Early Colonial Virginia is introduced with seven histories that focus on political developments and colonial economic classes. The first is the political history of “Colonial Virginia” early and late periods, from 1607 to 1780. “The Barbarous Years” charts the expulsion of Native Americans in the British North American colonies.
“Colonial Chesapeake Society” is a social and economic study including essays on Virginia outlines the dynamic and diverse societal elements and how they established communities. “American Slavery, American Freedom” discusses the paradox of Virginian ideals and practice.
“Sir William Berkeley” tells the story of the Governor’s career on both sides of the Atlantic and his transformative hand in Virginia politics. “A Little Parliament” explains the rise of the General Assembly and its temporary eclipse under London imperial policy. “Early Modern Virginia” reconsiders some of the continuities of 1600s Virginia communities.
For additional book reviews of Virginia histories, see the Book Club For Your Bookshelf.
Colonial Virginia
Colonial Virginia: A History (1986) by Warren M Billings, John E. Selby, Thad W. Tate covers both Early Colonial and Late Colonial periods, with an afterward assessment of the Revolution. While overall a political history, attention is also paid to Indians, women, servants, yeomen and slaves. The unifying theme is the emergence of Virginia’s planter elite, including complications.
Billings describes most of the 17th century, an evolution from boomtown charter generations to the emergence of a dominating white planter class, from ambitious adventurers exploiting dependent indentured servants, to large planters with slaves.
Selby outlines the developments of the middle period to 1750 with the demographic reliance on slave labor for the tobacco cash crop to ensure material prosperity and a measure of independence from the British imperial order based on the insularity of the county courts and development of General Assembly privileges, the Golden Age of Colonial Virginia.
Tate analyses the last period studied to 1780. Learn more to buy “Colonial Virginia” for your bookshelf at Amazon.com.
The Barbarous Years
The Barbarous Years: The Peopling of British North America: The Conflict of Civilizations, 1600-1675 (2012) by Bernard Bailyn spends about a third of its length on the Chesapeake colonies of Virginia and Maryland. The others covered are the Middle Colonies of New Netherland and New Sweden, and New England of Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay. All faced difficult formative years, achieving stability only after “barbarous” bloody wars displacing native peoples.
By 1664 the eastern Atlantic coastal world of Native Americans had been disrupted, transformed and distorted. Violence and chaos was endemic within the European settlements up until that time; established colonists behaved brutally towards newcomer indentured servants, slaves and Native Americans. Virginians were particularly noted for their ferocity expanding inland, spearheaded by the Hammerour mercenaries who had been hardened in the Dutch Wars. Learn more to buy “The Barbarous Years” for your bookshelf at Amazon.com.
Colonial Chesapeake Society
Colonial Chesapeake Society (1991) edited by Lois Green Carr, Philip D. Morgan and Jean B. Russo is a collection of essays on the social history of the Chesapeake region in the 17th and 18th centuries. Seven of them relate to Virginia.. The central theme is the speed of cultural formation, deemphasizing colonial chaos and instability noted elsewhere.
Community networks in the Chesapeake facilitated by religious affiliations rather than village centers, slave labor replacing free whites and blacks in the economy, important continuing Indian relations and fur trade, waves of European immigration and artisan craftsmen, and even the evolving diet to include more beef are all discussed. Learn more to buy “Colonial Chesapeake Society” for your bookshelf at Amazon.com.
American Slavery, American Freedom
American Slavery, American Freedom: The Ordeal of Colonial Virginia (2003) by Edmund S. Morgan focuses on the Early Colonial period for two thirds of the book, 1607-1720. It integrates the social, intellectual, political and economic concerns of Virginia under the English Stuarts.
The early society especially took advantage of lower classes, red, white and black. The social order was deferential but fragile, exploitive but fearful. Problems of poor leadership, corrupt government and high taxes are repeatedly addressed by recourse to abusive labor practices. This central theme describes the change from English indentured servitude to African black slavery as central to the Virginia colonial history. Unlike persistent early turmoil, slavery brings a certain social peace to white Virginia in a common cause of racism.
A key paradox that Morgan sets out to explore is how the largest of the slave states in the new nation became a principle source of leadership and ideology for freedom in the American Revolution. In a last chapter, the author looks backwards in an essay on republicanism in the United States. Learn more to buy “American Slavery, American Freedom” for your bookshelf at Amazon.com.
Sir William Berkeley
Sir William Berkeley and the Forging of Colonial Virginia (2004) by Warren M. Billings describes the central political figure in Virginia history for twenty-five years between the 1640s and 1670s. Its political culture became more decentralized by delegating powers to county magistrates. It became more independent of empire by making the General Assembly a bi-cameral legislature with its own elected Speaker and Clerk, unlike the British Parliament.
Berkeley’s failure of leadership surrounding the events of Bacon’s Rebellion and afterwards led to closer scrutiny of Virginia’s affairs and an increase in imperial control. But the political evolution of the General Assembly in Virginia during Berkeley’s tenure established precedent into the 1700s and beyond. Learn more to buy “Sir William Berkeley” for your bookshelf at Amazon.com.
A Little Parliament
A Little Parliament: The Virginia General Assembly in the Seventeenth Century (2004) by Warren M. Billings describes how the Virginia Assembly worked in the 1600s, from its founding under the Virginia Company until the Virginia Capital moved from Jamestown to Williamsburg.
The first part is a history of the General Assembly, the second features a collective biography of major office holders, governors, councilors, speakers, and clerks. The third section describes how the major actors worked together or arrayed in conflict.
From the 1640s when Governor Berkeley established a bicameral legislature in the General Assembly until the mid 1670s, the Assembly grew in power to “supreme” rule, then it declined. This book places its resurgence in the 1770s in historical context to better explain the development of Virginian political leadership so influential in American history from 1765 to 1825. Learn more to buy “A Little Parliament” for your bookshelf at Amazon.com.
Early Modern Virginia – 17th Century
Early Modern Virginia: Reconsidering the Old Dominion (2011) by Douglas Bradburn highlights Virginia’s unique characteristics and history within the 17th century Chesapeake society in a collection of essays.
It explores the origins of slavery and the experience of women indentured servants. Contributors document that the often slighted religious context of 1600s Virginia society was akin to New England’s, and they study the Virginian colonist social deference and defiance that were “flip sides of the same conceptual coin.”
Persistence and continuity are found in Dutch commercial influence and the development of Middle Plantation (later Williamsburg), as well imperial developments in the slave trade. Learn more to buy “Early Modern Virginia” for your bookshelf at Amazon.com.