Great Britain, in 1588, was the separate nations of England, Scotland and Ireland. It would not be until 1691 that England gained control of Ireland and 1707 that Parliament would unite England and Scotland to create Great Britain. In 1588, the separate

1
An English Empire
Great Britain, in 1588, was the separate nations
of England, Scotland and Ireland. It would not be
until 1691 that England gained control of Ireland
and 1707 that Parliament would unite England and
Scotland to create Great Britain. In 1588, the
separate nations could hardly have been more
different.
2
The House of Tudor had governed England for more
than 100 years. Under Queen Elizabeth I, it
enjoyed unprecedented peace and prosperity as it
morphed from a minor backwater island into a
dynamic commercial society.
Scotland, by contrast, was still half wild. Scots
managed their affairs with crude abandon, not
terribly unlike the events in Shakespeare's
Macbeth. This was the era of the sex-driven Mary
Stuart, Queen of Scots. Marys exploits
eventually caused the Scottish nobility to force
Mary to flee to England. Once in England, Mary
was imprisoned for conspiring to kill Queen
Elizabeth and in 1587, after 19 years in the
Tower of London, lost her head to the
executioner's axe. Scotland was further torn
apart by religious warfare as the Catholic
Stuarts and roughly half the population fought
the arch-Calvinist John Knox, founder of the
Presbyterian Church, and the other half of the
population.
3
England, for the most part, escaped religious
warfare in the 16th century. In 1547, King Henry
VIII split with the Catholic Church, but the
early English Reformation had little to do with
theology. The new church, the Church of England
(Anglican Church), was imposed from above. Much
of the liturgy remained the same, as did most of
the sacramental ritual. In this early Anglican
Church little was changed save that the king
became the religious head instead of the pope.
After King Henry's death, attempts were made to
reform the Anglican Church in a more Protestant
image, but their success was short-lived. In
1553, Henry's successor Edward VI died and was
replaced by Queen Mary Tudor, Bloody Mary, the
daughter of Henry and Catherine, and an arch
Catholic. She reunited England and Rome, burned
at the stake several hundred persons who dared to
protest, and married the dauphin of France and
when he died married the future King Philip II of
Spain. When she involved England in a losing war
with France, her reign was in jeopardy. She died
in 1558, before she could be overthrown.
4
Elizabeth I proved to be the only monarch of the
1500s able to handle the religious issue.
Elizabeth and Parliament worked out a compromise
to reorganize the Church of England. The new
church would outwardly mirror the Catholic Church
but would inwardly reflect Protestant dogma. All
citizens were required to attend public worship
in the national church, but no one's inner
conscience was publicly scrutinized. This system
worked until Elizabeth's death in 1603, when King
James I, a Stuart and a Catholic, restricted some
Protestant practices, particularly those of the
Scots Presbyterians. The system broke down when
James' successor, Charles I, went even further
and plunged England into civil war in the 1640s.
But until then England was religiously tranquil
enough to begin an era of prosperity and overseas
expansion.
5
English Economics, Exploration, and the Lost
Colony, 1496-1600
Although England was but a rather negligible
world power in the late fifteenth century, it
mustered enough resources to begin its own age of
exploration. In 1496, King Henry VII commissioned
the Genoese sea captain John Cabot, to seeke
out, discover, and find whatsoever isles,
countreys, regions, or provinces of the heathen
and infidels whatsover they be and to look for a
shorter sea route to Cathay (China). Cabot did
not find the Northwest Passage, but he did
discover the Grand Banks, a fishing region at the
edge of the continental shelf and claimed them
for England. Cabot was lost at sea on his second
voyage. His son, Sebastian, retraced Cabots
route and reached as far as the entrance into
Hudsons Bay
6
Enclosure Movement and the Crash of the Antwerp
Wool Market
In the sixteenth century, England underwent a
significant internal reorganization. As wool
prices rose, landowners began fencing land
(enclosing the land) to make more room for
grazing sheep. Englishmen greatly increased the
production of wool, channeling it through the
Antwerp Wool Market. Huge profits were made,
bringing more people into the market and
increasing production even more. By mid-century
England produced more wool than Europe could
consume. The price crashed in 1551. The collapse
of the market led English policymakers to search
for ways to avoid such economic disaster in the
future. They sought new markets as outlets of
wool and cloth. And to get more capital into the
economy, individual investors pooled their money
in proto-corporations, or joint-stock
companies. The Enclosure Movement forced poor
tenants off the large estates that had been their
home for centuries. Although population posed no
problem in England, the visible presence of
vagabonds and unemployed disturbed may powerful
Englishmen. Many believed that England was
over-populated and looked for some
outlet. European rivals, Spain and France, had
created colonies in the Caribbean and Florida
causing further concern in England. The three
elements (markets, surplus population, and
international rivalry) created a nexus that
provided the impulse for colonization.
7
English Motives for Colonizing
This westerne discoverie will be greately for
the inlargement of the gospell of Christe and
the refourmed relligion. This will yelde all the
commodities of Europe, Affrica, and Asia, as far
as wee were wonte to travell, and supply the
wantes of all our decayed trades. This will be
for manifolde imploymente of nombers of idle men.
This will be a great bridle to the Indies of the
kinge of Spaine and will be a means that one
or twoo hundred saile of his subjectes shippes
may go at fysshinge in Newfounde lande.
Richard Hakluyt
The key architects of this movement for
colonization were two cousins who became
prominent in the court of Queen Elizabeth, Walter
Raleigh and Richard Hakluyt. Raleigh provided the
money Hakluyt provided the reasoning. Hakluyts
Discourse of Western Planting, (1584) offers the
clearest expression of why England should create
colonies in the New World. The Oxford clergyman
wrote it to convince Queen Elizabeth I to grant
permission to colonize America. The book suggests
ways that colonies could benefit England (1) to
extend the reformed religion (2) to expand
trade (3) to provide England with needed
resources and markets (4) to enlarge the Queens
revenues and navy (5) to discover a Northwest
Passage to Asia and (6) to provide an outlet for
the growing English population.
8
Roanoke, The Lost Colony
Raleigh succeeded in winning a charter to
organize a private expedition to the area around
Albemarle Sound at Roanoke Island in 1585.
Raleighs 108-man team clashed with local
Indians, but they remained through the winter.
Hardship plagued the settlement, however, and in
the late spring the group packed up and returned
to England with Francis Drake when he happened
by.
9
A ship had already been sent to relieve the
first, but its eighteen men were killed in an
Indian attack. A second expedition landed off
Hatarask Island in July 1587. Led by Governor
John White, its 117 men, women, and children
resettled on Roanoke Island. White left the
settlers, including his granddaughter, Virginia
Dare (the first English child born in the New
World), and returned to England for supplies.
Before leaving, White carved the letters C.R.O.
into a tree and told the men to carve a cross
over them as a distress signal should they run
into trouble before he returned. He did not
return for three years because of the conflict
with Spain and the Spanish Armada. When White
reached the place of the settlement in 1590, no
one was there. He looked for a cross on the tree,
but found none. He found only the word Croatoan
carved into a post. Taking it to mean that the
mission had moved to Croatoan Island, he sailed
south in search of the settlers. He found no
English settlement on Croatoan or anywhere else.
War with Philip II of Spain during the 1590s kept
England from making another stab at colonizing
the New World until the early 1600s. No trace
of the Lost Colony of Roanoke has ever been found.
10
Jamestown
11
Queen Elizabeths death in 1603 did not interrupt
Britains pursuit of global power. King James I,
in 1606, granted charter to a joint-stock company
headed by Richard Hakluyt. The Virginia Company
of London, as it was known, divided the British
claims in North America with a rival company, the
Virginia Company of Plymouth. The original
charters had no western boundaries hence in
theory, they ran from the Atlantic to the
Pacific. The London Company was made up of
merchants and gentry from the west of England and
from London, itself. On December 20, 1606,
three ships, the Susan Constant (120 tons), the
Godspeed (40 tons), and the Discovery (20 tons)
left London with 144 passengers, under the
command of Captain Christopher Newport. The ships
briefly laid over at the Canary Islands and the
Bahamas, before arriving in Virginia at
Chesapeake Bay on April 26th with 104 survivors.
12
Following the orders of the London Company, and
after facing a brief conflict with the local
Indians, the Powhatan, the ships landed up the
newly-named James River and encamped at what
became Jamestown on May 13, 1607. Of the 104
survivors, 39 had noble titles and 36 more were
described as gentlemen. The others were
attendants, soldiers, and artisans skilled at
metalworkthat is to say, they were goldsmiths
and jewelers. Among the soldiers was a boorish
troublemaker of immense ego, Captain John Smith.
Smiths mouth more than once got him into trouble
with his commanders, as near the Canaries he was
accused of trying to foment a mutiny and so was
locked up for the rest of the voyage. When the
settlers unsealed their orders, however, they
found that Smith was named to the Council of the
Colony and put in command of the day-to-day
running of the settlement.
13
From the outset, the settlement was in trouble.
Located on the site of an abandoned Indian
village and in the Powhatan hunting grounds, it
continually faced Indian attack. Many of the
settlers refused to work. Instead they searched
for gold and left the chore of building shelter
to the soldiers. Instead of gathering or hunting
for food, many chose to steal it from the
Indians, causing no small amount of hostility.
The Indians, meanwhile, raided Jamestown to steal
weapons and gunpowder. Smith tried to force all
to work and, failing that, traded for Indian
maize. The English also gave Chief Powhatan a
formal coronation and made him an ally of King
James. This briefly improved relations with the
Indians, but did little to guarantee the success
of the colony, neither did the arrival of some
women to the community. Conditions hit bottom
during the winter of 1609-1610, after Smith
returned to England as a result of an illness.
That winter was known as the Starving Time.
Crop yields were miniscule because of a drought,
but there was still game in the woods and fish in
the river. Despite that, however, starvation
reduced the settlements population from nearly
500 down to 54 by the time a ship finally arrived
with fresh provisions and new settlers in May
1610. Shockingly, settlers had resorted to
cannibalism to survive. They dug up graves to eat
the remains. Equally shocking, the new Assistant
Governor recorded the settlers activities as he
sailed in. They were not out foraging for food in
the spring forests. They were bowling in the
street! Obviously, this settlement needed a
reworking.
14
Now we all found the losse of Captain Smith, yea
his greatest maligners could now curse his losse
as for corne, provision and contribution from the
Salvages, we had nothing but mortall wounds, with
clubs and arrowes as for our Hogs, hens Goats,
Sheepe, Horse, or what lived, our commanders,
officers Salvages daily consumed them, some
small proportions sometimes we tasted, till all
was devoured. . . . Of five hundred within six
moneths after Captain Smiths departure, there
remained not past sixtie men, women and children,
most miserable and poore creatures and those
were preserved for the most part, by roots,
herbes, acornes, walnuts, berries, now and then a
little fish they that had startch in these
extremities, made no small use of it yea even
the very skinnes of our horses. Nay, so great was
our famine, that a Salvage we slew, and burried,
the poorer sort tooke him up againe and eat him.
. . . And one amongst the rest did kill his wife,
powdered her, and had eaten part of her before it
was knowne, for which he was executed, as hee
well deserved now whether shee was better
roasted, boyled or carbonadod, I know not, but
of such a dish as powdered wife I never heard of.
This was that time, which still to this day we
called the starving time it were too vile to
say, and scarce to be beleeved, what we endured.
Q1. How does this vivid account by John Smith
compare with your previous sense of early life in
colonial Virginia? Q2. Who or what do you think
was to blame for the situation known as the
Starving Time?
15
In June 1610, Governor Lord De la Warr restored
order through a new code, the Lawes Divine,
Moral, and Martiall. All settlers were required
to work in work gangs under military discipline.
The day was divided by drumbeats 6 a.m. until 10
a.m. they worked in the fields. During the heat
of the day, they ate, did household chores, and
rested. They were back in the fields again from 2
p.m. til 4 p.m. If they still did not work hard
then they would be punished. Punishments were
also meted out for crimes, such as rape,
adultery, theft, lying, sacrilege, blasphemy,
killing a domestic animal, weeding a garden,
taking of a crop, and private trade. Anyone who
ran away from the settlement and was caught was
executed. The new rules helped save the colony,
but they still could not feed themselves. The
colony had still not found its purpose and the
London Companys investors were beginning to
wonder whether it had been worth it, particularly
after a new round of conflict with the Powhatan
emerged about 1611.
16
Eventually, an enterprising settler named John
Rolfe did find a profitable crop. Rolfe arrived
in Jamestown in May 1610 aboard Gates ship.
Rolfe had brought with him to Virginia some
Spanish tobacco plantings, hoping successfully to
cultivate them. By 1612, he gave his friends a
small sampling of his produce to see if it suited
their tastes. While not of the quality of Spanish
tobacco at the time, it was still palatable
enough for larger-scale cultivation. By 1617,
Virginia shipped 20,000 pounds of tobacco (at 3
shillings per pound) to England and the crop
became so profitable that if became known as
brown gold.
17
Rolfe also brought peace with the Indians. In
1614, the First Powhatan War ended when Rolfe
married the daughter of Chief Powhatan,
Pocahontas. In 1616, Rolfe, Pocahontas, and their
son traveled to England and Pocahontas met the
King. Tragically, just before they set sail to
return to the New World, the 22-year-old
Pocahontas died, likely of pneumonia. She is
buried in a churchyard at Gravesend.
18
With the colony saved, under new Governor Edwin
Sandys, the London Company created a new policy
for land distribution and to entice more
settlers. The headright system promised that
every new company shareholder who settled in
Virginia would get 50 acres of land for himself
and 50 acres for each family member he brought
over, including servants. Further to entice
settlement, the company a new constitution for
the colony, granting settlers the Rights of
Englishmen. In July 1619, Virginia created the
House of Burgesses, the first legislative
assembly in America. Its twenty-two members
represented their local settlements and governed
along with a Governor and executive council. Two
other events in 1619 further expanded the colony
(1) more women arrived as the company sponsored
the sale of women for wives 90 women were
bought for the princely sum of 125 pounds of
tobacco creating a better gender balance in the
colony (2) the first Africans arrived they
came on a Dutch trade ship, but were indentured
servants, not slaves. An indenture is a
contract. So, in return for the masters paying
their passage to the New World, an indentured
servant contracts to work for a specific term,
usually seven years. During that time the servant
has no rights to property. Upon completion of the
term, the servant is free to do whatever he or
she wishes and under Virginia law would receive a
headright of 50 acres.
19
The shift from a commodity-based company to a
realtor changed the London Companys relationship
with the colony. The companys new goal was to
get as many people to Virginia as possible. It
cared less about the condition of the settlers
when they got there and so the condition of the
colony suffered. Making matters worse, an Indian
war arose. Powhatans brother, Opechancanough,
seems never to have accepted the settlers or his
brothers peace. Upon his brothers death, in
March 1622, he led raids on the settlement that
turned into nearly two years of warfare and
killed 347 settlers, including John Rolfe. The
turmoil finally caused King James to appoint a
Royal Commission to investigate the Company. It
found that between 1607 and 1622 more than 14,000
people had emigrated to Virginia, but in 1624
only 1,132 of them still lived there. The
investigation forced James I to revoke the
Companys charter and make Virginia a Royal
Colony. Under the kings authority for most of
the remainder of the 1620s, Virginia stabilized
and slowly began to prosper.
20
Maryland
With settlements established in Virginia, other
Britons began to look at the Chesapeake region
for possible opportunities. As intolerance toward
Catholics increased in England, one family led
the charge for escape to religious freedom. In
1628-29, George Calvert, Lord Baltimore, visited
the Chesapeake region to check out its prospect
as a refuge for persecuted Catholics. He died
before winning a kings charter to the land, but
his son, Cecil Calvert, Second Lord Baltimore,
carried out the project. In 1632, King Charles I
granted all lands from the Potomac River north to
the Delaware River and a few hundred miles west
to the Appalachians to Calvert. In return for a
pledge of allegiance and a token payment of two
Indian arrowheads and a royalty of one-fifth of
any gold or silver discovered in the region,
Calvert could create whatever type of government
he chose, so long as any legislation was passed
with the Advice, Assent, and Approbation of the
Free-Men. This was to be the successful first
proprietary colony. Whereas the original colonies
were based on a charter granted to a joint-stock
company, and Virginia by 1624 had been turned
into a royal colony, Maryland was given to a
single man to do with whatever he chose.
21
Beginning in 1632, Calvert set up a recruiting
office for settlers and convinced about two
hundred settlers to join the first expedition. In
March 1634, Governor Leonard Calvert and the
other settlers established a settlement at St.
Mary's on a creek just north of the mouth of the
Potomac. Having learned from the mistakes of
Jamestown, they brought enough supplies to
sustain them. They also made sure they arrived
early enough in the year to plant a crop.
Finally, they were lucky to have friendly Indian
neighbors.
Saint Francis Xavier Church, Leonardtown, MD
Rebuilt on original site (1766)
22
Things went fairly well for the Calverts during
the 1630s in the early years of the colony, but
because he perceived that Catholics would likely
remain in a minority in the new colony, he
directed Leonard to establish a government based
on religious toleration. Religious questions
would not be part of public discourse. Land was
to be divided up based on a quasi-Feudal model.
Blood relatives of Calvert were to be granted
manors of 6000 acres. Manor lords would have
the power to adjudicate over local manor courts.
Lesser manors would consist of 3000 acres. The
rest of the population would be divided between a
tenant group and a small property-owning group.
Tenants would pay rent, either with labor or with
produce, and thereby sustain the lords. Small
farmers would be able to profit on their own
output. The land distribution plan did not
survive the first few years because of the
abundance of land and the dearth of labor. A few
years after the establishment of the colony,
manor lords were ordered by law to import labor
at first lords had to import five, then ten, and
eventually twenty laborers. In 1640, a
Virginia-style headright plan was imposed.
23
As Calvert expected, however, the settlers were
not Catholics. Indeed the hope for a religious
sanctuary was a failure. Puritans from Virginia
moved into the colony in large numbers. In the
1640s, as the Civil War raged between Puritans
and the Catholic King in England, religious
warfare erupted in Maryland. With Calvert's
death, in 1647, the Puritan William Stone became
governor. Tension continued until the passage of
the Maryland Act Concerning Religion (often
called, incorrectly, the Maryland Religious
Toleration Act) in 1649. The law guaranteed
religious toleration to all followers of Jesus
Christ and believers in the Trinity. It is
important to note, however, that the law promised
toleration only for Trinitarian Christians. Under
the Act, Jews and non-Trinitarian Christians
(Quakers, Unitarians) were not permitted freedom
of religion. The Act did, however, put an end to
the broader religious strife. With the good
chances for prosperity in tobacco production,
settlement increased. By the 1670s, the
population of Maryland neared 13,000, including
Catholic planters, Protestant farmers, indentured
servants, and a small but increasing number of
black slaves.
24
An Act Concerning Religion, Maryland 1649
Forasmuch as in a well governed and Christian
Common Wealth matters concerning Religion and the
honor of God ought in the first place to bee
taken, into serious consideracion and endeavoured
to bee settled, Be it therefore ordered and
enacted by the Right Honourable Cecilius Lord
Baron of Baltemore absolute Lord and Proprietary
of this Province with the advise and consent of
this Generall Assembly That whatsoever person
or persons within this Province and the Islands
thereunto belonging shall from henceforth
blaspheme God, that is Curse him, or deny our
Saviour Jesus Christ to bee the sonne of God, or
shall deny the holy Trinity the father sonne and
holy Ghost, or the Godhead of any of the said
Three persons of the Trinity or the Unity of the
Godhead, or shall use or utter any reproachfull
Speeches, words or language concerning the said
Holy Trinity, or any of the said three persons
thereof, shalbe punished with death and
confiscation or forfeiture of all his or her
lands and goods to the Lord Proprietary and his
heires. And bee it also Enacted by the Authority
and with the advise and assent aforesaid, That
whatsoever person or persons shall from
henceforth use or utter any reproachfull words or
Speeches concerning the blessed Virgin Mary the
Mother of our Saviour or the holy Apostles or
Evangelists or any of them shall in such case for
the first offence forfeit . . . the summe of five
pound Sterling or the value thereof in goods
and chattells, . . . but in case such Offender or
Offenders, shall not then have goods and
chattells sufficient to pay shalbe publiquely
whipt and bee imprisoned. . . . And that every
such Offender or Offenders for every second
offence shall forfeit tenne pound sterling or the
value thereof to bee levyed as aforesaid, or in
case such offender or Offenders shall not then
have goods and chattells within this Province
sufficient for that purpose then to bee
publiquely and severely whipt and imprisoned as
before is expressed. And that every person or
persons before mentioned offending herein the
third time, shall for such third Offence forfeit
all his lands and Goods and bee for ever banished
and expelled out of this Province. . . .
25
(No Transcript)
26
Chesapeake Society
How miserable that man is that governs a people
where six parts of seven at least are poor,
indebted, discontented, and armed. Governor
William Berkeley
In 1642, Governor William Berkeley arrived in
Virginia to begin thirty-four years of stable
governance. But colonizing was still no easy
task. Conditions had sufficiently improved to
make slavery a more viable economic choice.
Relations with the Indians, however, remained
difficult. In 1644, an elderly Opechancanough led
a second raid on the colony. It, too, killed
several hundred settlers, but this time, the
colonists were strong enough to retaliate with
great force. The raid was put down and
hostilities with the local Indians
ended. Tobacco production increased through the
1630s. But, ironically, it was so profitable that
so many settlers began planting tobacco that for
much of the period after 1650 it glutted the
market, causing the price to fall, and pushing
marginal farmers into severe debt. As the
population of poor grew and as the colony spread
deeper into the interior, above the falls at what
would become Richmond and toward the Blue Ridge
and up the Potomac, it became harder to govern
the colony. Adding to public displeasure was the
fact that Berkeleys government had become a
clique of family members and business relations.
The colonial treasurer was a Berkeley cousin, as
was the Secretary of State.
27
The discontent reached a head in 1675. Settlers
on the frontier believed the government was not
looking after their interests. In particular,
they thought it was not protecting them from
Indian attack as settlement moved west it came
into lands of different Indian tribes, notably
the Susquehanna. A minor squabble between
settlers and Indians along the Potomac turned
ugly and left nearly twenty-five Indians dead.
The Indians retaliated by attacking settlers
along the frontier and the James River. The
overseer of an up-river planter named Nathaniel
Bacon was killed in a raid. Berkeley proposed a
series of forts be built along the frontier, but
the assembly believed it would be too expensive
and besides what the settlers really wanted was
to get rid of the Indians and take their land.
Tensions grew.
28
In May 1676, Nathaniel Bacon led a group of
vigilantes against the Indians, despite
Berkeleys prohibition. Then Bacon and his men, a
collection of landless servants, small farmers,
and slaves, went on a rampage down river,
ultimately torching Jamestown itself. By October,
the rebellion was over, however, and Bacon was
dead, from malaria. Order was restored and
Berkeley had twenty-three of the rebels executed.
When news of the rebellion reached England,
Berkeley was recalled and a new regime was put in
place in Virginia, one that more clearly
protected the interests of common Virginians.
A peace treaty was made with the Indians who were
given reservations of protected land, leaving the
rest for development by colonials. By 1677, the
difficult infancy of Virginia ended. Now a
toddler, the colony would prosper.
29
Declaration of Nathaniel Bacon in the Name of
the People of Virginia, July 30, 1676
1. For having, upon specious pretenses of public
works, raised great unjust taxes upon the
commonalty for the advancement of private
favorites and other sinister ends, but no visible
effects in any measure adequate for not having,
during this long time of his government, in any
measure advanced this hopeful colony either by
fortifications, towns, or trade. 2. For having
abused and rendered contemptible the magistrates
of justice by advancing to places of judicature
scandalous and ignorant favorites. 3. For
having wronged his Majestys prerogative and
interest by assuming monopoly of the beaver trade
and for having in it unjust gain betrayed and
sold his Majestys country and the lives of his
loyal subjects to the barbarous heathen. 4. For
having protected, favored, and emboldened the
Indians against his Majestys loyal subjects,
never contriving, requiring, or appointing any
due or proper means of satisfaction for their
many invasions, robberies, and murders committed
upon us. 5. For having, when the army of
English was just upon the track of those Indians,
. . . and when we might with ease have destroyed
them who then were in open hostility, for then
having expressly countermanded and sent back our
army by passing his word for the peaceable
demeanor of the said Indians, who immediately
prosecuted their evil intentions, committing
horrid murders and robberies in all places, being
protected by the said engagement and word past of
him the said Sir William Berkeley . . . 6. And
lately, when, upon the loud outcries of blood,
the assembly had, with all care, raised and
framed an army for the preventing of further
mischief and safeguard of this his Majestys
colony.
30
7. For having, with only the privacy of some few
favorites without acquainting the people, only by
the alteration of a figure, forged a commission,
. . . against the consent of the people, for the
raising and effecting civil war and destruction .
. . 8. For the prevention of civil mischief and
ruin amongst ourselves while the barbarous enemy
in all places did invade, murder, and spoil us,
his Majestys most faithful subjects. Of this
and the aforesaid articles we accuse Sir William
Berkeley as guilty of each and every one of the
same, and as one who has traitorously attempted,
violated, and injured his Majestys interest here
by a loss of a great part of this his colony and
many of his faithful loyal subjects by him
betrayed and in a barbarous and shameful manner
exposed to the incursions and murder of the
heathen. And we do further declare these the
ensuing persons in this list to have been his
wicked and pernicious councilors, confederates,
aiders, and assisters against the commonalty in
these our civil commotions Sir Henry Chichley,
William Claiburne Junior, Lieut. Coll.
Christopher Wormeley, Thomas Hawkins, William
Sherwood, Phillip Ludwell, John Page Clerke,
Robert Beverley, John Cluffe Clerke, Richard Lee,
John West, Thomas Ballard, Hubert Farrell,
William Cole, Thomas Reade, Richard Whitacre,
Matthew Kempe, Nicholas Spencer, Joseph Bridger
And we do further demand that the said Sir
William Berkeley with all the persons in this
list be forthwith delivered up or surrender
themselves within four days after the notice
hereof, or otherwise we declare as follows.
That wherever the said persons shall reside,
be hid, or protected, we declare the owners,
masters, or inhabitants of the said places to be
confederates and traitors to the people and the
estates of them is also of all the aforesaid
persons to be confiscated. And this we, the
commons of Virginia, do declare, desiring a firm
union amongst ourselves that we may jointly and
with one accord defend ourselves against the
common enemy. . . . These are, therefore, in his
Majestys name, to command you forthwith to seize
the persons above mentioned as traitors to the
King and country and them to bring to Middle
Plantation and there to secure them until further
order, and, in case of opposition, if you want
any further assistance you are forthwith to
demand it in the name of the people in all the
counties of Virginia. Nathaniel Bacon General
by Consent of the people. William Sherwood