Chapter 4: Friends, Foes, and Food
In early December 1635, the delegates from Virginia returned from their negotiations with King Charles I. Much to the dismay of the General Assembly and William Capps (who had been serving as interim Governor), John Harvey was on this ship.
The mood in the crowd changed dramatically when Harvey made his announcement: His Majesty had ordered John Harvey reinstated as governor… until 1636 [1]. The united front presented by Anglicans and Catholics alike convinced the King that Harvey’s performance was well and truly terrible, rather than believing Harvey’s claim of some slanderous conspiracy. Cecil Calvert, Lord Baltimore, also stepped in to lobby against Harvey, per instructions from Leonard.
Cecil’s lobbying was also enough to push through another major request: the appointment of William Capps as the official Governor of Virginia. Even the largely Anglican delegation was willing to give Cecil some credit for convincing Charles.
Capps himself proved to be an excellent choice in the King’s eyes. He was one of the primary agitators who petitioned Charles I to take over the Colony from the Virginia Company, so the claims of Harvey’s mismanagement rang truer by association.
The Governorship of William Capps was fairly uneventful, all things considered. After the purported tyranny of John Harvey, Capps opted to take a hands-off approach. Most policy in 1636 was dictated by the General Assembly, with Capps usually providing a rubber stamp to whatever they proposed. As such, he facilitated the further expansion of plantations up the James River.
That was not to say Capps was totally passive. He had two priorities as Governor: carrying out the will of the Crown and building up Jamestown. As soon as he took office, a Puritan faction of the Assembly led by Richard Bennett sought to test his principles by calling for the expulsion of Catholics from the Colony. Before Leonard Calvert could offer a defense, Capps furiously shut down the debate by suggesting such defiance of the Catholic Doctrine bordered on treason.
“I have no praise for the papists,” Capps said (much to Calvert’s chagrin) “But it is not our role to question the laws of His Majesty” [2].
Capps also sought to expand on his work from the 1620s by commissioning notable improvements to Jamestown. He previously pushed hard for more artisans in the Colony and by God he was going to make use of them. In particular, he commissioned three improvements at the start of 1636: a new statehouse, a warehouse designated for non-tobacco exports, and new fortifications [3].
William Capps’s governorship looked to be a rousing success, save for one roadbump: he died a year into office. On January 9, 1637, he was found dead in his plantation home in Elizabeth City. He was 61 [4].
By vote of the General Assembly, John West served as interim Governor while they waited for King Charles I to appoint Capps’s replacement. Some men suggested sending another delegation to lobby for West’s appointment, but the General Assembly ultimately opted to leave the decision up the King, recognizing that they were pushing their luck last time.
On November 7, 1637, a ship anchored near Jamestown. On it was a man virtually unknown to the Virginian settlers. At 32 years old, the man held no significant titles or achievements, but was nevertheless a friend and distant relative (by marriage) of the King. When he greeted the General Assembly in the partially constructed statehouse, he spoke with a quick wit and gentlemanly charm. This stranger introduced himself as Governor William Berkely [5].
The colonists were initially nervous about this young, unknown figure. In some ways, this was justified. He was a complete newcomer to the colony and thus had no direct experience with the climate, new world plantations, the Powhatan, or the political drama of the Virginia Company and John Harvey. He had an agenda of his own and a stated distaste for tobacco. He also quickly demonstrated a large ego, talking down to the less-educated members of the General Assembly on multiple occasions in an effort to pull rank.
Fortunately, Berkeley had his upsides. He was a well-educated member of the English gentry, meaning he had extensive knowledge of business and agriculture (even if planting in Virginia was new to him). He was a personal friend of the King and staunch loyalist, which angered the Puritans, but appealed to most of the General Assembly, especially Leonard Calvert. He was an expert at understanding the factionalism and politics of Virginia’s elite and quite deft at navigating them, which helped keep the peace. And despite his ego, he had no desire to play tyrant.
In fact, Berkeley’s governorship started with a major peace offering to the wary colonists: a proposed reform to the General Assembly that came with official recognition from the Crown. The General Assembly would split into a bicameral body. The Governor’s Council turned into the upper house, the Council of State, while the elected members would form the lower house, the House of Burgesses. The Governor himself would be removed from the legislature, retaining only the ability to appoint members of the Council of State and propose bills to both houses. Otherwise, he would have no power to alter or control the General Assembly without an act of the King [6]. With this gift, the colonists were largely willing to accept Berkeley as one of their own and give his agenda a chance.
A few of Berkeley’s top goals was shared with Capps’s administration. Most notably, he pushed hard for the diversification of Virginia’s export economy. Yet, when he first pitched the idea to the Council of State, he was met with protests of “We don’t know what else grows here,” and “Why fix what isn’t broken?”
Not content to leave the issue at that, Berkeley began experimenting with various crops in his free time at his Green Spring plantation. He experimented with grains like wheat, rice, and barley; fruits like lemons, oranges, and grapes; and even silk. He found greatest success with rice, theorizing it would grow even better in a slightly warmer climate to the south.
Though other planters were reluctant to adopt rice at first, his success with the crop and incessant preaching to the General Assembly about the economic benefits of diverse exports encouraged plantations to pick it up one by one. He even helped teach less educated planters how to work the new crop. By the mid-1640s, rice solidified its place as Virginia’s second cash crop, albeit far from tobacco’s popularity. Rice also made its way into Virginian cuisine after one of Berkeley’s slaves taught him how to make a few West African rice dishes. From this humble start, Jollof Rice would go on to be a staple of Virginian cuisine for centuries [7].
Berkeley also had dreams of spurring major expansions to the Colony, and thus commissioned expeditions to the mountains to the west, plains and valleys to the southwest, coast to the south, and the bay to the north [8].
The northern expedition came back with a major surprise. They had expected to find a few nice harbors and new native tribes to size up and trade with – both of which they indeed found. They also anticipated southern outposts of the New Netherland Colony. They found settlers at the mouth of the South River (later known as the Delaware River), but they weren’t Dutch, they were Swedish. This threw many of the more politically minded Virginians for a loop. They knew that the Swedish Empire was powerful, but never considered them to be a potential colonial rival. Some colonists grumbled at the loss of valuable land, while others (notably William Claiborne) saw the fledgling New Sweden as a potential trade partner.
The southwest expedition revealed lands rich with valuable furs. However, there was no water route from the James to that region, meaning expansion into the region would have to wait until they had a more secure hold on the continent.
The southern expedition revealed a coastal plain very similar to what they had already settled. Berkeley would later ask them to return to plant rice and discovered that, as he had theorized, the land was ideal for the crop. The explorers also reported a chain of barrier islands, leaving the coast easily defended (albeit less so than the Chesapeake Bay).
The western expedition didn’t return at all. Fears of an accident or attack by the natives festered until finally a strange bit of news reached Jamestown. A plantation far up the James received delegates from Weroance Opechancanough of the Powhatan. Opechancanough’s men admitted to capturing the expedition and demanded that Governor Berkeley meet to discuss their intrusion into Powhatan land.
Berkeley would ultimately agree to the meeting, travelling with Claiborne and a small garrison – enough to protect them, but not enough to spark fears of an invasion.
When Berkeley finally met Opechancanough, the Weroance was furious. He accused the explorers of being scouts and spies laying the groundwork for further English intrusions into Powhatan lands. He was partially right, but Berkeley insisted that the explorers were merely conducting a survey.
Berkeley wasn’t the first Englishman to lie to Opechancanough and frankly even if he were telling the truth, Opechancanough wouldn’t have trusted his word. He declared that the scouting party amounted to an act of war – perhaps an exaggeration, but a successful one, judging by the panicked reaction among the Virginian delegation. Even though Berkeley had not been part of the Anglo-Powhatan Wars himself, he had heard just how much of a disaster they were from his advisors.
Berkeley offered a deal: in exchange for the captured men and a guarantee of peace, he would bar Virginians from pushing farther into Powhatan lands. It took some tense negotiating over the exact boundary line, but eventually the two parties came to an agreement.
Once the Virginians left, an advisor asked Opechancanough if they could really trust the Englishmen not to expand.
“Certainly not,” said the Weroance. “These Englishmen are like poison ivy. They will continue to spread until cut down, and will wither whatever they touch.” He ordered his men to begin training. War was not here yet, but they would be prepared when it came [9].
Before revealing the shaky peace he had negotiated, Governor Berkeley ordered the construction of a series of forts along the far reaches of the James River and drafted legislation calling for the strengthening of local militias.
The peace deal was met with burning outrage in the House of Burgesses, with the decision to limit settlement seen as tyranny of the highest order. However, Berkeley was able to restore some order when he explained his reasoning.
“If the stories you told me are true,” said the Governor, “Then we cannot trust the Powhatan to stop their raiding for long. And when they show their true colors, we will make them pay.” War was not here yet, but when it came, Virginia would claim its rightful dominance over the continent.
The planters calmed down at the notion of the border being temporary. Berkeley further satiated them by promising to appeal to the King to expand the Colony’s borders, allowing more settlements to the north and south [10].
While Virginia’s relationship with the Powhatan looked to collapse within years, Berkeley strove to improve relations with other bordering tribes. William Claiborne, whose Kent Island settlement was growing by the year, successfully lobbied to prioritize trade with the tribes to the north, such as the Lenape, Susquehannock, and Choptank.
To facilitate this northern trade expansion, connect with the colonies of New Netherland and New Sweden, and hopefully block those colonies from expanding south, Claiborne and Calvert partnered to found a small trading post at the mouth of the Susquehannock River. The post would have an informal, subservient business relationship with Kent Island and be run primarily by Catholic landowners from St. Mary’s City.
After a long debate over the settlement’s name, the two men decided on something rather unconventional for an English town: Skanderborg. Named for a town and castle in Denmark, it served as a tribute to King Charles I’s mother, Anne of Denmark, who was born there. Denmark was also a fitting source of inspiration, as both the settlement and country were in close proximity to Swedes.
Berkeley’s last initial priority was another carryover from Capps. On the order of the King, he set out to improve Jamestown. While it was a long, long way from a city of grandeur, he set out to make some basic improvements to quality of life. To fight the early spring mud, he commissioned a series of brick and cobblestone roads to the town’s major buildings. To help build those roads, he continued Capps’s investment in local artisans, and pushed for additional housing to keep them in the community.
Despite its ups and downs, William Berkeley considered the first few years of his governorship to be a success. He would do everything in his power to maintain that success in the coming years, even as England loomed on the verge of disaster, threatening to drag Virginia down with it [11].
[1] OTL royal clerks quoted the King as saying he had to reinstate Harvey, even if for one day, to assert his authority. Harvey ultimately got reinstated for his full term (at least, until he was overthrown again), but with the caveat that his term could be cut short by bad behavior. ITTL a combination of better arguments by the Virginians and another factor soon to be discussed convince Charles I to cut his term short. This all happens much faster than OTL due to the Virginian delegation taking Harvey straight to and from London, rather than him lollygagging around England for months.
[2] There’s no specific records regarding Capps’s opinion of Catholics, but given he was a 17th Century English Protestant, one can assume he wasn’t a fan. That being said, he was a strong loyalist who frequently put the will of the Crown above his own personal gain.
[3] Hosting government affairs in an Anglican church was, as Leonard Calvert observed, hostile to the new Catholic colonists – plus church and state affairs got in each others’ way in the shared space. The warehouse reflected Capps’s desire to diversify the Colonia economy in OTL. New and improved fortifications were also a natural choice for a man who’d lived through the second Anglo-Powhatan war and driven out an entire village to build a plantation.
[4] As mentioned in Chapter 2, Capps’s date of death in OTL is unclear. However, 1637 seems to be the most consistent date. Plus, it gives extra time for our next governor, so I’ll go with it for now.
[5] 4 years earlier than Berkeley came to power in OTL.
[6] He did this at the start of his first term in 1642 in OTL.
[7] Berkeley found moderate success with rice IOTL, spreading it to Carolina, but it didn’t catch on as a major crop. ITTL, he has more time as governor (particularly before the English Civil War), giving him more time to successfully encourage widespread cultivation. The story about Berkeley learning rice dishes from a slave came from OTL, though the dish was never specified, so I chose Jollof.
[8] OTL Berkeley himself led the expeditions into what would become Carolina, but stays behind to govern ITTL. The absence of Maryland to the north encourages him to send expeditions north ITTL to better pin down the foreign colonies of the Mid-Atlantic.
[9] The Third Anglo-Powhatan War is pushed back, but likely not butterflied entirely.
[10] By expanding Virginia’s charter to the south, Berkeley has butterflied Carolina. Like Rhode Island, I didn’t go into this TL intending to get rid of it, but it made sense when I got to it. Beeg Virginia is inevitable.
[11] But that’s a story for another day! Next time, we’ll look into some more goings on in New England, and after that we’ll finally delve into the wild world of the English Civil War.