The Birth of America
Struggling from one peril to the next, the Jamestown settlers planted the seeds of the nation's spirit
By Lewis Lord
Posted 1/29/07
Page 7 of 7
The Good Friday massacre also spelled the end of the Virginia Company. In 1624, James I dissolved the company and turned Virginia into a crown colony.
No longer were the settlers mere laborers toiling for a stock company. They became free citizens with power to seek landed estates for themselves and their heirs. From calamities and despair emerged a permanent colony, sustaining the aspirations of an early Jamestown ballad: "Wee hope to plant a nation / Where none before hath stood."
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