Delaware, arrived with more immigrants, chiefly mechanics and soldiers, and fresh supplies. The colonists decided to remain, and Virginia was saved.

60. Individual ownership. Lord Delaware remained at Jamestown for a year, but was unable to restore order. He was succeeded by Sir Thomas Dale, a stern and hardy soldier, who severely punished all wrongdoers. If a man even grumbled or failed to go to church, he was liable to have Dale's constables after him. This was harsh government, but it succeeded with the kind of people then in the colony. He gave several acres of land to each settler to cultivate for himself. Afterward, the London Company gave them fifty acres apiece.1 This system of private ownership proved to be much better than the old community plan, for now each must starve or prosper according to his industry or ability in working his own piece of land. After this the colonists became content, idleness ceased, and crime diminished, and a better class of immigrants were encouraged to come over from England.

61. Tobacco raising. The habit of using tobacco, which Raleigh had introduced into England, had become very popular. Not until they had been in America five years, however, did the Virginians seek to cultivate it themselves. There at once sprung up so great a demand for the crop in England that within a few years the settlers were raising scarcely anything else; even the streets of Jamestown were for a time largely given up to this purpose. From that time on, through the whole colonial period, tobacco was Virginia's chief crop. Indeed, certificates that were good for certain amounts of tobacco were used like money, and wages were paid in them—even the salaries of ministers and the fees of lawyers and doctors. Nearly everything that was sold was reckoned in so many pounds of tobacco.

1 For the equivalent of about five hundred dollars in our money, a settler might buy a hundred acres; and a few men were rewarded for great services to the colony with grants not exceeding two thousand acres each. Every owner was obliged to contribute two and a half barrels of corn to the town granary, which was a sort of tax to meet the expenses of government.

There were three important results of this new industry in Virginia:

(a) The colony grew rapidly in population, for large numbers of well-to-do people and industrious working folk came over from England to become tobacco planters.

(b) Large plantations were formed. The Virginians soon learned that raising tobacco over and over again on the same land is injurious to the soil; and the planters had either to get new farms from time to time or to buy such large tracts that they could let some of it wear out and yet have fresh lands left. These great plantations stretched along the broad and winding rivers of Virginia, the houses of the owners often being situated many miles apart from one another. To the private wharves of these riverside plantations came the small ocean-going vessels of that day, bringing to the planter manufactured goods and other supplies from England, which were exchanged for cargoes of tobacco. (c) Slavery was established.

62. Slavery. Seven years after the tobacco crop was introduced, negro slaves were brought over to Virginia from Africa; they were the first seen in America.1 The greater part of the hard work on Virginia farms had thus far been done by "indentured white servants," who were really slaves. Most of these unfortunate people were English criminals, who had been sentenced to hard labor in America for a certain number of years; many others were gypsies, vagabonds of every sort, or poor orphan children, all of whom had been captured in English towns by “press gangs and carried off to labor for the tobacco-raising planters in "Earth's only Paradise," as a poet of the day called America. There was, however, another class of indentured servants-worthy people who had sold themselves into this sort of slavery for several years, in order to pay for their passage to America, or for debts incurred in the old country. But many planters thought that better service in the to

1 Says an old Virginia chronicle: "About the last of August [1619], there came in a Dutch man of warre that sold us twenty negars."

bacco fields might be had from black slaves, who were accustomed to work in a hot climate. It must be remembered that in those days not many white people saw any wrong in making slaves out of the heathen blacks; indeed, most European nations had had such slaves for centuries. Gradually the business of importing negroes to Virginia increased to such an extent that fewer and fewer indentured white servants were needed.

63. A representative assembly. During the first twelve years the governor and council of Virginia were appointed

by the Company, and these officers had everything pretty much their own way. But the colonists had long been accustomed in the motherland to local government by men of their own choosing. They thought that they ought to have this same privilege in America the liberty which their forefathers in England had won by many a hard-fought battle. In 1619 the Company yielded to their wishes, declaring that after this the Virginians should have a local parliament of their own, "that they might have a hand in the governing of themselves."

Like the English Parliament and our own Congress and State legislatures, it was to consist of two chambers, or

1 Spanish and French colonists were never given any such self-governing privileges.

houses that is, two separate groups of representatives. The Council was to be the upper chamber and represent the king, while the people were to have as their own representatives a House of Burgesses, to serve as the lower chamber.1 The new Parliament met on July 30, 1619, in the choir of the little church at Jamestown, and was the first lawmaking

assembly in America. It served as an example to legislatures in other English colonies, as well as a splendid training-school for the statesmen and soldiers of Virginia through colonial, Revolutionary, and statehood days. Among the many patriots famous in our history who have had seats in this great assembly are Patrick Henry and Presidents Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe. The formation of this House of Burgesses infused a new spirit into the liberty-loving Virginians and now the colony grew rapidly. Enticed both by the representative form of government and by the fact that every one might buy land of his own, at a low price, men came over from England by the hundreds, so that by 1622 there were fully four thousand people in the settlement.

64. Importation of wives. Only a few women had thus far emigrated to the colony. But the London Company were desirous "for the making of the men to feel at home in Virginia"; so they sent over, in the spring of 1619, ninety young and well recommended maids to become wives." The bachelors of the colony met the vessel at the wharf, and, after each man had made his choice, he asked the

66

1 The colony was divided into eleven boroughs (an old English name for towns) and each borough sent two representatives to the lower chamber. An inhabitant, or representative, of a borough is called a burgess; this was why the chamber was named House of Burgesses.

consent of the maid; if she were willing to take him he paid to the ship's officers the cost of her passage.1 A minister was then found to unite them, and housekeeping at once began. The girls found such good husbands that a few months later other maids came over from England, and during several years there were regular importations of wives.

65. Virginia becomes a royal colony. Because of bad treatment the Indians had come to dislike the Virginians, so in 1622 they rose against them and killed three hundred. King James was not fond of granting much liberty to his subjects and was glad to make this an excuse to revoke the charter of the London Company. He thereupon took Virginia under his own charge, and it was henceforth known as a royal colony." 2 The House of Burgesses remained, however; and slowly but surely its members, who nearly always were the best men to be found in Virginia, managed to win still further liberties for the people.

66

66. Cavaliers and Roundheads. A few years after Virginia became a royal colony, there broke out in England a long and fierce civil war between King Charles I, who wished to restrict the liberties of the English people, and his Parliament, who stoutly contended for their rights. The well-to-do classes, called "Cavaliers," fought for the King; the common people, led by Oliver Cromwell, were known as "Roundheads," and fought on the side of the Parliament.3 King Charles I was beheaded by Parliament (1649); and for eleven years England was governed by a republic, called the Commonwealth. The monarchy was restored in 1660

1 The price was a hundred and twenty pounds of the highest grade of tobacco, worth about five hundred dollars in our present currency.

2 A"royal" colony was under the direct control of the King. A “proprietary colony was ruled directly by the proprietors; a "charter" colony had only such rights as the King's charter gave to it. Up to this time, Virginia had been a "charter" colony.

3 The Cavaliers (meaning "horsemen ") were so named, because, being rich, they rode fine horses; they also wore expensive clothing, and their hair was long and in curls. Most of the Commonwealth (or Parliament) people had their hair cropped short. The term "Round-heads" is said to have come from a custom among poor people, in those days, of placing a bowl over the head and cutting off the hair close up to the edge of the vessel; this left the remaining hair bushy, and made the head seem quite round.