If a man refused to go to church, he was put on short allowance of victuals, and whipped every day until he repented.

But the new governor was not simply a tyrant. He was a person of excellent judgment, and really sought the welfare of the colony. He practically abolished the old system of living out of the public storehouse.1 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. Up to this year the laborer had been discouraged, for, no matter how hard he toiled, he had nothing he could call his own. Now, owing to the governor's wise provision, 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.

52. What Tobacco did for Virginia. In 1612 John Rolfe, the husband of Pocahontas, began the systematic cultivation of tobacco. In the course of a few years it came to be the greatest industry in Virginia.* 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 would buy all the colonists could raise.

King James denounced the use of the plant as "loathsome," “hateful," and "dangerous"; but the English people filled their

1 See Paragraph 46, No. 2 of the Instructions to the Colonists.

2 Later, Governor Dale induced the London Company to grant 50 acres to any settler who would clear and settle on them, and pay a trifling rent to the king. For £12 10s., or less than $63, any one could purchase 100 acres where he pleased. Whoever performed a public service to the Company or Colony was to have a grant not exceeding 2000 acres. 8 See Paragraph 29.

4 The value of the tobacco crop of the United States is now nearly $50,000,000 annually; that of cotton, the cultivation of which was begun about the same time, but not then extended, is now about $270,000,000.

Then His Majesty

pipes just the same, and smoked calmly on. had to content himself with laying a heavy tax on tobacco, thus making "the vile weed" help support the throne.

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 regular and 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. 4. It introduced the importation of negro slaves, as the cheapest means of carrying on great plantations.

These plantations had a decided influence on the population. They kept it scattered; and as the Virginians did not like to be cooped up in towns, few were built. The tobacco farms were on the banks of the James or other rivers, and vessels could load at them direct for England. Hence there was no need of a port to which to carry the produce. The cultivation of tobacco especially by unskilled slave labor-exhausted the soil, and so compelled the planters to constantly add new land to their estates, thus pushing the owners farther and farther apart from each other. One result of this separation and of the lack of towns was that neither schools nor printing presses came into existence until very late, and the mass of the people had to get their education from nature, not from books or newspapers. Another result of the want of towns was that men seldom met to discuss public matters.

53. Virginia becomes practically Self-governing; Importation of Wives. The year 1619 was a memorable one in the history of the colony. That year Sir George Yeardley1 came over from England as governor. Acting under instructions from the London Company, he summoned a general assembly or legislature, to be elected by all the freemen of Virginia.

1 Yeardley (Yeerd'ly).

2

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.3 They met in the church at Jamestown, Friday, July 30, 1619. This House of Burgesses, as it was then called, was the first law-making assembly that had ever come together in America. It meant that 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 have refused it to Quebec and to her other settlements. England was then the only country in Europe where the people had a share in the government, and England now gave that privilege - the greatest she could give to her colonists in the New World. Later, the right was inter

fered with and restricted, but it was never wholly taken away. 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 now sent out ninety young women. The cost of the passage for each 5 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 ninety brides liked the country so well that they wrote back to England, and

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 there at first all public affairs were 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.

2 Borough: an old English name for a town.

8 Burgess: an inhabitant of a borough or a citizen elected to represent a borough. The House of Burgesses, or the lower house of the Virginia Legislature, is now called the House of Delegates.

4 The date is sometimes, though incorrectly, given as June 30.

5 The best tobacco was then worth about 75 cents a pound in Virginia.

persuaded more maids to come over and take pity on the forlorn bachelors in the American wilderness.

54. Introduction of Negro Slavery; White "Apprentices." - In the records of this same remarkable year of 1619 we read these significant words: "About the last of August came in a 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. There was, however, this marked difference: at the North the negroes were nearly all kept as house-servants, and were not very numerous; but at the South they were employed chiefly as field-hands: so that there the whole system of agriculture depended on them, and the wisest and best men did not then see how cotton and tobacco, rice and sugar, could be raised without slave labor.

Still, for a long time the increase of negro slaves in Virginia was very slow, for many white people were sent over from England to be bound out as apprentices1 to planters for a certain number of years. Part of them were enterprising young men who wanted to get a start in America, but, having no money to pay their passage, bound themselves to work for the London Company, provided they would bring them over.

In some cases poor children, picked up in the streets of London, were sent here to get homes. Others, again, were kidnapped by scoundrels who made it their business to decoy young men, and ship them off as "servants" to America. At a later date, when wars and insurrections broke out in England, many pris

1 They were commonly called "indentured servants or "indentured apprentices," from the indentures or legal papers which bound them.

oners taken in battle were sent over here, and sold to planters. Finally, in one case at least, King James I. insisted, in spite of the protest of the colonists, on despatching a hundred criminals to this country, thinking, perhaps, and possibly with truth, that ten years' experience here might make honest men of them.

Thus, many elements contributed to build up the new commonwealth. In this respect Virginia resembled the "made-land" of some of our cities. There is good material in it, and there is some not so good; but in time it all helps to make the solid foundation of stately streets and broad avenues.

While the South was thus growing, Dutch and English emigrants had settled at the North. The former had established themselves in what is now New York, the latter, a little later, founded Plymouth, Massachusetts.

55. Virginia becomes a Royal Province; Governor Berkeley; the Puritans and the Cavaliers. — In 1624 King James took away the Company's charter. In future the colony was to be governed by the king as a royal province; but the assembly was not prohibited, and the people continued to make their own laws to a considerable extent.

The next king, Charles I., sent over Sir William Berkeley as governor. Governor Berkeley was a stanch Royalist. He had small faith in government by the people, in education of the people, or in any religion but that of the Episcopal Church or England.

The majority of the well-to-do colonists and of the rich tobacco planters agreed with the governor. They thought that it was better for a community to confine the privileges of education and of political power to persons of property and standing than it was to give them to everybody who asked for them.

1 Speaking of the colony in 1671, Governor Berkeley said: "I thank God there are no free schools nor printing, and I hope we shall not have them these hundred years." His reason was that he thought education made the mass of the people discontented and rebellious against authority.