The Three Charters of the Virginia Company of London: With Seven Related Documents

In Short

This volume compiles the primary constitutional documents of early colonial America, spanning from King James I’s initial charter in 1606 to the establishment of representative governance in 1621. Through royal patents, company ordinances, and specific instructions to corporate leaders, the collection records the gradual transformation of a private joint-stock enterprise into a permanent, self-governing society. It details how commercial charters established administrative councils, distributed landed property, regulated native relations, and created public infrastructure. The collection endures because it documents the foundational legal mechanisms that inadvertently birthed American constitutionalism.

The Story

The narrative of these corporate and royal documents follows the evolution of an English imperial experiment from a fragile commercial venture into an organized colonial state. It opens in April 1606 with King James I issuing the First Charter of Virginia. This initial framework authorizes two distinct corporate bodies to establish settlements along the American coast, setting strict distance limits between colonies and instituting dual governing councils—one resident in Virginia and another supervisory council in London. Almost immediately, practical administrative friction exposes the limitations of this initial structure, leading to an expanded London council in 1607 to ensure regular oversight.

By May 1609, financial strain and logistical hardship prompt the Second Charter. This milestone legal instrument formally incorporates the Treasurer and Company of Adventurers and Planters, transferring local executive authority away from the fragile colonial council to a single royal governor. Detailed instructions to Sir Thomas Gates direct a massive fleet carrying six hundred recruits across the Atlantic, ordering him to bypass Spanish routes and systematically reduce Chief Powhatan to a tributary ruler. Soon after, instructions to Sir Thomas West require all settlers to swear oaths of supremacy, settle public grievances, and register official records.

The enterprise expands further with the Third Charter of March 12, 1612, which recruits prominent English nobility and merchants to finance the enterprise while granting tax exemptions and anti-smuggling authority. As physical settlements solidify, commercial land policies begin to mirror traditional English legal structures. In the Great Charter instructions of November 1618, the Company sets aside dedicated lands across Charles City, Henrico, Kiccowtan, and Jamestown. Tenants are placed on company lands under a half-profit system, while hundred-acre glebes are established to support ordained Anglican ministers.

The documentary progression reaches its culmination in July 1621 with instructions to Governor Francis Wyatt and an accompanying constitutional ordinance. The Company mandates uniform judicial administration, religious conformity, strict oversight of colonial fees, and an expansive land survey directed by Mr. William Cleyburne to map highways, borders, and rivers. Crucially, the ordinance formalizes a permanent Council of State and an elected General Assembly, guaranteeing that laws align with English tradition. What began as a crown-licensed merchant monopoly finishes as a functioning parliamentary democracy, leaving behind a permanent administrative framework that outlasts the commercial company itself.

How It Unfolds

Establishing royal oversight King James I issues the initial charter in 1606, dividing the North American territory between two distinct companies and creating localized councils supervised by a premier Council of Virginia in London. The decree outlines precise geographical parameters, requiring settlements to remain at least one hundred miles apart while keeping governance strictly beneath the royal Privy Seal.

Revising corporate governance Recognizing that scattered council members cannot assemble efficiently, the Crown expands the London leadership in 1607 before granting a sweeping Second Charter in 1609. This new corporate framework establishes a single supreme Governor, revokes earlier localized council authority, and opens membership to broad public investment.

Commanding the expedition Detailed instructions dispatch Sir Thomas Gates with eight ships and six hundred personnel, advising safe passage away from Spanish fleets. Gates is ordered to subdue Powhatan through mandatory grain and labor tributes while educating young native leaders in English customs and religion.

Enforcing civil order Instructions to Sir Thomas West direct the immediate public reading of royal commissions and the administration of loyalty oaths to all inhabitants. Settlers are required to surrender past records, abandon personal quarrels, and accept assigned administrative roles to ensure colonial harmony.

Allocating colonial lands The instructions of 1618 structure economic stability by setting aside thousands of acres of public company land in four major settlements. Tenants work the soil for shared profits, permanent housing is designated for the Governor, and dedicated glebe lands are assigned to maintain parish ministers.

Institutionalizing representative assembly The final directives of 1621 order Governor Francis Wyatt to establish equal justice, conduct comprehensive territorial surveys, and curb excessive official fees. The accompanying ordinance permanently institutes a General Assembly and Council of State, formalizing local representative governance under English law.

The People

King James I seeks to expand English territory and secure economic wealth without direct crown expenditure. Hindered by administrative inefficiency and initial corporate instability, he continually reshapes legal charters to preserve royal supremacy, enforce allegiance oaths, and install direct gubernatorial authority over the plantation.

Sir Thomas Gates wants to establish order and secure vital food supplies for a struggling colony. Confronted by Spanish maritime threats and indigenous resistance, he receives absolute executive authority, leading a fleet of six hundred settlers to institute compulsory labor policies and build permanent official residences in Jamestown.

Powhatan seeks to preserve his regional sovereignty and protect his people from English encirclement. Caught between corporate expansion and military pressure, he faces English demands for heavy annual tributes of corn, skins, and labor, alongside strategies aimed at educating his young successors in Christian customs.

Sir Francis Wyatt desires to establish long-term economic stability, religious unity, and legal order as Governor. Facing past corruption, disputed land claims, and administrative disorganization, he executes sweeping directives that mandate precise mapping, regulate local fees, and oversee the inauguration of a permanent Council and General Assembly.

William Cleyburne aims to systematically measure and divide the vast Virginian wilderness. Impeded by unmapped terrain, mountain barriers, and boundary disputes among planters, he utilizes specialized surveying tools to chart rivers, highways, and plantation borders, creating the physical foundation for durable property ownership.

In Its Own Voice

The King’s initial patent establishes strict distance limits between settlements to prevent territorial conflict between rival corporate ventures:

Provided alwaies, and our will and pleasure herein is, that the plantacion and habitacion of suche of the saide Colonies as shall laste plante themselves, as aforesaid, shall not be made within one hundred like Englishe miles of the other of them that firste beganne to make theire plantacion, as aforesaide.

Instructions to colonial governors outline a firm policy regarding local indigenous leaders to secure corporate economic interests:

For Powhaton and his Weroances it is clere even to reason beside our experience that he loved not our neighbourhood and therefore you may no way trust him, but if you finde it not best to make him your prisoner yet you must make him your tributary...

Final instructions mandate careful technical planning to avoid ongoing property disputes and structure future infrastructure:

Item: that ther be espetiall care taken both of generall and particular survaies wherby not onlie a true mapp and face of the whole country, costs, creeks, rivers, highe ground & lowe ground, &c., may bee exactlie discoverid, but also the boundaries of the severall hundreds and plantacions...

What It's Really About

At its core, this collection investigates how administrative law and joint-stock capitalism combine to project state power across an ocean. The core argument reveals that American self-governance did not emerge from abstract political theory, but from practical corporate adaptations to distance, financial loss, and management failure. The text explores the tension between authoritarian commercial command and the necessity of granting civil liberties to attract permanent settlers. Beneath the formal legal prose lies a profound question: how can a society balance private investor profits, royal allegiance, and the civil rights of colonists? Ultimately, these documents show how legal mechanisms designed for corporate profit gradually transformed into institutional guarantees of representative democracy and private property.

Why Read It Today

Legal historians, political scientists, and students of early American history will find this collection indispensable. Reading these foundational charters offers a rare, unfiltered encounter with the actual administrative machinery of early empire, revealing the precise legal vocabulary and structural logic that shaped colonial America. The experience of reading it feels rigorous and unvarnished, demanding patient concentration to navigate complex seventeenth-century legal syntax, archaic spelling, and exhaustive cataloging of aristocratic joint-stock investors.

Modern readers must also confront period attitudes that candidly document aggressive imperial ambitions, including coercive economic strategies aimed at subjugating native populations and mandatory religious compliance under the Church of England. Yet what stays with you long after closing the volume is the remarkable speed with which commercial decrees evolved into lasting legal precedents. The collection vividly illustrates how corporate provisions for land tenure, official survey lines, and parliamentary assembly directly laid the groundwork for modern constitutional governance in North America, making it an essential portrait of political origins.