Family History: Jamestown 2

A Schenck History of the US continues from the last post.
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7. Much would happen between 1607 and the first record of Thomas Shelburne in 1640 when we know he was married and had a son.

The years from 1610-14 involved brutal fighting between the settlers and the Native Americans around them. 1614 saw the famed marriage between John Rolfe and Pocahontas, a peace treaty of sorts. At least it slowed the fighting. She would be paraded back to England where she would die in 1617. 

In 1619, the first Africans (about 20) were traded to the colony as captive laborers in exchange for food -- workers for supplies. The two ships that brought them were not slave ships but had stolen 50-60 Africans from a Portuguese vessel they had attacked that was carrying them. Thus the first Africans had been brought against their will to the mainland of the New World.

Paradigms shift over time. Some of these Africans show up as free landholders in the early records of the Virginia colony. That suggests that their servitude was not clearly seen as permanent slavery at that time. Some were apparently able, over time, to become free.

This is a key developmental point in ideological history. By the time Thomas passed from the scene, slavery was becoming more and more intrinsic to being "black." Black = slave. But it was not clearly so at first. Many would argue that this shift in thinking was solidified during the time of Bacon's Rebellion. [1] More on that in a moment.

The first real influx of women to Jamestown came in 1620, ninety women. The demand for a wife among the mostly male, severely isolated colony was tremendous. We can imagine that the gentlemen absorbed the newcomers quickly. Another 57 arrived the next year.

I have come across multiple traditions that Thomas came over on the same ship as Captain John Smith as a cabin boy -- just like the family tradition my mother knew. Then there are traditions that Elizabeth was one of the women who came in 1620. [2] The historical records don't support either claim, however. It's possible but the evidence is silent. My guess remains that he actually came in the 1630s.

8. John Rolfe was a dominant figure during the 1610s. Delayed because his ship wrecked around Bermuda, he arrived in 1610 after the famed "Starving Time." (Shakespeare's The Tempest in 1611 may have been inspired by his shipwreck) Aside from his brief trip to England when his wife Pocahontas died, he was a leading figure in the colony from 1610-1622, when he possibly died during the "Indian Massacre of 1622."

It was he who had the idea of growing a sweeter, West Indian strain of tobacco, and it did indeed turn the colony around economically. But it required lots of workers, creating demand for indentured servants from England and of course, soon enough, slaves. 

Then there was the "Indian massacre of 1622," when a quarter of the colony was killed (347 people). Tensions had been high between the settlers, who were steadily moving up river, and the Powhatans had enough. Most of those killed were outside the city, which was warned in time to prepare.

9. In 1624, King James finally took over. The massacre and consistent mismanagement of the venture gave way to it becoming a Crown colony. The investors no longer ran the show from afar. Now the king did. 

As the first settlers came in 1607, they would have brought either a Bishop's Bible or the Geneva Bible. The King James Version would come in 1611 and no doubt would quickly be expected to be the standard Bible. Religious freedom does not seem to be a dominant motive for these first settlers, at least not publicly.

However, in 2015, the remains of Captain Gabriel Archer were found where the earliest church at Jamestown was. He died in 1609 or 1610 during the starving time. What is interesting is that a box was buried with him that may have had holy water and some bone relics inside of it -- very unusual objects for an Anglican. 

Some have wondered if he were a closet Catholic. He would of course have had to swear the Oath of Supremacy to King James as the head of the Church of England. But people swear all sorts of things to save their skin. In 1633, for example, Galileo recanted believing that the earth goes around the sun.

Tobacco required lots of workers. Landowners in the colony of Virginia would pay for the passage of an indentured servant from England and would get land in exchange. And after working the land for a certain number of years, the indentured servant would be freed of his obligation and could get land himself.

This was the system into which Thomas Shelburne came. Was he an indentured servant? On one account, his wife came from the Argall family, which played a prominent role in the early decades of the colony. If so, it might suggest that he was also of a higher class than a former indentured servant.

If his wife, Elizabeth's maiden name was Augustine, that also seems to be slightly higher class. Indeed, they named their son Augustine, and he named his son Augustine Jr. These seem like the practices of slightly higher class individuals.

Perhaps it is a coincidence, but Thomas also died in 1676, the year of Bacon's rebellion. It is tempting to think he died in the conflict. But if so, which side was he on? If my guess is correct about his class, I'm guessing he was on the side of the governor.

10. In 1640, Thomas and Elizabeth were married. That same year, they had their son, Augustine I, the first of the Shelburnes to be born in America.

[1] Edmund Morgan, American Slavery, American Freedom.

[2] Hiram Kennedy Douglass My Southern Families and Shelburne, the Book of Augustine (Richard W. Buck, 1988).