Argall and Martin patents of 1616-1617

 

Paul Musselwhite on the patents granted to Samuel Argall and John Martin by the Virginia Company of London in 1616-1617

One of the key features of Paul Musselwhite’s remarkable claims about the nature of land grants in Virginia in the period leading up to the ‘Great Reforms’ of November, 1618 concerns his analysis of the grants made to Captain Samuel Argall and Captain John Martin in 1616-1617. He has claimed in two or three places that these grants involved the creation of large landed estates with a more hierarchical manorial structure of landownership than the colony had previously experienced.[1] In addition, he has twice argued that, although the terms agreed to by Argall and Martin have not survived, it was likely that an agreement made by Edward, Lord Zouche in December, 1617 with the 3rd Lord De La Warr, who was about to return to Virginia as its Governor, “was likely modelled on these earlier agreements.”[2]

It is true that the details regarding the patent given to Argall are currently unknown but, unfortunately, there are a number of mistakes in Musselwhite’s other propositions. First of all, extracts from an eighteenth-century copy of the patent to Captain John Martin were published in The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography in 1946.[3] Secondly, the proceedings of the Virginia Assembly in late-July and early in August, 1619 gave details of the privileges Captain Martin claimed he was entitled to under the terms of his patent: the records of that meeting do survive and have been frequently printed. Secondary sources, like James Horn’s book on 1619. Jamestown and the Forging of American Democracy published in 2018 covered the questions discussed in this Assembly, including that of Martin’s patent.[4]

What of the argument that Lord Zouche’s agreement in December, 1617 with Lord De La Warr was modelled on the earlier patents granted to Argall and Martin ?  The document itself is reproduced from S.M. Kingsbury’s edition of Volume III of  The Records of the Virginia Company of London published in 1933, the source Musselwhite cited specifically in  support of his argument.

Page 77

DECEMBER 27,1617 

XXXVI. LORD DE LA WARR. COVENANT WITH LORD ZOUCH

DECEMBER 27, 1617 C. 0. 1, Volume I, No. 36 Document in Public Record Office, London List of Records No. 54 Whereas the right Honorble Edward Lord Zouch, Lord Warden of the Cinque port< hath paid One hundred pounds of current mony of England into the hand< of the lord Lawarr which mony the said Lord Zouch * * doth aduenture with the said lord Lawarr in his present intended voyage to Virginia uppon theise CondiEons followinge (that is to saye) the lord Lawarr doth covnkte with the said Lord Zouch * * * to transporte Seaven able men into Virginia and their to plant them en-d to and to prouide for their subsistinge and to ymploye them and their labours for the best proffitt he can promissinge and covenantinge to retorne into England a full third parte of the proffit of their labours be yt more or lesse to the vse of the said Lord Zouch * * vntill such tyme as by the costome of the Contrey the said men soe transported are to be made ffreemen and afterward to ympose such convenient rent as they shalbe hable to bare. A $which$ rent shalbe established to the said * * * * * Lord Zouch * and his Assignes duringe the lives of the said men soe transported And the lord Lawarr doth Covn’nte to give a true noate of the names of those Seaven men to be soe transported soe soone as they are or shalbe shipped for Virginia In witnes whereof the said lord Lawarr hath sett his hand and Seale the Seauen and twentith daie of December AG. dni 1617 and in the ffifteenthe yere of the Raigne of or sougaigne lord Kinge James of England ffraunce and Ireland and of Scotland the one and ffiftith

Sealed and deliuered in the presence of JAMES BARKER EDWARDE FOWKES THOMAS BANESTr

THO: LAWARR

[Indorsed:] My lo : De la Warres Couen”nt for my lo : Zouches aduenture to Virginia[5]

 

This was a covenant for the transportation of seven men to Virginia, for their settlement there, their subsistence and employment in the colony. It is impossible to claim that it was modelled on earlier grants to Argall and Martin. Paul Musselwhite’s case on this matter is untenable.


[1] Virginia 1619. Slavery and Freedom in the Making of English America. Edited by Paul Musselwhite, Peter C.Mancall and James Horn (Published by the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture. Williamsburg, Virginia and the University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill. 2019), Pages 11, 159 and note 15.     

[2] Paul Musselwhite, Urban Dreams, Rural Commonwealth. The Rise of Plantation Society in the Chesapeake (The University of Chicago Press. Chicago and London. 2019), Page 34 note 27 (on Page 284).

[3] James P.C. Southall, Captain John Martin of Brandon on the James. (The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography. January, 1946.) Volume 54, No.1. Pages 41-42 and note * on Page 41.

[4] See James Horn, 1619. Jamestown and the Forging of American Democracy (Basic Books. New York, 2018), Pages 50 and 70-74, for example.

[5] The Records of the Virginia Company of London. Edited by Susan Myra Kingsbury. (United States Government Printing Office. Wsahington, 1933), Volume III, Page 77.

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