James Blair (Virginia) - Missionary To The Virginia Colony

Missionary To The Virginia Colony

In London, 1685, he became ordained in the Church of England, and at the request of Henry Compton, the Bishop of London (responsible for the colonies), Blair traveled to the New World with a mission to "revive and reform the church in the Virginia Colony." . His initial assignment was to serve as rector of the Parish of Henrico at Varina. He developed good relationships with prominent political families, such as the Harrison family. Sarah Harrison, daughter of Benjamin Harrison Jr., became his wife on June 2, 1687. He was also named Commissary in the Virginia Colony for the Bishop of London, making him the colony's highest-ranking religious leader.

Religious leaders in England felt they had a duty as missionaries to bring Christianity, or more specifically, the religious practices and beliefs of the Church of England), to the Native Americans. There was an assumption that their own "mistaken" spiritual beliefs were largely the result of a lack of education and literacy, since the Powhatan did not have a written language. Therefore, teaching them these skills would logically result in what the English saw as "enlightenment" in their religious practices, and bring them into the fold of the church, which was part of the government, and hence, a form of control.

The leaders of the Virginia Colony had long desired a school of higher education, for the sons of planters, and for educating the natives. An earlier attempt to establish a permanent university at Henricus for these purposes around 1618 had gotten off to a start, and had been promising, but failed after the Indian Massacre of 1622 wiped out the entire settlement, which was not rebuilt.

Almost 70 years later, with encouragement from the Colony's House of Burgesses and other prominent individuals, Blair prepared a plan, believed by some historians to be modeled after the earlier one from Henricus, and returned to England in 1691 to petition the monarchy for a new college. Control of the Powhatan people was no longer a priority in the Colony, as they had been largely decimated and reduced to reservations after the last major conflict in 1644, but the religious principle of educating them in Christianity was nevertheless retained, perhaps as a moral incentive to help gain support and approval in London.