History of The College of William & Mary - Prologue

Prologue

The first permanent settlement in the British Colony of Virginia was established at Jamestown in 1607 as a business venture funded by the Virginia Company of London and to replenish the British Crown Treasury. The role of the Protestant Church of England and its relationship to the monarchy government had been established in the 1530s by King Henry VIII, when he broke with the Papacy in Rome. In the Acts of Supremacy, Henry abandoned Rome completely, asserted the independence of the Ecclesia Anglicana and appointed himself and his successors as the supreme rulers of the English church. This sovereign relationship was later established when the original colony became an official royal colony in 1624. The primary leaders of the colony, from the Virginia Company of London, and the accompanying clergy believed they could bring Ecclesia Anglicana, the beliefs of the British Empire, to the Native Americans in the new colony. The spiritual beliefs of the Native Americans differed from the colonists and were incorrectly assumed by colonists as a lack of education and literacy, due to the indigenous Powhatan people who lived in the area, that they called "Tsenacommacah", which used Mesoamerican writing systems of petroglyph, pictogram and petroform. The colonists assumed teaching English literacy would result in what the English saw as enlightenment in civil and religious practices, and bring them into the fold as English subjects.

In November 1618, the Virginia Company of London gave orders for university grounds to be laid at Henrico, 12 miles from the current city of Richmond, to include an Indian School branch, and endowed it with 10,000 acres of land. A school of higher education for both Native American young men and the sons of the colonists was one of the earliest goals of the leaders of the Virginia Colony. In May 1619, the treasurer of the Virginia Company, Sir Edwin Sandys, reported that funds had been collected toward the proposed college. The Virginia General Assembly, established July 30, 1619, proceeded on July 31, 1619, to petition the Virginia Company for workmen from England to build the College. In May 1620, the Virginia Company appointed George Thorpe to be first deputy in charge of the College lands. Within the first decade, a promising start of a "University" was initiated as part of the progressive colonial outpost of Henricus under the leadership of Sir Thomas Dale. In March 1622, Thorpe was killed and Henrico destroyed, postponing the College, in an Indian uprising of the Indian Massacre of 1622. In 1624, the College plans were abandoned when the charter of the Virginia Company was revoked and Jamestown became a royal colony. It would be almost 70 more years before their efforts to establish a school of higher education would be successful. In 1661 the College and free school land purchase was authorized by an act passed by The General Assembly but no progress was made. In July 1690 the College was proposed again and subscriptions in Virginia were authorized by Lieutenant Governor Francis Nicholson with a financial support appeal to Virginia traders who were merchants in England. In May 1691 The General Assembly issued instructions for the founding of the College to Reverend James Blair, the representative of the Bishop of London, sending him to England to present the request to the King and Queen to grant a charter for the College.