Charter for Jamestown… The Start of Something Great…

September 11, 2026 by  
Email This Post Email This Post | Print This Post Print This Post

In the pages of Mercurius Politicus… London, 27 May 1652, readers encountered one of the most consequential documents of early colonial America. This rare newsbook, edited by the chameleon-like Marchamont Needham in service of the Commonwealth, carried the full text of the Treaty of Jamestown. Virginia’s royalist governor, Sir William Berkeley, had clung to the Stuart cause even after Charles I’s execution in 1649. Parliament responded with an embargo and, in the autumn of 1651, a fleet of fifteen ships. Commissioners summoned Berkeley and the House of Burgesses. On the 12th of March 1652, the colony surrendered at James City. The twelve articles were remarkably generous: full indemnity for past resistance, confirmation of all existing land grants and boundaries, freedom of trade (defying Parliament’s Navigation Acts), and limited religious continuity. The governor, council, and burgesses signed for Virginia; the parliamentary commissioners signed for England. Earlier treaties with Native nations—Hartford in 1638 and the 1646 Virginia agreement—exist, yet this appears to be the first formal political settlement between an English colony and the home government ever printed in a periodical. Surviving records of the era are sparse; the Mercurius Politicus printing therefore stands as a primary window onto a pivotal, largely peaceful transfer of power. The Treaty of Jamestown preserved property rights, granted amnesty, and allowed Virginia to continue under new masters with minimal disruption. In a single newsbook we glimpse both the reach of the English Civil Wars across the Atlantic and the pragmatic realism that shaped early American self-government.

If you liked this post, you may also enjoy...

Filed under: The 1500's - 1700's, The 1600's
Tagged:

Comments

Feel free to leave a comment...
and oh, if you want a pic to show with your comment, go get a gravatar!