2020 was the year to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the first group of Separatist Pilgrims to North America, but, like so many plans for 2020, many celebrations had to be canceled or revised while some digital ways opened. The iconic Pilgrim Hall Museum in Plymouth even closed for the pandemic. Although my blog has focused mostly on the early settlement of Virginia, I want to give a shout out before the end of this year to the brave Pilgrims and their associates in the Plymouth Colony.
Frought with risk, the …project endured a long period of trial, experiment, and error. Deeply in debt to their backers in London, and chronically short of supplies to keep their feet shod, their muskets loaded, and their small boats afloat, they needed a commodity to send back to England to be swapped for silver coins or used to redeem their IOUs. [1]
Is that a description of the Jamestown or the Plymouth Colony? While it could apply to both, that was written about Plymouth. There were distinctive differences in the two ventures, but colonization in the early years was simply hard. The stories of Jamestown and Plymouth share many similar challenges, tragedies, resources, influential figures, and impact.
In 1606, both the Jamestown adventurers and a group of English Separatists (not yet called Pilgrims) from parts of Nottinghamshire, Lincolnshire, and Yorkshire were planning to leave England. The 104 passengers bound for Jamestown boarded their ships in December and then waited just off England’s coast for six weeks for favorable winds to take them West. The 125 or so religious dissidents were planning to secretly head south to Amsterdam, fearful of imprisonment or worse if caught worshipping in their congregations independent of the Church of England. However, as they prepared to sail in 1607, the Separatists were betrayed by their ship’s captain and taken into custody. The next year, they tried to escape on a Dutch ship, but only 16 men boarded before the militia came and forced the other 80 to stay behind. However, the militia did not know what to do with the mostly women and children, now homeless, and somehow they were allowed to make their way to Holland. In 1609, this English group ultimately congregated in the university town of Leiden. [2]
Although allowed to worship as they wished in Holland, they were still surrounded by religious turmoil among the differing persuasions of Calvinistic Protestantism. Yet, William Bradford, an important Pilgrim leader and chronicler, remembered “peace and love and holiness” within their congregation during those years under the leadership of John Robinson and William Brewster. Despite their own harmony, these Separatists struggled in Holland to maintain their English language and group identity while not having access to better jobs and opportunities because they were not Dutch. They also worried that their youth were being drawn too much into worldly ways in that highly commercial setting. [3]
As with the rest of the English world, the Separatists had their eye on the Jamestown experiment. Dissatisfied with what they could achieve in Holland, they began to explore the possibility of going to the New World and sought a charter to settle in “Northern Virginia,” an area known today as the Hudson River Valley in New York. The French had already settled Acadia along the St. Lawrence River in 1604, and English ships were busy fishing around Newfoundland and the Eastern seaboard. Captain Bartholomew Gosnold, who commanded the Godspeed in the first voyage to Jamestown and served on its first ruling council, had explored the New England coast and named Cape Cod in 1602. Sadly, he died only a few months after the arrival at Jamestown in 1607. Captain John Smith, who like Gosnold was on the first Jamestown voyage and served with him on the ruling council, went on to preside over Jamestown until he had to return to England in 1609 due to a gunpowder incident. While Captain Smith never returned to Jamestown, he further explored the New England coast in 1614 and published his map in 1616. Captain Smith apparently offered his services to take the Leiden Separatists, but was refused, as he wrote that they said, ” my books and maps were much better cheape to teach them, than myself.” [4]
However, to settle in Virginia, the Separatists needed both English approval and funding. Taking advantage of some political turmoil in Europe, they turned to sympathetic English friends, comparing themselves to the displaced French Huguenots. Sir John Wolstenholme, one of the more senior members of the Virginia Company of London, was approached and with the assistance of Fulke Greville, a member of the King’s Privy Council, and Sir Edwin Sandys, who had taken the lead in the Virginia Company, the Leiden group were finally granted a patent to settle in the area designated as Virginia. Despite theological issues, it was thought desirable to have another English colony to the north to block colonization efforts by other European powers. [5]
While the Virginia Company could help the Leiden Separatists gain permission, it could not offer financial support. Unlike many Puritans, the Separatists did not see wealth as the sign of God’s favor, and whatever they might have had, they had spent on going to Holland where they worked in low paying jobs. Most could not afford passage. When King James had initially chartered the Virginia Company in 1606, he had also chartered a Plymouth Virginia Company with the intent for a northern settlement. The Plymouth group actually sent 29 settlers headed to Maine in 1606 before the Jamestown group sailed, but going via the West Indies, they were captured by the Spanish and sent to Spain in chains. In August 1607, the Plymouth Company sent 100 colonists to Sagadahoc, Maine under George Popham, but with his death and quarrelsome factions, that colony was abandoned in 1608. A version of the Plymouth Company was reestablished as a means to finance the Leiden Separatists’ journey. About 70 London merchants and craftsmen called Adventurers agreed to invest in the project, although they did not have the “deep pockets” or resources of the more wealthy Virginia Company investors. William Brewster was appointed to lead the group for America, while Pastor John Robinson agreed to stay with the hundreds left in Leiden. They hoped for an early reunion of the groups, but it was not to be, and Robinson died before the next group could leave. [6]
Only 44 of the Leiden Separatists were on the Mayflower. Thy referred to their other fellow passengers as “Strangers” as they were not of their faith community. While some respected the Separatist beliefs, others did not . The intent was to take two ships, but they had to turn back to England when the smaller ship Speedwell developed serious leaks. The Mayflower which finally left England on September 6, 1620 was late for the season and overcrowded. Despite serious storms, having their main mast damaged, and nearly losing a man overboard, only one passenger and one crewmen died before reaching land. [7]
However, they did not land in “Northern Virginia.” Whether it was intentional, an accident, or simply forces of nature, the Mayflower instead arrived at Cape Cod on November 9. After a brief exploration, they landed at Plymouth on December 11, 1620. The site had been named Plymouth four years before their arrival on the map created by John Smith. Obviously, there was no time to plant, and much of their food had been consumed on the journey. The colonists initially lived on the boat while they started construction on a common building for shelter and storage. Thwarted by the winter weather, disease, and death, it was not completed until January 20. [8]
Arriving north of “northern” Virginia meant these settlers would not be subject to Virginia’s government or Anglican Church constraints. Some non-Separatist “Strangers” let it be known they could not be made to obey the Separatist leaders either. With great wisdom, and in short order, a concise compact was drawn up, probably by Bradford, which was signed by 41 free adult males on November 11, 1620. Using language often found in other charters and compacts, it concisely put in place a system of agreed-upon governance under which they functioned until incorporated in the 1636 Codified Plymouth Book of Laws. In 1619, Sir Edwin Sandys had been instrumental in establishing representative government in Virginia through a charter for the House of Burgesses, but the Mayflower Compact took self governance a step farther as it was created by the colonists, not granted by authorities. [9]
… We, whose names are underwritten… having undertaken… a Voyage to plant the first Colony in the northern Parts of Virginia; Do by these Presents, solemnly and mutually, in the Presence of God and one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil Body Politick, for our better Ordering and Preservation, and Furtherance of the Ends aforesaid: And by Virtue hereof do enact, constitute, and frame, such just and equal Laws, Ordinances, Acts, Constitutions, and Offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general Good of the Colony; unto which we promise all due Submission and Obedience.
At Jamestown, 60 settlers out of their group of 104 died that first year from disease, starvation and Powhatan attacks. The first settlers at Plymouth did not fare much better. Suffering from scurvy, lack of food, and the freezing New England temperatures, 52 of the 99 passengers died in their first year. Unlike the original Jamestown settlers who were all men or boys, the majority of Mayflower passengers had traveled as families. Of the 19 women, 14 died; 3 of the 15 youths; 6 of the 14 children; and over half of the 50 men. The Pilgrim Hall Museum recently published a powerful chart portraying the Mayflower passengers as families and indicating those who survived to the first Thanksgiving. Some entire families perished. Unlike Jamestown whose problems with disease, brackish water, and hostile tribes persisted, the Plymouth Colony was able to stabilize and provide a healthier environment with fewer deaths in the subsequent years, although there would be lean times with insufficient provisions. [10]
For clarity, I have chosen to subsequently refer to those religious Separatists from Leiden who came to America as the “Saints,” as has historian Martyn Whittock, to distinguish them from the other non-believing “Stranger” colonists who were also part of the Plymouth Colony. Although the Saints were the instigators for the colony and were generally selected as its governmental leaders, it is important to remember they were just a subset of the Plymouth colonists. It was the Saints’ desire to bring their fellow Separatists from Leiden to Plymouth as quickly as possible. However, their English investors made the decision of who to send, and they looked for those who could pay their own passage and/or showed potential for creating a profit. Over its first nine years, Plymouth received about 362 new emigrants, but less than a third of them were Separatists. Rather than being able to escape the world to set up an independent idyllic community, the Saint Pilgrims were forced to bring the world with them for financial backing. [11]
Some non-Saints were helpful, such as Stephen Hopkins who had been a prior immigrant to Virginia. Being one of those on the SeaVenture that was shipwrecked on Bermuda for a year and then spending two years in Virginia after the starving time, he had considerable experience with survival which he shared at Plymouth, although he also made his share of trouble for the colony. Miles Standish, about whom Longfellow wrote the iconic poem regarding his unsuccessful courtship, was a veteran of the Low Countries wars and served faithfully as the Captain of the Plymouth militia. Bradford wrote of him, “he is as helpful an instrument as any we have and as careful of the general good.”
John Pory, the Secretary of Virginia under Governor Yeardley, also performed a brief service for the Plymouth Colony when, after a visit there in 1623, he wrote to notables in London about Plymouth’s piety, hard work, and achievements. As Pory knew, independent praise of struggling colonies was rarely sent back home, and the Plymouth leaders were grateful. However, there were also conflicts and divisions between the Plymouth groups. Some settled apart; others returned to England or went south to Virginia. When Thomas Morton, who was reported to hold drunken orgies in his encampment, was accused of illegal trading of guns and liquor to the native tribes, the Plymouth leaders finally had reason to have him and his followers shipped back to England in 1628. [12]
The Plymouth colonists generally had more positive relationships with their native neighbors than did the Virginians. Fortunately, when they arrived at Plymouth, they did not have to compete for land as it had been left abandoned when almost all the Wampanoag at that site had died of a disease that had swept through several years before. The settlers were certainly startled on March 16 when a native man named Samoset walked into their village and addressed them in English which he had learned from coastal traders. Ascertaining that the colonists desired peaceful cooperation, Samoset introduced them to Tisquantum (Squanto) and Massasoit, the sachem (chief) of the local tribes, and a trade and peace agreement was arranged. Tisquantum was a skilled translator, for he had been one of 27 native people who were kidnapped by an earlier English trader, Thomas Hunt, to sell as slaves in Spain. Tisquantum had managed to escape and flee to England where he was befriended by an English merchant before returning to his own land. Tisquantum may have benefited from the excitement in London in 1617 over the visit of Pocahontas, the exotic Jamestown Powhatan princess. [13]
Positive relations with the Wampanoag was further evidenced when Plymouth held its now famous “Thanksgiving feast” in the fall of 1621. Despite later embellishments to the story, it was never called a Thanksgiving Day by the colonists (which would have been a day of fasting and prayer) and was not a regularly repeated event. The Pilgrim Edward Winslow wrote that the governor desired “that we might after a special manner rejoice together after we had gathered the fruit of our labours,” so he sent four men fowling. It is unclear if inviting the Indians was ever part of the plan, but somehow the word got out and “many of the Indians coming amongst us, and among the rest their greatest king Massasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted, and they went out and killed five deer….And although it be not always so plentiful as it was at this time with us, yet by the goodness of God, we are so far from want that we often wish you partakers of our plenty.” [14]
However, all did not go as smoothly with other tribal groupings, often exacerbated by the actions of “rough and unruly” men. Under the former investor, Thomas Weston, a group left Plymouth and set up their own settlement called Wassagusset (Weymouth). When food became scarce, they stole from natives associated with Wituwamat, a brave believed to have murdered French traders. In retaliation, that tribal group threatened to attack and wipe out Wessagusset. Feeling obligated to defend them, Captain Standish and his Plymouth soldiers decided to take the offensive and tricked the Indians into a blockhouse where they were murdered. The soldiers cut off the head of the leader which they displayed at their fort in Plymouth as a warning. The Pilgrim leaders were disapproving, but forgiving to Standish. Relations were soothed with the skilled healing of Massasoit by Edward Winslow. [15]
Yet, in 1636, only 16 years after Plymouth was founded, its citizens joined its Puritan neighbors in the horrific Pequot Wars where over 700 of the Pequot tribe were either killed or sold into slavery in the West Indies. The famous Powhatan Uprising in Jamestown had occurred 15 years after its settlement. Both groups had wanted peaceful relations with the native tribes when they first arrived and naively hoped that the “barbarians” would eagerly embrace Protestant Christianity, but soon found irreconcilable differences. We still need to work on our relationships with our First Peoples.
The relationship between the colonists and their Adventurer investors became increasingly strained. In 1626, the company of Plymouth Adventurers broke up, no longer able to sustain the debts and loses. Three of them went on to combine with eight of the colony’s leaders in a joint project as “Undertakers” to buy out the assets and debts through shipments of furs, particularly beaver fur, for which they received a monopoly for six years. The Undertakers finally focused on the emigration of the remaining Leiden Separatists, believing their group could still “begin a new world and lay the foundations of sound piety and humanity for others to follow.” In 1629, nine years after the first Pilgrims had come, a second Mayflower arrived with most of the remaining Leiden group, and, by 1630, almost 300 had come. However, it was felt that those successful in Holland could later make it on their own, so the “weakest and the poorest” from Leiden had been sent, further straining the colony’s limited resources. The debts incurred by the Undertakers were not fully resolved until 1642. [16]
However, even with this great influx of believing immigrants, the isolated and pious community they had once imagined had been tainted by the realities of colonization. William Bradford wondered that “so many wicked persons and profane people should so quickly come over into this land and mix themselves amongst them…seeing it was religious men that began the work and they came for religion’s sake.” The Plymouth Colony continued independent until 1691 when it was made part of the English Province of Massachusetts Bay, but it had already been overshadowed by other events. In 1630, the Great Migration of Puritans started, founding the Massachusetts Bay Colony to Plymouth’s north. After the victory of the Puritan forces in the English Civil War, it became less clear what the Separatists were separating from.
As William Bradford reflected on his journey with these Saints, he lamented, ” Oh sacred bond, whilst inviolably preserved. How sweet and precious were the fruits….But that subtle serpent hath slyly wound in himself under fair pretenses of necessity…to untwist these sacred bonds and ties….I have been happy… to see and, with much comfort, enjoy the blessed fruit of this sweet communion, but it is now part of my misery in old age, to find and feel the decay and want thereof….” Yet, he charged the rising generation to be the “best and most godly expositors…those shining lights that God hath raised up.” When William Bradford died in 1657, there were 11 towns and over 2,000 people in the Plymouth Colony. [17]
Both Jamestown and Plymouth were founded on dreams. One hoped for opportunities to advance, own land, and create wealth under a responsible and responsive government; the other, to build a virtuous community of faith. Neither dream was fully realized. Yet, the vestiges of those dreams remain intertwined in our complex national character–fostering free enterprise tempered with moral responsibility and social equality under a representative government. They should be viewed as complementary, not competing or exclusionary stories of our founding.
Nest Post: Envisioning the Invisible: the Lynnhaven House of Adam and Sarah Thorowgood (finally!)
Footnotes:
[1]: Bunker, Nick, Making Haste from Babylon: The Mayflower Pilgrims and Their World (New York: Vintage Books, 2010), 4.
[2]: Bailyn, Bernard, The Barbarous Years: The Peopling of British North America: The Conflict of Civilizations, 1600-1675 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2013), 323-325. Whittock, Martyn, Mayflower Lives: Pilgrims in a New World and the Early American Experience (New York: Pegasus Books, 2019), 23-30.
[3]: Bailyn, 325-326.
[4]: Haile, Edward Wright. ed., Jamestown Narratives: Eyewitness Accounts of the Virginia Colony (Champlain, VA: Round House, 1998), 9-12. Stratton, Eugene Aubrey, Plymouth Colony: Its History & People 1620-1691 (Provo, Utah: Ancestry Publishing, 1986), 19.
[5]: Bunker, 25-30. Haskell, Alexander B., For God, King, & People: Forging Commonwealth Bonds in Renaissance Virginia (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2017), 238.
[6]: Bailyn, 327. Haile, 12-14, 19-20.
[7] Bailyn, 329-337.
[8]: Bunker, 287.
[9]: Bunker, 281-282.
[10]: Stratton, 21-22. Deetz, James and Patricia Scott Deetz, The Times of Their Lives: Life, Love, and Death in Plymouth Colony (New York: W.H. Freeman and Company, 2000), 37. Pilgrim Hall Museum, The Mayflower Passengers (Plymouth, Massachusetts, Pilgram Hall, 2020), chart.
[11]: Stratton, 27-29. Whittock, xi-xiii.
[12]: Stratton, 23-24. Bailyn 345-350. Bunker, 349.
[13]: Bunker, 288, 293-296. Stratton, 20.
[14]: Deetz, 1-5.
[15]: Bailyn, 339-340. Bunker, 329-330. Haskell, 236
[16]: Bailyn, 347-349. Bunker, 4-5. Stratton, 20, 27.
[17]: Bailyn, 353-357, 364. Whittock, 37-41.
John Locke, the influential English philosopher, proposed in 1689 that men had a natural right to life, liberty, and property, despite he himself having stock in slave trading companies. Gradually through the 17th and 18th centuries, these principles gained greater acceptance, even if they were not yet inclusive of all mankind/womankind. The American Founding Fathers, while imperfect in their own understandings, attitudes, and actions, were extraordinary and revolutionary in using ideals, not persons or heredity, to create a national government based on principles of equality and liberty. Unfortunately, these rights were not extended to all. We still need to improve.
At the time of 16th century European exploration, the Chesapeake Indians were the dominant tribe on the south side of the James from the Atlantic coast/ Chesapeake Bay area to the Nansemond River. An extraordinary burial site of a Chesapean chief, 
Excavations in the Great Neck area in the 1970s-1990s uncovered the remains of 64 Native Americans which have since been reburied at First Landing State Park. Despite archaeologists finding an abundance of 
The colonists who obtained land grants in 1635 included (in order of their patent date): John Gayre (Feb 13–300 acres); Francis Towers (April 21–200 acres); John Hill (April 21–350 acres); John Parrott (May 29–450 acres); John Sibsey (June 1–1500 acres); Thomas Lambert (June 1–100 acres); Joseph Johnson (June 19–400 acres); Adam Thorowgood (June 24–5,350 acres); Richard Bennett (June 26–2,000 acres); Robert Bennett (June 26–700 acres); Cornelius Loyd (July 2–800 acres); Francis Hough (November 12–800 acres); and Rev. William Wilkinson (November 20–700 acres). Of course, the settlers would have brought their families and servants with them when they moved. While Adam Thorowgood was not the first to receive a patent, he was likely an instigator for the group movement into the Chesapeake area. Based on the Privy Council recommendation, it appears he desired Chesapeake land before 1634 when he visited England.
While some of those who had grants before 1638 had small claims of 50-200 acres for transporting themselves and maybe a wife, a child, and/or servants, others were already notables in the Colony: Capt. Thomas Willoughby; Daniel Gookin, Esq.; John Gookin, Gent. (Daniel’s son and future 2nd husband of Sarah Thorowgood); Jonathan Langwoth, surgeon; Thomas Hampton, clerk; Henry Woodhouse, Gent; Lt. Richard Popeley; Reverend William Wilkinson; Richard Bennett (elected as Virginia’s governor during the English Commonwealth period), and Adam Thorowgood. Francis Mason, Henry Sewell, and William Julian joined them soon thereafter. Some still have local neighborhoods and land features named for them, such as Willoughby Spit, Willoughby Bay, Mason’s Creek, Julian’s Creek, and Sewell Point in Norfolk. The majority of those who patented land in the New Norfolk area lived on their land. 
What made Adam Thorowgood’s story one to be retold while those of some early neighbors have faded away? Perhaps it was a lucky roll of fortune’s dice that Adam both survived in Virginia for 19 years and that the story of his life in Virginia has survived for 399 years.
The tobacco cycle impacted the schedule of ships arriving from and returning to England. Planters worried whether their hogsheads would make it safely across the ocean and then whether English merchants would give them a fair price. Tobacco credit notes became the very currency for purchases and payments in the colony, but one’s profits depended on a fluctuating English market. Neither Thorowgood nor Thomson could afford to lose a shipment.
In the 16th century the great English trading companies opened trade markets for exporting English goods and importing needed and exotic wares. Most notable were the Merchant Adventurers; the Muscovy Company for Russia; the 
The headright system that had been established to encourage English men and women to come to Virginia as indentured servants worked relatively well for immigrants and investors in the second quarter of the 17th century. However, one of the problems was that even when indentured servants managed to survive 4-7 years in Virginia, the planter had to find a replacement when the time was over, unless they entered into a tenancy arrangement. A successful landowner had to deal with constant turnover. Virginia had an insatiable need for workers. (See 
In contrast, the sessions in 1631-32 were groundbreaking as the Assembly decided to review, consolidate, revise, void when needed, and reform the body of laws that had accumulated over the years. This was their first attempt to develop and publish a consistent Code of Law for the Colony. The first review appeared to have taken place by only a partial Assembly as it included only 20 Burgesses representing 13 combined districts and started meeting on February 21, 1631/32. They produced a document of 68 acts which included 15 related to Church matters. Not surprisingly, the “urine collection” regulation did not survive the review. 
Easter has long been regarded as the most important of the Holy Days for Christians. In medieval times, the faithful would prepare by consuming fish, but abstaining from all meat and dairy for 40 days in the observance of Lent. Holy Week started with Palm Sunday and proceeded through Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and finally culminated in Resurrection Sunday with great feasting and festivity. As with Christmas, some pagan aspects were adopted, especially symbols associated with new life and fertility, such as rabbits, eggs, and new chicks. 
As eggs were also one of the forbidden foods in Lent, they were often in great abundance at the Easter Day feast. There was also likely to be roast lamb, replacing the Passover lamb of the Last Supper with the symbol of Christ as the unblemished Lamb of God. In 1407, the Bishop of Salisbury and his 80 guests consumed two lambs as well as venison, veal, beef, pigs and piglets, 20 capons, 48 chickens, and more than 500 eggs! 
Maundy Thursday, named for the mandatum or commandment given by Christ at the Last Supper to love others, had been associated with humility and the washing of the feet of the poor since the fourth century. King John started the English tradition of the monarch giving gifts in 1210 by him donating clothing, forks, food, and other gifts to the poor. In 1213, he gave small silver coins. By 1363, Edward III was both giving coins and washing the feet of selected poor. Nobles were also known to have held their own Maundy distributions, but not necessarily at Easter. 
The decorating and gifting of eggs was an ancient tradition in many cultures. Eggs became a Christian symbol of the resurrection with elaborate decoration particularly popular in the Germanic and Eastern Orthodox churches. Coloring eggs was also adopted in England. The household accounts for Edward I in 1307 included “18 pence for 450 eggs to be boiled and dyed or covered with gold leaf and distributed to the Royal household.” 
Although most colonists did not come to Virginia seeking religious freedom or with intense religious zeal, there was greater diversity of religious beliefs and practices in the early years than is often recognized. Archaeological evidence at the Jamestown fort has revealed that there were some secret Catholics in the fort. The first Puritans in America settled in Virginia years before a group traveled together to Massachusetts in 1630. Adam Thorowgood seemed to have had Puritan leanings himself, as his brother, Thomas, became a noted Puritan preacher in England, and Adam and his wife Sarah had married in a Puritan congregation in England. Sarah’s second husband, John Gookin, was from a staunch early Puritan family. Later, even Quakers established themselves in Virginia. Dissidents would later be forced to leave. 
Lent was probably observed, ending with an Easter feast, though not as elaborate as in England. As the Elizabeth Cittie Parish remained firmly Anglican, except unwittingly during the Commonwealth era, Easter Communion would have been offered and probably Palm Sunday celebrated. I have found no references to other special services during Holy Week in this era in Virginia, although they may have been held. As on other Sundays, they would have likely followed their tradition of “tarrying” before and/or after church, as it was one of the few occasions when the settlers could gather casually with friends and distant neighbors. At the second church site, the finding of numerous pipe stems of the period is evidence of leisure gatherings. 
At the time the English arrived, the Indians at Kecoughtan were a small group living in about 18 homes (yi-hakans) under the Powhatan chiefdom. They had once been a larger tribe, but were conquered by Chief Powhatan in 1597/8 . At the time of the landing, Pochins, a son of Powhatan, was their leader. Captain John Smith later traded with the Kecoughtans (forcibly) for corn and spent a pleasant and memorable Christmas season where “we were never more merry nor fed on more plentie of good oysters, fish, flesh, and wild fowle and good bread, nor never had better fires in England than in the dry smoky houses of Kecoughten.”
The English quickly realized the importance of this Indian territory to control access to the James River. By October 1609, George Percy, as leader of the colony, ordered Fort Algernourne built near Cape Comfort (today’s Fort Monroe). With greater access to fresh water and food sources, those stationed there survived the 1609/10 Starving Time far better than those at Jamestown. However, they made no attempt to rescue Jamestown, but, rather, some secretly planned to return to England. 
As early as 1617, the Virginia Company sent over some French colonists to try growing grape vines in a beach area they called Buckroe. In 1620 they tried the cultivation of silk worms without much success. Still, there were 30 colonists living in Buckroe in 1623. Over the years, this Chesapeake Bay beach in Hampton became best known for its production of recreational fun.
Kecoughton/ Elizabeth Cittie quickly developed into a proper town. An Anglican parish had been established in July 1610, making St. John’s Episcopal Church in Hampton “the oldest active, English-speaking congregation in the Americas.” The site of the initial church building is unknown, but the second church whose foundations have been found on the Hampton University grounds was built around 1624. Adam and Sarah Thorowgood and their neighbors would have worshipped there. Several of the upright (or uptight?) men and women of this town were involved in bringing accusations in the first witchcraft trial in the English colonies against Joan Wright who had lived in Kecoughtan .
In the early 1620s, Captain Thomas Neuce, the manager of the Virginia Company of London lands, built two guest houses for the reception of new immigrants when they first arrived. William Capps offered to build one on the west side of the river in 1623 to help with the influx of persons. However, hospitality took a step up when James Knott in 1632 leased land “desiring to keepe a house of entertainment…whereby strangers and others my bee well accommodated…the howse commonly called the great howse.” John Potts, the Virginia governor who was disgraced and discharged in 1630 for stealing cattle, was among those known to enjoy the entertainment (which was a respectable term) in Kecoughtan.
There are no actual buildings that remain in Hampton, or the rest of Virginia, from the second quarter of the 17th century when Adam and the others lived there. Archaeological studies have found that homes both for the wealthy and the common folk were built from the abundant timber in a post-in-ground earthfast manner which did not survive long in Virginia’s climate and soil. In 1986-87, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation’s Department of Archaeological Research conducted follow-up investigations of an early 17th century site at Hampton University. They found evidence of an early two-bay house of wood and mud possibly from the 1620s that was followed by other houses within 10-15 years “embellished with glass windows, possibly a tile roof, a passage, and a brick-lined cellar.” The artifacts found at the site suggested a “relatively high-status colonial residence,” and they were comparable in the quality, quantity, and point of origin to those found at the capital Jamestown. These findings seem to correlate with economic and societal progress of Elizabeth Cittie.
Like most of the early landowners, Adam Thorowgood bought additional tracts of land. While his purchases were never in dispute, there was extensive litigation over some land claims, particularly in the original areas designated as “company lands” by the Virginia Company. Some colonists had already settled in the areas of Strawberry Banks and Mill Creek, and there were muddled and contested claims after the Company was dissolved in 1624. 
Did I forget to mention that the head of Blackbeard, the Pirate, was placed on a spike on the James River in 1718 to adorn the entrance to Hampton and scare off the pirates?
Or that the first Southern reading of the Emancipation Proclamation was done under the Emancipation Oak in Hampton?
A headright to the British Colonies in the 17th Century was someone whose passage was paid for by another person who in turn received a land grant, typically of 50 acres, for each person brought as an effort to encourage sponsorship of emigrants. The headright was then expected to repay his or her passage, usually through labor as an indentured servant for 4-7 years. Augustine Warner was among the first 35 individuals recruited as headrights by the newly wed Adam and Sarah Thorowgood in England. Augustine accompanied them to Virginia in the Hopewell in 1628. 
Adam Thorowgood brought more headrights than he would have needed to work his own land in 1628, so he would likely have followed the custom of selling indentured contracts to other planters. It is not known where Augustine served his indentureship. However, in 1635, a few years after having finished his service, Augustine obtained his first 250 acres of land, based on sponsoring 12 headrights of his own to Virginia. He purchased “one neck of ground called…Pynie Neck…lying at the new Poquoson.” 
Augustine Warner remained on the Council until his death on December 24, 1674 at the age of 63. He and his wife Mary were buried in the family cemetery at Warner Hall in Gloucester, Virginia.
Although no original structures remain of the first Warner Hall built on the Severn River and this plantation was sold out of the family in 1830, the site has continued to be known by the Warner name. 
Today 
Coming to Virginia as a servant prior to 1626, Adam had received 50 acres of land at the end of his indentureship. Bond servants arriving after that date were promised only “the custom of the country” at the end of their time, which often consisted only of a bushel of corn and a new suit of clothes. Other items could be included if the master agreed. 
Broadsides and pamphlets praising Virginia had been circulated since the beginning. However, many of the desired recruits were illiterate. Thus, much recruitment took place by word of mouth and by setting up recruitment stations at ports, taverns, fairs, and popular gathering places. Letters or testimonials from settlers living in the colonies were read as powerful inducements. There were even ballads sung promoting life in the colonies.
In the early years of colonization, laws had been enacted to allow courts to send orphaned children, vagrants, and convicts to the colonies, even against their will. While this was promoted as a win-win solution to the overpopulation of English cities, these unfortunates were among the most vulnerable to disease and death and often were not productive in the new world. With an unquenchable need for servants in the colonies and a lessening urgency to leave England, some agents resorted to questionable or illegal means to secure them. Kidnapping became a serious concern, leading ports to begin to keep records of those going onboard. 
In the last half of the 17th century, over 4,500 children (under age 21) arrived in Virginia and Maryland without indentureships and were assigned by the courts to involuntary servitude, sometimes to those very justices. In 1660, the Privy Council addressed the problem of “diverse children from their parents and servants from their masters are daily enticed away, taken up, and kept from said Parents and Masters, against their wills, by Merchants, Planters, Commanders of Ships, and Seamen trading to Virginia, Barbados….”
In December 1657, the Hopewell, which had earlier carried so many English to their adventures and indentureships, was transporting enslaved Africans from Angola to Virginia when it was seized off the coast of Africa. 