onstituted them as sovereign rulers, although their charters were
subject to revision or amendment. The London Company, thrice chartered
to take over to itself the land and resources of Virginia and populate
its zone of rule, was endowed with sweeping rights and privileges which
made it an absolute monopoly. The impecunious noblemen or gentlemen who
transported themselves to Virginia to recoup their dissipated fortunes
or seek adventure, encountered no trouble in getting large grants of
land especially when after 1614 tobacco became a fashionable article in
England and took rank as a valuable commercial commodity.

Over this colony now spread planters who hastened to avail themselves of
this new-found means of getting rich. Land and climate alike favored
them, but they were confronted with a scarcity of labor. The emergency
was promptly met by the buying of white servants in England to be resold
in Virginia to the highest bidder. This, however, was not sufficient,
and complaints poured over to the English government. As the demands of
commerce had to be sustained at any price, a system was at once put into
operation of gathering in as many of the poorer English class as could
be impressed upon some pretext, and shipping them over to be held as
bonded laborers. Penniless and lowly Englishmen, arrested and convicted
for any one of the multitude of offenses then provided for severely in
law, were transported as criminals or sold into the colonies as slaves
for a term of years. The English courts were busy grinding out human
material for the Virginia plantations; and, as the objects of commerce
were considered paramount, this process of disposing of what was
regarded as the scum element was adjudged necessary and justifiable. No
voice was raised in protest.

THE INTRODUCTION OF BLACK SLAVES.

But, fast as the English courts might work, they did not supply laborers
enough. It was with exultation that in 1619 the plantation owners were
made acquainted with a new means of supplying themselves with adequate
workers. A Dutch ship arrived at Jamestown with a cargo of negroes from
Guinea. The blacks were promptly bought at good prices by the planters.
From this time forth the problem of labor was considered sufficiently
solved. As chattel slavery harmonized well with the necessities of
tobacco growing and gain, it was accepted as a just condition and was
continued by the planters, whose interests and standards were the
dominan