Our first century . d the one day a week he ex-acted a well-nigh ruinous rental of two and a half barrelsof corn to the acre. It seems incredible that men who had hands, and fists,and brains, should have submitted to such a rule as only explanation is found in the character of thosemen who were first sent out to Virginia, and in the spiritof submission to arbitrary authority which at that time strangely dominatedthe minds of meneverywhere. Undersimilar circumstancesin our time there wouldbe a quick revolt and asuccessful one. Mod-ern men so placed andso oppressed wouldreason that the
Our first century . d the one day a week he ex-acted a well-nigh ruinous rental of two and a half barrelsof corn to the acre. It seems incredible that men who had hands, and fists,and brains, should have submitted to such a rule as only explanation is found in the character of thosemen who were first sent out to Virginia, and in the spiritof submission to arbitrary authority which at that time strangely dominatedthe minds of meneverywhere. Undersimilar circumstancesin our time there wouldbe a quick revolt and asuccessful one. Mod-ern men so placed andso oppressed wouldreason that the wilder-ness in which theylived belonged to themfor use and they wouldseize upon it and use it for their own in spite of any andall orders that might come from across the sea. Nothing so sharply emphasizes the defective characterof the men of Jamestown, and indeed all other men ofthat time, as does their submission to a tyranny so arbi-trary and so unjust under circumstances which theymight so easily have Indian manner of broiling. THE SEEDS OF LIBERTY 49 Even this little concession, however, of three acresand thirty days in the year, improved the conditionof the colony. At last men had some small interestand ownership in their own labor. Nevertheless the con-ditions of life were of the very worst, if we consider themwith reference to any hope of the ultimate establishmentand prosperity of the colony. There were still only afew women there. No man had a home of his own inwhich dwelt his wife and his little children. The blightof communism was over it all. Men did not owntheir fields, or control their labor, or reap the profits ofit. They were simply slaves working for the companyand under orders of a master. About this time another blunder was committed. To-bacco had become a peculiarly valuable commodity inEurope and the supply of it, up to this time, had comemainly from the West India Islands. The soil and cli-mate of Virginia were pecuHarly well adapted to thepro
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