Sir William Berkeley (/ˈbɑːrkliː/; 1605 – 9 July 1677) was an English colonial administrator who served as the governor of Virginia from 1660 to 1677. One of the Lords Proprietors of the Province of Carolina, as governor of Virginia he implemented policies that bred dissent among the colonists and sparked Bacon's Rebellion. A favourite of King Charles I, the king first granted him the governorship in 1642. Berkeley was unseated following the execution of Charles I, but his governorship was restored by King Charles II in 1660.
Charles II also named Berkeley one of the eight Lords Proprietors of Carolina, in recognition of his loyalty to the Stuarts during the English Civil War. As governor, Berkeley oversaw the implementation of a policy known as partus sequitur ventrem, which mandated that all babies born to enslaved parents take the legal status of their mother. As proprietor of Green Spring Plantation in James City County, he experimented with activities such as growing silkworms as part of his efforts to expand the tobacco-based economy. He was the author of Discourse and View of Virginia, where he argued for diversifying the colony's tobacco economy.
Young Berkeley showed signs of a quick wit and broad learning.[2]: p6 His informal education consisted of observing his elders; from them he learned "the moves that governed the larger English society and his privileged place in it".[2]: p6 Also, as part of the English country gentry, he was aware of agricultural practices,[2]: p6 knowledge which would influence his actions as governor of Virginia.
Though his father died in debt, Berkeley secured a proper education. He entered grammar school at about six or seven years old where he became literate in Latin and English.[2]: p6 At eighteen, like the other Berkeley men, he entered Oxford. He began his studies at Queen's College in the footsteps of his forebears, but quickly transferred to St. Edmund Hall, a "throwback to medieval times".[2]: p7 He received, though not necessarily completed, a B.A. in fifteen months of his arrival at the Hall.[2]: p8
All undergraduates at St. Edmund Hall received a personal tutor.[2]: p8 While the identity of Berkeley's tutor is unsure, his effect upon the boy showed through William's "disciplined intellect and steady appetite for knowledge".[2]: p8
In 1632, he gained a place in the household of Charles I. That position gave him entré into a court literary circle known as "The Wits". Berkeley wrote several plays, one of which — The Lost Lady: A Tragy Comedy — was performed for Charles I and Henrietta Maria and was published in 1638. It is also included in the first and fourth editions of Dodsley's Old Plays, and A Description of Virginia (1663).
Berkeley's main initiative when he first became governor was to encourage diversification of Virginia's agricultural products. He accomplished this through passing laws and by setting himself up as an example for planters.[3]: 331
Arriving at Jamestown in 1642, Berkeley erected Green Spring House on a tract of land west of the capital, where he experimented with alternatives to tobacco.[1] It was at Green Spring that he planted such diverse crops as corn, wheat, barley, rye, rape[seed], tobacco,[4] oranges, lemons, grapes,[4]: 66 sugar and silk.[4]: 70 Berkeley devoted much of his time as a planter to experimenting with alternatives to tobacco; although he always produced the crop, he "despised" it.[4]: 67 As a planter, with Virginia in mind, Berkeley constantly attempted to determine the best crops for the state through trial and error.[4]: 68 Berkeley produced flax, fruits, potash, silk, and spirits which he exported through a commercial network that joined Green Spring to markets in North America, the West Indies, Great Britain, and Holland.[1] Upon the recommendation of several of his slaves, Berkeley became a successful rice farmer.[5][6] They were familiar with its cultivation from their native West Africa.[7] He owned Boldrup Plantation.[8]
English Civil War and Commonwealth
When the parliamentarians were successful, Berkeley offered an asylum in Virginia to gentlemen on the royalist side. After the king was beheaded he dispatched his secretary of state Richard Lee I to the Netherlands to secure an extension of his office from the Crown Prince. That document proved worthless because Parliament dispatched a small fleet to the colony, and the governor, unable to offer resistance, was ultimately forced to resign his authority. However, Lee negotiated terms such that Berkeley received permission to remain on his own plantation as a private person.
At the monarchy's Restoration, Berkeley was reappointed governor.[9]
Second administration as governor
For Berkeley, the path towards Virginia's prosperity was fourfold: a diverse economy; free trade; a close-knit colonial society; and autonomy from London.[1] He proceeded to turn this thought into action in various ways. In order to support a diversified economy and free trade, for instance, he used his own plantation as an example. Virginia's autonomy from London was supported in the General Assembly's role in the colony's governance. The Assembly was, in effect, a "miniature Parliament".[1] The colony's autonomy from London was also advocated by Berkeley in his efforts against the revival of the Virginia Company of London.[1]
Berkeley was "bitterly hostile" to Virginia's Puritans and Quakers. In an attempt to suppress them, Berkeley helped enact a law to "preserve the Established Church's [The Church of England] Unity and purity of doctrine". It punished any minister who preached outside the teachings and doctrine of this church, thus oppressing Puritans, Quakers, and any other religious minority.[10]: 254
Berkeley strongly opposed public education. Though he was unable to foresee the eventual establishment of such schools, he held that they would bring "disobedience, heresy, and sects into the world," and were for such reasons destructive to society. He also held printing at the same level as public education.[11]: 271
Berkeley's downfall came with the advent of his second term. He returned from retirement in 1660 due to the early death of Governor Samuel Mathews.[1] At his return, Berkeley appealed to England for financial support of Virginia's economy. Charles II denied Berkeley's appeal "in favour of free trade".[1]
Slow to respond to Indian attacks, Berkeley was viewed as incompetent, making his authority easy to undermine.[1] Disagreements over Indian policy led Bacon to rebel against Berkeley.[1] Bacon accepted command of an illegal troop of Indian fighters and disregarded the governor's warning against leading the volunteers.[1] "He declared Bacon a rebel, dissolved the General Assembly, and promised to remedy any complaints the voters had with him."[1]
Bacon unexpectedly led 500 armed men into Jamestown and compelled the frightened legislators to appoint him general before he marched away in search of the Indians. His extortion of a general's commission turned a dispute over Indian policy into a duel to the death over who would control Virginia: Bacon or Berkeley.
"Berkeley defeated Bacon's invaders, which enabled him to return to the western shore and to retake his capital. Once reports of the revolt reached London, the crown sent 1,000 redcoats, ships, and a commission to crush Bacon. There was nothing for the troops to do because Berkeley had regained the upper hand. The rebellion ended before they arrived in January 1677. The Treaty of 1677, the formal peace treaty between the Indians and the colonists, was signed on 29 May 1677, after Berkeley returned to England."[1]
Death
Berkeley died in Berkeley House, Mayfair, England, on 9 July 1677, and he was "buried half a world away from the place that had become his home"[1] in the crypt of St Mary's Church, Twickenham,[12] where there is a memorial window to him and his brother, Lord Berkeley.[13]
^Bruce, Phillip Alexander, LL.D. Institutional History of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century. Vol. 1 (of 2 vols), Gloucester: G.P. Putnam's Son's, 1964.
^Brown, Robert E. and B. Katherine Virginia 1705–1786: Democracy or Aristocracy? East Langston: Michigan State UP, 1964
Hitchens, Harold Lee. [1] "Sir William Berkeley, Virginian Economist." The William and Mary Quarterly 2nd ser. 18 (1938): 158–73. JSTOR. Sojourner Truth, New Paltz. 23 March 2009.
Sydenstricker, Edgar, and Ammen Lewis Burger. School History of Virginia. Lynchburg: Dulaney-Boatwright, 1914.
Biography in John T. Kneebone et al., eds., Dictionary of Virginia Biography (Richmond: The Library of Virginia, 1998– ), 1:454–458. ISBN0-88490-189-0
Hutchinson, John (1902). "Berkeley, Sir William" . A catalogue of notable Middle Templars, with brief biographical notices (1 ed.). Canterbury: the Honourable Society of the Middle Temple. p. 19.
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