Notes:BC1:Virginia and New England, a new kind of colony

2014/05/28 User:Jeff

In 1606, England's King James I wrote into the first Virginia charter that the colonists and their posterity "shall have and enjoy all liberties franchises, and immunities within any of our other dominions, to all intents and purposes as if they had been abiding and born within this our realm of England or any other of our said dominions." (Channing Vol I page 60). In doing so, James established that English colonies in America would be unlike any other colonies in History - and in particular, the American colonies of France and Spain. English colonists would be considered citizens who enjoyed the protection of English Common Law, the same as those who remained in the relative safety of civilization back home. In Channing's words: "Go where he would, so long as he settled on land claimed by England and acknowledged to the English crown, the Englishman carried with him as much of the common Law of England as was applicable to his situation and was not repugnant to his other rights and privileges"

For some 15 or 20 years, such rights were completely beside the point for the Virginia colonists whose biggest issues were disease, starvation and Indian arrows. But as American immigrants learned how to survive such conditions and the American wilderness was slowly tamed, the rights of the colonists became a dominating issue that ultimately resulted in independence and the United States of America. That way the English colonial charters defined individual rights, tying them to Common Law and the allowance or denial of local legislation and self rule played a defining role in the political attitudes of the colonists and their relationship with England and their king.

Here is how liberty was shaped in colonial America by the progression of charters in Virginia and New England.

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