Resource Center OLLibrary
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[1608-1612 |
tongue: that kept him quiet for a while. If a man refused to go
to church, he put him on short allowance of victuals, and whipped
him every day until he begged to hear preaching.
But the new governor was not a tyrant. He really
sought the welfare of the colony. He practically abolished the old
system of living out of the public storehouse (§ 46). To
every settler he gave a small piece of land, and allowed him a
certain number of days in the year to work on it for himself.
From this time a new spirit animated the
community. Before this, no matter how hard a man toiled he had
nothing he could call his own. But now every man could look with
pride on his little garden, and say, "This is mine." That
feeling gave him heart; before, he had worked in silence; now, he
whistled while he worked. Before, he had not cared much whether he
had the right to vote or not; but now that he was a property
holder, he wanted that right, and, as we shall see, he soon got
it.
50. What Tobacco did for Virginia. At
this time (1612) John Rolfe, the husband of Pocahontas (§
47), began the systematic cultivation of tobacco (§ 27). In
the course of a few years it came to be the greatest industry in
Virginia.1 At one time even the streets of Jamestown
were planted with it. It took the place of money, and clergymen
and public officers received their salaries in it. Before this,
America had practically nothing to export. With tobacco, commerce
began; for Europe was ready to buy all the colonists could
raise.
The outlook of the colony now began to change
for the better. The cultivation of tobacco had four important
effects:
1. It directly encouraged the settlers to clear
the land and undertake working it on a large scale.
2. It established a highly profitable trade with
Europe.
3. It induced emigrants who had some money, and
also industrious farmers, to come over to Virginia and engage in
the new industry.
The value of the tobacco crop of the United
States is now about $91,000,000 annually; that of cotton, the
cultivation of which was begun about the same time, but not then
extended, is upwards of $820,000,000. See Abstract of Census of
1910.
CAPTAIN JOHN
SMITH
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50 |
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[1612-1619 |
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4. It introduced the importation of
negro slaves as the cheapest means of carrying on great
tobacco plantations. |
The
tobacco farms were on the banks of the James or other
rivers, and vessels could load at them direct for
England. But the cultivation of tobacco exhausted the
soil. This compelled the planters to constantly add new
land to their estates, and so pushed the owners farther
and farther apart from each other.
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52 |
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[1619 |
The colony now consisted of eleven
plantations, or towns,1 later called boroughs. Each of
these boroughs was invited to send two representatives or
burgesses. They met in the church at Jamestown, Friday, July 30,
1619. This House of Burgesses was the first lawmaking assembly
that ever came together in America.
At last the colonists had practically obtained
the right of managing their own affairs. Spain would not grant
that power to her colonists in St. Augustine or elsewhere. France
would not grant it to Quebec or to her other settlements. England
gave that privilege -- the greatest she could give -- to her
colonists in the New World. Later, the right was restricted, but
it was never wholly taken away. When the American Revolution began
we find that Washington, Jefferson, Lee, Patrick Henry, and many
other eminent men were active members of the Legislature of
Virginia.
But though the men could now discuss politics
and make laws, many of them had no proper homes, for but few
unmarried women had emigrated to Virginia. To remedy this serious
deficiency, the London Company sent out a goodly number of young
women. The cost of the passage for each was fixed at 120 pounds of
the best tobacco.
When the long-looked-for ship arrived, the young
unmarried men were waiting at the wharf, and those who had their
tobacco ready soon managed to get wives in exchange. The brides
liked the country so well that they wrote back to England, and
persuaded more maids to come over and take pity on the forlorn
bachelors in the American wilderness.
52. Introduction of Negro Slavery, 1619;
White "Apprentices" or "Servants." In the records of this same
remarkable year of 1619 we read: "About the last of August came in
a
1 No counties had
then been laid out in Virginia. Later, when counties were
organized, nearly all the representatives were sent from them.
This made the Virginia system of government far less democratic
than that of Massachusetts (settled later), for in Massachusetts
all public affairs were at first decided by the whole body of
voters, and not by a selected number of persons representing them.
When the population of Massachusetts became too large for this,
the towns, instead of the counties, sent representatives to the
Legislature.
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1620] |
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Dutch man-of-war that sold us 20 Negars." This was the
beginning of African slavery in the English colonies of
America. |
At
that time every leading nation of western Europe traded
in negroes. No one then condemned the traffic, for no
man's conscience was troubled by it, and at a much later
period the King of England derived a large income from
selling slaves in America. The system gradually spread
over the country, and a little more than a hundred and
fifty years later (1776) every one of the thirteen
American colonies held slaves.
