Page Eight
May 1926
THE UNITED AMERICAN
The Making of American Citizens
A Comprehensive Review of America’s History and Political Institutions, of Particular Interest and Help to Those
Who are Studying for Naturalization and to Those Who Have Become American Citizens and Are Anxious to
Learn How They May Become Better Qualified to Protect and Defend the Country of Their Adoption.
By A. C. Strange, Oregon State Director of Americanization Schools
V.
THE BEGINNING OF GOVERNMENT IN AMERICA
T N THIS LETTER, I shall go back to the beginning
of government in America 300 years ago and tell
of the beginning of three of the most important of the
fundamental principles of the institutions of govern­
ment which we now enjoy. It is interesting to note
that two of these rights was first made a part of colo­
nial government within 100 miles of Washington, the
capital of our country. Virginia has been called the
“Mother of Presidents” because several of the early
presidents came from that state; we might just as
appropriately call her the mother of America’s great­
est principles of government, for in the original Vir­
ginia country they were born. Let us briefly recite
how this came to pass.
No attempt was made to settle America for al­
most one hundred years after its discovery. Daring
seamen sailed along its coasts and landed here and
there, thus giving to England her claim to the Atlantic
coast of America north of Florida, but none of them
tried to establish a colony. It is true that the Span­
ish had a fort in Florida early in the sixteenth
century but, as no attempt was made to settle the
country, this could hardly be called a colony.
The first real attempt at a colony was made in the
latter part of the 16th century over. 80 years after
the death of Columbus, when Sir Walter Raleigh, a
politician and business man of London, sent a party
of men and women over to the country of Virginia
with the hope that they might find in America certain
products needed in the London markets. If they
could do this, Raleigh naturally would increase his own
wealth through their sale. These people made a set­
tlement on the coast of what is now called North Car­
olina, where they lived for a few months, but, being
unable to defend themselves from the Indians, gave
up the effort. What became of these people we do
not know. It is probable that they were either killed
by the savages or joined themselves with them.
Raleigh failed in this attempt to form a colony
because the undertaking was too big for one man.
Hence a few years later a company was formed to
settle the new country and to find and send to Eng­
land its wealth. This company was made up of busi­
ness men of England who were willing to invest their
money in what was to them merely a speculation in
which they hoped that gold, precious stones, furs and
other things of value might be found. The company
was formed in exactly the same way in which com­
panies are formed today to open new mines or irri­
gate desert lands. This new company was given the
right by the King to make settlements in Virginia
and to form rules for governing these settlements.
Very soon, however, they found that the country was
too large for them, so they asked that it might be
divided. This the King consented to do, so the.
northern part was turned over to a company of Ply­
mouth business men which was called the Plymouth
Company, while the original company, called the Lon­
don Company, retained the south.
The first expedition was sent out by the London
Company in 1607. It was made up of one hundred
and five men of whom none was interested in staying
permanently in America. On the contrary, they were
looking for the wealth in gold and silver which the
Spanish had found in the South. They made their
first settlement on the James River in Virginia. Then,
not expecting to remain in the country, they made no
effort to keep the camp in sanitary condition, to build
substantial houses and to grow gardens. Instead they
scattered in search of gold, and, as a consequence,
they were soon without food and the colony on the
point of failure. Following this brief period of starv­
ing, food ships arrived with other settlers and needed
supplies and the colony was saved.
Much credit for the saving of the colony must be
given to one of the original party, John Rolfe. While
the others were mostly wandering over the country
in search of gold, Rolfe was experimenting in the
growing of a peculiar weed which the Indians smoked
and which Raleigh had taken to England thirty years
before. This weed the Indians called tobacco. Hav­
ing raised a small crop of it, he shipped it to Lon­
don where the smoking of it soon became a fad. This
greatly increased its value and other men went into
the business of raising it. Thus Virginia found a
source of wealth which not only held her settlers
but attracted many more; hence, within a very few
years, there were over 4000 people engaged in the
growing of tobacco along the James River. This, how­
ever, does not interest us so much as their experi­
ments in government.
You will remember that I said that the company
was given the right to establish a government. This
they did first by giving to thirteen men of the original
colony the right to look after the local affairs. Within
a few years though, the colony became too large for
this form of government and it was decided to send
out a governor. The first appointed was Sir George
Yeardley, a wise and good man, who was willing to
give to the settlers a large measure of self govern­
ment. This he did by dividing the colony into eleven
districts and allowing each district to elect two men
to go to the capital at Jamestown to make needed
laws. These twenty-two men formed America’s first
representative government and, in their meeting, laid
the first foundation stone of our system of govern­
ment.
A second long step forward was taken in 1634
when the territory across the Potomac River from
the Virginia colony was settled by Lord Baltimore.
Among the laws governing this colony, we find the
first laws in America allowing religious toleration,
(Continued on Page Seventeen)