1. An English Empire
Great Britain, in 1588, was the separate nations of England, Scotland and Ireland. It would not be until 1691 that England gained control of Ireland and 1707 that Parliament would unite England and Scotland to create Great Britain. In 1588, the separate nations could hardly have been more different.

2. The House of Tudor had governed England for more than 100 years
The House of Tudor had governed England for more than 100 years. Under Queen Elizabeth I, it enjoyed unprecedented peace and prosperity as it morphed from a minor backwater island into a dynamic commercial society.
Scotland, by contrast, was still half wild. Scots managed their affairs with crude abandon, not terribly unlike the events in Shakespeare's Macbeth. This was the era of the sex-driven Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots. Mary’s exploits eventually caused the Scottish nobility to force Mary to flee to England. Once in England, Mary was imprisoned for conspiring to kill Queen Elizabeth and in 1587, after 19 years in the Tower of London, lost her head to the executioner's axe. Scotland was further torn apart by religious warfare as the Catholic Stuarts and roughly half the population fought the arch-Calvinist John Knox, founder of the Presbyterian Church, and the other half of the population.

3. England, for the most part, escaped religious warfare in the 16th century. In 1547, King Henry VIII split with the Catholic Church, but the early English Reformation had little to do with theology. The new church, the Church of England (Anglican Church), was imposed from above. Much of the liturgy remained the same, as did most of the sacramental ritual. In this early Anglican Church little was changed save that the king became the religious head instead of the pope.
After King Henry's death, attempts were made to reform the Anglican Church in a more Protestant image, but their success was short-lived. In 1553, Henry's successor Edward VI died and was replaced by Queen Mary Tudor, “Bloody Mary,” the daughter of Henry and Catherine, and an arch Catholic. She reunited England and Rome, burned at the stake several hundred persons who dared to protest, and married the dauphin of France and when he died married the future King Philip II of Spain. When she involved England in a losing war with France, her reign was in jeopardy. She died in 1558, before she could be overthrown.

4. Elizabeth I proved to be the only monarch of the 1500s able to handle the religious issue. Elizabeth and Parliament worked out a compromise to reorganize the Church of England. The new church would outwardly mirror the Catholic Church but would inwardly reflect Protestant dogma. All citizens were required to attend public worship in the national church, but no one's inner conscience was publicly scrutinized. This system worked until Elizabeth's death in 1603, when King James I, a Stuart and a Catholic, restricted some Protestant practices, particularly those of the Scots Presbyterians. The system broke down when James' successor, Charles I, went even further and plunged England into civil war in the 1640s. But until then England was religiously tranquil enough to begin an era of prosperity and overseas expansion.

5. English Economics, Exploration, and the Lost Colony, 1496-1600
Although England was but a rather negligible world power in the late fifteenth century, it mustered enough resources to begin its own age of exploration. In 1496, King Henry VII commissioned the Genoese sea captain John Cabot, “to seeke out, discover, and find whatsoever isles, countreys, regions, or provinces of the heathen and infidels whatsover they be” and to look for a shorter sea route to “Cathay” (China). Cabot did not find the Northwest Passage, but he did discover the Grand Banks, a fishing region at the edge of the continental shelf and claimed them for England. Cabot was lost at sea on his second voyage. His son, Sebastian, retraced Cabot’s route and reached as far as the entrance into Hudson’s Bay

6. Enclosure Movement and the Crash of the Antwerp Wool Market
In the sixteenth century, England underwent a significant internal reorganization. As wool prices rose, landowners began fencing land (enclosing the land) to make more room for grazing sheep. Englishmen greatly increased the production of wool, channeling it through the Antwerp Wool Market. Huge profits were made, bringing more people into the market and increasing production even more. By mid-century England produced more wool than Europe could consume. The price crashed in The collapse of the market led English policymakers to search for ways to avoid such economic disaster in the future. They sought new markets as outlets of wool and cloth. And to get more capital into the economy, individual investors pooled their money in proto-corporations, or joint-stock companies.
The Enclosure Movement forced poor tenants off the large estates that had been their home for centuries. Although population posed no problem in England, the visible presence of vagabonds and unemployed disturbed may powerful Englishmen. Many believed that England was over-populated and looked for some outlet.
European rivals, Spain and France, had created colonies in the Caribbean and Florida causing further concern in England.
The three elements (markets, surplus population, and international rivalry) created a nexus that provided the impulse for colonization.

7. English Motives for Colonizing
“This westerne discoverie will be greately for the inlargement of the gospell of Christe [and] the refourmed relligion. This will yelde all the commodities of Europe, Affrica, and Asia, as far as wee were wonte to travell, and supply the wantes of all our decayed trades. This will be for manifolde imploymente of nombers of idle men. This will be a great bridle to the Indies of the kinge of Spaine; and [will be] a means that one or twoo hundred saile of his subjectes shippes [may go] at fysshinge in Newfounde lande.” Richard Hakluyt
The key architects of this movement for colonization were two cousins who became prominent in the court of Queen Elizabeth, Walter Raleigh and Richard Hakluyt. Raleigh provided the money; Hakluyt provided the reasoning. Hakluyt’s Discourse of Western Planting, (1584) offers the clearest expression of why England should create colonies in the New World. The Oxford clergyman wrote it to convince Queen Elizabeth I to grant permission to colonize America. The book suggests ways that colonies could benefit England: (1) to extend “the reformed religion”; (2) to expand trade; (3) to provide England with needed resources and markets; (4) to enlarge the Queen’s revenues and navy; (5) to discover a Northwest Passage to Asia; and (6) to provide an outlet for the growing English population.

8. Roanoke, The Lost Colony
Raleigh succeeded in winning a charter to organize a private expedition to the area around Albemarle Sound at Roanoke Island in Raleigh’s 108-man team clashed with local Indians, but they remained through the winter. Hardship plagued the settlement, however, and in the late spring the group packed up and returned to England with Francis Drake when he happened by.

9. A ship had already been sent to relieve the first, but its eighteen men were killed in an Indian attack. A second expedition landed off Hatarask Island in July Led by Governor John White, its 117 men, women, and children resettled on Roanoke Island. White left the settlers, including his granddaughter, Virginia Dare (the first English child born in the New World), and returned to England for supplies. Before leaving, White carved the letters C.R.O. into a tree and told the men to carve a cross over them as a distress signal should they run into trouble before he returned. He did not return for three years because of the conflict with Spain and the Spanish Armada.
When White reached the place of the settlement in 1590, no one was there. He looked for a cross on the tree, but found none. He found only the word Croatoan carved into a post. Taking it to mean that the mission had moved to Croatoan Island, he sailed south in search of the settlers. He found no English settlement on Croatoan or anywhere else.
War with Philip II of Spain during the 1590s kept England from making another stab at colonizing the New World until the early 1600s.
No trace of the Lost Colony of Roanoke has ever been found.

10. Jamestown

11. Queen Elizabeth’s death in 1603 did not interrupt Britain’s pursuit of global power. King James I, in 1606, granted charter to a joint-stock company headed by Richard Hakluyt. The Virginia Company of London, as it was known, divided the British claims in North America with a rival company, the Virginia Company of Plymouth. The original charters had no western boundaries; hence in theory, they ran from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The London Company was made up of merchants and gentry from the west of England and from London, itself.
On December 20, 1606, three ships, the Susan Constant (120 tons), the Godspeed (40 tons), and the Discovery (20 tons) left London with 144 passengers, under the command of Captain Christopher Newport. The ships briefly laid over at the Canary Islands and the Bahamas, before arriving in Virginia at Chesapeake Bay on April 26th with 104 survivors.

12. Following the orders of the London Company, and after facing a brief conflict with the local Indians, the Powhatan, the ships landed up the newly-named James River and encamped at what became Jamestown on May 13, Of the 104 survivors, 39 had noble titles and 36 more were described as gentlemen. The others were attendants, soldiers, and artisans skilled at metalwork—that is to say, they were goldsmiths and jewelers.
Among the soldiers was a boorish troublemaker of immense ego, Captain John Smith. Smith’s mouth more than once got him into trouble with his commanders, as near the Canaries he was accused of trying to foment a mutiny and so was locked up for the rest of the voyage. When the settlers unsealed their orders, however, they found that Smith was named to the Council of the Colony and put in command of the day-to-day running of the settlement.

13. From the outset, the settlement was in trouble
From the outset, the settlement was in trouble. Located on the site of an abandoned Indian village and in the Powhatan hunting grounds, it continually faced Indian attack. Many of the settlers refused to work. Instead they searched for gold and left the chore of building shelter to the soldiers. Instead of gathering or hunting for food, many chose to steal it from the Indians, causing no small amount of hostility. The Indians, meanwhile, raided Jamestown to steal weapons and gunpowder. Smith tried to force all to work and, failing that, traded for Indian maize. The English also gave Chief Powhatan a formal coronation and made him an ally of King James. This briefly improved relations with the Indians, but did little to guarantee the success of the colony, neither did the arrival of some women to the community.
Conditions hit bottom during the winter of , after Smith returned to England as a result of an illness. That winter was known as “the Starving Time.” Crop yields were miniscule because of a drought, but there was still game in the woods and fish in the river. Despite that, however, starvation reduced the settlement’s population from nearly 500 down to 54 by the time a ship finally arrived with fresh provisions and new settlers in May Shockingly, settlers had resorted to cannibalism to survive. They dug up graves to eat the remains. Equally shocking, the new Assistant Governor recorded the settlers’ activities as he sailed in. They were not out foraging for food in the spring forests. They were bowling in the street! Obviously, this settlement needed a reworking.

14. “Now we all found the losse of Captain Smith, yea his greatest maligners could now curse his losse: as for corne, provision and contribution from the Salvages, we had nothing but mortall wounds, with clubs and arrowes; as for our Hogs, hens Goats, Sheepe, Horse, or what lived, our commanders, officers & Salvages daily consumed them, some small proportions sometimes we tasted, till all was devoured.
. . . Of five hundred within six moneths after Captain Smiths departure, there remained not past sixtie men, women and children, most miserable and poore creatures; and those were preserved for the most part, by roots, herbes, acornes, walnuts, berries, now and then a little fish: they that had startch in these extremities, made no small use of it; yea even the very skinnes of our horses. Nay, so great was our famine, that a Salvage we slew, and burried, the poorer sort tooke him up againe and eat him And one amongst the rest did kill his wife, powdered her, and had eaten part of her before it was knowne, for which he was executed, as hee well deserved; now whether shee was better roasted, boyled or carbonado’d, I know not, but of such a dish as powdered wife I never heard of. This was that time, which still to this day we called the starving time; it were too vile to say, and scarce to be beleeved, what we endured.”
Q1. How does this vivid account by John Smith compare with your previous sense of early life in colonial Virginia?
Q2. Who or what do you think was to blame for the situation known as the “Starving Time”?

15. In June 1610, Governor Lord De la Warr restored order through a new code, the Lawes Divine, Moral, and Martiall. All settlers were required to work in work gangs under military discipline. The day was divided by drumbeats: 6 a.m. until 10 a.m. they worked in the fields. During the heat of the day, they ate, did household chores, and rested. They were back in the fields again from 2 p.m. ‘til 4 p.m. If they still did not work hard then they would be punished. Punishments were also meted out for crimes, such as: rape, adultery, theft, lying, sacrilege, blasphemy, killing a domestic animal, weeding a garden, taking of a crop, and private trade. Anyone who ran away from the settlement and was caught was executed. The new rules helped save the colony, but they still could not feed themselves.
The colony had still not found its purpose and the London Company’s investors were beginning to wonder whether it had been worth it, particularly after a new round of conflict with the Powhatan emerged about 1611.

16. Eventually, an enterprising settler named John Rolfe did find a profitable crop. Rolfe arrived in Jamestown in May 1610 aboard Gates’ ship. Rolfe had brought with him to Virginia some Spanish tobacco plantings, hoping successfully to cultivate them. By 1612, he gave his friends a small sampling of his produce to see if it suited their tastes. While not of the quality of Spanish tobacco at the time, it was still palatable enough for larger-scale cultivation. By 1617, Virginia shipped 20,000 pounds of tobacco (at 3 shillings per pound) to England and the crop became so profitable that if became known as “brown gold.”

17. Rolfe also brought peace with the Indians
Rolfe also brought peace with the Indians. In 1614, the First Powhatan War ended when Rolfe married the daughter of Chief Powhatan, Pocahontas. In 1616, Rolfe, Pocahontas, and their son traveled to England and Pocahontas met the King. Tragically, just before they set sail to return to the New World, the 22-year-old Pocahontas died, likely of pneumonia. She is buried in a churchyard at Gravesend.

18. With the colony saved, under new Governor Edwin Sandys, the London Company created a new policy for land distribution and to entice more settlers. The headright system promised that every new company shareholder who settled in Virginia would get 50 acres of land for himself and 50 acres for each “family member” he brought over, including servants. Further to entice settlement, the company a new constitution for the colony, granting settlers the “Rights of Englishmen.”
In July 1619, Virginia created the House of Burgesses, the first legislative assembly in America. Its twenty-two members represented their local settlements and governed along with a Governor and executive council.
Two other events in 1619 further expanded the colony: (1) more women arrived as the company sponsored the sale of women for wives – 90 women were bought for the princely sum of 125 pounds of tobacco – creating a better gender balance in the colony; (2) the first Africans arrived – they came on a Dutch trade ship, but were indentured servants, not slaves.
An indenture is a contract. So, in return for the master’s paying their passage to the New World, an indentured servant contracts to work for a specific term, usually seven years. During that time the servant has no rights to property. Upon completion of the term, the servant is free to do whatever he or she wishes and under Virginia law would receive a headright of 50 acres.

19. The shift from a commodity-based company to a realtor changed the London Company’s relationship with the colony. The company’s new goal was to get as many people to Virginia as possible. It cared less about the condition of the settlers when they got there and so the condition of the colony suffered. Making matters worse, an Indian war arose.
Powhatan’s brother, Opechancanough, seems never to have accepted the settlers or his brother’s peace. Upon his brother’s death, in March 1622, he led raids on the settlement that turned into nearly two years of warfare and killed 347 settlers, including John Rolfe. The turmoil finally caused King James to appoint a Royal Commission to investigate the Company. It found that between 1607 and 1622 more than 14,000 people had emigrated to Virginia, but in 1624 only 1,132 of them still lived there. The investigation forced James I to revoke the Company’s charter and make Virginia a Royal Colony. Under the king’s authority for most of the remainder of the 1620s, Virginia stabilized and slowly began to prosper.

20. Maryland
With settlements established in Virginia, other Britons began to look at the Chesapeake region for possible opportunities. As intolerance toward Catholics increased in England, one family led the charge for escape to religious freedom. In , George Calvert, Lord Baltimore, visited the Chesapeake region to check out its prospect as a refuge for persecuted Catholics. He died before winning a king’s charter to the land, but his son, Cecil Calvert, Second Lord Baltimore, carried out the project. In 1632, King Charles I granted all lands from the Potomac River north to the Delaware River and a few hundred miles west to the Appalachians to Calvert. In return for a pledge of allegiance and a token payment of two Indian arrowheads and a royalty of one-fifth of any gold or silver discovered in the region, Calvert could create whatever type of government he chose, so long as any legislation was passed with the “Advice, Assent, and Approbation of the Free-Men.” This was to be the successful first proprietary colony. Whereas the original colonies were based on a charter granted to a joint-stock company, and Virginia by 1624 had been turned into a royal colony, Maryland was given to a single man to do with whatever he chose.

21. Saint Francis Xavier Church, Leonardtown, MD
Beginning in 1632, Calvert set up a recruiting office for settlers and convinced about two hundred settlers to join the first expedition. In March 1634, Governor Leonard Calvert and the other settlers established a settlement at St. Mary's on a creek just north of the mouth of the Potomac. Having learned from the mistakes of Jamestown, they brought enough supplies to sustain them. They also made sure they arrived early enough in the year to plant a crop. Finally, they were lucky to have friendly Indian neighbors.
Saint Francis Xavier Church, Leonardtown, MD
Rebuilt on original site (1766)

22. Things went fairly well for the Calverts during the 1630s in the early years of the colony, but because he perceived that Catholics would likely remain in a minority in the new colony, he directed Leonard to establish a government based on religious toleration. Religious questions would not be part of public discourse. Land was to be divided up based on a quasi-Feudal model. Blood relatives of Calvert were to be granted “manors” of 6000 acres. Manor lords would have the power to adjudicate over local manor courts. Lesser manors would consist of 3000 acres. The rest of the population would be divided between a tenant group and a small property-owning group. Tenants would pay rent, either with labor or with produce, and thereby sustain the lords. Small farmers would be able to profit on their own output.
The land distribution plan did not survive the first few years because of the abundance of land and the dearth of labor. A few years after the establishment of the colony, manor lords were ordered by law to import labor: at first lords had to import five, then ten, and eventually twenty laborers. In 1640, a Virginia-style headright plan was imposed.

23. As Calvert expected, however, the settlers were not Catholics
As Calvert expected, however, the settlers were not Catholics. Indeed the hope for a religious sanctuary was a failure.
Puritans from Virginia moved into the colony in large numbers. In the 1640s, as the Civil War raged between Puritans and the Catholic King in England, religious warfare erupted in Maryland. With Calvert's death, in 1647, the Puritan William Stone became governor. Tension continued until the passage of the Maryland Act Concerning Religion (often called, incorrectly, the Maryland Religious Toleration Act) in The law guaranteed religious toleration to all followers of Jesus Christ and believers in the Trinity.
It is important to note, however, that the law promised toleration only for Trinitarian Christians. Under the Act, Jews and non-Trinitarian Christians (Quakers, Unitarians) were not permitted freedom of religion. The Act did, however, put an end to the broader religious strife.
With the good chances for prosperity in tobacco production, settlement increased. By the 1670s, the population of Maryland neared 13,000, including: Catholic planters, Protestant farmers, indentured servants, and a small but increasing number of black slaves.

24. An Act Concerning Religion, Maryland 1649
Forasmuch as in a well governed and Christian Common Wealth matters concerning Religion and the honor of God ought in the first place to bee taken, into serious consideracion and endeavoured to bee settled, Be it therefore ordered and enacted by the Right Honourable Cecilius Lord Baron of Baltemore absolute Lord and Proprietary of this Province with the advise and consent of this Generall Assembly:
That whatsoever person or persons within this Province and the Islands thereunto belonging shall from henceforth blaspheme God, that is Curse him, or deny our Saviour Jesus Christ to bee the sonne of God, or shall deny the holy Trinity the father sonne and holy Ghost, or the Godhead of any of the said Three persons of the Trinity or the Unity of the Godhead, or shall use or utter any reproachfull Speeches, words or language concerning the said Holy Trinity, or any of the said three persons thereof, shalbe punished with death and confiscation or forfeiture of all his or her lands and goods to the Lord Proprietary and his heires.
And bee it also Enacted by the Authority and with the advise and assent aforesaid, That whatsoever person or persons shall from henceforth use or utter any reproachfull words or Speeches concerning the blessed Virgin Mary the Mother of our Saviour or the holy Apostles or Evangelists or any of them shall in such case for the first offence forfeit the summe of five pound Sterling or the value thereof [in] goods and chattells, but in case such Offender or Offenders, shall not then have goods and chattells sufficient [to pay] shalbe publiquely whipt and bee imprisoned And that every such Offender or Offenders for every second offence shall forfeit tenne pound sterling or the value thereof to bee levyed as aforesaid, or in case such offender or Offenders shall not then have goods and chattells within this Province sufficient for that purpose then to bee publiquely and severely whipt and imprisoned as before is expressed. And that every person or persons before mentioned offending herein the third time, shall for such third Offence forfeit all his lands and Goods and bee for ever banished and expelled out of this Province

26. Chesapeake Society
“How miserable that man is that governs a people where six parts of seven at least are poor, indebted, discontented, and armed.” Governor William Berkeley
In 1642, Governor William Berkeley arrived in Virginia to begin thirty-four years of stable governance. But colonizing was still no easy task. Conditions had sufficiently improved to make slavery a more viable economic choice. Relations with the Indians, however, remained difficult. In 1644, an elderly Opechancanough led a second raid on the colony. It, too, killed several hundred settlers, but this time, the colonists were strong enough to retaliate with great force. The raid was put down and hostilities with the local Indians ended.
Tobacco production increased through the 1630s. But, ironically, it was so profitable that so many settlers began planting tobacco that for much of the period after 1650 it glutted the market, causing the price to fall, and pushing marginal farmers into severe debt. As the population of poor grew and as the colony spread deeper into the interior, above the falls at what would become Richmond and toward the Blue Ridge and up the Potomac, it became harder to govern the colony. Adding to public displeasure was the fact that Berkeley’s government had become a clique of family members and business relations. The colonial treasurer was a Berkeley cousin, as was the Secretary of State.

27. The discontent reached a head in 1675
The discontent reached a head in Settlers on the frontier believed the government was not looking after their interests. In particular, they thought it was not protecting them from Indian attack – as settlement moved west it came into lands of different Indian tribes, notably the Susquehanna. A minor squabble between settlers and Indians along the Potomac turned ugly and left nearly twenty-five Indians dead. The Indians retaliated by attacking settlers along the frontier and the James River. The overseer of an up-river planter named Nathaniel Bacon was killed in a raid. Berkeley proposed a series of forts be built along the frontier, but the assembly believed it would be too expensive and besides what the settlers really wanted was to get rid of the Indians and take their land. Tensions grew.

28. In May 1676, Nathaniel Bacon led a group of vigilantes against the Indians, despite Berkeley’s prohibition. Then Bacon and his men, a collection of landless servants, small farmers, and slaves, went on a rampage down river, ultimately torching Jamestown itself. By October, the rebellion was over, however, and Bacon was dead, from malaria. Order was restored and Berkeley had twenty-three of the rebels executed. When news of the rebellion reached England, Berkeley was recalled and a new regime was put in place in Virginia, one that more clearly protected the interests of common Virginians.
A peace treaty was made with the Indians who were given reservations of protected land, leaving the rest for development by colonials. By 1677, the difficult infancy of Virginia ended. Now a toddler, the colony would prosper.

29. “Declaration of Nathaniel Bacon in the Name of the People of Virginia, July 30, 1676”
1. For having, upon specious pretenses of public works, raised great unjust taxes upon the commonalty for the advancement of private favorites and other sinister ends, but no visible effects in any measure adequate; for not having, during this long time of his government, in any measure advanced this hopeful colony either by fortifications, towns, or trade.
2. For having abused and rendered contemptible the magistrates of justice by advancing to places of judicature scandalous and ignorant favorites.
3. For having wronged his Majesty’s prerogative and interest by assuming monopoly of the beaver trade and for having in it unjust gain betrayed and sold his Majesty’s country and the lives of his loyal subjects to the barbarous heathen.
4. For having protected, favored, and emboldened the Indians against his Majesty’s loyal subjects, never contriving, requiring, or appointing any due or proper means of satisfaction for their many invasions, robberies, and murders committed upon us.
5. For having, when the army of English was just upon the track of those Indians, and when we might with ease have destroyed them who then were in open hostility, for then having expressly countermanded and sent back our army by passing his word for the peaceable demeanor of the said Indians, who immediately prosecuted their evil intentions, committing horrid murders and robberies in all places, being protected by the said engagement and word past of him the said Sir William Berkeley . . .
6. And lately, when, upon the loud outcries of blood, the assembly had, with all care, raised and framed an army for the preventing of further mischief and safeguard of this his Majesty’s colony.

30. 7. For having, with only the privacy of some few favorites without acquainting the people, only by the alteration of a figure, forged a commission, against the consent of the people, for the raising and effecting civil war and destruction . . .
8. For the prevention of civil mischief and ruin amongst ourselves while the barbarous enemy in all places did invade, murder, and spoil us, his Majesty’s most faithful subjects.
Of this and the aforesaid articles we accuse Sir William Berkeley as guilty of each and every one of the same, and as one who has traitorously attempted, violated, and injured his Majesty’s interest here by a loss of a great part of this his colony and many of his faithful loyal subjects by him betrayed and in a barbarous and shameful manner exposed to the incursions and murder of the heathen. And we do further declare these the ensuing persons in this list to have been his wicked and pernicious councilors, confederates, aiders, and assisters against the commonalty in these our civil commotions: Sir Henry Chichley, William Claiburne Junior, Lieut. Coll. Christopher Wormeley, Thomas Hawkins, William Sherwood, Phillip Ludwell, John Page Clerke, Robert Beverley, John Cluffe Clerke, Richard Lee, John West, Thomas Ballard, Hubert Farrell, William Cole, Thomas Reade, Richard Whitacre, Matthew Kempe, Nicholas Spencer, Joseph Bridger
And we do further demand that the said Sir William Berkeley with all the persons in this list be forthwith delivered up or surrender themselves within four days after the notice hereof, or otherwise we declare as follows.
That [wherever] the said persons shall reside, be hid, or protected, we declare the owners, masters, or inhabitants of the said places to be confederates and traitors to the people and the estates of them is also of all the aforesaid persons to be confiscated. And this we, the commons of Virginia, do declare, desiring a firm union amongst ourselves that we may jointly and with one accord defend ourselves against the common enemy These are, therefore, in his Majesty’s name, to command you forthwith to seize the persons above mentioned as traitors to the King and country and them to bring to Middle Plantation and there to secure them until further order, and, in case of opposition, if you want any further assistance you are forthwith to demand it in the name of the people in all the counties of Virginia.
Nathaniel Bacon
General by Consent of the people.
William Sherwood