For God, King, and People: Forging Commonwealth Bonds in Renaissance Virginia by Alexander B. Haskell (review)

In this excellent book, Alexander B. Haskell reconstructs the Renaissance worldviews of the boosters of English colonization, tracing the evolution of these ideas from the reign of Queen Elizabeth I through the late seventeenth century. Those who favored establishing English settlements in Virginia held varied visions for expansion abroad, and Haskell posits that their plans were rooted in a deep belief in the role of the divine in driving settlement. He reveals the complexities of the views of colonial officials in England and leaders in Virginia by drawing on a truly impressive volume of materials, written by promoters and detractors of colonization, including not only treatises by thinkers such as Thomas Hobbes and official proclamations but also poetry and drama. Moving beyond existing scholarship that focuses on the practical reasons for the lack of state support for early Virginia colonization, Haskell uncovers the logic underlying the nascent stages of English power abroad.

For God, King, and People: Forging Commonwealth Bonds in Renaissance Virginia frames the early history of Virginia around questions of religious belief and theories of government with deep implications for the eventual development of the American colonies. As Haskell explains in five substantial chapters, at its creation Virginia was conceived by its promoters as a commonwealth with its own legitimacy rather than as just a subsidiary to a sovereign state, a concept that would only develop later as a result of power struggles with the Crown. Haskell convincingly argues for a shift in the language and conceptualization of the colonies after the upheavals of the mid-seventeenth century, as monarchs concerned with harnessing Virginia as a source of income imposed new restrictions on colonists' ability to exercise power from American shores. Under Elizabeth, colonists had asserted the validity of their undertakings by explaining they were ultimately fulfilling the will of God rather than relying only on permissions given by earthly authorities. This early colonization was driven by "captains," whose undertakings gained legitimacy from beyond the queen's sometimes-challenged monarchy (p. 86). Once the English government became more fully (although unreliably) involved through the Virginia Company, a flood of writing came from supporters who envisioned the colony with more autonomy than did James I, who considered Virginia to be one of his many territories rather than its own political community. As the colony grew without needing extensive royal support, its development challenged the king's authority, and the commercial benefits of the colonies—stressed in much of modern scholarship—gained primacy under the Stuarts.

Haskell has written an intellectual history that is deeply grounded in historical events. His investigation of the ideologies of the figures involved in Bacon's Rebellion, for instance, illuminates the larger struggles between those who saw Virginia as a commonwealth and those who wanted to reform it into a mere part of a larger whole. Haskell suggests that the obscuring of Virginia's birth as a Renaissance colony began as early as the American Revolution, by which point the unitary state was accepted as a foregone conclusion rather than one of many possible theories of government. Interweaving histories of colonial expansion, religious thought, and political philosophy, Haskell presents a new and nuanced interpretation of English colonization. This important book will be useful for historians of early Virginia and English colonial thought in particular. It also provides exciting insights for historians of the colonies up through the Revolution, when conflicting ideas about colonization were hotly debated once again.