This video discusses the decline and end of the Virginia Company of London's charter for Jamestown. It explains the reasons for discontent among investors and colonists, the impact of Native American attacks, and how Virginia ultimately became a royal colony. The video also highlights the unexpected establishment of representative democracy and capitalism in Virginia due to a specific historical circumstance involving King Charles I.
Although the Virginia Company of London managed to make reforms that made Virginia stable, and those reforms brought in uh begin beginning of capitalism and representative democracy, it did not make the company profitable even with bringing in tobacco. So, by the early 1620s, there was discontent with the Virginia Company of London from all sides. Uh the investors, they had kept investing and they still hadn't made any money. And a lot of people in Virginia were incredibly unhappy because they were told it's going to be great and you get land and it turned out it was still terrible place to be. And they said the Virginia Company of London had tricked them and also that it wasn't providing enough protection. This especially was true when there was a massive attack on the colonists from the Native Americans. Powhatan had passed away and it went to his brother and successor and uh the even though there was a few years of peace when Pocahontas married Rolfe because again, that's how Native American tribes led to peace is they married into each other's tribes. And so there was a few years of peace, but the problem is the colonists were all there for land so they could grow tobacco. And the Native Americans had already cleared the land. And the colonists wanted that land that was cleared. And so the colonists had started taking their land. Also, the diseases were kept wiping out a lot of them. So, the Native Americans, they uh started going and trading with the people of Jamestown at specific times and learning the lay of the land and taking notes. And then, that was all in preparation for a massive attack. And they will be successful in killing about uh almost 400 people. It was a They killed almost uh quarter of the entire population. And because of that, the Virginia Company of London would be so unpopular that they will lose their charter in 1624. Meaning, it is no longer Virginia's no longer owned by the Virginia Company of London. Now, it is owned by the king. And Virginia will be a royal colony until the American from 1624 until the American Revolution. Now, for the people of Virginia, this wasn't a you know, you're told, "Hey, you're not no longer controlled by the Virginia Company of London. Now, you're controlled by the crown." Uh for them, it's not going to make a huge deal. But, the problem was, could they still have representative government? Because there were no other British colonists that got representative governments. And the king, Charles I, he had every intention to take away the General Assembly. So, he was planning on taking away the General Assembly and not giving them representative governments. Just like every other British colony. However, do you remember God looks out for fools, drunks, and the United States of America. Charles I made a mistake. made a mistake. He wanted to buy all the tobacco. And it's the monarchy in England, it wasn't an absolute monarchy they could do whatever they want. They had to work through a legal system. And so, the king wanted to get a message to everyone in Virginia, "Hey, I want to buy your tobacco." Now, logistically how is he supposed to do that? Uh he can't shoot off a text or an email. Could you send someone to go travel all around Virginia to the 22 different little villages that were spread out by hundreds of I don't know what I'm uh they're like huge area of land since the old people have hundreds of acres. So, he could potentially send someone to go to every door and knock on it and say, "Can the king buy your pot uh tobacco?" But, that's not very practicable. So, if you're the king of England and you want to get a message to everyone in Virginia, what is the easiest way to do that? You call together the General Assembly because they have representatives from every one of the towns. So, you can just call the General Assembly together and then get a message to the General Assembly and then they will send it off to the people in their towns and they will come back. And that's what the king did. So, that he called together the General Assembly which means he legitimated it and he established one of the most important words in law, precedent. Precedents become rights, become laws. That is why when you go to law school, you study previous court cases so you can argue the precedents for the decisions like, "Well, in the previous decision, they said this, so that's why I'm right." And precedents are so important because in English common law, precedents establish rules, regulations, and laws. So, when the King of England, Charles I called together the General Assembly, what's amazing is he called them together, which means he legitimized them and established a precedent that they are a body that gets to make decisions. And the representatives in the Burgesses then went back to their little towns and told everyone, and the people said, "I don't want to sell it to the king. I won't get as much money." So, they actually told the king, "No, we're not going to sell you tobacco." But, he established the precedent, and Virginia got to keep itself-government. So, was Virginia a success? Virginia was not founded for religious reasons. That is Massachusetts, which we will talk about next. It was founded to make money for a company, and in that it was an absolute unmitigated failure. It did not succeed. For most of the people that moved there, it was a failure. Uh between the very first British colonist colonists in 1607 to 1624, when it lost its when it became a royal colony, there were more than 14,000 Englishmen that came to America. And by 1624, there was only about 1,100 people. So, for most people it was a a failure. Now, what it was successful in though was establishing a foothold in America for England and establishing the beginnings of representative democracy and capitalism for the future United States.
