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SEARCH this site
revised 26 June 2008
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various works having to do with the planting
of England’s colony in Virginia
For example:
- Captain George Percy’s ms., Observations gathered out of a Discourse of the Plantation of the Southerne Colonie in Virginia by the English (1606–7)
- [? Captain Gabriel Archer]’s A relatyon of the Discovery of our River, from Iames Forte into the Maine; made by Captaine Christofer Newport: and sincerely writen and observed by a gent: of ye Colony (1607)
- Summary of Nova Britannia, offring most excellent fruites by planting in Virginia[.] Exciting all such as be well affected to further the same (London, 1609) sent by the Spanish ambassador, Don Pedro de Zuñiga, for the king of Spain (1609)
- Henry Spelman’s MS., Relation of Virginea (covering the period of his “captivity,” 1609–10)
- excerpts from Samuel Argall’s journal describing his voyage from Jamestown to Cape Cod (1610)
- Richard Rich’s [Newes from Virginia.] The lost flocke triumphant. With the happy arrivall of that famous and worthy knight Sr. Thomas Gates: and the well reputed & valiant captaine Mr. Christopher Newporte, and others, into England. With the maner of their distresse in the Iland of Devils (otherwise called Bermoothawes) where they remayned 42. weekes, & builded two pynaces, in which they returned into Virginia (1610)
- excerpts from Alexander Whitaker’s Good newes from Virginia (1613)
- excerpt on Virginia from Samuel Purchas’ Purchas his pilgrimage (1st ed., 1613)
- Edmond Howes’ “The Originall and Plantation of the English in Virginia” from The annales, or a generall chronicle of England, begun first by maister Iohn Stow, and after him continued and augmented with matters forreyne, and domestique, auncient and moderne, vnto the ende of this present yeere 1614. by Edmond Howes, gentleman (1615)
- excerpts from George Abbot’s A briefe description of the whole world (written ca. 1616)
- Francis Bacon’s Of Plantations (written ca. 1620, pub. 1625)
- Captain John Smith’s narratives concerning Pocahontas (1608, 1624)
- Captain John Smith’s 1st and 2nd books of The Generall Historie of Virginia, New-England, and the Summer Isles (1624)
- excerpts from Captain John Smith’s Avertisements for Planters in New England, or Anywhere (1631)
- Beauchamp Plantagenet’s A Description of the Province of New Albion and a Direction for Adventurers (1648)
- Edward Bland’s The Discovery of New Brittaine (1651)
- Sir William Berkeley’s A Discourse and View of Virginia (1663)
- Robert Fallows’ MS. Journal (covering the period September–October 1671)
- Thomas Glover’s An Account of Virginia, Its Scituation, Temperature, Productions, Inhabitants, and their Manner of Planting and Ordering Tobacco, etc. (1676)
- Chapter XI, “The Present State of Virginia,” from Durand’s Voyages d’un Francois Exilé pour la Religion avec Une Description de la Vergine & Marilan dans l’Amerique A la Haye (covering the period 1686)
- John Clayton’s ms., “A Letter from the Revd Mr John Clayton afterwards Dean of Kildare in Ireland to Dr Grew, in Answer to Several Quaerys Sent to Him by that Learned Gentleman” (1687)
- John Clayton’s ms., “An Account of the Indians in Virginia and of Some Remarkable Things in that Country. Collected Out of Some Letters from a Minister in Virginia ...” (1689)
- John Clayton’s “Account of Several Observables in Virginia,” a series of 5 letters (dated 12 May 1688, 17 August 1688, 24 November 1693, and 22 May 1694) and printed in vols. 17 and 18 of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London (1693–4)
These texts raise important public policy issues concerning development (known then as “improvement”) of the “new found land” of Virginia and its peoples — a central concern of my own research, in addition to being a controlling theme of she-philosopher.com. Despite their use of what may seem to us archaic forms of expression, the authors pose ideas and arguments that will be all too familiar. Early modern conflicts over resource management and capitalist expansion are still playing out today.
But these texts about early colonial Virginia have relevance beyond our ongoing debates over sustainable development. They are also interesting for what they tell us about the origins of modern Anglo-American culture, and the ways in which authors and their audiences on both sides of the Atlantic were increasingly influenced by their contact with Native America.
Scholars have traditionally assumed that Old World nations such as England were geographically and culturally contained; that culture flowed westward from Europe to America; and that social, political, and cultural events occurring in Europe took priority over those occurring in British America.
Today we make different assumptions. Many of us believe that early modern England was part of a larger nation whose boundaries extended overseas to British America; in effect, “each side of the Atlantic depended on the other for its sense of national identity.” I believe the texts in she-philosopher.com’s colonial Virginia series will help us learn even more about the transformation that one European culture underwent in the New World during the early modern period.
RELATES TO: multiple GALLERY exhibits on the mapping of colonial Virginia; a GALLERY exhibit on the changing “culture and use” of maize (Indian corn) in 17th-century Virginia, including the process by which established Indian horticultural practices gave way to English agricultural science, and the identity of the Virginia planter shifted from that of Indian Corn Mother to “reformed Husband-Man”; multiple GALLERY exhibits on European portraits of Amerindians; an IN BRIEF topic on slavery, and companion GALLERY exhibit on European portraits of “Blackamoors”; the PLAYERS pages on Virginia Ferrar; IN BRIEF biographies of politicians, merchant-adventurers, colonists, and explorers involved with England’s Virginia enterprise