In Criminal Law in Colonial Virginia, Arthur Scott claims that despite a desire by the company to follow English traditions, “in practice these principals were largely disregarded before 1619.” It was therefore the repeal of the Laws Divine in 1619 which marked the beginning of English common law in the colony. Scott contends the intent of the new laws, now being drafted by the Governor’s council and passed through the House of Burgesses, was to regulate the morals of the colonists, promote economic prosperity, control and discipline indentured servants, and manage relations with the local indigenous population. By the middle of the seventeenth century bastardy had become the offense most likely to draw prosecution. Scott argues unlike fornication
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While well written and certainly contributive to the field, these works were more imitative than innovation. In “Dale’s Laws and the Non-Common Law Origins of Criminal Justice in Virginia,” Konig disputes the traditional historiography which argues the period of the Laws Divine was an aberration within Virginia law. Arguing against both Scott and Bruce, he writes the “deprivation of common law privileges would not cease after 1618 but would become more usual.” The author blames the ineffectiveness of Virginia’s legal system to deter crime on the lower status of immigrants entering the colony during the seventeenth century. Since the vast majority of those emigrating from England were of a social standing incapable of claiming common law protections at home, e.g., children, convicts, and servants, it was easy for colonial officials to deny them those rights in Virginia. However, authorities determined their recruitment and subjugation were necessary to secure the colony’s stability. Since the colony’s labor system demanded a large number of workers, planter’s sought out servants from a lower status that would pose no threat to the established order. After 1650, they determined that the continuation of prerogative justice and indiscriminate brutality was the best way to maintain social …show more content…
However, a better example of a direct contest to the conventional historiography of colonial Virginia is in the findings of an archaeologist working along the James River. In “Drought as a Factor in the Jamestown Colony, 1607-1612,” Dennis B. Blanton analyzes the Nottoway-Blackwater baldcypress tree ring record and determines that the worst seven-year drought in the Chesapeake region during the last 700 years occurred between 1606 and 1612. This study helps to corroborate the written accounts of early settlers’, who frequently complained about the poor quality of water, leading to many
While well written and certainly contributive to the field, these works were more imitative than innovation. In “Dale’s Laws and the Non-Common Law Origins of Criminal Justice in Virginia,” Konig disputes the traditional historiography which argues the period of the Laws Divine was an aberration within Virginia law. Arguing against both Scott and Bruce, he writes the “deprivation of common law privileges would not cease after 1618 but would become more usual.” The author blames the ineffectiveness of Virginia’s legal system to deter crime on the lower status of immigrants entering the colony during the seventeenth century. Since the vast majority of those emigrating from England were of a social standing incapable of claiming common law protections at home, e.g., children, convicts, and servants, it was easy for colonial officials to deny them those rights in Virginia. However, authorities determined their recruitment and subjugation were necessary to secure the colony’s stability. Since the colony’s labor system demanded a large number of workers, planter’s sought out servants from a lower status that would pose no threat to the established order. After 1650, they determined that the continuation of prerogative justice and indiscriminate brutality was the best way to maintain social …show more content…
However, a better example of a direct contest to the conventional historiography of colonial Virginia is in the findings of an archaeologist working along the James River. In “Drought as a Factor in the Jamestown Colony, 1607-1612,” Dennis B. Blanton analyzes the Nottoway-Blackwater baldcypress tree ring record and determines that the worst seven-year drought in the Chesapeake region during the last 700 years occurred between 1606 and 1612. This study helps to corroborate the written accounts of early settlers’, who frequently complained about the poor quality of water, leading to many