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Chapter 1 The Conquest of Eden Possession and Dominion in Early Virginia James Horn After good deliberation, hee [Wahunsonacock] began to describe mee the Countreys beyond the Falles, with many of the rest . . . Nations upon the toppe of the heade of the Bay . . . the Southerly Countries also . . . [and] a countrie called Anone, where they have an abundance of Brasse, and houses walled as ours. I requited his discourse, seeing what pride hee had in his great and spacious Dominions, seeing that all hee knew were under his Territories. —John Smith The land which we have searched out is a very good land, [and] if the Lord love us, he will bring our people to it, and will give it us for a possession. —Robert Johnson By the early 1580s, few promoters of colonization—whether statesmen, merchants, or scholars—seriously doubted England’s right to take possession of those parts of the Americas uninhabited by Christians. Sir George Peckham invoked the ‘‘Law of Nations,’’ which sanctioned trade between Christians and ‘‘Infidels or Savages,’’ the ‘‘Law of Armes’’ which allowed the taking of foreign lands by force, and the Law of God, which enjoined Christian rulers to settle those lands ‘‘for the establishment of God’s worde’’ to justify English claims. In ancient times and ‘‘since the nativitie of Christ,’’ he pointed out, ‘‘mightie and puissant Emperours and Kings have performed the like, I say to plant, possesse, and subdue.’’ Spain’s exclusive claims to the New World—by virtue of first discovery and papal donation—were explicitly rejected. Elizabeth I did not understand why she or any ‘‘Princes subjects should be debarred from the Indies, which she could not perswade herself the Spaniard had any just Title to by the Bishop of Rome’s Donation.’’ With laudable pragmatism if shaky geography, Richard Grenville advocated the establishment of English colonies in South 26 James Horn America on the grounds that ‘‘since the Portugall hath attained one parte of the newe founde worlde to the Este, the Spaniarde an other to the weste, the Frenche the thirde to the northe: nowe the fourthe to the southe is by gods providence lefte for Englande.’’1 The voyages of Martin Frobisher to Terra Incognita in search of a northwest passage and gold between 1576 and 1578 and Sir Humphrey Gilbert’s ill-fated attempt to establish plantations in Newfoundland and along the northern seaboard conjured up what seemed to be a very real possibility of the English becoming the dominant power in the North Atlantic. John Dee, the Hermetic magus who influenced a generation of mariners and explorers, believed an Imperium britannicum was imminent. Claiming America for the English on the grounds of discovery and conquest by the Welsh prince, Owen Madoc, the legendary King Arthur centuries before, and voyages of John and Sebastian Cabot in the reign of Henry VII, he set out the queen’s right to take possession of ‘‘foreyn Regions’’: By the ‘‘same Order that other Christian Princes do now adayes make Conquests uppon the heathen people, we allso have to procede herein: both to Recover the Premisses, and likewise by Conquest to enlarge the Bownds of the foresayd Title Royall.’’ Richard Hakluyt the younger, the greatest propagandist of his age, was perplexed that ‘‘since the first discoverie of America (which is nowe full fourscore and tenne yeeres), after so great conquests and plantings by the Spaniardes and Portingales there, that wee of Englande could never have the grace to set fast footing in such fertill and temperate places as are left us yet unpossessed of them.’’ Founding colonies would be a clear signal of England’s intent to stake a claim to American lands and seas as other European powers had done, and not to be shut out of the New World by the Spanish or anyone else. The crown’s dominions would be enlarged, the treasury’s coffers filled, and national honor satisfied. The ‘‘plantinge of twoo or three strong fortes upon some goodd havens’’ on the mainland between Florida and Cape Breton would provide convenient bases for fleets of privateers operating in American waters, eventually weakening Spanish power in the Old World as well as the New. Finally, as the most forward-looking writers such as Christopher Carleill, Peckham, and the two Richard Hakluyts pointed out, colonies would promote valuable commerce and long-term prosperity, as well as social and economic well being at home.2 But while the English had little doubt about the justice of their...

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