ey happened to live in the
colonies was illegal. Dutch ships called often, though perhaps not so
frequently as some have believed, and individual Virginians traded as
they pleased with the Dutch and English colonies in America.

EXPANSION IN VIRGINIA, 1650-1656

The existence of a weak executive, dependent on the people for his
authority, inevitably brought about a dispersal of power and authority
from the center to the outer edges of settlement. The explosive force
of expansion was no longer limited by the strong hand of a royal
Governor, and each increment of population in the colony and power in
the hands of the local authorities added fuel to the combustion.

One of Virginia's frontiers at this time was the Eastern Shore. It was a
frontier community because the law of the colonial government in
Jamestown rarely extended to it. The local commissioners of the county
court, later called "justices," provided what justice existed on the
Eastern Shore. But since these commissioners were sometimes the worst
offenders against the policies of the Governor, Council, and Burgesses,
justice was often sacrificed to interest, especially when Indians were
involved. The leaders on the Eastern Shore, like Edmund Scarborough,
were among the richest men and greatest landowners of the colony. They
conducted the county's business as if it were their own, which indeed it
was to a great extent. Their oppression of the Eastern Shore Indians
makes a sorry history, despite the efforts of Governor Berkeley to
restrain them. In April 1650, for example, Berkeley was forced to write
to the commissioners of Northampton asking them not to allow any land to
be taken from the Laughing King Indians. Berkeley pointed out that
during the massacre of 1644 these Indians had remained faithful to the
English. How could Virginia expect them to do the same again, asked
Berkeley, "unless we correspond with them in acts of charity and amity,
especially unless we abstain from acts of rapine and violence, which
they say we begin to do, by taking away their land from them, by
pretence of the sale of a patent."

Honest attempts were made both before and after the retirement of Sir
William Berkeley in 1652 to restrain the frontier barons in their savage
attacks on unsuspecting Indian towns. But often the law was too weak and
the guilty too strong. Neither the Indians in front of them nor the
government behind them had the power to curb their desires except in