The Virginia House of Burgesses' Struggle for Power from 1619-1689
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“The Virginia House of Burgesses’ Struggle for Power from 1619-1689” By Nathanael Kreimeyer A Thesis Submitted To The Faculty of the History Department and Graduate School At Liberty University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for a Masters of Arts in History December 2013 Acknowledgements The finishing of my Master’s Thesis could not have been possible without the extraordinary assistance of the faculty of Liberty University’s History Department. Dr. Michael A. Davis, Dr. Samuel C. Smith, Dr. Christopher J. Smith, and Dr. Steven Woodworth have helped me to hone my writing skills through the graduate history course that I have taken at Liberty University. I would like to especially thank Dr. David L. Snead for being my thesis director. He has done an exceptional job in assisting me to write, edit, and trim down my thesis. Thank you. i Table of Contents Introduction....................................................................................................................................1 I. The Beginning of the Virginia House of Burgesses.................................................................11 II. The Royal Colony and the Growth of the House of Burgesses...............................................37 III. Governor William Berkeley’s First Term and The Commonwealth of England...................60 IV. Governor William Berkeley’s Second Term..........................................................................86 V. Bacon’s Rebellion and the Retaliation of the Crown............................................................103 Conclusion..................................................................................................................................127 Bibliography...............................................................................................................................138 ii Introduction After experiencing the freedom to choose representatives for the House of Burgesses in 1619, Virginian freemen and freeholders would resist living under a political system that did not allow them to participate in choosing their leaders.1 In 1619, the Virginia Company set up a new kind of governmental legislature in Virginia where every freeman and freeholder held the right to vote for their representative. Over time, the representatives came to see their legislature as equal with the British Parliament and believed it held the right to make its own laws and choose its own leaders. By Bacon’s Rebellion in 1675-1676, Virginians were willing to fight, whether by legislative action or war, to jealously protect this power from anyone wanting to take it away. The thesis will begin with a look at what led to the creation of the Virginia General Assembly, then focus on the House of Burgesses, which started in Jamestown in July of 1619.2 Next, the thesis will explore how the Burgesses in the new legislature, who were all freemen in the colony, went about deciding legislation. The General Assembly at that time was unicameral, and the Burgesses met with the Governor’s Council and the Governor-General. From 1607 until 1625, the Virginia Company ran the colony of Virginia, but then the king took over the colony and ran it until 1776. During the early period of colonial settlement in the seventh century, all the freemen and freeholders of the colony could still vote for their representatives, and, much of the time, the Burgesses were able to preserve their power. The freemen of the colony were those who were not indentured servants. Slavery, at this point in the colony’s history, was virtually nonexistent, so this 1Freemen were males who were not indentured servants, but did not own land. Freeholders were males that did own land. 2Warren M. Billings, A Little Parliament: The Virginia General Assembly in the Seventeenth Century (Richmond, VA: Library of Virginia, 2004), 8. The General Assembly consisted of the House of Burgesses and the governor’s council as one legislature. The House of Burgesses consisted of representatives of the freemen and freeholders from each plantation voted in. The governor’s Council consisted of Councillors that the governor chose from among the leading men of the colony. 1 did not factor into the thinking of the colony. A Dutch ship brought black slaves in 1619. However, colonial government made them into indentured servants who eventually gained their freedom and owned their own land.3 The plantation owners who brought over the indentured servants basically owned them until they paid off their debt. Then, they too could become freemen and freeholders.4 Freeholders were those who owned land. The idea that any freeman could vote, as in Virginia, was unheard of before. Not even in Great Britain could all freemen vote, as only landowners had suffrage.5 This made the Virginia colony’s government something new and different. Here they were a colony of Great Britain, but they did not have the same exact government style as their mother country. The members of the House of Burgesses may have been similar to Parliament, but quickly they made themselves a different entity. The colonists enjoyed this new style of government; they enjoyed their freedom; and they became wary of any governor or the Crown trying to change the government. They would even defy the crown in the proceeding decades to keep their form of government.6 Before the Crown took over the colony in 1625, certain problems led to the creation of the Virginia General Assembly. From 1607-1619, the governing body of the colony consisted of the governor and his council. However, after hearing allegations against Governor Samuel Argall, the Virginia Company began an investigation. Argall had Pocahontas kidnapped in 1613, almost instigating a war between the colonists and the Indians. Then, in 1618, Argall decided to repair the company warehouse and build a new frame for the church. The governor, however, wanted the 3Edmund S. Morgan, American Slavery, American Freedom: The Ordeal of Colonial Virginia (New York: Norton, 1975), 105, 154-157. 4Ronald L. Heinemann, Old Dominion, New Commonwealth: A History of Virginia, 1607-2007 (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2007), 28. 5Billings, A Little Parliament, 18. 6Samuel Mathews, "The Mutiny in Virginia," The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 1:4 (1894): 416-424. 2 work finished quickly, and so set the workmen on a backbreaking schedule. Argall’s schedule was the last straw for the colonists. The colonists decided the best way of dealing with the governor was to complain to the company.7 The company heard the complaint and decided that it was time to do something for the betterment of the colony. The Company’s new treasurer, Sir Ediwn Sandys, thought that the government of the colony needed a change. Since the start of the colony in 1607, the Virginia Company believed that a strong governor-general needed to rule the colony with an iron fist. This proved true during the Starving Time when the majority of the colony had died. If John Smith had not forced the colonists to work hard and feed themselves, they would probably never have survived. Through the 1610s, the company continued with this policy of having governor- generals.8 In 1619, Sandys believed that the colonists were ready to rule themselves. The Company reserved the right to choose the governor, and the governor would choose the members of his council, but the colonists would choose their own representatives in the House of Burgesses. Sandys sent the new orders, The Greate Charter, with the new governor, George Yeardley.9 Yeardley helped to set up the new House of Burgesses, which met for six days at the end of July and beginning of August in 1619. In those six days, the new Burgesses codified the law that Sandys gave them and set up a way for ruling themselves.10 The House of Burgesses continued to meet diligently each year until 1625 when the colony reverted to Crown control. In 1621, the Virginia Company had placed a new governor, Sir Francis 7Warren M. Billings, Sir William Berkeley and the Forging of Colonial Virginia (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2010), 42. 8James P. Horn, A Land as God Made It: Jamestown and the Birth of America (New York: Basic Books, 2005), 60. 9Billings, Sir William Berkeley and the Forging of Colonial Virginia, 5. 10Charles E. Hatch, “Oldest Legislative Assembly and Its Jamestown Statehouses” (Rev. 956. ed. Washington: U.S. Dept. of the Interior, National Park Service, 1956). 3 Wyatt, over the colony. During his term, Indians massacred several hundred colonists at plantations all across the colony in March 1622.11 The colonists were stunned when the massacre took place and believed that the Company had failed protect them. The colonists sent a contingent to complain to the king. The crown dealt with problems by sending over investigators to look into the complaints. The investigators found the governor and the Virginia Company at fault for the problems and, gave the colonists a choice: they could stay with the Virginia Company or become a royal colony. The people liked the fact that they could have a say in their government, but, more importantly to them, they wanted protection from Indian attacks. They chose to go with the king, and so, in 1625, Virginia became a royal colony.12 The crown then chose who would be governor. Through this entire time, free elections of all freemen continued to take place. In 1642, however, a new governor came to Jamestown, Sir William Berkeley.13 He noticed the power of the House of Burgesses, and instead