The Virginia Company

The Jamestown Resource | The Virginia Company | Crossing the Atlantic | The Powhatan | Jamestown Fort and Colony | John Smith | The Real Pocahontas | John Rolfe and Tobacco

  By 1605, the English interest in America had awakened fully.  Up until this point, the attempts to form a settlement in America had been small scale and privately funded.  Englishmen now saw the need to pool resources  to fund a large commercial venture that would establish and maintain a permanent settlement.   The Virginia Company was created to pay for this settlement.  The Virginia company is a “joint-stock” company, which means that investors contribute money, and then share in any profits that are generated.  The men who invested in the Virginia Company had high hopes that they would see their money returned to them very quickly, and in large amounts.

~Reconstructed Jamestown Home

~Seal of the Virginia Company

  Instead of making a profit, however, Jamestown struggled for years.  Many of the men who first went to Virginia to found the colony were from the English gentry class, and believed that the physical labor necessary to survive was beneath their station.  It was only after John Smith took control of the colony that many of these men actual helped in growing food stuffs. 

~Reenactment of a soldier firing his musket in battle at Historic Jamestown.

  With a high mortality rate, and costs that far exceeded the value of the tobacco and other products produced, Jamestown proved to be a losing venture.  The charter that had been granted to the Virginia Company was finally revoked in 1624, and Virginia became a crown colony.