Four Events That Shaped The Development Of The Virginia Colony

Reflection #1 – Chesapeake

The author states that the four events that shaped the development of the Virginia colony are the first shipment of tobacco in England, the establishment of a new governmental organization in 1619, the Indian uprising and massacre of 1622, and the census of 1624/25. I do agree with the author, these four events did in fact help shape the development of the Virginia colony.
The distribution of tobacco was adopted by John Rolfe and his associates in 1612 from the Caribbean. It was one of the first agricultural practices in the colony that prospered. Other crops like barley, oats, and English wheat did not prosper at all. The tobacco crop became a staple crop in the Virginia colony and it changed the colony as a whole. The social aspect of the colony
along with the economic structure both changed, for the better. Settlers had shipped 20,000 pounds of tobacco to England by 1618 and by 1622 they had shipped 60,000 pounds. The cultivation of tobacco in the Virginia colony definitely helped shape the colony in many ways.
In 1619 they had problems of organization which led them to reevaluate the colony’s plan. They decided to completely revise all the rules to allow access to land, introduce English common law, and to allow access to governmental decision making to the settlers. This new governmental organization gave the colonist the opportunity to choose their own delegates to represent them. Before the new governmental organization was put into play the colonist had been ruled by martial law. This was the first time they had the privilege of freemen. This especially helped the development of the Virginia colony. Without an organized governmental system they wouldn’t have made it as far as they did. It was a necessary tool in developing the colony.
In March of 1622, the Indians took the lives of over 350 colonists. Three hundred and fifty is one third of the residents that had arrived in the previous two years. More than half of the deaths were settlers that lived in the James River valley right above Jamestown. What the massacre did was eliminate any intentions that the colonists might have had to live in peace with the Indians. If the Indians didn’t massacre all of those settlers then they might have figured something out later in time to live peacefully together. The massacre helped shape the Virginia colony because it helped the settlers shape an opinion of the Indians. They did not like them and they wanted nothing to do with the Indians.
The census of 1624/25 allowed the people of the colony to know exactly how many people were living in the colony. The population at this time was 1,210. The census showed how many settlers were married, had kids, were white, and how many females/males they had. The census helped develop the colony because it showed them social stability. If they had the census and it showed how bad everyone was doing then the settlers probably would have thought twice about living in the colony. Since they had the census and they liked what they saw, it helped them grow and develop as a colony.
The Calverts wanted Maryland to be a family centered colony with a feudal system.
This did not happen because it was designed as a profit making strategic society from the beginning. Their plans of fur trading, commercial farming, and manufacturing all did not work. The fur traders encountered Indian hostility, commercial farming didn’t work because of the absence of a ready market, and manufacturing was delayed because of the lack of knowledge in the local minerals. Their plan did not work at all but tobacco comes to save the Maryland colony. Maryland soon was known as the ‘tobacco colony”. Maryland and Virginia might have had similarities with economic and demographic experiences but they were very different when it came to politics and religion. The Maryland colony wanted a family centered colony but that didn’t happen either. They had a religious division between gentry and servants. Gentry members were Catholic and servants where mainly Protestants. Most servants were young males who were unmarried. Men outnumbered women more than three to one, married late in their twenties, and died before their mid-forties. They lacked strong family ties and often didn’t have parental
consent.