Part 163

_J. A. Doyle, The American Colonies, chapter 2._

VIRGINIA: A. D. 1644. Fresh Indian outbreak and massacre of whites.

"After a peace of five or six years, the Indians, provoked by continued encroachments on their lands, and instigated, it is said, by the aged chief Opechancanough, formed a new scheme for the extermination of the colonists. They were encouraged by signs of discord among the English, having seen a fight in James River between a London ship for the Parliament and a Bristol ship for the king. Five hundred persons perished in the first surprise, which took place, according to Winthrop, the day before Good Friday, appointed by the governor, 'a courtier, and very malignant toward the way of our churches,' to be observed as a fast for the good success of the king. For defense, the planters were concentrated in a few settlements; … forts were built at the points most exposed; and a ship was sent to Boston for powder, which, however, the General Court declined to furnish. This occasion was taken by 'divers godly-disposed persons' of Virginia to remove to New England. … The Indians were presently driven from their fastnesses. Opechancanough, decrepit and incapable of moving without assistance, … was taken prisoner and carried to Jamestown, where he was shot in the back by a vindictive soldier appointed to guard him. The Indian towns were broken up, and their 'clear lands possessed by the English to sow wheat in.' Opechancanough's successor submitted; and a peace was made by act of Assembly, the Indians ceding all the lands between James and York Rivers. No Indian was to come south of York River under pain of death. The Powhatan confederacy was dissolved. The Indians of lower Virginia sunk into servile dependence, and dwindled away, or, migrating to the south and west, were mingled and confounded with other tribes."

_R. Hildreth, History of the United States, chapter 11 (volume 1)._

ALSO IN: _J. E. Cooke, Virginia, part 2, chapter 5._

VIRGINIA: A. D. 1650-1660. Under the Commonwealth and Cromwell, and the Stuart Restoration. Two sides of the story. Origin of the name of "The Old Dominion."

"After this, Sir William Berkeley [governor] made a new peace with the Indians, which continued for a long time unviolated. … But he himself did not long enjoy the benefit of this profound peace; for the unhappy troubles of king Charles the first increasing in England, proved a great disturbance to him and to all the people. They, to prevent the infection from reaching that country, made severe laws against the Puritans, though there were as yet none among them. But all correspondence with England was interrupted, supplies lessened, and trade obstructed. … At last the king was traitorously beheaded in England, and Oliver installed Protector. However, his authority was not acknowledged in Virginia for several years after, till they were forced to it by the last necessity. For in the year 1651, by Cromwell's command, Captain Dennis, with a squadron of men of war, arrived there from the Carribbee islands, where they had been subduing Bardoes. The country at first held out vigorously against him, and Sir William Berkeley, by the assistance of such Dutch vessels as were then there, made a brave resistance. {3632} But at last Dennis contrived a stratagem which betrayed the country. He had got a considerable parcel of goods aboard, which belonged to two of the Council, and found a method of informing them of it. By this means they were reduced to the dilemma, either of submitting or losing their goods. This occasioned factions among them; so that at last, after the surrender of all the other English plantations, Sir William was forced to submit to the usurper on the terms of a general pardon. However, it ought to be remembered, to his praise, and to the immortal honor of that colony, that it was the last of all the king's dominions that submitted to the usurpation; and afterwards the first that cast it off, and he never took any post or office under the usurper. Oliver had no sooner subdued the plantations, but he began to contrive how to keep them under, that so they might never be able for the time to come to give him farther trouble. To this end, he thought it necessary to break off their correspondence with all other nations, thereby to prevent their being furnished with arms, ammunition, and other warlike provisions. According to this design, he contrived a severe act of Parliament [1651], whereby he prohibited the plantations from receiving or exporting any European commodities but what should be carried to them by Englishmen, and in English built ships. …

See NAVIGATION ACT, ENGLISH.

Notwithstanding this act of navigation, the Protector never thought the plantations enough secured, but frequently changed their governors, to prevent their intriguing with the people. So that, during the time of the usurpation, they had no less than three governors there, namely, Diggs, Bennet and Mathews. The strange arbitrary curbs he put upon the plantations exceedingly afflicted the people … and inspired them with a desire to use the last remedy, to relieve themselves from this lawless usurpation. In a short time afterwards a fair opportunity happened; for Governor Mathews died, and no person was substituted to succeed him in the government. Whereupon the people applied themselves to Sir William Berkeley (who had continued all this time upon his own plantation in a private capacity) and unanimously chose him their governor again [March, 1660]. Sir William … told the people … that if he accepted the government it should be upon their solemn promise, after his example, to venture their lives and fortunes for the king, who was then in France. This was no great obstacle to them, and therefore with an unanimous voice they told him they were ready to hazard all for the king. … Sir William Berkeley embraced their choice, and forthwith proclaimed Charles II. king of England, Scotland, France, Ireland and Virginia, and caused all process to be issued in his name. Thus his majesty was actually king in Virginia before he was so in England. But it pleased God to restore him soon after to the throne of his ancestors."

_R. Beverley, History of Virginia, book 1, chapter 4._

"The government of Virginia, under the Commonwealth of England, was mild and just. While Cromwell's sceptre commanded the respect of the world, he exhibited generous and politic leniency towards the infant and loyal colony. She enjoyed during this interval free trade, legislative independence and internal peace. The governors were men who by their virtues and moderation won the confidence and affections of the people. No extravagance, rapacity, or extortion, could be alleged against the administration. Intolerance and persecution were unknown, with the single exception of a rigorous act banishing the Quakers. But rapine, extravagance, extortion, intolerance and persecution were all soon to be revived under the auspices of the Stuarts. … Richard Cromwell resigned the protectorate in March, 1660. Matthews, governor-elect, had died in the January previous. England was without a monarch; Virginia without a governor. Here was a two fold interregnum. The assembly, convening on the 13th of March, 1660, declared by their first act that, as there was then in England 'noe resident absolute and generall confessed power,' therefore the supreme government of the colony should rest in the assembly. By the second act, Sir William Berkeley was appointed governor, and it was ordered that all writs should issue in the name of the assembly. … No fact in our history has been more misunderstood and misrepresented than this reappointment of Sir William Berkeley, before the restoration of Charles II. … Sir William was elected, not by a tumultuary assemblage of the people, but by the assembly; the royal standard was not raised upon the occasion, nor was the king proclaimed. Sir William, however, made no secret of his loyalty. … Sir William was elected on the 21st of the same month, about two months before the restoration of Charles II. Yet the word king, or majesty, occurs no where in the legislative records, from the commencement of the Commonwealth in England until the 11th of October, 1660—more than four months after the restoration. Virginia was indeed loyal, but she was too feeble to express her loyalty."

_C. Campbell, Introduction to the History of the Colony and Ancient Dominion of Virginia, chapters 21-22._

"There is no doubt whatever that if the Virginians could have restored the King earlier they would have done so; and Berkeley, who is known to have been in close communication and consultation with the leading Cavaliers, had sent word to Charles II. in Holland, toward the end of the Commonwealth, that he would raise his flag in Virginia if there was a prospect of success. This incident has been called in question. It is testified to by William Lee, Sheriff of London, and a cousin of Richard Lee, Berkeley's emissary, as a fact within his knowledge. Charles declined the offer, but was always grateful to the Virginians. The country is said to have derived from the incident the name of the 'Old Dominion,' where the King was King, or might have been, before he was King in England."

_J. E. Cooke, Virginia, part 2, chapter 10._

VIRGINIA: A. D. 1651-1672. The English Navigation Acts and trade restrictions.

See NAVIGATION LAWS; also UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1651-1672.

VIRGINIA: A. D. 1660-1677. The Restoration and its rewards to Virginia loyalty. Oppression, discontent, and Bacon's Rebellion.

At the time of the restoration of the English monarchy, in the person of Charles II., the colony of Virginia "numbered not far from 50,000 souls, a large proportion of whom, especially, we may suppose, those of middle life and most active habits, were natives of the soil, bound to it by the strongest ties of interest and affection, and by their hopes of what it was destined to become in the opening future. {3633} Here was a state of things, comprising, in the apprehensions of the people, many of the elements of the highest happiness and prosperity. … But all this was totally and suddenly changed, and universal distress brought upon the land, by the new restrictive clauses added to the original Navigation Act, by the first Parliament of Charles. By the act of the Long Parliament it had been simply provided that foreign vessels should import into England no other products than such as were grown or manufactured in their own country; a shaft aimed principally at the Dutch. … By Charles's Commons this first hint was … expanded into a voluminous code of monopolizing enactments, by which the trade of the world was regulated on the principle of grasping for England every possible commercial advantage, and inflicting upon all other nations the greatest possible commercial injury. … Upon the colonies, one and all, this cruel policy bore with a weight which almost crushed them. … From 1660, when this monopolizing policy took its beginning, the discontent of the people increased day by day, as each new prohibition was proclaimed. Commerce lay dead. Tobacco would no longer pay for its cultivation, much less enrich the laborious planter; manufactures, as that of silk, after being attempted, failed to bring the hoped-for relief, and there seemed no prospect but starvation and ruin. What wonder that mischief lay brewing in the hearts of a people who, for their almost slavish loyalty, met only these thankless returns of injury and injustice; for the Virginians of that day were monarchists in the full meaning of the term. … Other causes conspired with these purely political ones to bring the public mind of Virginia into such a state of deep exasperation as to find its relief only in insurrection. Of these, one was particularly a source of irritation; namely, the grants of vast tracts of territory, made by the wasteful and profligate King to his needy and profligate favorites, made wholly irrespective of present owners and occupiers, who were transferred, like serfs of the soil, to any great patentee to whom the caprice of Charles chose to consign them." The discontent culminated in 1676, under the influence of an excitement growing out of trouble with the Indians. After more than thirty years of quiet, the natives became hostile and threatening. "Various outrages were first committed by the Indians, on whom the whites, as usual, retaliated; murder answered to murder, burning to burning, till, throughout the whole border country, were kindled the flames of an exterminating Indian war, accompanied by all its peculiar horrors. In the excited state of the public mind, these new calamities were laid at the door of the government." Governor Berkeley was accused of having an interest in the profits of trade with the Indians which restrained him from making war on them. Whether the charge was true or false, he gave color to it by his conduct. He took no steps to protect the colony. Nor would he authorize any self-defensive measures on the part of the people themselves. They "went so far as to engage that, if the Governor would only commission a general, whomsoever he would, they would 'follow him at their own charge.' Still they were not heard. Under such circumstances of neglect and excessive irritation, they took the case into their own hands." They chose for their leader Nathaniel Bacon, a young Englishman of education, energy and talent, who had been in the colony about three years, and who had already attained a seat in the Governor's Council. Bacon accepted the responsibility, "commission or no commission," and, in the spring of 1676, put himself at the head of 500 men, with whom he marched against the Indians. The governor, after formally proclaiming him a rebel, raised another army and marched, not against the Indians, but against Bacon. He was hardly out of Jamestown, however, before the people of that neighborhood rose and took possession of the capital. On learning of this fresh revolt, he turned back, and found himself helpless to do anything but submit. The result was the summoning of a new Assembly, to which Bacon was elected from his county, and the making of some progress, apparently, towards a curing of abuses and the removing of causes of discontent. But something occurred—exactly what has never been made clear—which led to a sudden flight on Bacon's part from Jamestown, and the gathering of his forces once more around him. Re-entering the capital at their head, he extorted from Governor Berkeley a commission which legalized his military office, and armed with this authority he proceeded once more against the Indians. "But as soon as he was sufficiently distant to relieve the Governor and his friends from their fears, all that had been granted was revoked; a proclamation was issued, again denouncing Bacon as a rebel, setting a price upon his head, and commanding his followers to disperse." Again, Bacon and his army retraced their steps and took possession of Jamestown, the governor flying to Accomac. A convention of the inhabitants of the colony was then called together, which adopted a Declaration, or Oath, in which they fully Identified themselves with Bacon in his course, and swore to uphold him. The latter then moved once more against the Indians; Berkeley once more got possession of the seat of government, and, once more, Bacon (who had fought the Indians meantime at Bloody Run and beaten them) came back and drove him out. "The whole country … was with Bacon, and merely a crowd of cowardly adventurers about the Governor. Nothing would seem, at this moment, to have stood between Bacon and the undisputed, absolute control of the colony, had no unforeseen event interposed, as it did, to change the whole aspect of affairs." This unforeseen event was the sudden death of Bacon, which occurred in January, 1677, at the house of a friend. "Some mystery attaches to the manner of it," and there were, of course, sinister whispers of foul play. "But, however and wherever Bacon died, it could never be discovered where he was buried, nor what disposition had been made of his body. … The death of Bacon was, in effect, the restoration of Sir William Berkeley to his lost authority, and the termination of the war; there being not an individual, among either his counsellors or officers, of capacity sufficient to make good his place. … Berkeley, gradually subduing all opposition, and making prisoners of many of the prime movers of the revolt, in a short time saw the authority of his government completely reestablished. … The historians of the period inform us that no less than 25 persons were executed during the closing period of the rebellion and the few next succeeding months."

_W. Ware, Memoir of Nathaniel Baron (Library of American Biographies, series 2, volume 3)._

ALSO IN: _J. A. Doyle, The English in America: Virginia, &c., chapter 9._

_J. Burk, History of Virginia, volume 2, chapter 4._

_G. Bancroft, History of the United States (Author's last revision), part 2, chapters 10-11._

_E. Eggleston, Nathaniel Baron (Century Magazine, July, 1890)._

{3634}

VIRGINIA: A. D. 1689-1690. King William's War. The first Colonial Congress.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1690; and CANADA: A. D. 1689-1690.

VIRGINIA: A. D. 1691. The founding of William and Mary College.

See EDUCATION, MODERN: AMERICA: A. D. 1619-1819.

VIRGINIA: A. D. 1696-1749. Suppression of colonial manufactures.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1696-1749.

VIRGINIA: A. D. 1710. Colonization of Palatines.

See PALATINES.

VIRGINIA: A. D. 1710-1716. Crossing the Blue Ridge. The Knights of the Golden Horseshoe. Possession taken of the Shenandoah Valley.

"Lord Orkney is made Governor, but as usual sends his deputy, and in the year 1710 appears the stalwart soldier and ruler, Sir Alexander Spotswood. Alexander Spotswood, or Spottiswoode, as his family were called in Scotland, rises like a landmark above the first years of the century. When he came to Virginia he was only 34 and in the bloom of his manhood. But he had already fought hard, and his faculties as a soldier and ruler were fully developed. … The Virginians received Spotswood with open arms. He was a man after their own heart, and brought with him when he came (June 1710) the great writ of Habeas corpus. The Virginia people had long claimed that this right was guaranteed to them by Magna Charta, since they were equally free Englishmen with the people of England. Now it was conceded, and the great writ came,—Spotswood's letter of introduction. It was plain that he was not a new Berkeley looking to the King's good pleasure as his law, or a new Nicholson ready to imprison people or put halters around their necks; but a respecter of human freedom and defender of the right. … In … 1716, Governor Alexander Spotswood set out on an expedition which much delighted the Virginians. There was a very great longing to visit the country beyond the Blue Ridge. That beautiful unknown land held out arms of welcome, and the Governor, who had in his character much of the spirit of the hunter and adventurer, resolved to go and explore it. Having assembled a party of good companions, he set out in the month of August, and the gay company began their march toward the Blue Ridge Mountains. The chronicler of the expedition describes the picturesque cavalcade followed by the pack-horses and servants,—'rangers, pioneers, and Indians'; how they stopped to hunt game; bivouacked 'under the canopy'; laughed, jested, and regaled themselves with 'Virginia wine, white and red, Irish usquebaugh, brandy, shrub, two kinds of rum, champagne, canary, cherry-punch, and cider.' In due time they reached the Blue Ridge, probably near the present Swift Run Gap, and saw, beyond, the wild valley of the Shenandoah. On the summit of the mountain they drank the health of the King, and named two neighboring peaks 'Mt. George' and 'Mt. Alexander,' after his Majesty and the Governor; after which they descended into the valley and gave the Shenandoah the name of the 'Euphrates.' Here a bottle was buried—there were, no doubt, a number of empty ones—containing a paper to testify that the valley of the Euphrates was taken possession of in the name of his Majesty, George I. Then the adventurers reascended the mountain, crossed to the lowland, and returned to Williamsburg. This picturesque incident of the time gave rise to the order of the 'Knights of the Golden Horseshoe.' The horses had been shod with iron, which was unusual, as a protection against the mountain roads; and Spotswood sent to London and had made for his companions small golden horseshoes set with garnets and other jewels, and inscribed 'Sic juvat transcendere montes.'"

_J. E. Cooke, Virginia, part 2, chapters 21-22._

VIRGINIA: A. D. 1744. Treaty with the Six Nations and purchase of the Shenandoah Valley.

"The Six Nations still retained the right to traverse the great valley west of the Blue Ridge. Just at this inopportune moment [1743], some of their parties came into bloody collision with the backwoodsmen of Virginia, who had penetrated into that valley. Hostilities with the Six Nations, now that war was threatened with France, might prove very dangerous, and Clinton [governor of New York] hastened to secure the friendship of these ancient allies by liberal presents; for which purpose, in conjunction with commissioners from New England, he held a treaty at Albany. … The difficulties between Virginia and the Six Nations were soon after [1744] settled in a treaty held at Lancaster, to which Pennsylvania and Maryland were also parties, and in which, in consideration of £400, the Six Nations relinquished all their title to the valley between the Blue Ridge and the central chain of the Allegany Mountains."

_R. Hildreth, History of the United States, chapter 25 (volume 2)._

ALSO IN: _B. A. Hinsdale, The Old Northwest, page 59._

VIRGINIA: A. D. 1748-1754. First movements beyond the mountains to dispute possession with the French.

See OHIO (VALLEY): A. D. 1748-1754.

VIRGINIA: A. D. 1754. Opposing the French occupation of the Ohio Valley. Washington's first service.

See OHIO (VALLEY): A. D. 1754.

VIRGINIA: A. D. 1755-1760. The French and Indian War. Braddock's defeat and after.

See OHIO (VALLEY): A. D. 1748-1754, 1754, 1755; CANADA: A. D. 1750-1753, to 1760; NOVA SCOTIA: A. D. 1749-1755, 1755; and CAPE BRETON ISLAND: A. D. 1758-1760.

VIRGINIA: A. D. 1756. Number of Slaves.

See SLAVERY, NEGRO: A. D. 1756.

VIRGINIA: A. D. 1759-1761. The Cherokee War.

See SOUTH CAROLINA: A. D. 1759-1761.