did not want the “labour of 30 or 40 honest and industrious men” to be eaten up by “150 idle varlets.”²⁵

Back in London, Christopher Newport delivered to the leaders of the Virginia Company a report that Smith, a prolific writer, had prepared about the Jamestown Colony. The land was “not only exceeding pleasant for habitation,” he wrote, “but also very profitable for commerce in general.” This vast, rich territory was ruled by an impressive Indian “emperor” who was “richly hung with many chains of great pearls about his neck” and who wore “a great covering of Rahaughcums”: a cloak of raccoon skins. Land, precious commodities, furs, and accommodating Indian traders—so encouraging was this testimony that the London Company arranged for Smith’s pamphlet to be rushed into print under the title A True Relation of such occurrence and accidents of noate as hath happened in Virginia since the first planting of that Colony.²⁶

To this sparkling account, Smith had appended a rough sketch map which was not published. It particularly intrigued Smythe and his associates, providing them with their first view of the James River and its tributaries. Together with the scattering of Indian villages that surrounded the triangular settlement at Jamestown, it offered tantalizing evidence of a passage to the East: Smith reported that salt water, which he surmised came from the “south sea”—the Pacific Ocean—“beateth into the river,” upstream from Jamestown. Perhaps, at last, the London Company was poised to discover a new route to Cathay.

Even more sensationally, Smith suggested that members of the Roanoke Colony might still be alive. Ever since 1587, when John White left the colonists, there had been rumors that they had survived—but nothing more. Near the coastline, Smith marked a village called Pakerakanick, and wrote, “Here remain 4 men clothed that came from Roanoke to Okanahowan.”²⁷ The English did not wish to let go of the hope that Sir Walter Ralegh’s colony still existed, somewhere.

IN AUGUST 1608, Newport led a second supply mission to Jamestown, this time carrying seventy new colonists with him. He was sailing west as the Popham colonists were sailing east and home to London, having abandoned their little fort at Sagadahoc. Newport carried new instructions for the colonists to search for “the South Sea, a mine of gold” or for any of those people who had been “sent by Sir Walter Ralegh”—that is, the lost Roanoke settlers. Newport also carried a letter (now lost) from Sir Thomas Smythe that dripped with frustration. Addressing Smith and his fellow colonists, Smythe expressed his anger at being fed “with ‘ifs’ and ‘ands,’ hopes and some few proofs.” He apparently warned that if the colonists did not send commodities to defray the costs of the latest supply fleet—the princely sum of two thousand pounds—they would be “banished men.”

This raised the ire of Captain Smith, who fired off a reply that he himself admitted was a “rude answer.” He mocked Newport’s new instructions, even though it had been his report and sketch map that had encouraged the investors to get excited about a passage to Cathay. He criticized the company’s efforts to resupply the colony, saying the victuals were not “worth twenty pounds.” And he warned Smythe not to expect a quick return or compare Jamestown’s commercial output to that of the Muscovy Company. “Though your factors there can buy as much in a week as will freight you a ship,” Smith wrote, “you must not expect from us any such matter.” In Jamestown, he revealed, the settlers were “scarce able” to get enough to live.²⁸

When Smythe received Smith’s letter and other reports, including a more detailed map of Virginia, he and the other members of the King’s Council were persuaded that something more, and something different, needed to be done if Jamestown was to thrive and the company was to turn a profit. He convened a series of “solemn meetings” to discuss the way forward, inviting Richard Hakluyt and Thomas Harriot, now in his late forties and arguably England’s most experienced colonist, to one of these meetings, held at the London residence of Thomas Cecil, Robert Cecil’s elder brother and a leading investor.²⁹ They resolved to take three main actions: reshape the leadership structure, broaden the territorial domain of the colony, and increase the number of investors.

The difficulties with the leadership structure were made clear in Smith’s letter. The office of Jamestown president had not been endowed with sufficient power. During Smith’s tenure, the other council members broke into factions and looked for every opportunity to undermine him. One colonist later noted that “such envy, dissensions and jars were daily sown amongst them, that they choked the seeds and blasted the fruits of all men’s labors.”³⁰ Acknowledging their “error” in making the president first among equals, the members of the King’s Council resolved to appoint “one able and absolute Governor.”³¹

The Smythe group also decided that the governor should preside over a larger territory. The map and report that Captain Smith sent Smythe—which was later published as A Map of Virginia. With a Description of the Countrey, the Commodities, People, Government and Religion—set out very clearly the opportunity for England to establish a vast colony in the New World.³² Accordingly, Sir Edwin Sandys, a gifted parliamentary speaker, was tasked with drawing up a revised, or second, charter that would extend the London Company’s territorial claims. This he did, and the resulting document, which James I signed in May 1609, significantly enlarged the territory that could be claimed by the shareholders—from 10,000 miles to more than a million square miles.³³

This stretched from “sea to sea”—an indication that Smythe and his associates were determined to find a fast passage to the Pacific Ocean and to Cathay. Also, it stretched from Jamestown and its environs in the north to Roanoke in the south—an indication that they were committed to find the survivors of Ralegh’s colony. As Smythe and the other leaders of the London Company later wrote, they believed that “some of our Nation planted by Sir Walter Ralegh” were “yet alive, within fifty miles of our fort.” If they could be found, they could “open the womb and bowels of this country”—in other words, they could divulge the secrets of the land.³⁴

As well as new leadership and a bolder colonial vision, Smythe and his associates sought one further reform: a new company with a wider group of investors. The colony was a costly business, and they realized that they needed to put the whole enterprise on a firmer financial footing. For this, they received royal support, enshrined in the charter, for a new corporation, the Treasurer and Company of Adventurers and Planters of the City of London for the First Colony in Virginia. Better known as the Virginia Company, this came about after a flurry of promotional activity designed to attract new investors.

One of Smythe’s first moves was to invite the merchants of the Plymouth Company to join the London contingent at twenty-five dollars per share, which would bring them “all privileges and liberties” of membership. It was, in effect, a corporate merger. Smythe believed that they would be stronger together. “If we join freely together and, with one common and patient purse, maintain and perfect our foundations,” he argued, then they would benefit from “a most fruitful country” that was “aboundant in rich commodities.”³⁵ He discussed the proposal with Sir Ferdinando Gorges, but in the end the talks came to nothing. Gorges and his fellow investors were still reeling from the failure of the Sagadahoc settlement, and they seem to have had scant appetite for further costly colonial ventures.

To cast his net wider, Smythe commissioned Robert Johnson, one of his close business associates and a leading merchant of the Worshipful Company of Grocers, to write a promotional pamphlet called Nova Britannia, echoing the language of Drake’s Nova Albion, located in similar latitudes on the other side of the American continent. This was the first part of an ambitious marketing campaign that added a new element to the promotional pitch.

Johnson urged the pamphlet’s readers not to make the same mistake as their English “forefathers” had—losing “the prime and fairest proffer of the greatest wealth in the world” when they spurned Christopher Columbus’s offer to discover a new route to China. “Let it not be accounted hereafter, as a prize in the hands of fools, that had not hearts to use it,” he warned.³⁶ With his soaring rhetoric, Johnson sought to stir not only national sentiment but also religious conviction. Ever since the days of the Mysterie, merchants had paid lip service to the importance of proselytizing non-Christian peoples as a motivation for overseas ventures but they had taken little tangible action to preach the gospel and win over converts. Now, Johnson insisted that the overriding purpose of English colonial efforts was the “advancing and spreading the kingdom of God.”³⁷ The message of Nova Britannia came through loud and clear. Give whatever you can give, no matter how little. By investing in Virginia, you are giving to your country, and to God.

The religious message was reinforced from the country’s pulpits. In March 1609, Richard Crakanthorpe, an Oxford theologian, praised anyone who would commit to the Virginia effort. Their investment would help to bring about “a new Britain in another world” and would also ensure that the “heathen barbarians and brutish people” would learn the word of God.³⁸ The following month, William Symonds, another Oxford scholar, delivered a sermon before leading supporters of the Virginia enterprise. Symonds, quoting from the Bible, likened the colonists’ task to that of Abraham, who was instructed to leave the land of his father and build “a great Nation.”³⁹

Pedro de Zúñiga, the Spanish ambassador, could barely contain his contempt for this new approach. He wrote to Philip III that the English “have actually made the ministers in their sermons dwell upon the importance of filling the world with their religion and demand that all make an effort to give what they have” to forward the cause.⁴⁰ Virginia was no longer just a commercial venture. It was becoming a crusade for Protestantism, national expansion, and social good. But the appeal to religious conviction was more than a cynical commercial ruse: Smythe and other leaders were devout men driven by their Protestant beliefs. Smythe himself had been raised in a godly household, and his first wife was the daughter of Richard Culverwell, who was closely associated with the founding of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, the puritan academy attended by John Harvard, who gave his library to the college that later took his name.⁴¹

As the clergymen preached from the pulpits of London, the members of the King’s Council put pressure on their friends and colleagues to support and promote the campaign. They sent letters to the Lord Mayor, aldermen, and livery companies of London, soliciting subscriptions to their colony—“an action pleasing to God and happy for this Common Wealth.”⁴² The Lord Mayor, in turn, entreated London’s great livery companies to “deal very earnestly and effectually” with their members “to make some adventure in so good and honourable action.”⁴³

Smythe’s dynamic marketing campaign was compelling, but investors may also have been lured by another novel feature: affordability. In the early 1550s, the Mysterie had set the share price at twenty-five pounds, which was a princely sum. Half a century later, a single share in the East India Company had gone for two hundred pounds.⁴⁴ But when setting the share price for the Virginia Company, Smythe offered a drastic reduction: an individual share could be purchased for the bargain price of twelve pounds and ten shillings. The reward would be a division of land and a division of the proceeds of the colony—after seven years. In Nova Britannia, Johnson confidently predicted that investors would receive “at least” five hundred acres for every share.⁴⁵

The combination of national pride, religious conviction, appealing marketing, and low price worked. The first Virginia charter had listed eight subscribers. By contrast, the second charter listed nearly a hundred times as many: 659 individuals and fifty-six livery companies and other corporate bodies. The great livery companies—the Mercers, Clothworkers, Goldsmiths, and Haberdashers—were joined by some lesser companies such as the poulterers, fruiterers, plasterers, basketmakers, and embroiderers. Mirroring this diversity, the individual investors came from across the social spectrum: not only noblemen but also doctors, captains, brewers, and even a shoemaker.⁴⁶ The campaign’s success alarmed Zuñiga, who told the Spanish king that “there has been gotten together in 20 days a sum of money for this voyage which amazes one.” He reported that fourteen “counts and barons” had pledged “40,000 ducats,” that “the merchants give much more,” and that “there is no poor little man, nor woman, who is not willing to subscribe something for this enterprise.”⁴⁷

It had been three years since the first colonists had arrived at Cape Henry, and the track record so far was disappointing, not to say disastrous. As one contemporary observer put it, “the plantation went rather backwards than forwards.”⁴⁸ In previous years, such setbacks had doomed colonial projects. But Sir Thomas Smythe and his fellow leaders did not abandon the enterprise, as so many others had given up on their ventures in times gone by. At last, they seemed to accept that the process would be bumpy, that constant adaptation would be required, and that it would take time to establish a thriving enterprise. “Planting of countries is like planting of woods,” noted Sir Francis Bacon, the country’s attorney general, who was involved in drafting the second charter. “You must make account to leese [lose] almost twenty years’ profit, and expect your recompense in the end.”⁴⁹

So far, Jamestown had to be counted as a failure—a graveyard of people and dreams. Now, it was time for a reset. Adopting a new attitude, the leaders listened to the advice of men with great knowledge and experience—John Smith, Richard Hakluyt, and Thomas Harriot—and rethought the mission, ditched what did not work, and considered what might work better in the future. They embraced, as it were, the processes of trial and error and incremental improvement. They were encouraged in their efforts because they had the ear of the king, the support of the City, the hearty participation of the people—and, they fervently believed, the blessing of God.