by James Horn
Roanoke had proved unsuitable as a location for a colony, and Lane’s search for the distant province of Chaunis Temoatan in the spring of 1586 had been inconclusive. By the fall of 1586, Ralegh was convinced that another attempt to establish a settlement should be made, but this time to the north, on the Chesapeake Bay. The stakes were too high not to try again.
4
A CITY ON THE BAY
No history hitherto set forth has more affinity, resemblance or conformity with yours of Virginia, than this of Florida.
—RICHARD HAKLUYT THE YOUNGER
BY CHRISTMAS 1586 Ralegh’s plans for the new colony were well advanced. Following conversations with Ralph Lane and Thomas Hariot, he had concluded that a major failing of the first colony was not only its location on the Outer Banks but also the caliber of its settlers. Lane described the soldiers he had commanded as wild men, unruly and difficult to control. Hariot criticized them for being too aggressive and quick to resort to violence. They killed the local people, he wrote, “upon causes that on our part, might easily enough have been borne.” Many of the men had been unsuited to the hardships of life in a fledgling colony and continually complained about the lack of comfortable lodgings, dainty food, and soft beds of down or feathers. And when they failed to discover the gold and silver they expected to find, they became discouraged and miserable.
Ralegh had therefore decided that the new colony would be a civilian settlement rather than another military garrison, made up of men and women committed to the venture who had an interest in its outcome. The colony would be located on the Chesapeake Bay, as recommended by Lane and Richard Hakluyt the younger. In December Hakluyt had written an enthusiastic letter from Paris, urging Sir Walter to go forward with his “enterprise of Virginia.” There could be little doubt about the legitimacy of England’s right to settle the region, he argued. Even Spanish chroniclers acknowledged that the Chesapeake was first discovered by the English, referring to the explorations of Sebastian Cabot along the North American coast in the early years of the sixteenth century. To further encourage Ralegh, Hakluyt emphasized the discovery of silver mines by Antonio de Espejo in 1582 on the same latitude, to the west in New Mexico (information that turned out to be highly exaggerated), hinting that Ralegh might find similar riches in Virginia.1
Sir Walter’s most pressing task was to decide upon the new colony’s leader, who would take on responsibility for day-today preparations as soon as possible. This was especially important given that his own involvement in the arrangements would be limited by commitments elsewhere. Earlier in the year Elizabeth had granted him 12,000 acres in Munster and appointed him one of the principal sponsors from Devon, Somerset, and Dorset to oversee the peopling of the region by English immigrants. As a consequence, Ralegh had become involved in planning the establishment of English communities in southern Ireland at the same time he was advancing plans for the settlement of America.2
Few obvious candidates presented themselves. Ralph Lane may have wanted to return to Virginia to complete his discoveries, but Ralegh ruled him out because he and the queen were angry that Lane had abandoned Roanoke Island. Sir Richard Grenville was not in England during the fall and probably would not have relished going back to America so soon after his abortive voyage to the Outer Banks that year. Hariot was busy preparing his account of the Roanoke region for publication, which Sir Walter viewed as a major work on the New World and an important promotional piece. That left only John White of Ralegh’s inner circle.3
SINCE THE SUMMER, White had been hard at work at Durham House preparing the maps Ralegh had requested of Virginia and the broader mid-Atlantic coastal region. Besides possibly helping to attract investors, the maps would be useful to the colonists in their preliminary explorations of the Chesapeake Bay region. Following Ralegh’s decision to put him in charge of the colony, White spent a great deal of time meeting with family and friends, trying to persuade them to join the voyage on which he had decided to stake his life and fortune.
White had lived in London for at least two decades, most likely in the parish of St. Martin’s, close by Ludgate and St. Paul’s Cathedral. During those years the city had changed dramatically. Bursting at the seams, its population doubled in the second half of the sixteenth century, fueled by enormous numbers of migrants, who streamed through its gates from all parts of the realm or settled in the sprawling suburbs that had grown up around its ancient walls. By the 1580s London’s population exceeded 100,000 people, crammed together in a patchwork of densely populated neighborhoods.
4.1 Detail from the Copperplate Map of London, showing Cheapside, ca. 1559. The map illustrates the density of housing in the central part of the walled City of London, about a quarter of a mile east of St. Paul’s Cathedral. The streets and markets of Cheapside would have been familiar to John White and many of the settlers from the City.
Everywhere the effects of rapid growth were evident: in the slums, which each year spread farther into surrounding fields like a canker on the countryside; in the belching chimneys of brick and lime kilns clearly visible north of the city near the small village of Islington; in the magnificent pile of the Royal Exchange (the new commercial center erected in 1566), which had required the demolition of scores of poor tenements on Cornhill to make way for its elegant shops and colonnades; and in the wretched faces of countless men, women, and children who had moved to London hoping to find work but instead found themselves out of luck and on the streets.
4.2 Claes Visscher, detail from a panoramic view of London, showing London Bridge, 1616. The engraving illustrates the busy water traffic along the river and riverside housing of those involved in maritime trades. Large ships could only navigate as far as London Bridge, hence the many small boats beyond.
Trade was the lifeblood of the city. Such was the influence of its merchants by the 1580s that contemporaries complained London had wholly “eaten up” the commerce of the rest of the country’s towns and ports, which could no longer compete. During the thirty years of Elizabeth’s reign, England had emerged from the margins of the European commercial system to occupy a central role, and London merchants had benefited enormously. They replaced foreigners (“strangers”) who had formerly controlled lucrative international trade routes, expanded their activities throughout Europe, and profited from a massive increase in imports of luxury and manufactured goods.
Riverfront parishes were alive with activity from dawn to dusk, full of the noise, bustle, and smells of docks and shipping above and below London Bridge. So many ships lay tied up, loading and off-loading their cargoes, that the antiquary William Camden commented the river appeared “a very wood of trees” like a forest glade, shaded with masts and sails. The names of specialized wharves, such as Vintry, Timberhithe, Fish, Salt, and Hay, represented the commodities brought and stored there from all over the country, but many more quays along the River Thames dealt in all sorts of finished goods and raw materials. Large numbers of mariners, lightermen, fishermen, shipwrights, ropemakers, and sailmakers, as well as victuallers, millers, and brewers lived along both sides of the river.
Away from the Thames, the majority of the population worked in the clothing industry, building trades, or as merchants and petty traders. The numerous halls of the companies (guilds) that regulated production, apprenticeship, and entry into London’s political life testified to their important role in the city. Great companies such as the Mercers, Merchant Taylors, Haberdashers, and Goldsmiths were the wealthiest and most influential, but there were also scores of lesser companies such as the Butchers, Bakers, Bricklayers, Chandlers, and John White’s own Painters and Stainers. Blackwell Hall, the country’s premier cloth market, regulated the sale of cloth, “broad and narrow”; just outside the city’s walls Smithfield was a major market for livestock and hides. Trades connected with the ebb and flow of commerce along the river—building and manufactures, wholesaling, provisioning, and local markets—provided economic vitality to an increasingly prosperous middle cla
ss.4
It was to this rising, middling group of people that Ralegh and White appealed for support of their venture to America. Sir Walter had designed terms to attract men and women of modest means, who would invest their own resources to support themselves and establish the colony on a profitable footing. To encourage settlers to join the enterprise, he granted each individual 500 acres and families proportionally more, a huge amount of land by the standards of the day. The approach may have been modeled on the short-lived French Huguenot settlement at Fort Caroline in the 1560s, which had included farmers and artisans in family groups as well as soldiers and single men.
The colony was to be established as the City of Ralegh. Ultimately, Sir Walter hoped that the settlement might eventually come to rival major English ports such as Plymouth and Bristol or even London itself. The colony would be governed by John White, aided by twelve “assistants.” They would provide the core leadership and undertake the vital tasks of founding the settlement and preparing for the arrival of more colonists, who would follow once the colony became profitable. Three of the assistants were to remain in London to represent the colony’s commercial interests among City merchants and lobby for additional financial support. Ralegh would continue to exercise overall authority, but the establishment of his colony as a corporation ruled by “one Body politic” was an acknowledgment on his part that those on the spot needed sufficient independence to manage local affairs in their best interests.
Most of the colony’s ruling group came from respectable middle-class backgrounds. White had a distant claim to gentility from his family’s Cornish origins, but his profession as a working artist suggests a humbler status. Dyonis Harvie (Harvey) was possibly a relative of Sir James Harvey, a former Lord Mayor of London and ironmonger. Ananias Dare, married to White’s daughter, Eleanor, was a member of the Tilers and Bricklayers Company and may have been reasonably well off. Simon Fernandes, on the other hand, came from rough and ready seafaring stock, although he was well connected through his service to Ralegh and Sir Francis Walsingham. About the remaining nine assistants—Roger Bailie (Bailey), Christopher Cooper, Thomas Stevens, John Sampson, Roger Pratt, George Howe (all of whom went to Virginia), and William Fulwood, John Nichols, and James Plat (who did not)—we can only speculate that they were likely related to other colonists, resided in or near London, and had important ties with City merchants and mariners.
Whatever their backgrounds, the social rank of White and his assistants was about to change radically. In a characteristically flamboyant gesture, Ralegh arranged a coat of arms for his new city, which combined the red cross of St. George with his own symbol of the roebuck. In January 1587 White and his assistants were also elevated to gentry status and each awarded the privilege of his own coat of arms. Besides providing an additional incentive for those contemplating joining White’s colony as one of its leaders, the creation of a minor aristocracy to govern in Virginia was a clear signal of the colony’s importance in Ralegh’s eyes. The perilous international situation and financial losses associated with Sir Richard Grenville’s recent voyage to Roanoke prevented him from dispatching a large-scale expedition, but he could nevertheless underscore the venture’s status.5
4.3 Coat of arms of the City of Ralegh and those of John White, copy, post-1660. The arms of the City of Ralegh consisted of the red cross of St. George, which emphasized that the colony remained within the English realm; and a roebuck in the first quarter, the badge of Sir Walter Ralegh. John White’s coat of arms indicates his Cornish origins and connections with several gentry families of the Southwest of England.
Grenville arrived back in England shortly before Christmas 1586 to help with the recruitment of settlers, but White probably continued to shoulder the main burden. During the winter and spring of 1586-1587, ninety-two men, seventeen women, and nine children joined the venture, together with the pilot, Fernandes, and two Indians, Manteo and Towaye.
The colonists were a young group. Only White, Fernandes, and possibly a couple of others were in their forties; the majority of men were in their twenties and early- to mid-thirties, and most of the women in their late teens and twenties. All nine children were boys, aged between three and twelve. Ten or eleven couples joined the voyage, four accompanied by (or expecting) a child. Another thirty were either married or had been, including men who had opted to leave their wives behind and several recently widowed women.
White recruited most of the settlers in London. They came from communities scattered across the city, from Westminster to Deptford, but two parishes, St. Clement Danes and St. Dunstan’s, in Stepney, contributed more than any others. St. Clement Danes was the center of the recruitment effort and home of Ananias and Eleanor Dare. They probably played a major role in the recruitment of fellow parishioners such as Thomas Ellis and his son Robert, Joan Peers (Pierce or Pearce), and Charles Flurrie (Flory), just seventeen years old when he joined the voyage. Christopher Cooper, who likely played a similarly active role in recruiting settlers from his local community, may have resided in St. Dunstan’s, Stepney, a large parish to the east of the City.
Within the City’s walls, Arnold and Joyce Archard were from the riverside parish of St. Mary-at-Hill, not far from London Bridge; young William Wythers was from St. Michael, Cornhill, near the Stocks, where London’s fishmongers and butchers had their stalls; and Thomas and Audrey Tappan were from All Hallows, Lombard Street, close by. James Hynde was born just out-side the walls, in St. Giles Cripplegate; John and William Wyles (Willes) were twins from Christ Church Greyfriars, Newgate; and across the Thames, downriver in Deptford, Edward and Winifred Powell had married on January 10, 1585.6
4.4 Places of Origin of Some Settlers from London, 1587. Drawn by Rebecca L. Wrenn.
What persuaded a seemingly unremarkable group of middling and working-class men and women to leave their homes, friends, and familiar surroundings and set out for an unknown land thousands of miles across the ocean? There are no obvious answers—no diaries or letters (or any other records) shed light on what must have been for many the most difficult decision of their lives and for all of them the most consequential. But a handful of clues suggest some possible explanations.
Family connections were important. White himself went to his own family to recruit settlers. He may have gone first to his daughter, Eleanor, and her husband Ananias to discuss the venture. Married three and a half years, the couple already had an infant son and a daughter and initially may have been reluctant to take the risk of moving the family. They likely solved the problem by arranging for the children, John and Thomasine (named for Eleanor’s mother), to be cared for by relatives. Two other couples, Ambrose and Elizabeth Viccars and Arnold and Joyce Archard, possibly made similar arrangements, but each took a young son with them.
After visiting the Dares, White may have traveled across London to see Christopher Cooper, quite likely a relative of his wife. Cooper had three children under five as well as two teenage sons. His wife, if she was still alive, did not go with him and probably stayed at home to look after the children. Similarly, George Howe, gentleman, John Sampson, Thomas Ellis, and Roger Pratt all traveled with young sons but without their wives. They most likely planned to wait until the colony was firmly established before risking bringing over their families.7
At least a third of the settlers were related to other members of the group. Henry and Richard Berrye, John and William Wyles (Willes), Robert and Peter Little, and John and Thomas Chevan (or Phevan) of London were possibly brothers or cousins. Some of the colonists probably had relatives among the men who had been involved in previous voyages or were in Ralegh’s service. Alice Chapman could have been the wife of the (Robert?) Chapman left on Roanoke Island with a small holding party by Grenville in the summer of 1586; she was also quite possibly related to John Chapman of the 1587 settlers. John Gibbes may have been related to two Lane colonists as well as to Lewes Wotton of White’s group, and Anthony Cage, gentleman, was likely a relative of John Cage, who had
also accompanied Lane.8
Other connections among the colonists are more tenuous. St. Matthews, Friday Street, where John Chapman may have lived, was the parish of Valentine Beale and John Chandler, both of whom had been with Lane’s colony. Edward Powell was possibly the same man who sailed to the West Indies and Roanoke Island with Sir Francis Drake’s fleet on board the Tiger in the service of Christopher Carleill. He may have been the brother of Captain Anthony Powell, also with Drake, who was killed in action at St. Augustine and was described as “an honest wise Gentleman, and a soldier of good experience, and of great courage as any man might be.” A John Sampson, another of Drake’s land captains, fought alongside Powell.9
There is a strong possibility that some of the London colonists were Puritans. London was at the heart of the English Puritan movement after the restoration of the Protestant church in 1558. Puritans (or reformers) were dissatisfied with the changes introduced under Elizabeth’s religious settlement, which they argued had not gone far enough in ridding the new Church of England of the trappings of Catholic ceremony and belief. With Elizabeth’s accession to the throne, Puritans had anticipated that England would take the lead in the European Protestant Reformation and were frustrated by the queen’s conservative approach to religious change. They opposed what they saw as the persistence of popish remnants such as clerical dress and kneeling during communion. Giving primacy to the word of God as revealed in the Bible, which spoke directly to individual conscience, they bridled at the prescribed liturgy and ritual of the Church of England and resisted the rule of bishops, whose authority they believed had no basis in scripture. “You preach Christ to be priest and prophet,” a group of London Puritans told Bishop Edmund Grindal forthrightly in 1567, “but you preach Him not to be king.”