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Jamestown Quotations
| "Many noble persons . . . have resolved to
send an expedition to Virginia as soon as possible. . . . This
notice is published to announce the expedition to all workmen
of whatever occupation-blacksmiths, carpenters, barrel-makers,
ship builders, wood workers, and all who work with any kind of
metal, brickmakers, architects, bakers, weavers, shoemakers, sawers
of lumber, spinners of wool, and all others, both men and women,
of any occupation-who wish to join this voyage for colonizing
the country. . . . They will be listed as investors in this voyage
to Virginia, where they will have houses to live in, vegetable
gardens and orchards, and food and clothing provided by the Company.
Besides they will receive a share in all the products and profits
that may result from their labor, each in proportion; and they
will also receive a share of the land that is to be divided, for
themselves and their heirs forever." Virginia Company Broadside,"
in the Genesis of the United States, ed. Alexander Brown (Boston,
1890), vol. 1, pp. 248-9. |
| "Now we worked so harmoniously that in
three months we made three or four cases of tar, pitch, and soap
ashes, produced some glass, made a well in the fort . . ., built
some twenty houses, re-roofed our church, provided nets and seines
for fishing; and built a blockhouse in the neck of our peninsula
. . . to control the trade with the savages. . . .We dug up and
planted thirty or forty acres of ground. . . ." John Smith,
The Generall Historie of Virginia (written 1624), in Edward Arber
and A. G. Bradley, eds., Travels and Works of Captain John Smith
(Edinburgh: J. Grant, 1910), vol. 2, pp. 471-2, 486-87. |
| "Formerly, when our people were fed from the
general storehouse and worked jointly in cultivating the land
and planting corn, they gladly slipped away from their work. .
. . To remedy this Sir Thomas Dale has laid down a new policy
for the whole Colony, by which nothing but clothing is supplied
from the general storehouse. He has allotted three acres of clear
corn land to every man in the Colony to cultivate and tend as
a tenant. . . . [T]heir only obligation to the Colony is to pay
into the storehouse two and a half barrels of corn a year."
Raphe Hamor the yonger, A True Discourse of the Present Estate
of Virginia. . . . (London, 1615), pp. 16-20. |
| "Any man or woman who robs any garden, public
or private, while weeding it or who willfully pulls up any root
vegetable, herb, or flower to spoil or waste or steal it, or robs
any vineyard or gathers the grapes, or steals any ears of corn
. . . shall be punished with death." From Sir Thomas Dale,
"Dales' Laws," (ca. 1614) in Tracts and Other Papers
. . ., comp. Peter Force (Washington, 1836-1846), vol. 3, no.
2, p. 18. |
| "Let me be condemned at the dreadful day of
judgment if it is not my chief purpose to strive with all my power
of body and mind in undertaking such a great thing, influenced
not at all (or as little as human weakness permits) by the unbridled
desire of carnall affection, but for the good of this plantation,
for the honour of our countrie, for the glory of God, for my owne
salvation, and for the converting to the true knowledge of God
and Jesus Christ, an unbeleeving creature, namely Pokahontas.
To whom my hartie and best thoughts are, and have along time bin
so intangled, and inthralled in so intricate a laborinth, that
I was even awearied to unwinde my selfe thereout. . . . Letter
of John Rolfe to Governor Thomas Dale asking for permission to
marry Pocahontas (1614), in Raphe Hamor the yonger, A True Discourse
of the Present Estate of Virginia. . . . (London, 1615), pp. 61-8. |
| "The Indians of Virginia are almost wasted,
but such Towns, or People as retain their names, and live in bodies,
are hereunder set down; All which together can't raise five hundred
fighting men. They live poorly, and much in fear of the Neighbouring
Indians. Each Town, by the Articles of Peace in 1677. Pays 3 Indian
arrows for their land, and 20 Beaver Skins for protection every
year." Robert Beverly, The History and Present State of Virginia
(London: R. Parker, 1705), p. 175. |
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