The First Charter of Virginia; April 10 1606 (Revised)

The author of this document is King James I. This document is addressed to the people of the colonies (The Virginia Company) and whoever else was planning on setting up colonies in this new land. The tone that the authors set was a somewhat persuasive yet a controlling and serious kind of tone. The purpose of writing this was to persuade Europeans to move into the colonies by telling the people how great life would be for them there. This situation fits well with the old saying, "The grass is always greener on the other side." That is one message that King James was trying to portray to Europeans.

They did this by promising things like, "And they shall have all the Lands, Soils, Grounds, Havens, Ports, Rivers, Mines...from the first seat of their Plantation and Habitation by the Space of fifty like English Miles...and that none of our Subjects shall be permitted, or suffered, to plant or inhabit behind...without express License of the Council of that Colony, in Writing thereunto first had and obtained." What this means is that the sooner you rush to the new wonderful colonies, the more benefits you can receive. This is a trick to get people to come over faster, its on a first come, first serve basis. And by promising all this to the people who are planning to move west, all the colonies will get mass amounts of people but will not be able to supply everyone with mass amounts of land or supplies. This will only cause problems and more people will be forced to work manual labor to keep a roof over their heads. So the credibility of this document may be somewhat diminished because it is not certain that everyone will be able to have everything they were promised.

That could be another potential problem starter, lack of credibility. This document is definitely emotionally persuasive. Imagine being dirt poor in a place where there is no opportunity for you there. Then you hear about this new land, this new hope, and all you can do is dream about this wonderland. From what the document says, you can start fresh and there is much room for you to grow in the colonies. That is enough to cause that family to sell everything they have so they can earn enough money to move to this new wonderland. But since there are so many other people doing the same, is it really going to be as amazing as everyone had been lead to believe?
My answer would be no. My reasoning for that response is the same as my example above.

Another example is if there is 50,000 quarters in a jar, someone wrote a document saying that everyone could go to this jar and get a quarter, so everyone rushes to this jar, but there are 70,000 people. See the problem? There may be loads of quarters in that jar, but once everyone rushes to that jar, it ends up running low and there are not enough quarters for everyone. That is what I believe did happen with this document, personally I do not know the outcome of this document, but I believe King James bit off a chunk more than he could chew.

The First Charter of Virginia; April 10 1606

The authors of this document are Lukin, the Kings of England, Scotland, France and Ireland and other colony people. This document is addressed to the people of the colonies (The Virginia Company) and whoever else was planning on setting up colonies. The tone that the authors set was a somewhat persuasive yet a controlling and serious kind of tone. The purpose of writing this was to persuade people to move into the colonies by telling the people how great life would be for them there. This situation works well with the old saying, "The grass is always greener on the other side." That is also one message that the authors of this document were trying to portray.

They did this by promising things like, "And they shall have all the Lands, Soils, Grounds, Havens, Ports, Rivers, Mines...from the first seat of their Plantation and Habitation by the Space of fifty like English Miles...and that none of our Subjects shall be permitted, or suffered, to plant or inhabit behind...without express License of the Council of that Colony, in Writing thereunto first had and obtained." What this means is that the sooner you rush to the new wonderful colonies, the more benefits you can receive. This is a trick to get people to come over faster, its on a first come, first serve basic. And by promising all this to the people who are planning to move west, all the colonies will get mass amounts of people but will not be able to supply everyone with mass amounts of land. This will only cause problems and more people will be forced to work manual labor to keep a roof over their heads. So the credibility of this document may be somewhat diminished because it is not certain that everyone will be able to have everything they were told they would have in this document.
That could be another potential problem starter, lack of credibility. This document is definitely emotionally persuasive. Imagine being dirt poor in a place where there is no opportunity for you there. Then you hear about this new land, this new hope, and all you can do is dream about this wonderland. From what the document says, you can start fresh and there is much room for you to grow in the colonies. That is enough to cause that family to sell everything they have so they can earn enough money to move to this new wonderland. But since there are so many other people doing the same, is it really going to be as amazing as everyone had been lead to believe?

My answer would be no. My reasoning for that response is the same as my example above. Another example is if there is 50,000 quarters in a jar, someone wrote a document saying that everyone could go to this jar and get a quarter, so everyone rushes to this jar, but there are 70,000 people. See the problem? There may be loads of quarters in that jar, but once everyone rushes to that jar, it ends up running low and there are not enough quarters for everyone. That is what I believe did happen with this document, personally I do not know the outcome of this document, but I believe the authors of it bit off a chunk more than they could chew.

Destruction of the Indies

In recent discussions of New Spain in the 1500's, a controversial issue had been whether or not the Spaniards were treating the Native Americans in a decent manner. On one hand, some argue that the Native Americans are savages. From this perspective, the Natives may seem ignorant and savage because they don't understand the Spaniards, and the Spaniards do not understand the Natives. On the other hand, however, others argue that the Natives are still people, but come from a different culture and should be treated as people, not as animals. In the words of Las Casas proponents, " Nay we dare boldly affirm, that during the Forty Years space, wherein Normal0 falsefalsefalse EN-USX-NONEX-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 they exercised their sanguinary and detestable Tyranny in these Regions, above Twelve Millions (computing Men, Women, and Children) have undeservedly perished; nor do I conceive that I should deviate from the Truth by saying that above Fifteen Millions in all paid their last Debt to
Nature.." According to this view, Las Casas believes that the Spaniards are dealing with the Natives with too much brutality. There is no reason that over fifteen million Natives should have died. In sum, then, the issue is whether the Spaniards were in the right or were they too
violent.

My own view is that the Spaniards were most definitely too harsh to the Natives, after all, this land that the Spaniards were killing to take control of, belonged to them. Though I concede that communicating to the Natives while trying to control the land must have been frustrating, but that is no reason for their brutality. I still maintain that there is no justification for the way the Spaniards treated the Natives. For example,"...overrunning their Normal0 falsefalsefalse EN-USX-NONEX-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Cities and Towns, spar'd no Age, or Sex, nay not so much as Women with Child, but ripping up their Bellies, tore them alive in pieces.". Although some might object that it was a necessary action to take in order to continue westward expansion. I reply that it may have been the most effective way to continue westward, but it was not the best nor honorable choice. The issue is important because if the Spaniards did not use such force to claim lands, American may not have been what it is today.