January 1
New Beginnings
HAPPY NEW YEAR to everyone. May 2017 be a year that abounds in blessings and joys for you and those you love.
May the year ahead find you appropriating the power the WORD promises
to you; may it find you abiding in the love the SAVIOR has in HIS heart
for you, and may it find you living in the victory of the cross.
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High winds and treacherous tides along North America's coast prevented
the Pilgrims from sailing south to join Virginia's settlement at
Jamestown, founded 14 years earlier.
Having to disembark in
Massachusetts, there was no government to submit to, so the Pilgrims
created their own - the Mayflower Compact. It was the first
"constitution" written in America.
The Mayflower Compact began:
"In ye name of God, Amen. We whose names are underwritten, the loyall
subjects of our dread soveraigne Lord, King James... having undertaken,
for ye glorie of God, and advancemente of ye Christian faith, and honour
of our king & countrie, a voyage to plant ye first colonie in ye
Northerne parts of Virginia...
“in ye presence of God, and one
of another, covenant & combine our selves togeather into a civill
body politick... to enacte... just & equall lawes... as shall be
thought most meete & convenient for ye generall good of ye Colonie,
unto which we promise all due submission and obedience...In witnes
wherof we have hereunder subscribed our names at Cap-Codd ye 11 of
NOVEMBER, Ano:Dom. 1620."
There were three types of colonies:
-Company Charter Colonies;
-Royal Crown Colonies;
-Proprietary Colonies.
1) A Company Charter Colony was created with the permission of the
king, but had investors and bylaws. Their background is interesting.
Medieval Europe had a sin called usury-the paying or receiving of
interest. This precluded the formation of joint-stock companies where
individual investors were protected by a limited-liability.
Though merchant guilds, craft guilds, and religious guilds, had existed
for a few centuries, any significant undertaking which required a large
amount of capital had to be financed by a king or wealthy noblemen.
After the Reformation, what is considered the first modern joint-stock
company was England's Company of Merchant Adventurers to New Lands,
chartered in 1553.
Outfitted with investments from 250
shareholders, they sent three ships to find a way to China, but sailing
north of Russia, most of the crew froze to death. The company was
rechartered in 1555 as the Muscovy Company to trade with Moscow's Ivan
the Terrible.
The most financially successful joint-stock company
was the Dutch East India Company, founded in 1602. Anyone, be it a
baker, blacksmith, farmer, etc., could invest in a ship going to
Indonesia and when it came back filled with spices a profit would be
paid.
The Dutch added the feature that allowed individuals to
trade their shares of stock, which they did at the Amsterdam Stock
Exchange-the first of its kind in the world. If the ship sank, the Dutch
covered the loss by creating the first modern insurance companies.
By 1612, the Dutch East India Company had become the first
intercontinental trade corporation with limited liability, eclipsing in
profits all other nations combined for nearly two centuries.
The British East India Company was charted by Queen Elizabeth I on December 31, 1600.
The Virginia Company of London was chartered in 1606. The Virginia
Colony suffered tremendous financial loss due to diseases, famine and
Indian massacres. The colony was surrendered to the King who made it a
Royal Crown Colony in 1624.
2) A Royal Crown Colony was ruled
directly by the King through his appointed governor. In Virginia's
case, the King appointed a governor but did not provide financial
support. Governors demanded landowners provide his funding, but left it
up to them to determine how, leading to a degree of autonomy in the
Virginia House of Burgesses-the first legislative assembly in the New
World.
3) A Proprietary Colony was land given by the king to
private individuals, notably: Maryland was originally given by King
Charles I as private property to Lord Baltimore in 1632; The Carolinas
were originally given by King Charles II as private property to seven
lord proprietors in 1663; New York was originally given by King Charles
II as private property to his younger brother, The Duke of York, in
1664; Pennsylvania was given by King Charles II as private property to
William Penn in 1681.
The Pilgrims' "Plymouth Plantation" was
originally a "company" colony, having obtained a land patent from the
Virginia Company of London.
Company bylaws were drawn up by the
investors, called "adventurers"- who loaned the money for the Pilgrims'
trip. They hoped to be paid back with a profit. The bylaws set up a
communal system for the first seven years, in which all capital and
profits remained "in ye common stock":
"The adventurers and
planters do agree that every person that goeth being aged 16 years and
upward... be accounted a single share... The persons transported and ye
adventurers shall continue their joint stock and partnership together,
ye space of 7 years... during which time, all profits & benefits
that are got by trade, traffic, trucking, working, fishing, or any other
means of any person or persons, remain still in ye common stock...
“...That all such persons as are of this colony, are to have their
meat, drink, apparel, and all provision out of ye common stock and
goods...That at ye end of ye 7 years, ye capital and profits, viz. the
houses, lands, goods and chattels, be equally divided betwixt ye
adventurers, and planters."
Pilgrim Governor William Bradford
described in Of Plymouth Plantation that the sharing of "all profits and
benefits...in ye common stock," regardless of how hard each individual
worked, was a failure:
"The failure of that experiment of
communal service, which was tried for several years, and by good and
honest men, proves the emptiness of the theory of Plato and other
ancients, applauded by some of later times,- that the taking away of
private property, and the possession of it in community, by a
commonwealth, would make a state happy and flourishing; as it they were
wiser than God...
“For in this instance, community of property
was found to breed much confusion and discontent; and retard much
employment which would have been to the general benefit...
“For
the young men who were most able and fit for service objected to being
forced to spend their time and strength in working for other men's wives
and children, without any recompense..."
William Bradford
continued: "The strong man or the resourceful man had no more share of
food, clothes, etc., than the weak man who was not able to do a quarter
the other could. This was thought injustice.
“The aged and
graver men, who were ranked and equalized in labor, food, clothes, etc.,
with the humbler and younger ones, thought it some indignity and
disrespect to them. As for men's wives who were obliged to do service
for other men, such as cooking, washing their clothes, etc., they
considered it a kind of slavery, and many husbands would not brook
it..."
Bradford explained that the "communistic plan" of redistributing wealth failed:
"If all were to share alike, and all were to do alike, then all were on
an equality throughout, and one was as good as another; and so, if it
did not actually abolish those very relations which God himself has set
among men, it did at least greatly diminish the mutual respect that is
so important should be preserved amongst them.
“Let none argue
that this is due to human failing, rather than to this communistic plan
of life in itself...I answer, seeing that all men have this failing in
them, that God in His wisdom saw that another plan of life was fitter
for them...So they began to consider how to raise more corn, and obtain a
better crop than they had done, so that they might not continue to
endure the misery of want...
“At length after much debate, the
Governor, with the advice of the chief among them, allowed each man to
plant corn for his own household...So every family was assigned a parcel
of land, according to the proportion of their number...This was very
successful. It made all hands very industrious, so that much more corn
was planted than otherwise would have been by any means the Governor or
any other could devise, and saved him a great deal of trouble, and gave
far better satisfaction.
“The women now went willing into the
field, and took their little ones with them to plant corn, while before
they would allege weakness and inability, and to have compelled them
would have been thought great tyranny and oppression."
