Why Did To Become A Colony Of Virginia

The Virginia Company of London had a certain goal, that goal was to establish a permanent colony in America that would make profit for the company. The company was chartered by King James 1 in April 1606, and was comprised of two divisions. The Plymouth Company would establish a short-lived colony at the mouth of the Kennebec River near what is now Phippsburg, Maine. The London Company would establish Jamestown in Virginia; England’s first permanent settlement in the New World. There was only two ways to become a member of the London Company. If you had the money to buy shares in the company but were inclined to remain safe and stay in England, you could invest as an adventurer. If you were adventurous and didn’t mind traveling to the new colony,
At first, the company attempted to entice investors by offering them shares in the company that were redeemable for land. But when profits failed to materialize and the colony became infamous for its high mortality rate, the company began shipping servants to Virginia at its own expense and placing them on company-owned land. An Englishman willing to risk his life in order to work someone else's acreage was not usually someone who could afford transatlantic passage. Once the servants arrived, the company could rent them out to planters for a year at a time, requiring the planters to take responsibility for the workers' food, shelter, and health. With the introduction of marketable tobacco, however, demand for labor skyrocketed. Private investors who, alongside the company, had shipped servants at their own expense continued to do so while the company rid itself of its role as rental agent. Instead, it sold servants directly to planters at a price based on the cost of passage. Planters, mariners, and merchants then fixed the servants' years of service based on the labor required to recoup their purchase price and subsequent
Instead, it implemented a system by which it used the prospect of land to entice new colonists, and with them laborers. Head rights awarded 100 acres of land each to planters who had been in the colony since May 1616, and 50 acres to anyone who covered the cost of transporting a new immigrant to Virginia. These newcomers, more often than not, were indentured servants , allowing successful planters simultaneous access to land and labor, with no upfront cost to the company. Merchants and Mariners reaped a benefit, too, for they recruited prospective servants, bargained their indenture terms with them, and then sold the contracts to planters in Virginia. Merchants also accumulated head rights that could be used to acquire land. In time, these head rights, or land certificates, were bought and sold much like modern-day stock certificates. Demographics played a big factor in the need for new servants. The ratio of men to women was six to one. The ration later dropped to four to one, but even then, many men could not find wives to marry and therefore could not procreate. As a result of this, merchants were forced to constantly renew the colony’s servant