Virginia Charters and Boundaries

colonial boundaries in 1634
Source: The Growth of Virginia's Boundaries,
a "Geography of Virginia" paper written by Karl Phillips in 1999

Virginia's edges were defined initially in charters issued by the King of England as grants of land to private investors, who sought primarily to get rich. The three ships that brought slightly over 100 colonists to Jamestown in 1607 (the Susan Constant, Godspeed, and Discovery) were financed by and filled with people who sought economic advantage, not freedom of religion or increased individual liberties.

The investors were venture capitalists, "adventuring" or risking their wealth in the hope of getting even richer. They incorporated as a joint stock company, the Virginia Company. The London-based investors focused on settling the Chesapeake Bay region. The capitalists based in Plymouth, who were more familiar with the fishing grounds off Newfoundland, focused on settling lands further north.

The First Virginia Charter in 1606 gave the Virginia Company of London all territory from the Atlantic to the South Sea (i.e. to what we now realize is the Pacific Ocean) the right to "begin theire plantacions and habitacions in some fitt and conveniente place between fower and thirtie and one and fortie degrees of the said latitude all alongest the coaste of Virginia and coastes of America." The area between 34 and 41 degrees latitude was everything from present-day South Carolina to New York City. (Actually, due to inaccurate maps and rough measurement in those days, they thought it went north to about where Philadelphia is located today.)

This overlapped with the Plymouth Company right to settle "betweene eighte and thirtie degrees and five and fortie degrees of the saide latitude," so King James I adjusted the London Company's grant with a Second Charter in 1609 specifying settlement was authorized:

"from the pointe of lande called Cape or Pointe Comfort all alonge the seacoste to the northward twoe hundred miles and from the said pointe of Cape Comfort all alonge the sea coast to the southward twoe hundred miles; and all that space and circuit of lande lieinge from the sea coaste of the precinct aforesaid upp unto the lande, throughoute, from sea to sea, west and northwest; and also all the island beinge within one hundred miles alonge the coaste of bothe seas of the precincte aforesaid."

"Cape or Pointe Comfort" is the southern tip of the city of Hampton at the site of Fort Monroe. It is at the entrance to Hampton Roads, where the James flows into the Chesapeake. It was named by Captain John Smith in 1608, because it was "comforting" for sailors to see the mainland after entering the Chesapeake after an ocean crossing. Known today as "Old" Point Comfort, it is at 37 degrees latitude, slightly south of "New" Point Comfort at the eastern edge of Mathews County.

The Third Charter in 1612 gave the islands offshore to the "The Treasorer and Planters of the Cittie of London for the First Colonie in Virginia," stating:

all and singuler the said iselandes [whatsoever] scituat and being in anie part of the said ocean bordering upon the coast of our said First Colony in Virginia and being within three hundred leagues of anie the partes hertofore grannted to the said Treasorer and Company in our said former lettres patents as aforesaid, and being within or betweene the one and fortie and thirty degrees of Northerly latitude...

This grant was desired by the company because the islands, such as Bermuda, were perceived as more valuable. They could be accessed easily by ship, as the company officials knew only too well. The leaders of the Third Supply to the colony had been shipwrecked on Bermuda in a storm, and spent the winter of 1609-10 building new vessels there to reach Jamestown. Shakespeare may have incorporated stories about that storm into his play "The Tempest."

Those who "adventured" their funds in the Virginia colony received little return on their investment. King James I failed to renew the charter in 1624, making Virginia a royal rather than a proprietary (private) colony. By that decision, King James made the stock in the Virginia Company worthless, the equivalent of declaring the company to be bankrupt. (Venture capitalists do not always make a profit on their investments...)

When later kings chose to create new proprietary colonies in Maryland and Carolina to reward new friends, the grants of land to those proprietors diminished just the king's rights to lands assigned to the Virginia colony. The king did not have to compensate any of his subjects in Virginia or investors in England, and certainly did not compensate the Native American inhabitants, when carving new colonies out of Virginia. However, his change in the boundaries of the Virginia colony did cause some conflict in Jamestown. When the king chartered new colonies within areas defined as part of Virginia by the Third Charter, the Virginia colonial governor and nascent House of Burgesses lost authority to grant property deeds ("patents") to the lands north of the Potomac River in what became Maryland, or south of the 36 degree of latitude (later moved to 36 degrees, 30 minutes) in what became North Carolina.

The claim to political authority over the lands defined in the charters is still part of the Code of Virginia, along with the official release of the Virginia claim to some or all of Maryland, Pennsylvania, North and South Carolina - see highlighted section in Section 7.1-1, "Extent of territory of Virginia under the royal government says:

The charter of April 10, 1606, granted by James the First, in the fourth year of his reign, having authorized the first plantation at any place upon the coast of Virginia between the thirty-fourth and forty-first degrees of north latitude; and granted the territory from the seat of the plantation (which under this charter was begun at Jamestown), for 50 miles along the coast towards the west and southwest, as the coast lay, and for 50 miles along the coast, towards the east and northeast, or towards the north, as the coast lay, together with all the islands within 100 miles directly over against the seacoast, and all the territory from the same 50 miles every way on the seacoast, directly into the mainland for the space of 100 miles: The second charter of James, dated May 23, 1609, in the seventh year of his reign, having granted all the territory from the point of land called Cape or Point Comfort, all along the seacoast to the northward 200 miles, and from the said point of Cape Comfort all along the seacoast to the southward 200 miles, and all that space and circuit of land lying from the seacoast of the precinct aforesaid, up into the land, throughout from sea to sea, west and northwest, and also all the islands lying within 100 miles along the coast of both seas of the precinct aforesaid: The third charter of James, dated March 12, 1611-12, in the ninth year of his reign, having granted all the islands in any part of the seas within 300 leagues of any territory granted in the former patents: Under the treaty of peace between Great Britain and France in the year 1763, a line drawn along the middle of the river Mississippi having become Virginia's western boundary: And the people of Virginia, when they adopted their Constitution or form of government, on June 29, 1776, having by the twenty-first section thereof ceded, released, and confirmed to the people of Maryland, Pennsylvania, North and South Carolina, such parts of the territory of Virginia as were contained within the charters erecting those colonies, with all the rights in those parts which might theretofore have been claimed by Virginia, except the free navigation of the Rivers Potomac and Pocomoke, with the property of the Virginia shore or strands bordering on either of the said rivers, and all improvements thereon; and having at the same time laid down in the said section that the western and northern extent of Virginia should in all other respects stand as fixed by the said charter of James the First, granted in 1609, and by the treaty of peace between Great Britain and France in 1763, unless by act of the legislature one or more territories should thereafter be laid off, and governments established, westward of the Alleghany mountains: The General Assembly of Virginia does hereby declare that the territory of this Commonwealth and the boundaries thereof remain as they were after the Constitution was adopted on June 29, 1776, except so much thereof as constitutes the territory of West Virginia and its boundaries, and except also as limited by the following sections of this chapter.

Links


Boundaries of Virginia
Geography of Virginia