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Transcript
Welcome back! Last week, we saw the fulfillment of hopes and dreams for Providence Island as a privateering base. Company members were preparing to relocate to the colony, they reduced civilian rents and increased their liberties, and things should have been better than ever. But, the focus on privateering put civilians and soldiers so deeply at odds that the civilians rebelled against the company yet again. This week, the return of Rishworth with the civilian petition will be the tipping point which really pushes the colony over the edge into irrecoverable failure.
Introduction
And meanwhile in England, the investors were engaged in a revolt of their own. In early 1637, John Hampden was put on trial for refusing to pay the Ship Money demanded by the king. John Hampden was closely related to the company, though not an investor, but he was defended by investor Oliver St. John, and multiple other investors showed up at his trial. Warwick, for instance, appeared and told the king that if he recalled parliament, they would give him the money he wanted.
The fact that everyone involved in Hampden’s trial was also involved with the Providence Island Company didn’t escape the king’s attention. He started to wonder if investor meetings were being used to organize opposition to him. Concerned with the threat, he started to scrutinize the company more closely, and denied Warwick permission to move to the Island. Unbeknownst to the colonists, he had been planning to move there and take the position of governor to restore order to the colony, and Saye and Brooke had planned to join him. And, in response to increased scrutiny, the investors stopped recording the proceedings at their meetings, and meeting attendance dwindled even more. Soon, only 5 people were attending the meetings.
Privateering wasn’t exactly helping them recoup their losses. Prizes and slave trading now comprised the majority of their revenue, but it wasn’t a reliable source of income. Captains clearly weren’t adhering to their side of the agreement to give the company a percentage of their gains, and prizes could be lost as fast as they were captured. Newman, for instance, the most successful privateer of the era, lost tens of thousands of pounds worth of loot when he was attacked by Dunkirkers. In a separate incident, Newman reported that his ally for one raid, Diego el Mulato, had cheated him of yet-more thousands of pounds when he took sole possession of a rich prize and took it to Holland without giving Newman his half. The company sent an agent to recover what they could, knowing they had little hope of getting anything back. Giles Merch, the now-captain of the Expectation, arrived back in England after months and months at sea, and after having cost the company yet-more thousands of pounds, and the company sued him for this in Admiralty Court.
But at this point, just months after their hopes were at their highest ever, things were disheartening enough that the company held a meeting to decide whether or not to actually continue the venture. They were again at the point of having to figure out their finances, and still nothing was going their way. And at this point, the Earl of Holland came to the meeting, something he never, ever did, bringing news from the king that the king was still committed to keeping the colony going, even if that meant giving some money or rendering some other assistance. And, he and the investors spent the rest of the meeting drawing up a list of proposals for the king’s involvement. The problem was, though, that the king couldn’t just sign off on anything. Any such proposal had to go through the right committees, and sometimes bounce between committees, the Lords and Commissioners for Plantations, the Admiralty Court, and the Attorney General. Of course, the Lords Commissioners for Plantations was headed by Archbishop Laud, who was thoroughly hostile to the Puritans, and Attorney General WHO wasn’t much more sympathetic.
The king did give them the permission to sell to the Dutch, but the Dutch now waffled on paying the originally offered 70,000 pounds, so the deal fell through. The investors decided, though, that continuing was worth it, if only because Providence Island could help them fight the Spanish and the spread of Catholicism. It was also a good base from which to spread to the mainland, which in addition to being profitable would also help chip away at the Spanish empire. Privateers weren’t just capturing valuable prizes. They were also raiding coastal settlements and the ships supplying them, something which, though it yielded virtually nothing of value, chipped away at the Spanish empire by making life in those towns virtually unbearable, even pushing some towns to the brink of starvation. In addition to this, Holland had indicated that the king might be willing to exempt them from customs duties and admiralty dues, though honestly I don’t quite see how they could have expected that to happen.
They decided to create yet-another joint stock, with almost identical terms as the last one. They would get priority for the next nine years, and only after that would the members of the first joint stock be paid, and only after that would the initial investments be taken into account.
Then came the petition. The fact that the civilians had mutinied yet again was a turning point for Providence Island. In no other colony have we seen such a rebellion after the economic breakthrough which should have saved the colony.
But, when Rishworth returned to England, he lost his nerve. He was one of the most belligerent civilians on Providence Island, which you can imagine is probably why the civilians chose to send him, but facing the company, some of the richest, most famous men in England, he was suddenly meek, timid, and did virtually nothing except say the petition accurately represented how the civilians felt. When investors demanded to know how exactly the civilians dared to rebel after they had given them so much, Rishworth just replied that, well, the petition explained everything, and you know, the civilians were just hoping to be included in mainland ventures when that did in fact become possible. He did stand more firmly by the criticism of the store clerks, saying that their behavior truly couldn’t stand scrutiny. But, when he did, the incensed investors confronted him with accusations about his own behavior being dishonest. And to that, he responded that if he’d done anyone even 5 pounds worth of wrong, he would not only pay them back, he’d humble himself publicly.
The investors couldn’t have been more disgusted. They said the ultimatum was “full of weakness in them, of injustice to us, (which is worst of all) unthankfulness to God who had so wonderfully preserved them.” And you can kind of see why. We’ve seen time and time again that all concessions in the colonial sphere were made with some level of resentment, and that’s because such fundamental issues were at stake. The investors hadn’t just given colonists token concessions, they’d altered their own vision to placate them. And they’d asked for less rent, even though they themselves were now facing crippling debt due to the colony’s lack of productivity, a lack of productivity which they were still pretty sure was the civilians’ fault. They expected some appreciation, and instead they got, not just complaints, but an actual threat to desert the island completely? And even worse, the colonists hadn’t given the company any warning, either publicly or privately, before going to the most extreme action possible. But, in the colonists’ defense, from their perspective, life on the island was now much worse and more dangerous than it had ever been in England. Their fundamental concerns, being ruled by domineering and libertine soldiers and sailors, hadn’t been addressed.
But at this point, Bell started voicing his own demands of the company. He wanted payment for his service as governor. And like Rishworth’s, Bell’s petition got into a little bit of a murky ground regarding who was right and wrong. On the one hand, it’s true that Rishworth hadn’t been paid as he’d been promised, repeatedly. He had repeatedly asked for compensation, and the company had repeatedly wavered, and he was owed some payment for the service he’d performed in the colony. But, on the other hand, Bell, overwhelmed by resentment at both the company and colonists for his treatment on Providence Island, grossly overestimated how much he was owed. He said that for most of his five year term, he had lacked as many as 25 of his 32 promised servants, and that each of those servants could have raised 10 pounds worth of crops per year, so he was owed 1,250 pounds. Or, alternately, he said, they could calculate based on the actual amount of tobacco the servants could have grown, 200 pounds weight, which would mean he was owed 1,047 pounds. So, they could choose. Well, firstly, as the company pointed out, he was calculating at the absolute, 100% maximum that any servant could have produced, and the absolute maximum that that tobacco could theoretically have been sold for, neither of which had ever happened on Providence Island. Second, they hadn’t offered Bell servants until 1632, so he was calculating for more years than he was entitled to. Third, Bell, himself, had suggested that they delay sending servants until the island was ready for them, and in return the company had cancelled out his debt to them. And fourth, just because he was lacking servants, didn’t mean he hadn’t been sent them. Some had run away or died. So, the company acknowledged that they owed him some money, but said that what he was asking was absolutely ridiculous, and there wasn’t a chance in this world they were going to pay it.
And while investors seethed in disgust with their colonists, they had to face their own economic reality. They were bringing in prizes, even 15,000 pounds worth in one shipment, but they lost far more than they ever successfully brought back, and their debts continued to climb.
Meanwhile, both Bell and Rishworth said the island was in far better shape than investors had thought. They also both reiterated that it simply wasn’t a good place to grow crops. Its best use was as a privateering base. They brought a report from Blauveldt which said the island could support 1200 settlers if it focused exclusively on growing provisions, but only 6-700 if it also tried to grow commodities. The biggest problem with the island, and a problem which didn’t exist elsewhere, was that immediately after clearing land to grow crops, the land would be invaded by coarse, thick grass which was harder to control than the original foliage had been, sometimes growing as much as an inch per day, so it was a constant uphill battle to keep the grass from choking out the crops. But it just wasn’t great land anyway. The soil was clay, and livestock may have survived, but it didn’t thrive. They said salt was the only really viable commodity they could produce. And, tobacco was completely worthless again. The temporary price recovery was completely over.
And to make matters worse, reports started to trickle in about a slave revolt on Association Island. The company had sent a second group of settlers there after the Spanish had wiped out the first group, naming Nicholas Riskinner as governor. But, Riskinner had soon died, leaving 80 English and 150 slaves to fend for themselves, and tensions quickly escalated into a revolt, in which the slaves drove all the English from the island, the first successful slave revolt in English America.
The investors again turned their attention to the Camock’s flax, and calculated that if they could just find a method which allowed one man to clear five pounds of fiber per day, it would at least be a moderately profitable commodity. So, they prepared orders for colonists to start collecting it and experimenting with ways to clean it. And they urged the planting of provisions for privateers, plus commmodities, and issued orders expressly forbidding the “riotous feasting” they believed colonists were engaged in, which wasted provisions.
And they realized they wouldn’t get financial help from the king, and, their deadline to pay the money they’d promised two years before was now up. They also hadn’t sent the additional settlers they’d promised. The only thing they could do is extend the order, give themselves a little more time, and try getting more money. And yet again, Brooke committed twice as much as anyone else. And at this point, William Woodcock died, which put the company even deeper in debt because all ownership of company goods went through him, so it left a huge amount of money in a grey zone where ownership was unclear – was it the company, or Woodcock’s heirs? And then, a merchant made off with 600 pounds they’ advanced him to buy two pinnaces.
They anticipated a slight reprieve when Captain Newman and New Englander William Pierce arrived in the Mary Hope and the Desire, with over 1,500 pounds worth of prizes, but thanks to Woodcock’s death, they couldn’t actually get any of it, and trying just increased their debt even more. To put things into context, in this year, the Spanish claimed that Providence Island-based privateers captured 300,000 pounds worth of goods, which should have given the company at least 60,000 pounds, but instead the company slipped even more into debt. They were repeatedly cheated and lied to, and on top of that they had horrible luck. Every colony dealt with this to some extent, but a lot of the cheating came from mariners, and the Providence Island company had chosen to rely almost exclusively on them for income, so the problem where was worse.
The company also decided to replace Hunt as governor. He was completely on the civilians’ side, and he didn’t seem to be competent to run the colony. They put him in charge of Black Rock Fort, and ordered Elfrith to return to England, and they sent Nathaniel Butler to take his position as governor. One of Warwick’s longterm associates, Butler had a successful track record as botha privateer and a colonial governor. He’d preceded Bell as governor of Bermuda, and there he’d done a lot to resolve faction fighting among settlers. He had a natural sense of ceremony and grandieur, even building a small Venetian-style palace in Bermuda. He was firm, he was intelligent, and he was confident. And, as part of this, he demanded more from the investors than any previous governor. For one, he demanded a salary, none of this servants and land business. And second, he emphasized the need for the company to give him actual power on the island. He firmly and correctly insisted that the company’s inconsistent and contradictory orders from England had increased disorder, and that the dichotomy of official and private correspondence was unacceptable. If they wanted order, they needed to select a governor they trusted, and give him the authority to enforce it. They agreed to the salary, and though they wavered on the issue of power, Butler took the job. They also set up a way for Butler to formally hear settler grievances, and they set up a civilian led commission to investigate the magazine. And accompanying Butler to the colony was Rishworth, who had been restored to his position of councilor after completely renouncing the petition as wrong.
And, they tried to recruit New Englanders. This time, they focused on those who had been pushed out during the Antinomian Controversy, most notably John Underhill, who had helped lead soldiers in the Pequot War, but then been exiled from Massachusetts for his support of Anne Hutchinson. Like many of the exiles, he hadn’t just been exiled, but also viciously slandered, and they hoped he would bring his distinguished background and colonial experience to their island colony. But, instead he went to Rhode Island, and then down to New Netherland where he worked as an Indian fighter. They also tried to recruit Ezekiel Rogers, a minister from Rowley, Yorkshire, but he decided to go to New England, where he founded Rowley, Massachusetts, which, I got my notes a little mixed up earlier, Rogers was the founder of Rowley. Others they were trying to recruit at the time included William Prynne’s lawyer, Thomas Lechford, but Lechford would ultimately leave and write Plain Dealing, one of the most scathing criticisms of the New England Way, a year before War broke out. And even though those negotiations fell through, they decided to give their civilians yet-more concessions, including the promise to survey the island’s land, and divide it up into plantations with permanent, even inheritable, leases. This was enough to enable them to recruit 131 more servants, though.
But, they also set up a new Council of War, consisting of Butler, Hunt, Axe, Elisha Gladman and Andrew Carter. The Council of War would take over exclusive control of the public works, militia obligations, maritime and military supplies, as well as public use of slaves, and even raising taxes for the construction of a powderhouse. And, they gave the Council of War disproportionate say over giving people permission to leave the island. This took virtually all power away from the Governor’s Council, and because Hunt was the only Council of War member who was allied with the civilian faction, it essentially took all power away from civilian faction, and solidified military control of the colony.
And they forbade colonists from importing any more slaves unless they had special skills, like diving for pearls. Providence Island was now the only English colony in which slaves outnumbered settlers, and the risk was just too great. They’d ignored it while they dealt with more dire problems, but after the Association Island rebellion, they couldn’t anymore. Worse than a rebellion was the possibility that slaves might side with the Spanish in an invasion, virtually ensuring the colonists’ defeat. They had intended to get the slaves sold elsewhere, but financial problems had diverted their attention, so for now, they said, don’t import any more, and keep the ones already there in small groups to minimize danger. And, people couldn’t make a profit on slaves anymore. If they left the island, they must sell them for no more than they’d paid for them, and Butler would be in charge so he could make sure.
Butler and Rishworth arrived to find that the civilian faction isolated themselves almost completely. Sherrard’s congregation was a completely separate entity, and had also declared its independence from the English Church.1`wq They mostly emerged to protest military behavior and advocate for the servants. Servants and slaves were also escaping on a regular basis, so their hidden community was also growing, continuing to evade capture and only coming into town at night to take plantains, beans and cassava from New Westminster to supplement what they were growing themselves.
And when Butler arrived on the island, he immediately showed how different he’d been to the other governors. He was well-versed in the Renaissance theory of governance, and had implemented it successfully in Bermuda. He treated both the civilians and captains fairly, retaining all members of the Governor’s Council. He spent every morning formally hearing settler grievances and disputes, which usually involved food or labor shortages, or the Magazine’s 25% markup, and if he wasn’t at his desk, he was overseeing militia exercises alongside Axe and Gladman. He always dined in company, usually at his own house, entertaining as many as 100 colonists at a time. And, he wrote and thought very highly of Sherrard’s work as a minister, and his sermons, definitely a Calvinist – but he was barely a Puritan. He was easygoing, and he wasn’t really averse to luxury, so he wouldn’t have cared even if he found people spending their evenings in riotous feasting. And he was so tolerant of Catholicism that he even spent Christmas with the Spanish friars who were prisoners on the island. He was out to make peace with everybody, but from a position of strength and respect which also allowed him to keep the Island functioning smoothly.
So, you can really see that, if Providence Island was going to heal from its problems and survive, Butler was the guy to get it there. But, he had obstacles which had mostly been imposed from England. And first and foremost was the Council of War. The biggest source of civilian resentment was the privateers, and moreover, the privateers fueled that resentment through absolute apathy about civilian wellbeing. And they did this on the Council of War, too. A couple of them used their authority to enrich themselves, by charging people for permission to give up their land and go back to England. And, some defrauded the company by selling the servants the company had sent, buying slaves instead, and then using the slaves on their own private pursuits. They also continued to take the best of the Magazine goods, which forced the planters, who were poorer, to buy their supplies elsewhere, against company orders, and at a higher price.
And, there was another thing working against Butler. Obviously, the company had wavered in its committing the king of power that Butler said he needed to govern effectively, and obviously Sherrard would disapprove of Butler’s mellow tolerance. But exacerbating the problem was the longstanding company order that if the governor died or left before the company had nominated his successor, the colonists could choose their own governor. So if the civilians could make life unbearable for a governor, they would be rewarded by the opportunity to choose their own governor, who favored their faction, and even out the colony’s balance of power. And I’m not sure if they’d actually figured this out, but it really, really seems like they had.
Within a couple months, the civilians were telling Butler that they’d written home that “I am become a Sabbath-breaker, rioter, ravisher of other mens’ wives, an extortioner, a tyrant and whatnot.” Butler wrote to the company reporting this behavior, and reiterating the need for the company to give him the power he needed to actually maintain control. The company needed to choose a man in whom they had faith to govern, and then trust him with power, and back him up in conflicts. If they didn’t trust him, then fine. They needed to choose someone they did trust, and if they refused to do this, they didn’t even deserve to succeed. It’s not all that different to the fight Harvey had lost in Virginia, or that Bell had just lost in Providence Island, but whereas they were well-intentioned and competent, he was seriously capable.
And even if they wanted to, the colonists simply couldn’t avoid using slaves. They had no other labor source, and crops required laborers. The company hadn’t sent them for years, and then when they did send a handful, those servants had been exchanged for slaves to profit the captains. The company wanted the colonists to produce commodities, and the only available labor source was slavery. So, slaves continued to pour in, including 17 Pequots from New England, carried in New England’s first slave ship, William Pierce’s Desire, and exchanged for Africans, who were taken back to New England.
And faced with news from the colony in the first two months of Butler’s governorship, the company just didn’t know exactly what to do. They suspected some magazine malfeasance, but didn’t fully know what was going on or who was to blame, so they simply eliminated the magazine and allowed the settlers to trade with whoever they wanted to. They acknowledged the slave issue and allowed the settlers to buy some more, as long as they didn’t profit from them, and committed them to working on public projects a certain percent of the time, and they demanded the colonists at least get the escaped slaves back, preferably by fairly and gently enticing them, but if necessary by capturing 1-2 and executing them.
An interesting side note here is that around this time, the company authorized none other than William Claiborne to set up a particular plantation within Providence Island’s patent area. He wasn’t on the main island, and his colonists would form their own government, though they would be bound by the laws of the main colony. There, he intended to trade with the locals, and possibly do some privateering.
But back to the main colony, just like with company finances, even though things should have been getting better, they were getting worse, and on May 1, 1638, the slaves revolted. We don’t know all that much about the events of the uprising, but it was over pretty quickly, and without inflicting too much damage. The slaves probably had some indication that the English would be distracted by Mayday, and they may have heard about the Association Island uprising. The biggest accomplishment of the day was to enable a mass escape of slaves and servants to the mountain colony. Not all the slaves revolted, and some of the ones who stayed loyal helped Butler to find a handful of escapees. And when he found them, he publicly executed them, along with 50 mutineers who hadn’t escaped. The bulk of the runaway community continued to evade the English grasp, but the danger of slaves as a labor source had been proven, and Butler’s retribution had been merciless. After this, Rishworth decided to leave the Island completely, going to Barbados, which was another newish Caribbean colony, but one which had neither adopted mass slavery nor privateering. But he and his family, minus one son, died within a year.
And the island’s civilians kept growing tobacco, and isolating themselves from the rest of the colony. The company told them how worthless tobacco was, but it was the only thing that had ever brought them success, so they continued.
I’m going to hold off on the commentary today, because there’s nothing I can really say that I haven’t said before. Frustration was at an all-time high on both sides of the Atlantic, and all of these ways that we’ve isolated in which Providence Island was unique have created a situation in which, even though things should be getting better, they’re just getting worse.