James I chartered the Virginia Company in 1606 to plant a profitable English colony on the Atlantic seaboard and deny the ground to Spain. Jamestown, founded in May 1607, very nearly failed again and again — to starvation, disease, and war with the Powhatan Confederacy. The company haemorrhaged investors, fell some £9,000 into debt by 1618, and resorted to running public lotteries to keep the lights on. Tobacco, not the gold its backers had imagined, became the only thing the colony could sell.
The end came in two blows. On 22 March 1622 Opechancanough’s coordinated attack killed around 347 colonists — close to a third of the English population in Virginia. A Crown inquiry the following year found the company’s accounts in disorder and its governance reckless. On 24 May 1624 James dissolved the charter and assumed direct control of the colony. Shareholders received nothing; the company that built the first lasting English foothold in America was wound up without ever paying a dividend, and Virginia became a possession of the Crown.
Worth remembering
- To stay afloat as investors fled, the company ran England's first national lotteries (1612–1621), raising £7,000 in 1620 alone before Parliament shut them down.
- Its 1619 General Assembly at Jamestown was the first elected legislative body in the Americas, and John Rolfe's tobacco gave the colony its first export that could actually pay.
Sources
- The Virginia Company's charter was revoked on 24 May 1624 after a Privy Council investigation, and Virginia became a royal colony Encyclopedia Virginia (Virginia Humanities)
- The company fell roughly £9,000 into debt by 1618; Opechancanough's attack of 22 March 1622 killed about 347 colonists out of a population of some 4,270 U.S. National Park Service (Historic Jamestowne)
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