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Connecticut

Outsized Ambitions: Connecticut’s Bold Claims

Connecticut KML File

Although English colonists first settled in Connecticut in the 1630s, Connecticut lacked a charter until 1662. The borders established in that charter overlapped with the claims of a number of surrounding colonies. Though the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the plucky Puritan colony found itself embroiled in border disputes with New York, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania. Connecticut even claimed lands in present-day Ohio. The text of Connecticut’s charter set the stage for future claims by the colony, decades of disputes, and the ultimate settlement of its current boundaries.

The land grants in Connecticut’s 1662 Charter were broad and ambiguous. King Charles II issued the following definition of the colony’s borders:

“all that Part of Our Dominions in New-England in America, bounded on the East by Narraganset-River, commonly called Narraganset-Bay, where the said River falleth into the Sea; and on the North by the Line of the If Massachusetts-Plantation; and on the South by the Sea; and in Longitude as the Line of the Massachusetts-Colony, running from East to West, That is to say, From the said Narraganset-Bay on the East, to the South Sea on the West Part, with the Islands thereunto adjoining.”[1]

CT_west
Connecticut Claims to the “South Sea” (Pacific)

The Dispute with Rhode Island

Consequently, settlers in the newly-chartered colony of Connecticut seized upon the ambiguities in this charter to make the largest claims possible. This was especially true of its claims in present-day Rhode Island. Connecticut, like Massachusetts, effectively denied the existence of the tiny Rhode Island settlement and attempted to claim rights to lands all the way to the Narragansett Bay, on the eastern side of present-day Rhode Island. However, in 1663, Rhode Island received a charter of its own from King Charles II, which placed the Connecticut border further west at the Pawcatuck River:

“[T]o the Governour and Company of Connecticutt Colony, in America, to the contrary thereof in any wise notwithstanding; the aforesavd Pawcatuck river haven byn yielded, after much debate, for the fixed and certain bounces betweene these our sayd Colonies, by the agents thereof; w hoe have alsoe agreed, that the sayd Pawcatuck river shall bee alsoe called alias Norrogansett or Narrogansett river; and to prevent future disputes, that otherwise might arise thereby, forever hereafter shall bee construed, deemed and taken to bee the Narragansett river in our late Irrupt to Connecticutt colony mentioned as the easterly bounds of that Colony.”[2]

Despite the fact that Connecticut’s agent in London for negotiating its charter, Governor John Winthrop, had agreed to the boundary in the Rhode Island charter, Connecticut settlers still attempted to claim lands further east. Connecticut’s participation in King Philip’s War in 1676 enabled to colonists to claim that they owned the lands by conquest. Reciprocally, Rhode Island asserted rights to lands further into Connecticut up to the Mystic River. The Crown attempted to resolve the issue by carving out a new colony, known as King’s Province, from the disputed lands in 1665. Neither Connecticut nor Rhode Island claimants accepted King’s Province and the Crown did not attempt to enforce its existence.[3]

1667_CT
Connecticut Claims 1667

After a number of rounds of arbitration by different royal commissioners, Connecticut accepted the Pawcatuck River boundary in 1702. Yet Rhode Island rejected this agreement, and Connecticut then renewed its claims to the Narragansett Bay. The English Board of Trade appeared to prefer Rhode Island’s claim in a 1723 ruling, but the board wanted to seize on the discord to join the colonies and exert closer Crown control over them, as had been planned in the ill-fated 1685 Dominion of New England. Sensing their shared interest in continued independence, the two colonies then agreed in 1727-1728 to survey a line that followed the Pawcatuck River up to the end of a tributary called the Ashaway River. The line ran from that point north to another point twenty miles west of Warwick Neck in the Narragansett Bay, and then up to the Massachusetts line. This line was re-drawn as it now stands in 1840.[4]

The Northern Boundary

The 1662 Connecticut Charter specified that the colony’s northern border would be the southern boundary of Massachusetts. The 1629 Massachusetts Charter placed the line:

“within the Space of three English Myles on the South Parte of the said Charles River, or of any, or everie Parte thereof; and also, all and singuler the Landes and Hereditaments whatsoever, lyeing and being within the Space of three English Myles to the Southward of the Southermost Parte of the saide Bay called Massachusetts, alias Mattachusetts, alias Massatusets Bay.”[5]

Two inexperienced surveyors, Nathaniel Woodward and Solomon Saffery, fixed the line by marking a point three miles south of what they thought was the end of the Charles River. They then sailed around Cape Cod, down the coast, and up the Connecticut River to Windsor, where they marked another point. The line they established, known as the Woodward-Saffery line, was unclear and appeared to place several northern Connecticut towns within Massachusetts limits. After numerous surveys, the colonies eventually fixed the line around its present-day location in 1714, though there continued to be minor disputes up to 1826.[6]

1714_CT
1714 Massachusetts Border

The New York Line

The Connecticut Charter of 1662 claimed lands west to the South Seas, which are now considered the Pacific Ocean. At the time of the charter, the Dutch controlled present-day New York, but the English Crown did not refer to Dutch claims in its charter to Connecticut. In 1650, Connecticut had negotiated the Treaty of Hartford with the Dutch Governor Peter Stuyvesant, which fixed the New York-Connecticut boundary ten miles east of the Hudson River. The Dutch government never officially accepted the treaty. When the English took over control of Dutch lands in 1674, the new colony of New York claimed lands all the way to the Connecticut River. In 1684, Connecticut and New York resolved the dispute by having surveyors draw a line twenty miles east of the Hudson. Connecticut received a panhandle so that it could keep its towns of Stamford and Greenwich. New York gained a small strip of land cutting north and slightly east into Connecticut, which was known as “the Oblong.”[7]

CT_1674
Final New York Line (Connecticut in 1728)
1795_CT
1650 Treaty of Hartford Line and Later New York Claims

Western Claims

As Connecticut’s population grew in the 1750s, some residents of Connecticut decided to push the claims of the 1662 charter and establish western towns beyond New York. Connecticut citizens settled in the Wyoming Valley near the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania, and some colonists formed the Susquehanna Company to pursue those claims. Others formed the Delaware Company with the goal of settling along the Delaware River. After contentious internal debates, Connecticut’s government in Hartford officially annexed this land, calling it Westmoreland County. After years of sometimes bloody fighting between Connecticut and Pennsylvania colonists, Connecticut surrendered its claims in 1786 in exchange for Pennsylvania’s promise to help Connecticut receive a land concession further west, which would become known as the Western Reserve.

1753_CT
Westmoreland County

At the Constitutional Convention in 1787, Connecticut successfully defended its claim to the Western Reserve in present-day Ohio. Other states, like Pennsylvania, held similar claims and shared an interest in establishing the Connecticut precedent. Connecticut may also have cut a deal with some southern states over the slavery issue to receive votes in support of its claim. Connecticut quickly sold the lands in the Western Reserve to speculators in 1795 and used the proceeds to fund public education.[viii]

 

1787_CT
Western Reserve

Conclusion 

The Google Earth map available through the link at the top of this page shows the evolution of Connecticut’s borders and claims up to their present form. Borders in the colonial period were highly fluid. The time slider shows how they evolved. Negotiating borders involved the actions of the Crown, officials like the Board of Trade, colonial governments, and local settlers. The interests of these different groups often collided. Charters became critical evidence for pursuing claims, both before Crown arbiters and between colonies. Yet aggressive settlers’ willingness to ignore charters meant that borders often did not reflect the original grants. Antagonistic relations between the colonies over borders persisted through the early period of American independence. Compromises resulted in some of the anomalies in Connecticut’s shape, including its panhandle and northern “notch.” Ultimately, Connecticut’s charter did not set borders, but rather initiated a debate over space and sovereignty that took nearly one-hundred and fifty years to conclude.

Notes:

[1] “Charter of Connecticut – 1662.” Yale Law School Lillian Goldman Law Library, The Avalon Project. https://avalon.law.yale.edu/17th_century/ct03.asp. Accessed April 20, 2014.

[2] “Charter of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations – July 15, 1663.” Yale Law School Lillian Goldman Law Library, The Avalon Project. https://avalon.law.yale.edu/17th_century/ri04.asp. Accessed April 30, 2014.

[3] Alexander Johnson, Connecticut: A Study of a Commonwealth-Democracy (New York: Houghton Mifflin 1896), 209-214.; C.W. Bowen, The Boundary Disputes of Connecticut (Boston: J.R. Osgood and Company, 1882), 32, 40-45. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015027757692. Accessed April 21, 2014.

[4] Johnson, 213-214.

[5] “The Charter of Massachusetts Bay: 1629.” Yale Law School Lillian Goldman Law Library, The Avalon Project. https://avalon.law.yale.edu/17th_century/mass03.asp. Accessed April 20, 2014.

[6] Johnson, 207-208; Bowen, 19-20; Henry Wolcott Buck, “Connecticut Boundary Line Surveys.” 1938, pp. 209-213. https://www.csce.org/images/1938-ConnecticutBoundarySurvey1of2.pdf. Accessed February 11, 2014.

[7] Mark Stein. How the States Got Their Shapes (New York: Harper Collins, 2008), 47-48, 198-199.; Johnson, 205-207.

[8] Robert A. Wheeler, “The Connecticut Genesis of the Western Reserve, 1630-1796,” Ohio History 114 (2007), pp. 57-78. Project Muse. https://muse.jhu.edu/journals/ohh/summary/v114/114.wheeler.htmlA. Accessed April 20, 2014.

Swanckadocke (Maine)

Swanckadocke and Depth of Sovereignty

Swanckadocke KML File

In 1629 the Council for the affairs of New England in America, more commonly known as the Council of New England, issued two charters, one to Thomas Lewis and Captain Richard Bonighton granting them land on the north side of the present-day Saco River and one to John Oldham and Richard Vines granting an identically sized tract of land to the south of the river. The Council had been granted the ability to divide up the land under their control by a 1620 patent from King James I of England, and Lewis and Bonighton were examples of one such small sub-charter within the larger grant of land to the colony of New England. Grants such as these two indicate the next stage in claiming land after the initial charter from the King. While the charters establishing New England or Massachusetts Bay or Maine were often vague in their delineation of geographic boundaries, reflecting the lack of knowledge of the areas in question, these second generation grants were on a much smaller, more manageable scale that permitted the grantors to be specific about boundaries and also to impose requirements for settlement that were intended to solidify the English claim to the land through actual physical occupation.[1]

 

The Council of New England and their Powers
Screen Shot 2014-05-01 at 10.20.09 AM
The territory covered by the 1620 patent for New England.

The Council derived the authority to assign this land to Lewis and Bonighton, as well as “their heirs, associates, and assigns forever,” from James I’s 1620 patent for New England, which gave the “Adventurers and Planters” of New England the same privileges and powers as their counterparts in Virginia. In addition the patent set aside “all that Circuit, Continent, Precincts, and Limitts in America,” lying between 40 and 48 degrees of latitude and stretching “by all the breadth aforesaid throughout the Maine Land, from Sea to Sea.”[2] This was a very generous grant, in spite of – and perhaps because of – the fact that neither James I nor any of the men receiving the grant had ever actually seen the “breadth” of the land in question.

 

Geographical Ignorance

The 1620 patent also granted the Council for New England the privilege of dividing the lands under their control and granting them to individual owners, provided these owners were not “foreign princes” and that the lands given did not infringe upon the territorial rights of Virginia.[3] For the next twenty or so years, individual grants of land in New England would be based on this power, starting with the patent for Plymouth in 1621, which allotted one hundred acres of land for each colonist and fifteen hundred for public use of the colonists choice, provided no Englishman already resided there.[4] In 1622 the Council began to parcel out land more specifically.[5] These grants would come into conflict with further grants for the province of Maine and the Company Trading to Massachusetts Bay from King James I and his successor King Charles I. This occurred mostly because, as specific as individual grants might be in respect to dividing land by coastal landmarks, inland geographical knowledge was much more scant and even rivers and capes and other landmarks could be placed at different locations by different grantors and grantees. In addition, the Council itself was often unclear about which grants had actually been issued, as often a grant might be spoken or written of without going into effect.[6]

 

Swanckadocke in Practice
The Lewis-Bonighton and Oldham-Vines grants, separated by the Saco (Swanckadock) River.
The Lewis-Bonighton and Oldham-Vines grants, separated by the Saco (Swanckadock) River.

The grant to Thomas Lewis and Richard Bonighton was one of a pair of grants centered on the present-day Saco River (then known as the Swanckadock River) that split up the land the Council for New England specified was “commonly called or known by the name of Swanckadocke.”[7] Swanckadocke, according to the Council, stretched between Cape Porpoise and Cape Elizabeth, “in breadth from northeast to southwest along by the sea four miles in a straight line.”[8] The Lewis and Bonighton grant allotted a parcel of land “eight English miles upon the main land on the north side of the river Swanckadock,” with each English mile numbering 1760 ft.[9] This land grant backed up to the grant that the Council for New England gave to John Oldham and Richard Vines, which consisted of almost the same wording, only eight miles to the south of the Swanckadock River.[10]

 

Swanckadocke and Sovereignty

Records indicate that Lewis, Bonighton, Oldham, and Vines did indeed take possession of their land founding what would eventually become the towns of Saco and Biddeford. For the initial years of the settlement they remained under the jurisdiction of the Council for New England and part of the terms of the grants mandated the “the bettering of his experience in advancing of a plantation,” by transporting others as well as the proprietors themselves to the land.[11] The grant also noted that at the time of issuance, Thomas Lewis had already moved to transport people to his land.[12] The patents from the crown may have established wide, sweeping dominion with an eye to further development, but it was these small grants that put actual people on the land and promoted settlement as the best way of effectively claiming land.

 

Land Disputes in Early Colonial Maine
Black Point, the sight of Richard Foxwell's mistaken settlement, in relation to the actual Lewis-Bonighton grant.
Black Point, the sight of Richard Foxwell’s mistaken settlement, in relation to the actual Lewis-Bonighton grant.

Bonighton and Vines acted as some of the earliest councilors and magistrates for Maine, and assisted in the formation of the first government for the colony in 1640.[13] Bonighton’s son, John Bonighton, and son-in-law, Richard Foxwell, can be traced in legal documents through the mid part of the 17th century, and Foxwell spent over forty years in Maine until his death in 1676.[14] Foxwell’s disputes over land, in particular, illustrate the confusion that existed over boundaries of land claims and even grants. In 1640 Foxwell had to defend his claim against Thomas Cammock, who had received a grant for land to the north of the Lewis-Bonighton grant at Black Point. Foxwell mistakenly had settled outside of the Lewis-Bonighton grant’s boundaries, but defended his claim by saying “”yt he hath for these four years or thereabouts lived at Blacke-poynt in the right of Capt. Rich: Bonython, his father-in-law, who settled him there and gave him as much freedom and privilege as by virtue of his Pattent he could.”[15] Foxwell was later involved in a particularly acrimonious squabble over the rights to his estate with John Bonighton that culminated in Bonighton tearing down one of his buildings and being forced to pay damages by the court.[16]

 

 

Sources

[1] Samuel F. Haven, History of Grants Under the Great Council for New England: a lecture of a course by members of the Massachusetts historical society, delivered before the Lowell institute, Jan. 15, 1869 (Boston: Press of J. Wilson and son, 1869), 9, Sabin Americana.

[2] “Great Patent of New England by James I. of England,” in Documentary History of the State of Maine, Vol. VII, containing the Farnham Papers 1603-1688. Collections of the Maine Historical Society, Second Series, Compiled by Mary Frances Farnham, (Portland, ME: The Thurston Print, 1901), 20.

[3] Ibid.

[4] “First Plymouth Patent by the Great Council for New England,” in Documentary History of the State of Maine, Vol. VII, containing the Farnham Papers 1603-1688. Collections of the Maine Historical Society, Second Series, Compiled by Mary Frances Farnham, (Portland, ME: The Thurston Print, 1901), 45.

[5] York Deeds, Book 1 (Portland, ME: John T. Hull, 1887), 35.

[6] Haven, History of Grants, 147-148.

[7] “Grant of Land North of the Saco to Thomas Lewis and Richard Bonighton, by the Great Council for New England,” in Documentary History of the State of Maine, Vol. VII, containing the Farnham Papers 1603-1688. Collections of the Maine Historical Society, Second Series, Compiled by Mary Frances Farnham, (Portland, ME: The Thurston Print, 1901), 117.

[8] Ibid.

[9] Ibid.

[10] “Grant of Land South of the Saco to John Oldham and Richard Vines, by the Great Council for New England,” in Documentary History of the State of Maine, Vol. VII, containing the Farnham Papers 1603-1688. Collections of the Maine Historical Society, Second Series, Compiled by Mary Frances Farnham, (Portland, ME: The Thurston Print, 1901), 121.

[11] “Grant of Land North of the Saco.”

[12] Ibid.

[13] York Deeds, 44-45.

[14] Collections of the Maine Historical Society, Vol. III (Portland, ME: Brown Thurston, 1853), 19.

[15] Ibid., 17.

[16] Ibid., 18.

Georgia

Georgia Project KML File

“Wisdom. Justice. Moderation.”

Why was the founding of the Georgia colony important in regards to British sovereignty? The answer is threefold. Firstly, the language in the charter used to identify the land claimed speaks to the ambiguous nature of colonial settlements. Namely, the “Alatamaha River,” as it is called in the 1732 charter, is created from the joining of two feeding rivers, the Ocmulgee and the Oconee rivers. James Oglethorpe and the other founders of Georgia chose to include the Ocmulgee as an extension of the Altamaha, even though these two rivers were often referred to as separate in contemporary documents. The only reason for this discrepancy would be for the founders to be able to claim more of the land to the northwest, which was already moderately populated, mostly by Native American tribes. Using river names in this way reflects, on a larger scale, the many efforts on behalf of colonial founders to alter the existing territory for the British Crown’s benefit. Given that the crown authorized all charters, it would not have been hard to convince a far-away member of Parliament or even the King himself that the two rivers were actually just one river, and Georgia should claim both as its southern border.

The second important point has to do with the nature of Georgia’s colony specifically. While many other colonies were founded by companies or for economic purposes, Georgia was founded for two main purposes—protection and containment. The new colony would be a buffer to the other, more established colonies of the new world, and its inhabitants would be those sentenced to work in the colonies, namely debtors and criminals. Having a region filled with people that could be forced to fight invading forces seemed ideal to the colonists as well as the government of Great Britain.

The third point stems from a development of the second. Although Georgia was intended to serve as a buffer from the other colonies, beginning with South Carolina, the legislative bodies of these two southern colonies often fought amongst themselves, even with a looming foreign threat.

Forming the Colony

Georgia

Georgia’s original boundaries, as defined by its charter, was all of the land, “which lies from the most northern part of a stream or river there, commonly called the Savannah, all along the sea coast to the southward, unto the most southern stream of a certain other great water or river called the Alatamaha, and westerly from the heads of the said rivers respectively, in direct lines to the south seas”.[1] Above is a screenshot of what 1732 Georgia would’ve looked like as defined by the charter. However, due to numerous factors that led to the English settling only a small portion of this grant.

Georgia’s original southern boundary, in order to prevent tensions with the Spanish, was placed much farther to the north than the original border of Carolina. The land in between Georgia and Florida then became a sort of European no man’s land (the Creek Confederation and other Native Americans took advantage of the lack of European settlement to move into this area).[2] The Creeks were a domineering force for much of Georgia’s early life as a colony; although they swore allegiance to Great Britain they were hostile to any westward expansion of the aforementioned colony.[3] For this reason European Georgia controlled little of what it had claimed in its charter, and was brought to the brink of war with the Native American tribes at many a time.

Reshaping the Colony

na borders

While the land in between Georgia and Florida was not officially settled by either colony, it was full of troops from either side. Most British colonial regiments stationed in this area were from South Carolina, which would generate conflict later on.[4] Forays into this region were excused as attempts to rid the country of outlaws, who saw this no man’s land as a chance to escape justice. This all changed after the end of the seven year’s war. Above is what Georgia would’ve looked like at the end of 1763. With the signing of the Treaty of Paris came new boundaries for all of the English colonies. In recognition of French claims to Louisiana, Georgia’s western boundary was shortened from the South Sea (or Pacific Ocean) to the Mississippi River.[5] However, nowhere in the treaty was Georgia’s southern boundary changed. With Florida now under British control and the need for a bulwark between it and the English colonies now gone, South Carolina plotted to take back some of its former territory. The government of South Carolina started claiming land south of the Altamaha River by selling it in parcels to South Carolina planters soon after the colonies received news of the Spanish cession; its main defenses in this action were that the land should be ceded to them through the Carolina Charter of 1663 and that they already had a strong troop presence in the region.[6] This, of course, created much conflict with Georgia, which retaliated by claiming (among other things) that South Carolina should not own any part of the land, for they did not have the tact to be able to put it to much use. This bickering continued until the land issue was finally settled by the Royal Proclamation of October 7, 1763.[7] This paper formally set the boundary of Georgia as the one it has today. However, one has to take into consideration that much of Georgia was still under Native American control. A month after the proclamation, the true boundary line between Creek and European territory in Georgia was established at the Southern Indian District Congress.[8]

Throughout its various border disputes and amendments, Georgia served as a unique type of colony as buffer against foreign invasions. With Georgia, the conflicts between English and other populations—whether European or Indigenous—become evident, as do the conflicts amongst the English settlers themselves. The amendments made to the Georgia charter also exemplify the nature of charters as malleable documents as opposed to static decrees of sovereignty.

[1] “The Georgia Charter” from The Federal and State Constitutions Colonial Charters, and Other Organic Laws of the States, Territories, and Colonies Now or Heretofore Forming the United States of America Compiled and Edited Under the Act of Congress of June 30, 1906 by Francis Newton Thorpe (Washington, DC : Government Printing Office, 1909.)

[2] George Gilman Smith, The story of Georgia and the Georgia people, 1732 to 1860. (Macon, GA: G.G. Smith, 1900). 150

[3] Louis DeVorsey, “Indian Boundaries in Colonial Georgia.” (The Georgia Historical Quarterly 54, no. 1 (1970): 63-78). 63

[4] Smith, The story of Georgia. 12

[5] George William Frederick, “Treaty of Paris 1763” (Avalon Project, Yale Law Library). https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/paris763.asp.

[6] Frances Harrold, “Colonial Siblings: Georgia’s Relationship with South Carolina during the Pre-Revolutionary Period.” (The Georgia Historical Quarterly 73.4 1989)709

[7] King George III, “Royal Proclomation- October 7, 1763” Avalon Project, Yale Law Library. https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/proc1763.asp

[8] DeVorsey, “Indian Boundaries in Colonial Georgia.” 72.

 

Newfoundland

Newfoundland Project KML File

“A piscatorial El Dorado”

Today, the small island called Newfoundland is a peripheral part of the Canadian state. But this island was a center of British trade for roughly 100 years before any of the lower American colonies were established. In fact, Newfoundland played a large role in inspiring further trade and settlement in the lower American colonies.[1] On more than one occasion, fish from the Newfoundland fisheries were sent south to save Raleigh’s starving colonists in Virginia. For this and more, Prowse calls Newfoundland “the parent colony, a meagre and haggard kind of mother” to the rest of Britain’s colonies.[2]

The size and importance of the fishing trade in Newfoundland cannot be overstated. The fisheries there had become a key component of Britain’s global economy by the time lower American colonies were a
ble to produce anything. By 1630, the fishing trade in Newfoundland was easily the most important American investment for the British. The strong association between the English and their fishing was not only recognized within England; Johan De Witt, the Dutch Grand Pensionary, wrote that “The navy of England became formidable by the discovery of the inexpressible rich fishing bank of Newfoundland.”[3] The defense and maintenance of the fishing economy in Newfoundland was thus of the utmost importance for England’s continued military strength. Raleigh declared that a successful attack against the fleet of Newfoundland would be “the greatest misfortune that could befall England.”[4] The wealth and human capital involved in the English trade was indeed substantial. In 1615, Richard Whitbourne estimated there were 250 English vessels carrying 5,000 men and catching fish worth an astounding £120,000. Prowse encapsulates all of this when he says that the discovery of Newfoundland “was a veritable God-send – a piscatorial El Dorado.” For, in this age, “codfish was gold.”[5] The above image depicts a cod fishing station from the end of the 17th century. It was copied and reproduced along side a map of Newfoundland by Herman Moll, the famous maker of maps in England, in his 1715  A New and Exact Map of the Dominions of the King of Great Britain.

Cod fishing station 1698
1698 engraving of a Newfoundland cod fishing station, reproduced by Herman Moll in 1715

All of this is to affirm the centrality and importance of Newfoundland to the fledgling British Empire. But, as is often the case, the British were not the first to capitalize on Newfoundland’s bounty. French fishers were the first to establish a consistent trade there. They had the largest fishing fleet in Newfoundland until around 1580, and traded more in Newfoundland than the British well into the 17th century.[6] The French lawyer Lescarbot records the tale of a French fishing captain in the late 16th century who “took, every day, fifty crownes worth of fish, and that his voyage would be worth £1000. He paid wages to sixteen men and his vessel was of eighty tunnes and would carry 100,000 dry fishes.”[7] Again, the French flourish in Newfoundland came early. It was reported that in 1541-1542 there were a sizeable 60 French ships fishing in Newfoundland.[8]

The same is true of Spanish Basque fisherman. Tensions between the English and Spanish were on the rise for much of the 16th century and this strained the relationship between English and Spanish fishing outfits. Nonetheless, different groups of Spanish fisherman had an astounding presence: it is reported that during Phillip II’s reign (1554-1598) roughly 200 ships and 6,000 men were employed in the Newfoundland fishery.[9] By the end of the 16th century, the Spanish and Portuguese fisheries were mostly defunct and the remaining trade was divided evenly between French and British outfits.

In all cases, it must be understood that fishing in Newfoundland was primarily migratory. That is, most fishing outfits took a single voyage to Newfoundland in the spring and fished all summer, returning to Europe with their catch in the fall. Thus, the fisheries were relatively loose institutions which, it will become clear, clashed with the intentions of the earliest colonists.

Newfoundland does not figure prominently in modern discussions of European empire-making and colonization. An important part of this case study has been to discover that Newfoundland was not a backwater, but a key center of trade for the European powers.

Changing Hands, Changing Sovereigns: 1600-1630

The fishery at Newfoundland would not see a significant decline in commerce until the late 18th century. The situation on land, however, was different. Though they were the larger players in Newfoundland, the French did not make any major land claims on the island until after the mid-1600’s. The English began making claims well before that. This case study focuses on two royal charters, the Charter for the London and Bristol Company (1610) and the Charter for the colony of Avalon (1623). These royal charters are of two different types, the first a corporate charter and the second a personal proprietary charter. These charters alone do not tell the entire story of land claims in this period; there were a series of private land sales that occurred in between and after the issuance of these charters. Taken together, these show an interesting and fluid understanding of sovereignty among the English.

The first charter was issued in 1610 by James I. It establishes the London and Bristol Company, commonly called the Newfoundland Company and its board. It grants the company control over the natural resources (land, rivers, hunting, and fishing) on the island in two ways. First, it outlines an area south of the parallel line running through Bonavista (“Bomviste,” in the charter) and east of the meridian line passing through the cape known as Cape St. Mary’s or Cape Sancta-Maria:

newfoundland 1610 avalon

 

This essentially outlines what we now call the Avalon Peninsula, which was the center of English fishing and would henceforth become the focus of English settlement.

Interestingly, though, the charter also includes a catch-all grant of any land “commonly called Newfoundland” between 46 and 52 degrees of northerly latitude. There was no eastern or western boundary specified. On the modern map that looks like this:

newfoundland 1610 avalon large

 

The grant also include any sea or islands within 10 leagues of the shores of the territory specified above.

Fish are the elephant in the room in this charter. Fishing was the primary reason for continued English interest in Newfoundland. The charter’s focus on the Avalon Peninsula shows that part of the new company’s role would be to continue the vitality of the fishing trade there. However, words relating to “fish” or “fishing” occur a meager nine times in the charter, and the remarks on fishing are made only in passing. The charter does establish the company’s authority in the English fisheries, and it clarifies how taxes and import fees are to be levied with regards to fishing. But in practice, this charter was the beginning of English settlement and colonization. With the English understanding of territorial possession firmly rooted in land development, this movement toward land claims is not unexpected. This charter established England’s second overseas plantation (the first being in Virginia). (56) The company hoped that permanent settlements would allow them to better control the fisheries over time by making legitimate territorial claims and the powers that usually went with them.

A Bristol merchant named John Guy was the company’s first agent in Newfoundland. He was instructed to fortify and expand the settlement at Cupid’s Cove in Conception Bay. By 1615 the colony was becoming dysfunctional thanks to spats with migratory fisherman and a lack of positive interaction with native tribes like the Beothuk. Guy fled Newfoundland in 1615, and John Mason assumed leadership of the foundering colony which existed at least in name until 1621, when Mason took up other exploits in New England. John Mason and his map of Newfoundland will be especially important in the next section.

Most relevant to this case study is what happened beginning in 1616. The board of the company, discouraged by the colony’s limited success, decided to liquidate much of its territory on the Avalon Peninsula. The company sold a large section of the peninsula, south of a line running through Calvert Bay, to the Welsh lawyer William Vaughan. Vaughan’s possession after 1616 is all land below the red line:

newfoundland vaughan only

 

The section north of that was sold in portions to George Calvert, Lord Baltimore. His possessions are shown here in between the blue lines:

newfoundland 1616 calvert and vaughan

 

This transactions are interesting for the change in sovereignty which they expose. Originally, this land was chartered by the king. It was the king’s prerogative to grant this otherwise un-granted land to the company for the purpose of generating revenue. However, when the company became defunct, the land did not default to the king’s authority, it was firmly the right of the company to sell-off its land. In this way, the sovereign over this territory decidedly changed from the English monarch to the English company enumerated by that monarch.

The same standard held true when Richard Vaughan’s colonization effort fell through and he abandoned it in 1619 and liquidated it between 1619 and 1621. He sold a narrow strip of it between the ports of Fermeuse and Renews to Henry Cary, at this point Lord Deputy of Ireland.  He sold the rest of his possessions north of this strip to Calvert. Cary’s strip (light blue) was here called “South Falkland,” as “North Falkland” was a larger possession of his on the main part of the island. Calvert began to establish a full colony at Ferryland in 1621.

newfoundland 1619-1621 calvert and cary

 

In 1623 came another charter from James I, establishing the colony of Avalon under the proprietorship of George Calvert. This charter essentially gave royal sanction for a colony made up of land already possessed by Calvert (between the two blue lines on the map above). He maintained this colony until 1629, when he left to pursue his other grants in the Chesapeake.

With each step of the exchange, there was a fluid transition between sovereign English powers. This land was originally granted under the authority of the monarch to a corporate entity. When the company did not achieve long-term success, it was the corporate sovereign’s prerogative to sell-off its possessions to individual proprietors. Those individual proprietors were sovereigns empowered to trade their property with other proprietors. In the end, George Calvert was granted a royal charter as a sanction of property already attained by private purchase. In this way, the fluidity of sovereignty among English entities came full circle.

There are two interpretations of this. On the one hand, it might be fair to say that the crown never truly relinquished control over these claims. The king was able to step back in 13 years after the original charter to re-charter what amounted to a chunk of the same territory. This territory was purchased and owned by an individual proprietor, but there was still some authority for the king to charter it. Alternatively, it could be said that the charter of 1623 was necessary or important precisely because the crown had relinquished its authority and wanted or needed to have it reinstated. The financial benefit for the crown (in the form of taxes and import fees) was not insignificant, especially as English fishing was in one of its most profitable swings. A legitimate loss of royal control – or at least royal involvement – may have required a legitimate re-instatement.

In any case, the Avalon Peninsula of Newfoundland is remarkable for the flexible agents of sovereignty among different English entities and

Self image: Mason’s map

The English adventurer John Mason was mentioned above for his brief stint as the Newfoundland Company’s agent. For this case study, he is most interesting for his map and his correspondence regarding the geography of the island.

His map, first made around 1617, is the first English map of the island. Earlier maps printed in England relied exclusively upon French and Spanish data. Mason, though also considering this earlier data, included information gathered from his own substantial navigation around the island. This map is draw with the north side of the island on the bottom of the map.

john mason  map 1617

 

Mason’s map is impressive for its relative accuracy; his depiction of the Avalon Peninsula is especially on point. This map is not, however, purely factual. In its portrayal of Newfoundland it betrays the great truth about English presence there – the English were almost exclusively interested in the Avalon Peninsula. This is not news; it should be relatively clear from the 1610 charter and its unique focus there. This English state of mind is made manifest in Mason’s map. When placed over the modern globe, one can easily see the lack of proper proportion. The Avalon Peninsula (outlined in red), made to line up on the modern globe, leaves the rest of the island woefully undersized on Mason’s map:

newfoundland w john mason avalon highlight
This map, published and accepted as an objective and factual document, is fundamentally shaped by English consciousness of the region. Simply put, the areas in which the English had settled and traded more thoroughly are proportionately larger on the map. In a very real way, the relative importance of the Avalon Peninsula to the English is depicted by its relative size. This, though not exactly intentional, is a prime example of the subjectivity involved in the cartography of the period.

 

Notes (see “Resources” page for complete reference bibliography):

[1] Prowse, 88

[2] Prowse, xxiv

[3] Prowse, 17

[4] Prowse, xxiii – Hatfield MS

[5] Prowse, 18

[6] Prowse, 49, also https://www.heritage.nf.ca/exploration/16fishery.html

[7] Marc Lescarbot, Nova Francia, London: 1609, p. 129; also quoted in Prowse p. 20

[8] Prowse, 49

[9] Prowse, 48

 

 

South Sea Company

SouthSeaCharterImageJPG

South of What?

This case study focuses on the South Sea Company’s charter and its relationship to geographic and corporate sovereignty. Specifically, the project looks at why the original charter for the company used the nonspecific term “South Sea” to delineate the geographic boundaries of the company. While the rough boundaries of the South Sea are evident in the charter, the text relies on the assumption that there are commonly accepted oceanic boundaries. The conception of the South Sea was not constant over the centuries, which will be demonstrated in this case study. The study will then examine what this means for the sovereignty of the South Sea Company, as well as the intentions of its authors.

The South Sea Company was a well intentioned but ill-fated English trading venture chartered in the year 1711. The company is most well known for the period in which its stock price rose and eventually crashed, a period that was later termed the South Sea Bubble.  The most analyzed and clear causes of the company’s collapse were its rampant insider trading and bribery, as well as sheer ineptitude. This analysis looks at a separate factor, namely the ideas about  sovereignty that the company operated under.

The name South Sea is used to describe what the contemporary world considers the Pacific Ocean. The origins of the name can be traced back to the 16th century. In 1513 the Spanish explorer Vasco Nunez first sailed into the ocean and named it the “Mar del Sur” (South Sea)[1]. The term stuck, although it is seemingly incongruous, as it originally referred only to the Bay of Panama. It may have continued to be employed due to the fact that European mariners had to sail far to the south to enter its waters[2].

As shown in the map below, Ortelius in 1570 divided the Atlantic into two distinct basins, labeling the northern one “Mar Del Nort” (North Sea) and the southern one “Ethiopian Ocean.” He identified the Indian Ocean as a single basin, called simply the “Sea of India,” and designated the Pacific as the “Mar Del Sur”. The result was a map showing four major oceanic basins: the North Atlantic, the South Atlantic, the Pacific, and the Indian. This scheme is remarkably similar to the modern-day maritime classification, the only major difference, other than that of nomenclature, being the division of the Atlantic.

SouthSeaImage1

The map displayed directly below on the right is taken from A new voyage and description of the Isthmus of America, a report by the Welsh explorer Lionel Wafer[3]. The map first appeared somewhere between 1695 and 1699, and is one the earlier recorded maps to use the phrase “South Sea”. As is evident from the image, the South Sea is simply labeled as the area not encompassed by the Bay of Panama. These specific maps were chosen due to the likelihood of their being utilized by the Company’s proprietors, as they were all published before the creation of the Company’s charter.

SouthSEaImage2

Similarly, another influential map was published in 1705 by William Dampier.[4] Reproduced below on the left, the nomenclature of the “South Sea” is used to delineate a geographically ambiguous area. This pattern continued to be propagated through the charter of the South Sea Company, written in 1711. While this particular map pays great attention to smaller bodies of water as well as coastal areas, the South Sea is left undefined and we must assume that it extends to the whole of the ocean.

SouthSeaImage3

One additional map, pictured on the right below this paragraph, was particularly influential in how the delineation of the oceanic nomenclature was incorporated into the writing of the South Sea Company Charter[5]. Published in 1709,  it labels the ocean as both the Pacific as well as the South Sea. This map, along with the previously discussed maps, shows how the South Sea’s boundaries were poorly defined and minimally understood. The author seems to be undecided as to the correct name of the ocean, and simply decides to utilize both. This is particularly odd in this specific map because of the way it seems to focus on the sea. With the exception of the South and Central American coasts, the interior geography is left ambiguous. Through the writing of the South Sea Company’s charter, the boundaries of the South Sea remained undefined.

SouthSeaImage4

As evidenced by the previous maps and discussion, the South Sea was a term often substituted for the term Pacific Ocean, but one that held little real-world specificity. It seems odd, then, that the South Sea Company, chartered in 1711, did not specify where its claims to corporate sovereignty would extend.

The South Sea Company Charter reads in part “into unto and from the Kingdoms, Lands etc. of America, on the east side of the river Aranoca, to the southernmost part of the Terra del Fuego, on the west side thereof, from the said southernmost part through the South Seas to the northernmost part of America…”[6]. The land boundaries are relatively well delineated, and clearly encompass the vast majority of South America. The river Aranoca does not directly correspond to any modern river, but in the below map it is shown to be at the northeast corner of the continent, and Terra del Fuego is an island at the southern tip of the continent. The charter is certainly more concerned with geographic accuracy on land than on sea.

The charter is a quite specific document in terms of the company’s structure, as it sets up a board of directors and the rights of stockholders in definite terms. In fact, the majority of the document is focused on rules concerning this Court of Directors. The company’s organization is clear and organized, a testament to the intention of the founders to create a viable corporation. Interestingly, the charter lays claim to all “Islands, Forts, Places and Mines” within its boundaries, as well as all trade, including ships found within its territory. These extensive claims stand in stark contrast to the vague claims over the sea, leading to the possibility that the company’s oceanic boundaries were left intentionally vague, in order to maximize the rights that the ships sailing the South Sea could justifiably exercise.

As a final piece of evidence, the following map by Herman Moll was created after the Company’s charter was written, and specifically set out to map the company’s boundaries. Yet even this map does not specify what portion of the ocean is claimed by the Company.

SouthSeaImage5

As evidenced by the previously cited maps, the type of sovereignty that we looked at was quite different from that of the other groups in this project. In particular, we focused on an inherently more fluid area of the globe, and as such sovereignty looks quite different in water than it does on land. The boundaries of the ocean seem to have been changing constantly and were challenging to map, which certainly plays a part in the non-specificity of the cited maps[7]. While boundaries on land are quite fluent, as shown in the other case studies, the ocean poses unique challenges to those attempting to map sovereignty. The South Sea Company Charter did not lay out an exact or definite piece of geography as solely its own, an anomaly among the charters catalogued in our project.

Why would the South Sea Company not specifically define the ‘South Sea’? As shown by the previous maps of the world, the South Sea had no commonly accepted boundaries. The writers of the company’s charter were content to claim sovereignty over this vast, undefined area. As argued by other projects chronicled on this website, the fluidity of sovereignty can be seen through this phenomenon. While the charter purports to claim power over the entire South Sea, the vague, inconsistent and inaccurate rendering of this area was an important omission. If the authors ever truly intended to trade in or control such a vast area, the area would have been clearly and unarguably defined. The authors knew that their charter would have little impact on the seas, and chose not to attempt to hide this reality. The inability to claim the sea was an instrumental part of the eventual collapse of the company.

 

[1] C. R. Markham, ‘Vasco Nuftez de Balboa, 1513-1913’, Geographical Journal, XLI(1913), 517-32 at 519; K. Romoli, Balboa of Darien (New York 1953), 165-8; J. Mirsky, The Westwards Crossings, 2nd ed. (Chicago 1970), 60-1; J. T. Medina, El Descubrimiento del Oceano Pacifico (Santiago de Chile 1913-20), I, 87 and III, cclxviii.

[2] ‘South Sea’ to ‘Pacific Ocean’: A Note on NomenclatureAuthor(s): O. H. K. SpateSource: The Journal of Pacific History, Vol. 12, No. 4 (1977), pp. 210

[3] Wafer, Lionel, 1660?-1705?. A New Voyage and Description of the Isthmus of America, Giving an Account of the Author’s Abode there Electronic Resource] : The Form and make of the Country, the Coasts, Hills, Rivers, &c. Woods, Soil, Weather, &c. Trees, Fruit, Beasts, Birds, Fish, &c : The Indian Inhabitants, their Features, Complexion, &c. their Manners, Customs, Employments, Marriages, Feasts, Hunting, Computation, Language, etc. : With Remarkable Occurrences in the South Sea and Elsewhere. London: Printed for James Knapton .., 1699. Web.

[4] Dampier, William, 1652-1715. Voyages and Descriptions. Vol. II Electronic Resource] : In Three Parts : To which is Added a General Index to both Volumes. London: Printed for James Knapton, 1700. Web. Pp. 40

[5] Rogers, Woodes. A cruising voyage round the world: first to the South-Sea, thence to the East-Indies, and homewards by the Cape of Good Hope. Begun in 1708, and finish’d in 1711. … With maps … By Captain Woodes Rogers, … The second edition, corrected. London, 1726. Eighteenth Century Collections Online. Gale. Duke. P 452 University Library – Perkins. 12 Apr. 2014

[6] Great Britain. An abstract of the several acts of Parliament, commission for taking subscriptions, charter, and by-laws of the honourable South-sea company. [London?] Collected and printed by R. Mount, 1718. The Making Of The Modern World. Web. 21 Feb. 2014.

[7]”The Pacific Ocean: 250 Years of Maps (1540–1789).” Strait Through: Magellan to Cook & the Pacific.    Ed. John Delaney. Princeton University Library, n.d. Web. 1 May 2014. <https://libweb5.princeton.edu/visual_materials/maps/websites/pacific/pacific-ocean/pacific-ocean-maps.html>.