London Virginia Company

(noun)

An English joint stock business established by royal charter and James I of England on April 10, 1606, with the purpose of establishing colonial settlements in North America.

Related Terms

Examples of London Virginia Company in the following topics:

  • The Coming of the English

    • Financed by the Muscovy Company, Martin Frobisher set sail in 1576, seeking the Northwest Passage.
    • Proprietors were appointed to found and govern settlements under mercantile charters granted to joint stock companies.
    • The Plymouth Company was given the northern portions, and the London Company was given the southern portions.
    • However, the London Virginia Company created the first successful English overseas settlements at Jamestown in 1607.
    • This map illustrates the 1606 grants by James I to the London and Plymouth companies.

  • English Colonies

    • The Thirteen Colonies were the colonies on the Atlantic coast of North America, starting with Virginia in 1607 and ending with Georgia in 1733.
    • The colonies were Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Georgia, Connecticut, Massachusetts Bay, Maryland, South Carolina, New Hampshire, Virginia, New York, North Carolina, and Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.
    • The business venture was financed and coordinated by the London Virginia Company, which was a joint stock company looking for gold.
    • The Jamestown colony became a small city within the larger colony of Virginia (which became an economically successful colony due to tobacco).
    • The first attempted English settlement south of Virginia was the Province of Carolina.

  • Jamestown, Virginia

    • Jamestown was a settlement in the Colony of Virginia established by the Virginia Company of London in 1607.
    • On June 10, 1610, retreating settlers were intercepted a few miles downriver by a supply mission from London which brought much-needed supplies and additional settlers.
    • Simultaneously, however, Virginia was declared a "crown colony", meaning that charter was transferred from the Virginia Company to the Crown of England, making Jamestown a colony now run by the English monarchy.
    • In 1624, King James revoked the Virginia Company's charter, and Virginia became a royal colony.
    • Smith's map of Virginia from The Generall Historie of Virginia, New-England, and the Summer Isles, 1624

  • Settling the Southern Colonies

    • The Southern Colonies, including Maryland, the Carolinas, Virginia, and Georgia were established during the 16th and 17th centuries.
    • At the time, they consisted of South Carolina, North Carolina, Maryland, Virginia, and Georgia; their historical names were the Colony and Dominion of Virginia, the Province of Carolina, and the Province of Georgia.
    • The Colony of Virginia existed briefly during the 16th century and then continuously from 1607 until the American Revolution.
    • The name "Virginia" was first applied by Sir Walter Raleigh and Queen Elizabeth I in 1584, when Raleigh established a colony on the island of Roanoke off the coast of Virginia.
    • Charles I eventually granted proprietary charters to the Plymouth Company and the London Company.

  • The Habit of Self-Government

    • The Mayflower was originally bound for the Colony of Virginia, financed by the Company of Merchant Adventurers of London.
    • This inspired the passengers to proclaim, since the settlement would not be made in the Virginia territory as agreed, that they would use their own liberty and that no one had power to command them.

  • Virginia

    • James granted a proprietary charter to two competing branches of the Virginia Company: the Plymouth Company and the London Company.
    • The London Company sent its expedition in December of 1606 and came ashore at the Chesapeake Bay, an event which has come to be called the "First Landing."
    • The London Company sent supply ships to the colony three times, but these were sometimes delayed and left the colonists with little in the way of food and supplies.
    • Simultaneously, however, Virginia was declared a "crown colony," meaning the charter was transferred from the Virginia Company to the Crown of England, making Jamestown a colony now run by the English monarchy.
    • In 1624, King James revoked the Virginia Company's charter, and Virginia became a royal colony.

  • English Administration of the Colonies

    • These governments were all subordinate to the king in London and had no explicit relationship with the British Parliament.
    • Each colony had a paid colonial agent in London to represent its interests.
    • Provincial colonies included New Hampshire, New York, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and eventually Massachusetts.
    • Charter colonies, also known as corporate colonies or joint stock companies, included Rhode Island, Providence Plantation, and Connecticut.
    • A joint stock company was a project in which investors would buy shares of stock in building a new colony.

  • England and the High Seas

    • In 1603, James VI, King of Scots, ascended (as James I) to the English throne and in 1604 negotiated the Treaty of London, ending hostilities with Spain.
    • England's first permanent settlement in the Americas was founded in 1607 in Jamestown, led by Captain John Smith and managed by the Virginia Company.
    • The Virginia Company's charter was revoked in 1624 and direct control of Virginia was assumed by the crown, thereby founding the Colony of Virginia.
    • African slaves working in 17th-century Virginia (tobacco cultivation), by an unknown artist, 1670.
    • In 1672, the Royal African Company was inaugurated, receiving from King Charles a monopoly of the trade to supply slaves to the British colonies of the Caribbean.

  • The Anglican Class

    • Virginia was the largest, most populous, and most important colony.
    • The Church of England was legally established; the bishop of London made it a favorite missionary target and sent in 22 clergyman by 1624.
    • When the elected assembly, the House of Burgesses, was established in 1619, it enacted religious laws that made Virginia a bastion of Anglicanism.
    • The dissenters grew much faster than the established church, making religious division a factor in Virginia politics into the Revolution.

  • Calls for a Stronger Constitution

    • On March 25–28, 1785, delegates from Virginia and Maryland met at George Washington's estate in Mount Vernon, Virginia.
    • Thomas Jenifer, and Thomas Stone of Maryland; and Alexander Henderson and George Mason of Virginia.
    • James Madison and Edmund Randolph were also appointed as Virginia delegates but Virginia Governor Patrick Henry failed to inform them in time, so they were unable to attend.
    • These issues were not addressed directly by the Articles of Confederation, which regulated the 13 largely independent states at the time, nor by the authorization of the Potomac Company a year earlier, which was to regulate the Potomac above the Great Falls.
    • Ratified by both Maryland and Virginia, it declared the Potomac, which was under Maryland's sole jurisdiction, to be a common waterway for use by Virginia as well.