Edwin Sandys took over the Virginia Company 12 years after she began. During that period, Virginia struggled from one horror to another. Sandys’ election came at a time when Virginia seemed to finally be taking prosperous shape, but though Virginia was proving to be profitable, the Company was in serious debt.
Sandys oversaw the incredible plantation boom as well as all of the important 1619 Virginian firsts, but though things were improving in the colony, political situations in England threatened the colony’s parent company.
Sandys had many powerful enemies, none more powerful than King James, who turned against the Virginia Company leader after the European Thirty Years’ War erupted. Sandys, the Member of Parliament, crossed the King over budgetary issues surrounding James’ desire to play a part in Europe. King James was not amused. He jailed Sandys, and then began craftily moving to undo the Virginia Company.
In spite of the King’s attempts, the Company persevered, that is, it lasted until a horrific report arrived in July 1622. That report left the Company in tatters once and for all.
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Sir Edwin Sandys, Member of Parliament, and Treasurer of the Virginia Company
SOURCES:
Billings, Warren M.; Selby, John E.; and Tate, Thad W. Colonial Virginia: A History. White Plains, NY: KTO Press. 1986.
Craven, Wesley Frank. White, Red, and Black: The Seventeenth Century Virginian. Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, 1977.
Craven, Wesley Frank. The Southern Colonies in the Seventeenth Century: 1607-1689. LSU Press, 1949
Craven, Wesley Frank. The Virginia Company of London: 1606-1624. Williamsburg, VA: Jamestown 350th Anniversary, 1957.
Dabney, Virginius. Virginia: The New Dominion, A History from 1607 to the Present. Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, 1971.
Hatch, Charles. The First Seventeen Years: Virginia 1607-1624. Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, 1991.
Horn, James. A Land as God Made It: Jamestown and the Birth of America. New York: Basic Books, 2005.
Hume, Ivor Noel. Here Lies Virginia. New York: Alfred Knopf, 1963.
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Kupperman, Karen Ordhal. The Jamestown Project. Cambridge, MA: The Belknapp Press of Harvard University Press, 2007.
Mapp, Alfred J. Virginia Experiment: The Old Dominion’s Role in the Making of America, 1607-1781. Lincoln, NE: iUniverse, Inc., 2006.
Price, David A. Love and Hate in Jamestown: John Smith, Pocahontas, and the Start of a New Nation. New York: Vintage, 2003.
Rothbard, Murray N. Conceived in Liberty. Auburn, AL: Ludwig Von Mises Institute, 1999.
Smith, John. The Generall History of Virginia. 1624.
Strachey, William. Collected Works on the Internet Archive.
Tyler, Lyon Gardiner. The Cradle of the Republic: Jamestown and the James River. Richmond, VA: The Hermitage Press, 1906.
Wallenstein, Peter. Cradle of America: Four Centuries of Virginia History. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2007.
Williams, Tony. The Jamestown Experiment: The Remarkable Story of The Enterprising Colony and the Unexpected Results that Shaped America. Naperville, IL: Sourcebooks, 2011.
Wooley, Benjamin. Savage Kingdom: The True Story of Jamestown, 1607, and the Settlement of America. New York: Harper and Collins, 2007.
King James I of Engalnd and VI of Scotland. Portrait by Paul van Somer, 1620.
All photography used on this site is owned and copyrighted by the author. The Featured Image is of the Virginia Company’s Seal available on Wikipedia. The other two images, Sir Edwin Sandys and King James I are also available on Wikipedia.
Music used for this episode – Louis Armstrong and the Mills Brothers,”Carry Me Back to Old Virginia” available on iTunes, and “King and Lionheart” by Of Monsters and Men also available on iTunes.
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