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The influence of ‘legal habit’ on English–Indian relations in Jamestown, 1606–1612
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 January 2009
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1 Captain Smith, John in The generall historie of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles… (London, 1624)Google Scholar, in Barbour, Philip L., The Complete works of John Smith (3 vols) (Chapel Hill, 1986), 2, 140–2Google Scholar, states that the first planters numbered 100, of whom he names 82. Studley, Thomas in The proceedings of the English colony in Virginia… (Oxford, 1612)Google Scholar, in Barbour, , Works, 1, 207–9Google Scholar, states that the planters numbered 105, of whom he names 67.
2 The youngest brother of the ninth Earl of Northumberland, Henry Percy, George Percy served as president of the colony from August 1609 until mid-1610, and as deputy governor during the second charter.
3 Percy, George, Observations gathered out of a Discourse (1608)Google Scholar, in Barbour, Philip L. ed., The Jamestown voyages under the first charter 1606–1609 (2 vols) (Cambridge, 1969), 1, 129.Google Scholar
4 Ibid., at 1, 130.1 have retained the original spelling and punctuation in all quotations except to transpose ‘i’ and ‘j’ and ‘u’ and ‘v’ to correspond to modern usage. ‘And’ replaces the ampersand; ‘etc’ replaces ‘&c.’
5 Ibid.
6 Ibid.
7 Sir Thomas Gates, Sir George Somers, Richard Hakluyt, and Edward Maria Wingfield.
8 Barbour, , Jamestown, 1, 24.Google Scholar
9 Ibid., 1, 15.
10 Ibid., 1, 28.
11 Ibid., 1, 27. The ‘Letters patent’ state that the council in Virginia should have 13 councillors. Ibid., 1, 27. The ‘Articles, Instructions and Orders’ of 20 November 1606 state that the number of councillors ‘shal not be above thirteen’. Ibid., 1, 36. The Royal Council ultimately appointed seven councillors. See ibid., 2, 382. (This list of councillors does not include Christopher Newport who returned to England.)
12 Ibid., 1, 49–54.
13 Studley, , Proceedings, 1, 207.Google Scholar
14 Ibid., 1, 204.
15 ‘A letter of M. Gabriel Archar…’, in Barbour, , Jamestown, 2, 280.Google Scholar
16 ‘Instructions’, in Barbour, , Jamestown, 1, 51.Google Scholar
17 Writing over 150 years later, Blackstone stated that the King's right to abandoned ships was ‘grounded on the consideration of his guarding and protecting the seas from pirates and robbers’. Commentaries, 1, 290.Google Scholar
18 Rowse, A. L., The Elizabethans and America (London, 1959), 7.Google Scholar
19 Smith, , Generall historie, 2, 140–2.Google Scholar
20 This paper does not address the attitude towards law of the Spanish settlers in the Americas. The Spaniards who attacked Dominica may have been pirates. Most certainly they were not planters whose goal was to establish their country's first colony in the New World.
21 Reid, John Philip, Law for the elephant: property and social behavior on the overland trail (San Marino, 1980), 19.Google Scholar
22 Ibid., 8.
23 Ibid., 7.
24 Ibid., 19.
25 The first charter was issued on 10 April 1606, the second on 23 May 1609, the third on 12 March 1612.
26 Kingsbury, Susan Myra ed., The records of the Virginia Company of London (4 vols.) (Washington, 1906–1935), 1, 20.Google Scholar
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29 Barbour, , Works, 1, 191–289Google Scholar; Jamestown, 2, 375–464.Google Scholar Controversy surrounds the authorship of The proceedings, even though the authors are named. Smith may have coauthored some chapters. See Barbour, , Works, 1, 194–5.Google Scholar
30 Barbour, , Jamestown, 1, 213–34.Google Scholar Wingfield was president from early May until 10 September 1607.
31 Ibid., 1, 129–46.
32 Tyler's Quarterly Historical and Genealogical Magazine 3 (1921–1922), 259–82.Google Scholar
33 Wright, Louis B. ed., A voyage to Virginia in 1609: two narratives – Strachey's ‘True reportory’ and Jourdain's Discovery of the Bermudas (Charlottesville, 1964).Google Scholar
34 Wright, Louis B. ed., Historie of travell into Virginia Britania (1612) (London,.1953).Google Scholar
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37 Wright ed., Historie, xxv.Google Scholar
38 Map, 2, 373.Google Scholar
39 Ibid., 1, 3.
40 Rowse, , Elizabethans, 68.Google Scholar
41 Smith, , Map, 2, 374.Google Scholar
42 Smith, , Relation, I, 35.Google Scholar If, as Reid suggests, ‘[w]e may gauge the strength of legal habit by considering the strength of social habit’, (Law for the elephant, 19), then the settlers' clinging to class distinctions may suggest the strength of legal habit in Jamestown.
43 See, for instance, Elizabeth I's charter of 25 March 1584 to SirRaleigh, Walter in Commager, Henry Steele ed., Documents of American history (New York, 1944), 6.Google Scholar She granted Raleigh liberty to ‘discover… such remote, heathen and barbarous lands… not actually possessed by any Christian Prince’.
44 Pearce, Roy Harvey, The savages of America: a study of the Indian and the idea of civilization (rev. ed.) (Baltimore, 1965).Google Scholar
45 ‘They have no law, but nature.’ Johnson, Robert, Nova Brittania (London, 1609)Google Scholar, in Force, Peter, Tracts… (4 vols.) (Washington, D.C., 1836–1840), 1, No. 6, p. 11.Google Scholar
46 For a statement of this view, see Gray, Robert's ‘A good speed to Virginia’ (1609)Google Scholar, in W. F. Craven ed., (New York, 1937).
47 Barbour, , Jamestown, 1, 31.Google Scholar
48 Ibid., 1, 35–6.
49 Flaherty, David ed., For the colony in Virginea Britannia: lawes divine, morall, and martiall, etc. (Charlottesville, 1969), xiv.Google Scholar
50 Four prominent planters had been admitted to one of the Inns of Court: Wingfield, Percy, Gabriel Archer, and another of the seven original councillors, Bartholomew Gosnold. See Barbour, , Jamestown, 1, 3.Google Scholar
51 In response to American conditions, the Virginia Company gradually sanctioned sterner laws. Its instructions of 1609 to Sir Thomas Gates, first deputy-governor, and later to Lord De La Warr, the governor, granted considerable discretion in regulating life in Virginia. These instructions enabled Sir Thomas Dale, the high marshall and acting governor, to promulgate martial laws in 1611. Because the colonists were at once both planters and soldiers, they often fell within the scope of these laws.
52 Of approximately 500 colonists, ‘not past sixty’, survived the ‘starving time’ of the winter of 1609–1610. Smith, , Historie, 1, 204.Google Scholar
53 Wright ed., Strachey, 's Reportory, 43.Google Scholar
54 Rowse, , Elizabethans, 75.Google Scholar See also Flaherty, , Laws, xxixGoogle Scholar: ‘[T]he constant presence of death in early Virginia created a mental attitude on the part of the inhabitants that did not include too healthy a respect of established restrictions and constituted authorities and stimulated erratic behaviour.’
55 Smith, , Relation, 1, 33Google Scholar; Wingfield, , ‘Discourse’, 1, 217–23.Google Scholar
56 The first supply arrived on 2 January 1608, the second in September 1608, the third in August 1609. See Barbour, , Works, 1, 61, 127, 128.Google Scholar
57 ‘Advice’ in Barbour, Jamestown, 1, 52.Google Scholar
58 Jamestown, 2, 437 n.I.Google Scholar
59 Proceedings, 2, 425.Google Scholar
60 Smith, , Relation, 1, 39.Google Scholar‘If we had taken revenge, then by their losse we should have lost our selves!’ Proceedings, 2, 437.Google Scholar
61 Smith, , Relation, 1, 37.Google Scholar
62 Ibid.
63 Ibid., 37–9.
64 Ibid.
65 Ibid., 38.
66 Ibid., 37.
67 Ibid., 38.
68 Ibid.
69 Ibid., 39.
70 Proceedings, 2, 431.Google Scholar
71 Ibid., 416.
72 Neill, Edward D., History of the Virginia Company of London (Albany, 1869) repr. (New York, 1968), 50.Google Scholar
73 ‘Instructions’, 37.Google Scholar
74 Strachey, , Historie, 107.Google Scholar
75 Ibid.
76 Ibid.
77 Ibid.
78 ‘Instructions to Sir Thomas Gates’, in Barbour, , Jamestown, 2, 266.Google Scholar
79 Strachey, , Historie, 107.Google Scholar
80 ‘Instructions’, 40.Google Scholar
81 Ibid.
82 Ibid.
83 ‘Advice’, 51.Google Scholar
84 Ibid., 53.
85 Smith, Martin and Ratcliffe accused Wingfield of removing goods from the storehouse ‘without any noat of the partycularyties’ and of trading unaccounted goods to the Indians. Wingfield, , ‘Discourse’, 221.Google Scholar See also Proceedings, 2, 417Google Scholar for a list of items traded privately.
86 Smith, , Map, 2, 386.Google Scholar
87 Proceedings, 2, 417.Google Scholar
88 ‘Advice’, 1, 53.Google Scholar
89 Ibid.
90 Proceedings, 2, 390.Google Scholar
91 Ibid.
92 ‘Dale to Council’, in Brown, Genesis, I, 493.Google Scholar
93 Strachey, , ‘Reportory’, 72.Google Scholar
94 Ibid., 72–3.
95 Ibid., 73; The Proceedings, 2, 417–18, implies that the sailors should be punished.
96 Smith, , Relation, 1, 45.Google Scholar
97 I.e., mired in the wet mud of a river.
98 Smith, , Relation, 1, 73.Google Scholar
99 Ibid.
100 Ibid.
101 Ibid., 83.
102 Percy, , ‘Relacyon’, 271.Google Scholar
103 Smith, , Relation, 1, 57.Google Scholar
104 Ibid.
105 Baker, J. H., An introduction to English legal history (London, 1979), 263–90.Google Scholar
106 Ibid.
107 Smith, ‘had a customary schooling’ (Barbour, Works, 1, lvii).Google Scholar
108 Smith, , Relation, 65.Google Scholar
109 Ibid.
110 Ibid., 67. The presence of women obviously attracted the planters to the Indian camps.
111 Ibid.
112 ‘Patent’, 1, 25–7.Google Scholar
113 Ibid., 1, 25.
114 The second charter of 1609 increased the grant to over one million square miles. Brown, , Genesis, 1, 229.Google Scholar
115 ‘Patent’, 26.Google Scholar
116 Ibid.
117 Ibid., 33.
118 ‘Instructions’, 1, 37.Google Scholar
119 Strachey, , Historie, 25.Google Scholar
120 Ibid., 25.
121 Ibid., 25–6.
122 Smith, , Relation, 1, 81.Google Scholar
123 ‘The discription of the now discovered river and country of Virginia…(1607)Google Scholar, in Barbour, , Jamestown, 1, 101.Google Scholar
124 Proceedings, 2, 439.Google Scholar
125 Smith, , Map, 2, 337.Google Scholar
126 Winne, Peter, ‘Peter Winne to Sir John Egerton’ (1609)Google Scholar, in Barbour, , Jamestown, 1, 246.Google Scholar
127 Strachey, , Historie, 79–80.Google Scholar
128 Baker, , History, 322.Google Scholar
129 Birks, Peter and McLeod, Grant trans., Justinian's Institutes (London, 1897), 55.Google Scholar
130 Smith, , Relation, 1, 41.Google Scholar
131 Smith, , Map, 2, 357.Google Scholar
132 Ibid., 2, 360.
133 Ibid., 2, 342.
134 ‘Discription’, 1, 101.Google Scholar
135 Percy, , Discourse, 1, 141.Google Scholar
136 See, for example, ‘Spelman's Relation’, 1, 484Google Scholar; Proceedings, 2, 454Google Scholar; Strachey, , Historie, 56Google Scholar; Percy, , ‘Relacyon’, 262.Google Scholar
137 ‘Spelman's Relation’, 1, 484.Google Scholar
138 Proceedings, 2, 454.Google Scholar
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140 Percy, , ‘Relacyon’, 262.Google Scholar
141 Strachey, , Historie, 26.Google Scholar
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143 Strachey, , Historie, 56.Google Scholar
144 Smith, , Map, 2, 371.Google Scholar
145 Ibid., 2, 369.
146 Ibid.
147 Ibid., 2, 371.
148 Strachey, , Historie, 63.Google Scholar
149 Proceedings, 2, 371.Google Scholar
150 Smith, , Map, 2, 355.Google Scholar
151 ‘Discription’, 1, 101.Google Scholar
152 Smith, , Map, 2, 356.Google Scholar
153 Strachey, , Historie, 79.Google Scholar
154 Smith, , Map, 2, 351.Google Scholar
155 Ibid., 2, 352.
156 Percy, , Discourse, 1, 85.Google Scholar
157 Ibid., 1, 93.
158 Smith, , Map, 2, 354.Google Scholar
159 Ibid., 2, 340.
160 Ibid., 2, 352.
161 Ibid., 2, 340.
162 Ibid., 2, 352–3.
163 The edible root of various, especially araceous, plants such as the peltandra undulata or virginica, the Arrow Arum, and orontium aquaticum, the Golden-Club. Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed. (Oxford, 1989).Google Scholar
164 Smith, , Map, 2, 347.Google Scholar
165 Proceedings, 2, 423.Google Scholar
166 Ibid.
167 Strachey, , Historie, 82.Google Scholar
168 Ibid.
169 Smith, , Map, 2, 359.Google Scholar
170 Strachey, , Historie, 82.Google Scholar
171 Ibid.
172 Wingfield, , ‘Discourse’, 1, 219–20.Google Scholar
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