MICHIE, IAN M., Ph.D. Agents of Empire: Entrepreneurship and the Transformation of Virginia, 1688-1750 (2018). Directed by Dr. Phyllis Whitman Hunter. 312 pages. This study examines the economic culture of Virginia from the end of the seventeenth century to the middle of the eighteenth. The study employs five individuals who operated in an entrepreneurial capacity as case studies to reveal the complexity of the business climate in Virginia. Using these individuals as examples I argue that an entrepreneurial mindset influenced the growth of transatlantic commerce in Virginia. At the same time entrepreneurial activity aided in the solidification of anglicized institutions in the colonies, allowing for deepening assertions of empire in the Chesapeake and backcountry regions. However, the transition was never an organized progression but, rather, a complicated web of endeavors relying on legitimate and illegitimate business networks and practices. The case studies represented in this work demonstrate the types of business activities undertaken by settlers and planters as they tested the exploitable resources and the imperial authority of the colony. It also focuses on a place and time where the growth of plantation slavery influenced motivations and actions of colonists. The work adds to previous histories of Virginia, Atlantic, and economic history by offering analysis of the social environment and cultural motivations of the period though the examination of business-motivated individuals. These individuals were integral parts of a larger culture of empire that asserted its power into North America in the eighteenth century. AGENTS OF EMPIRE: ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF VIRGINIA, 1688-1750 by Ian M. Michie A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of The Graduate School at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy Greensboro 2018 Approved by _____________ Committee Chair APPROVAL PAGE This dissertation written by IAN M. MICHIE has been approved by the following committee of the Faculty of The Graduate School at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Committee Chair______________________________________ Committee Members__________________________________ __________________________________ __________________________________ ______________________________ Date of Acceptance by the Committee _________________________ Date of Final Oral Examination ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page LIST OF FIGURES .......................................................................................................... iv CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION ...............................................................................................1 II. “NO PREY NO PAY,” LIONEL WAFER AND PIRATICAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN LATE SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY VIRGINIA ....................................................33 III. “PRIVATE ENDS UNDER A SHOW OF PUBLIC UTILITY,” WILLIAM BYRD ON VIRGINIA’S FRONTIER ........................................82 IV. “BY A DUE SPIRIT OF INDUSTRY AND MANAGEMENT,” ROBERT BEVERLEY AND THE TRANSATLANTIC ECONOMY OF KNOWLEDGE ...............................131 V. ALEXANDER SPOTSWOOD, WESTWARD EXPANSION, AND THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF PLACE....................................................................................................178 VI. “OF PUBLIC USE AND BENEFIT,” WILLIAM PARKS AND PRINT CULTURE IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY VIRGINIA ....................................................................................................226 VII. CONCLUSION ..................................................................................................273 BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................................286 iii LIST OF FIGURES Page Figure 1. Nova Virginiae Tabula, John Smith (Amsterdam, 1633) ...................................36 Figure 2. Nova Terrae-Mariae Tabula, John Ogilby, (London 1671)...............................89 Figure 3. Front piece of Beverley’s 1705 edition of History of the Present State of Virginia ....................................................................130 Figure 4. Alexander Spotswood by Charles Bridges, 1736 ..............................................180 Figure 5. Virginia Marylandia et Carolina, John Baptist Homann (Nuremberg, 1709-1719) ...............................................................208 Figure 6. A Map of the British Empire in America, Henry Popple (London, 1733) .................................................................................246 iv CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION Before they even established new and busy societies, colonizers denoted some people as entrepreneurial stewards of the land.1 Nancy Isenberg Students of American history might ask, “do we really need another study about colonial Virginia?” The initial answer to that question might easily be “no.” Since its founding authors have produced a library’s worth of scholarship dedicated to investigating Britain’s first successful American colony, examining the subject with a myriad of approaches, agendas, and insight, so that one might feel that centuries of study have fully exhausted any potential for new understanding of Virginia’s place in colonial history. An accelerated attention to Virginia in the last half of the twentieth century seemed to leave few stones unturned in terms of the political, cultural, economic, and environmental development of the colony. Scholars, employing the quantitative and analytical tools of social, economic, and intellectual history completed a portrait of the colony from its inception through the Revolution. As a result, the effort to reveal the complexity of Virginia’s development appears complete Because of this complexity, the following study will answer the above question with, “yes, we need another study about colonial Virginia, and many more.” It is a 1 Nancy Isenberg, White Trash: The 400-Year Old Untold History of Class in America (New York: Penguin Books, 2016) 19. 1 study of Virginia’s economic culture in the colonial era, with particular focus on entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurship was both a cause and a product of Virginia’s economic transformation, and it is the purpose of this study to examine diverse modes of entrepreneurial activity that significantly changed Virginia’s economic environment during these decisive decades of the colonial period. I specifically focus on entrepreneurial activity from the end of England’s Glorious Revolution (1688) to the middle of the eighteenth century. The study will support the claim that Virginia, in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century, experience a period of economic transition that relied on and was influenced by the participation of entrepreneurs. The use of entrepreneurship as a tool with which to study Virginia’s economic culture allows for two modes of interpretation to support my claim. First, studying entrepreneurial activity permits a substantial understanding of the type of business transactions existing in the Virginia-Atlantic world. This allows a practical study of the nature and processes of business in the colonial era as well as an understanding of what type of venture succeeded, which did not, and why. It also leads to better understanding of what type of individuals became economic actors in Virginia, what their background was, what kind of external financial support they experienced, and how connected they were within the Atlantic world of exchange. This, in turn, reveals a portrait of Virginia’s economic climate through the decades of study, demonstrating factors that worked in favor or against potential businessmen and the adaptive changes that occurred in business practices throughout the roughly seventy-five years that this study covers. 2 Secondly, using entrepreneurship as an interpretive tool allows for an analytical lens from which to examine the motivations and mentalities of entrepreneurial Virginians. The term entrepreneur came to full use as an analytical tool in the nineteenth century, and this study employs definitions of entrepreneurship to analyze motivating factors within the colonial sphere that prompted entrepreneurs to take risks, create innovations, and enjoy profits (although often these profits were slow in coming, and sometimes they never came at all). This perspective reveals a significant amount of anxiety in Virginia’s business culture, caused by the volatility of the Atlantic tobacco market and a cultural identity that worked to assert its political and economic independence with one hand while strengthening hereditary and economic ties to Britain with the other. Analyzing the period through the scope of entrepreneurial activity permits a picture to emerge of a colony in search of an economic identity that worked to simultaneously strengthen bonds within the English Atlantic and create a distinctive, competitive, and more cohesive colonial society. By using this analytical tool I reveal four overriding points: 1) That during the period of study Virginia’s culture and economy transformed. 2) Entrepreneurs are essential to this transformation. 3) Social and economic transatlantic connections are vital to this process. 4) Entrepreneurs demonstrate a larger colonial social development of balancing British and colonial identities. To permit a practical examination of entrepreneurship in the period of study I use five case studies, men who operated business ventures of varying capacities from the end of the seventeenth century to