Program Information

When the early colonists departed England bound for Virginia, they left behind a society divided by class, rank, wealth and religion, but also one uniquely unified in its view of the world. "Jamestown: A Fruitful Soil" provides a historical overview of the people and events of 17th-century Virginia.

Transcript

When the early colonists departed England bound for Virginia, they left behind a society divided by class, rank, wealth and religion, but also one uniquely unified in its view of the world.

I’m Steve Clark with “Jamestown – A Fruitful Soil” a celebration of Virginia’s Quadricentennial, sponsored by Jamestown Settlement, a living history museum in the Williamsburg area of Virginia.

Accustomed as we are to the egalitarian outlook of the 21st century, it’s hard to imagine that most of those colonists embarking on the long sea voyage west to the New World were generally content living in a society that was anything but equal. Just 10% of the population owned 75% of the land. The majority King James’ subjects lived in one-room cottages with mud/clay walls and thatched roofs, no glass windows, and few room partitions…or they were crammed into dirty, disease-ridden, multi-storied and crowded city tenements.

Politics was dominated by that same 10% owning most of the property. This tiny faction was the political nation, united by kinship, shared wealth and outlook. They were the nobility sitting in the House of Lords, the younger sons of the nobles and the gentry and merchants who went up to Westminster to the House of Commons, and the Sheriffs and Justices of the Peace who enforced the laws back in the counties and in the streets of the towns and cities.

Despite the disparities, there was a remarkable unity in the shared world view, that England was arranged in a rigid social hierarchy stretching from King to lowest peasant. Little did the settlers know, as they stowed their possessions in the holds of Susan Constant, Godspeed, and Discovery, they would be leaving England’s structured society and would be planting on the shores of the Chesapeake, a new kind of society… rougher, riskier, harder… but where talent, sweat and opportunity would create a nation that would change the world.

To learn more, visit History is Fun dot org.

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