6. Sir Edwin Sandys - Virginia Company
The following paragraphs describe some of the key events in the development of the Virginia colony; they are not intended to give an exhaustive history.
Elizabethan attempts to set up a colony in the New World were unsuccessful; in July 1585 one group of colonists sent by Sir Walter to Roanoke Island, in what is now North Carolina, gave up and returned to England. When the supply ships arrived shortly after, they found only a deserted settlement. Sir Richard Grenville, commander of the supply fleet, left behind 15 men to hold the island and sailed back to England. Not surprisingly the 15 men were never seen again.
1606 - 10th April - James I of England and VI of Scotland issued a Charter for the exploration and settlement of the mid-Atlantic coast, now the eastern seaboard of the United States. The company was initially called the London Company and later the Virginia Company.
1607 - 13th May - A total of 107 male settlers and 36 sailors arrive at a site they name 'James Cittie' and establish the first permanent English settlement in the New World. Shortly afterwards on 26th May Paspahegh Indians attack the colonists, killing two and wounding ten.
1609/1610 - September 1609 to May 1610 - The 'starving
time' reduces the population to 60 survivors from the previous autumn's
population of 500-600.
1612 - John Rolfe tries a crop of tobacco
to help save the Jamestown settlement.
1612 - Brothers Edwin, George and Henry Sandys, were signatories of the Third Charter of Virginia on March 12th 1612. Edwin never actually set foot in the New World colonies, although both his brothers George (see 1621) and Henry did. Henry Sandys (1572 - 1654), married Priscilla Chauncey and was admitted a freeman of Boston in 1640, he died in New England in 1654.
1614 - Edwin became a member of the East India Company. John Rolfe marries Pocahontas and ships his first load of tobacco to England.
1615 - Edwin joined the Bermuda Company as one of the Gentlemen Adventurers who invested to colonize Bermuda. In 1619 he campaigned for the governorship of the Bermuda Company but failed.
Edwin was 56 years old when he began to take a major interest in the colonization of Virginia in the New World.
1619 - Edwin was elected treasurer of the Virginia Company. Governor Francis Yeardley was directed by Sir Edwin Sandys to issue writs for the election of a general assembly, and July 30, 1619, the first house of burgesses, the first representative legislature body ever assembled in America, met in the choir of the church at Jamestown. Its first law requires tobacco to be sold for at least three shillings per pound. The constitution, whereby the people of Virginia should only be governed and taxed with their own consent and should have an Assembly modelled on the House of Commons to regulate the internal affairs of the colony, later served as a model for the Constitution of the United States of America.
Other business of this historic meeting was a tax of 1lb of tobacco levied on every man and manservant above 16 years of age. A Thomas Garnett, servant of Captain William Powell was condemned to stand for four days with his ears nailed to the pillory for extreme neglect of his master's business and impudent abuse.
1620 - May - Edwin's position as treasurer expired but the Company was keen to re-elect him. James I was deeply suspicious of the Virginia Company, as many members were M.P.s, and he demanded the election of one of four candidates he had named. The Company remonstrated and appointed Sandys as temporary treasurer. James replied that Sandys was his 'greatest enemy and that he could hardly think well of whomsoever was his friend' and they could 'Choose the Devil if you like, but not Sir Edwin Sandys'. Sandys withdrew and his friend Henry Wriothesley (3rd Earl of Southampton 1573-1624, better known as the patron of Shakespeare) was elected, although Edwin still retained much influence in the company's affairs.
In January 1620 the City of London had appointed 100 children from their 'superfluous multitude' to be transported to Virginia, to be bound apprentices 'upon beneficial conditions'. A sum of £500 granted for their 'passage and outfit.' Some of these children were reluctant to go and the City was seeking the authority to compel them.
1621 - George Sandys (1578-1644), Edwin's brother, poet and traveller, accompanied the new governor, Sir Francis Wyatt, to Virginia, where he remained until 1631. Incidentally, Sir Francis Wyatt married Edwin and George's niece, Margaret. George Sandys wrote a letter to Samuel Wrote describing the dire state of the colony which unintentionally contributed to the collapse of the Virginia Company. George Sandy's plantation was across the James River from Jamestown. In 1621 he became colonial treasurer of the Virginia Company. While in Virginia, George Sandys produced his most famous work, a translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses, 1626.
1622 - 22nd March - A Powhatan Indian attack, in an attempt to drive off the English for good, killed 347 colonists and destroyed valuable crops and supplies necessary to survive the winter. This was the start of a war that lasted a decade.
1624 - King James annulled the Virginia Company's charter and Virginia became a royal colony.
Portrait of Sir Edwin Sandys courtesy of M. Sandys.