Twelve hundred colonists were sent ovet &ring this year, among whom were 90 respect able young women, who were disposed of to the planters as wives at the cost of their passage. Among the new colonists were 100 sent by the king's special order from the prisons, to be sold as servants to the planters. This was the first instance in which felons had been sent to a British colony, and despite the protests of the colonists continued to be sent in increasing numbers ttOe'ifirginia for 100 years. In 1619 a Dutch trading vessel brought to Jamestown 20 negroes, who were sold as slaves for life. The number did not much increase for the next 40 Trs, being limited to a few cargoes brought in Dutch traders. More settlers arriving, new p antations were established on the York, James and Potomac rivers, and on the eastern shore of the Chesapeake Bay.
In 1622 occurred a bloody war between the colonists and the Indian tribes led by Opechan canough, the brother and successor of Pow hatan. On the night of 22 March 350 persons were massacred, and in a brief period Indian murders, siclatess and famine reduced the num ber of the colonists from 4,000 to 2,500. In 1624 the London Company was dissolved and the colony passed under the direct charge of the Crown, except during the period of the Com monwealth, 1649-60. Its condition at this time was not prosperous, tobacco being the only arti cle of export which paid a profit. In 1630 a fort was built at Point Comfort and salt works were established at Accomac. In 1632 the laws of the colony were revised and concolidated, and, though occasionally troubled by the Indians, and by vicious and vagabond colonists, it seems to have maintained a fair share of prosperity for a number of years. In 1641 Sir William Berke ley becarbe governor, and being a staunch loyal ist soon came into collision with the parliament. The colony remained firm in its adherence to the Stuarts till March 1652, when an English fleet which had been sent to Barbadoes to reduce that island to submission visited the Chesapeake and arranged terms of capitulation with the loy alists; and Berkelr's commission being de clared void, Richard Bennet, a Puritan settler in Maryland, was elected governor. On the res toration of Charles II, Sir William Berkeley returned and was elected governor. The right of suffrage, which had been almost universal during the protectorate, was limited by act of 1670 to freeholders and householders, not so much from the pressure of the royal authority as from the aristocratic views of the prominent planters. The code of the colony was again
revised in 1662 and the Church of England re established and severe laws were passed against °nonconformists, Quakers and Anabaptists.* The rapacity of the courtiers of Charles II, upon two of whom, Arlington and Culpeper, he had bestowed a patent of the Virginia colony, and the heavy taxation encouraged for his own purposes by Sir William Berkeley, led to great discontent, which in 1676, on the occasion of a levy of fresh taxes to provide against a threatened attack from the Indians, cuaninated in what is known as °Bacon's rebellion.* (See BACON, NATHANIEL). Berkeley met with large pecuniary losses in this rebellion and when it was fairly quelled he was so relentless in his vengeance on all who had participated in it as to bring down upon himself the royal displeas ure. In the winter of 1677 he visited England to justify his conduct, but died before having an interview with the king. Lord Culpeper was then governor for a time and was followed by Lord Howard of Effingham, both rapacious and greedy. In 1689 the colonial goverrunent reluctantly proclaimed William and Mary. In 1705 the fifth colonial revision of the code took place. By it the slave was declared real estate, and thus, like the Russian serf, attached to the soil. This provision remained in forte while Virginia continued a colony. In 1698 Williams burg, founded and named in honor of William III, became the capital of the colony. In 1754 hostilities broke out with the French, who had built a line of military posts along the western slope of the Alleghenies and at the headwaters of the Ohio; and in this war George Washing ton first entered the service of his country, commanding the colonial troops at the battle of Fort Necessity (1754), and being placed at the head of the Virginia forces after Brad docles defeat in 1755. The assertion by Parlia ment in 1764 of the right to tax the colonies without their consent called forth an earnest petition, memorial and remonstrance from the Virginia house of burgesses in December of that year; and the stamp, mutiny and quartering acts passed by Parliament in 1765 led to the adoption of resolutions denying the right of any foreign body to levy taxes upon the colony.