Domestic Life in Virginia in the Seventeenth CenturyJester, Annie Lash
History
Domestic Life in Virginia in the Seventeenth Century
Jester, Annie Lash
Plantation life; Virginia -- Social life and customs -- To 1775
Among other possessions listed were the houses of the planters, their
boats--barks, shallops and skiffs being named--and, at George Sandys'
plantation across from Jamestown, a house for silkworms had been framed.
The prolific growth of mulberry trees, about the Indian settlements and
elsewhere, encouraged the English to conclude that Virginia was an ideal
location for development of the silk industry. Greatly encouraged from
England, the colonists made earnest efforts, throughout the seventeenth
century, to establish the culture and production of silk on a paying
basis. However, the lure of profit accruing from the easy tobacco crop,
plus the difficulty in obtaining for the Colony skilled silk workers,
resulted eventually in the abandonment of the undertaking.
ABUNDANT SUPPLIES FOR THE COLONISTS
Fearing that their right of assembly, instituted in 1619, would be
revoked, the colonists, following the abrogation of the charter of the
Virginia Company, opposed the decision of King Charles I, to take over
administration of affairs in Virginia, and sent a protest to England,
1625. Nevertheless, facing the inevitable, they acceded to the Royal
demands and surrendered the colony to the King. One of the immediate
effects of the change in control was a stimulus to trade. So abundant
were the supplies brought in by traders, now independent of the
requirements formerly placed by the Virginia Company, that the
colonists, by 1630, had often become deeply indebted to the English
merchants.
An account of a trading voyage to Virginia, a venture in which eight
Englishmen joined to send both cargo and indentured servants to the
Colony and bring back tobacco, not only conveys an idea of commodities
and servants sold for domestic purposes, but projects a picture of life
along the estuaries flowing into the Chesapeake Bay, as the ship plied
from one plantation wharf to another, selling merchandise and human
help, both in demand. The _Tristram and Jane_ of London left England in
the late summer or early fall of 1636, arriving in Virginia in time for
the fall tobacco crop ready for the market in December. Daniel
Hopkinson, merchant, was in charge of the cargo, but dying before the
ship's return to England, he requested to be "decently" buried at the
Kecoughtan (Elizabeth City) Church.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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