Virginia Company

Not to be confused with Virginia Company of London.

The Virginia Company
Virginia Company
Company typePublic
IndustryMaritime transport, trade
Founded10 April 1606; 418 years ago (1606-04-10) at Westminster, England
FounderJames I
Defunct24 May 1624 (1624-05-24)
FateDissolved following transformation of Virginia into a royal colony
Headquarters
London
,
England
Area served
Virginia and Summer Islands
ProductsCash crops, timber, tobacco
Divisions

The Virginia Company was an English trading company chartered by King James I on 10 April 1606 with the objective of colonizing the eastern coast of America. The coast was named Virginia, after Elizabeth I, and it stretched from present-day Maine to the Carolinas.[1][2][3] The company's shareholders were Londoners, and it was distinguished from the Plymouth Company, which was chartered at the same time and composed largely of gentlemen from Plymouth, England.[4][5][6][7]

The biggest trade breakthrough resulted after adventurer and colonist John Rolfe introduced several sweeter strains of tobacco[8] from the Caribbean.[9] These yielded a more appealing product than the harsh-tasting tobacco native to Virginia.[10] Cultivation of Rolfe's new tobacco strains produced a strong commodity crop for export for the London Company and other early English colonies and helped to balance a national trade deficit with Spain. The company failed in 1624, following the widespread destruction of the Great Massacre of 1622 by indigenous peoples in the colony, which decimated the English population. On May 24, James dissolved the company and made Virginia a royal colony from England[11] with propertied male colonists retaining some representative-government through the lower house, the House of Burgesses.[12][13][14]: 90–91 

  1. ^ "Charter of the Virginia Company of 1606".
  2. ^ "Spanish Florida". Florida State, Dept of Library and Information Services.
  3. ^ "Charter of 1609".
  4. ^ Paullin, Charles O (1932). John K. Wright (ed.). Atlas of the Historical Geography of the United States. New York and Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Institution of Washington and American Geographical Society. pp. Plate 42.
  5. ^ Swindler, William F., ed. (1973–1979). Sources and Documents of United States Constitutions.' 10 Volumes. Dobbs Ferry, New York: Oceana Publications. pp. Vol. 10: 17–23.
  6. ^ Van Zandt, Franklin K. (1976). Boundaries of the United States and the Several States; Geological Survey Professional Paper 909. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office. p. 92.
  7. ^ How Virginia Got Its Boundaries, by Karl R Phillips
  8. ^ "Welcome to Founders of America!". Archived from the original on 5 June 2007. Retrieved 25 May 2007.
  9. ^ Economics of Tobacco
  10. ^ Virtual Jamestown
  11. ^ The First Seventeen Years: Virginia, 1607–1624, Charles E. Hatch, Jr.
  12. ^ Andrews, Charles M. (1924). The Colonial Background of the American Revolution. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. pp. 32–34. ISBN 0-300-00004-9.
  13. ^ "An Ordinance and Constitution of Treasurer and Company in England for a Council and Assembly in Virginia (1621)".
  14. ^ Gayley, Charles Mills (1917). "Shakespeare and the Founders of Liberty in America". Internet Archive. Retrieved 30 November 2018.