Effects of Somers Island on the Virginia Company—and Virginia
Craven ventures a thought that after 1612 Virginia had lost its luster, and in the minds of many in London all that was required of them was to “keep the Jamestown colony alive” ( p.19) In its largest sense, the Virginia Company, in the English territorial framework, was England’s North American colonizer, and if not Virginia as primary, it could be elsewhere in North America. Massachusetts was still in the doldrums as far as the Company was concerned, but the newest colony, Somers Island, was the rising star.
Aside from a few commentators (Osgood, Scott, and Charles Andrews in particular), the Somers Island-Virginia Company shared experience is perhaps mentioned, but usually reduced to an insignificant commentary. Off to the margins, Bermuda itself has not been incorporated into the Virginia Company decision-making process as it affected Virginia. This may fit well in an “American” perspective, but in point of fact, what happened in Bermuda would prove to exert a critical and overall negative effect on the Company and its Virginia operations. For this reasons, the reader should consider the below discussion as central to Virginia, and not a tangent.
Aside from the obvious comparison between two separate colonies concurrently administrated by the Virginia Company through separate corporations, a comparison which could, and does, shed some light and enhanced understanding of each colony. That overlap will be most apparent in the next module, but in this module we can observe the rather noticeable distinction between the policy-making in the two colonies, and in Bermuda some instability and chronic change in its provincial management. The latter show allows some comment as to the capacity of the Virginia Company during this period, and it will also confirm the shared approach in settling the plantation through shareholder land grants—an approach which profound implications for the political and economic development of both colonies.
We will come to see the Bermuda Company played was probably triggered the drift toward the 1619 Virginia Company organizational coup that commenced the final disintegration of the Virginia Company and the loss of its Virginia charter. That disintegration did not affect Bermuda as the Virginia Company continued its colonial management; for Virginia, however, it was page-turning.
We start our Bermuda discussion with its inclusion in the politics and negotiations that led to the the Third Charter, mostly after the Gates Expedition shipwreck. When the charter adjusted the Virginia Company jurisdiction to include the Somers Islands [March 12, 1612], and allowed for the formation of a subsidiary corporation, Smythe apparently sent letters to the “chief towns in England, and even to the Netherlands [and] pressure was directed against the [Virginia Company] shareholders who were in arrear, and a number of Chancery suits were instituted against some of those who had refused to pay the [share] instalments [99] Scott, p. 252.
Somers Island proved to be a gamechanger. It opened up new ways to think of Virginia and the Virginia Company, and apparently revitalized Smythe’s energy to extend the base of its supporters. That logically opened up an expanded campaign to attract investment and develop popular interest in colonization and Virginia—the point of which was to bring the king on board for signing off on the new charter—and stepping up to the plate to make a deeper royal commitment to the colonization effort.
It had a powerful advocate well placed in the Virginia Company: Admiral George Somers was credited with its discovery—not hard because he was in command of the fleet in which the Sea Venture was a member. Somers was a former privateer who led noted invasions of the Spanish possessions in West Indies and South America. He was associated with the “Bristol privateer community” discussed earlier in this series. Somers was shipwrecked along with Gates—with whom he discussed vigorously what they should do.
The 1609-10. a near disaster, but survivors prospered and demonstrated the island could be a suitable candidate for English colonization. Somers was an intense promoter of the islands potential, as a colony in and of itself, and a sources of tradeable staples (fish and wild hogs) that could help Virginia sustain itself. What to call this island shed insight into how this subsidiary colony could survive while Virginia languished is apparent, as Scott [99] p. 260 suggests, Somers name (summers) broke the chain of Virginia’s death climate, and reopened settler/investor interest in emigrating/investing there. It offered a promising new start.
Somers wanted priority placed on Somers Island. He pressed hard for formal designation of a colony, and its own (subsidiary) joint stock corporation. He achieved both in the Charter of 1612, but in fact, he was not involved in that charter at all. After he returned with Gates to Jamestown, he shortly went back to the Somers Island on orders from De la Warr. His mission was to find and send to Jamestown badly needed supplies and food. While in Bermuda, he became ill, and died there in November (1610). [99] https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/somers-sir-george-1554-1610/
His writing and spirit motivated support in London for development of the Island, and funds were raised to send over a few settlers to create a planation and forts (July, 1612). I suspect Somers was an inspiration to develop Bermuda, but it was Smythe who smell opportunity during the pre and post charter period. Painted not as a zero-sum ,i.e. Somers Island vs. Virginia, Somers Island was to be a crutch to assist Virginia’s development—but it also presented an opportunity to serve as port and home base for adventures against the Spanish West Indies and American possessions.
Little time was wasted, and from the non-existent capital yet another ship was fitted out, but this time to Somers Island. Sixty persons went over to start Bermuda’s first plantation (mid-late 1612). But in so doing, the venture no doubt got the lawyers involved, and they pointed out the 1609 charter gave the Virginia Company jurisdiction of 100 miles from its coast—Somers was more than that. With a few winks of the eye, the Company went forward, but it knew this was yet another reason to push for the next charter. Meanwhile, the Company decided its close proximity to Spanish ships and islands, necessitated a defense, and that forts should be built.
The plantation in Virginia At this time was largely dependent on supplies sent from home [England], and it was reported that, in an emergency, both hogs and fish could be obtained quickly from the Bermuda. Moreover, the strategic importance of [Bermuda] began to be recognized as one, which, when fortified, would protect Virginia against the attacks of Spain which were believed to be imminent [99] Scott, Vol II, p. 259
Inclusion of the Somers Island into the Virginia Company jurisdiction was an element of the Third Charter, and it went into effect with a second agreement in July 1612. The key to understanding why a new cadre of investors took an active interest in Bermuda, leaving aside Virginia was the new investors had plans, ideas and their own ambitions for profit which they did not want constricted by the obvious plight of the Virginia Company, and the effects that plight had on its membership and decision-making.
That the Somers Island enjoyed a more successful colonization—in its opening decades—offers an insight of Virginia’s chief woes when compared to the young upstart Bermuda. Unsettled, undiscovered by even Native Americans, Bermuda was open to plantation-building and whatever initiatives seemed appropriate. Initial allotments of land were made to kickstart a settlement, and an early start in Somers Island plantation development yielded a number of positive stories that suggested whatever Virginia’s deficiencies, the Somers Island could be turned into a money-making venture.
The ill-fortune which dogged the plantation in Virginia did not pursue that in the Somers Islands. The younger enterprise had the benefit of the experience gained since 1607 and there was not the same temptation to divert the energies of the settlers from agriculture to the search for mines. In another respect also this company [Somers] was fortunate at the beginning of its history. Many of the difficulties that had already been experienced by the Virginia Colony were financial, through the shareholders refusing to pay the instalments until they saw some return from the plantation. Such a return was forthcoming from the Somers Islands within a year after the company had been formed, through the discovery of a great quantity of ambergris .. At this period ambergris was a valuable commodity, being used both in medicine and a perfume [99] Scott, p. 260-1
Ambergris, picked up from the beaches, and easily exported to England yielded immediate profit (despite some embezzlement by Somers officials) on a scale sufficient to “grow” Somers in this early period.. Pearls quickly added to the exports While Virginia had not built a respectable fort by this point, such an critical piece of infrastructure was started construction on Somers in 1613. Investors were quite willing to buy shares in the Somers corporation—at a time when they were not for the Virginia Company itself. Scott asserts that as much as L20,000 were expended on Somers Island by the end of 1614—and the population had grown to six hundred settlers—a multiple of those in Virginia, if one nets out those who died.
Smythe took an early lead on this, and led a renewed effort for another shareholder subscription and pressed the king for a new charter. He was joined in this effort by Sir Robert Rich, later the First (Third Baron) Earl of Warwick. Charles Andrews credits Rich to be the leader of the early Bermuda movement within the Company (to which he became a member in 1612). Initially, a subsidiary corporation was incorporated within the Virginia Company, with considerable overlapping members from the Company. The signing of the 1612 charter, however, was the catalyst for a bewildering, and somewhat dysfunctional series of governance/leadership changes that produced a mixed bag of governance for Bermuda, and considerable instability within the Virginia Company—an instability that did not benefit Virginia in the long run.
Not all of the Somers opportunities were congruent with the permanent settlement mission of Virginia. and for a number of other reasons. Once the 1612 Charter was in place this subsidiary sold its rights to Bermuda (L2000) in November, 1612 to an independent, yet operating within the Virginia Company (meetings were held on the same day, place, and time, with appropriate presiding officers) joint stock corporation, the “Undertakers for the Plantation of the Somers Island”. Shareholders were capped at 400 and 117 subscribed.
Though literally the equal of and distinct from the parent [Virginia Company] company, the Bermuda Corporation was in practice closely interjoined with the other. Its [the Bermuda Company] membership was only one hundred and twenty, with an average attendance of seventy or eighty, but it occupied the same quarters and with few exceptions all its members were members also of the other body. The head of the one was called “treasurer” and the other “governor”, but at first the two offices were filled by the same person, Sir Thomas Smith [Smythe]. Each company had four general [shareholder] courts with similar powers and forms of procedure. These courts met at the same time and in the same place for the transaction of business
…. After 1619, when Sir Thomas Smith ceased to be ‘treasurer’ [of the Virginia Company], but continued to be ‘governor” [of the Bermuda Company], and the two companies [therefore] had different heads, the Bermuda Company was looked upon as the lesser and inferior corporation, and in all that concerned the common welfare did little more than follow the lead of the elder body [the Virginia Company], and adopt for itself the latter’s’ decisions. [99] Charles M. Andrews, the Colonial Period of American History, Vol. 1, p. 120
Small and rudimentary, the Bermuda plantation seems to have gradually established itself, introduced tobacco, and began construction on its fort. In December 1613 the first annual quarterly council was held. A decision made in 1614 to start a land survey as a prerequisite for a “division of land” among the shareholders. Affairs seemed to be proceeding in good form, and accordingly another key decision, to apply to the king for a charter which separated the Bermuda colony from Virginia—but not from the Virginia Company—was also made. Approval was obtained and on June 29th, 1615 a new incorporation, “the Governor and Company of the City of London for the Plantation of the Somers Island” replaced the previous corporation, and its jurisdiction was set in accordance with the terms of the 1615 charter.
A Governor with twenty-four assistants (councilors), one of which was to be chosen as deputy governor constituted its governance. Thomas Smythe assumed CEO office and his deputy was William Canning, a slave trader. In 1615, however, incidents and complaints made it known that the administration of its first deputy governor, Richard Moore had gotten off to a rather bad start, Moore’s administration, and the colony, degenerated through his neglect and lack of diligence, becoming a resort, complete with financial maladministration. [99] Robert Scott, Vol. 1, pp. 262-3
Moore was abruptly terminated. His termination was followed by even more disorganization, caused it seems from the failure of its local council, and the choice of settlers seems to have been poor. Commentators suggest Bermuda was in a “perpetual Christmas”, with crop production and stores management negligent. Charles Andrews describes Moore as a good carpenter, but poor governor” who became jealous or “peevish” in regards to Company oversight and direction; Andrews also describes the subsequent governance by the council as “misrule of the six”. At this point Thomas Smythe “determined to put an end to “this state of affairs, and convinced that the ‘originall [beginning] of these gamboleinge times proceeded from the miserable insufficiencye of the commanders there” selected as the new governor Captain Daniel Tucker, brother of the head customs searcher at Gravesend, and a resident of five years as cape-merchant in Virginia’ [99] Charles Andrews, Vol. 1, pp. 217-8
Not until February 16, 1616 was the new deputy governor, Daniel Tucker, then a ship captain and planter in residence in Virginia arrived in Bermuda in May, and successfully continued the construction of the fort, and opened up direct trade with the West Indies. A stock issuance to finance whale-fishing was conducted, with mediocre results.. the “land division (survey) that was intended to be Tucker’s signature project in accordance with his instructions from Smythe.
In 1617, the corporation decided to issue land grants to its 400 investors, twenty-five acres per share, with remaining land to be dedicated to public use and which profits should support the colony’s expenditures:
First of all the 400 shares and 10,000 acres to be divided were arranged in multiples of 50 shares and 1,250 acres which were known as tribes. Each of these was named after one of the original adventurers of position who held ten shares. These were the Countess of Bedford, Sir Thomas Smythe (the governor), Lord Cavendish, afterwards Earl of Devonshire), Lord Pagett Earl of Pembroke, Sir Robert Mansefield, the Earl of Southampton, Sir Edwin Sandys, [and to Robert Rich who succeeded to the Earl of Warwick] [99] Scott, p. 263-4
The detail is provided because it is a “who’s who” in colonization circles, and several will play a critical role in the forthcoming modules. It seems as a variation of Virginia’s Dale’s Gift, which seems mostly to have been locally determined into 1616. Not so with Bermuda as London’s fingerprints are al over it. Each tribe compared to a “hundred” and each were expected to send settlers to found plantations. Tobacco was by the mid-teens the crop of Bermuda. Bermuda, it seems was also heading off in the direction of a tobacco monoculture.
Tucker’s administration struggled to clean up the muddle, ineptitude, and laxity of the former governor (he hanged at least one settler). His management style, as well as its intent to secure efficient production and local order, was similar to that of Jamestown’s John Smith, and was in many ways similar to that employed by the Dale military administration [99] Charles Andrews, Vol. 1, p. 220]. Likely, the style of this policy system, implemented by a governor of some temper and insistence, affected the implementation of the land division once it was completed in 1617. (
Tucker was accused of “slow-walking” the implementation, carving out land for his personal benefit, and less than equal allocation of quality land among the beneficiaries). In the course of this implementation, Tucker inflicted alleged “indignities” on agent, a relative retained by the Rich family to handle Bermuda affairs. Among other matters, the quality of the Rich allocated land was judged to be deficient (Scott seems to agree), and the matter elevated into a confrontation in which Tucker imprisoned the Rich family agent. Charles Andrews described the matter as follows:
Tucker’s methods of government were not conducive to a long continuance of peaceful conditions. Tucker was an able and experienced man but he had a violent temper and made short shrift of those who were obstinate and lazy. His course of action aroused so much discontent and led to many jealousies that he finally determined to return to England [in late 1617]. There he was charged before the company with vainglory and presumption, with oppression and cruelty, and with using his position and the company’s property to his own profit. [99] Charles Andrews, Vol. 1, p. 221
The company discussion and debate occurred in 1618 in London company offices, and Tucker’s term of office formally did not end until 1619. By that time a second incident in Virginia involving a Warwick associate, Governor Argall, compounded the intensity of the opposition. “Warwick and his supporters were opposed to the continuance of Tucker in the Somers Islands, while they advocated the cause of Argall in Virginia” [99] Scott, Vol II, p. 267] Scott picks up the discussion by adding “Tucker was supported by Smythe, and a breach thus began between Smythe and the Earl of Warwick “[99] Robert Scott, Vol. II, p. 266. Scott adds “Smythe who was in favor of the reelection of Tucker, according to the account of an adherent of Warwick, refused peremptorily ‘and with much heate and passion’ to accept this motion. After the lapse of some months, Smythe abandoned Tucker and decided to support Captain Southwell, while Warwick fixed on Nathaniel Butler [As his candidate [Sandys initially advocated his brother, George, and then was himself a candidate for Bermuda governor. The final decision was made in May 1619 with the election of Butler as Deputy Governor, but Thomas Smythe retained his position as governor. It is worth comment that Scott’s narrative interweaves both Virginia and Bermuda matters, such as the Magazine. It is very evident to me this interchange and the exchanges made during the 1618 and 1619 company discussion support my inclusion of this matter at this point. The 1619 coup, when it was completed and matters settled involved both Virginia and Bermuda.
Scott also reports in this section that in 1616 “Smythe had a serious illness” [p. 267]. If so, from this point on reference to Smythe’s health will be reported, in Smythe’s decision not to stand for election to Virginia Company treasurer in 1619. and in the 1621 parliamentary election which Smythe and Sandys contested a Kent M.P. district. The latter detail is included for reader consideration, but Scott suggests Smythe’s health may have been a factor in the keeping of Virginia Company records after 1616,
This was the incident that escalated over the next two years (which will later be discussed) and culminated in the company “coup” of 1619, and the series of shifts in company investor factions that, in its turn in 1621, led to the several year war between almost everybody against Edwin Sandys and his faction. The result of nearly five years of what was a Virginia Company civil war, the King (James I) suspended the Virginia Company charter’s rights of administration over Virginia—but not Bermuda, as irony would have it. The Company would continue its Bermuda charter rights into the 1650’s.
A succinct summary of post-third charter Bermuda is provided by D. Alan Williams:
The London Company [our Virginia Company] promptly sold Bermuda to a subsidiary association of company investors, who in turn founded the Somers Island (Bermuda) Company, under a separate royal charter in 1615. One could hardly tell the difference between the Virginia and the Somers Companies. Smythe was the treasurer of one and governor of the other. Both held their meetings in his London townhouse. The pleasant climate, the absence of Indians on the isles, and quick farming profits made Bermuda a flourishing colony. Eventually, the Somers Island Company came to an unprofitable end. With only 11,000 acres of land, the Bermuda Islands could not sustain a commercially viable agricultural economy. Unfortunately, before this became apparent, the scramble for Bermuda profits created conflicts among the Virginia investors that proved fatal to the London [Virginia] Company. Ironically, while England focused its attention on Bermuda, the colonists in Virginia stumbled onto their economic salvation—they became tobacco farmers. [99] D. Alan Williams, “Introduction”, in Grizzard Jr. and D. Boyd Smith, “Jamestown Colony: a Political, Social, and Cultural History (ABC CLIO, 2007), p. xl.
Ron W. Coan 