Virginia Company

Virginia Company name of two English colonizing companies, chartered by King James I in 1606. By the terms of the charter, the Virginia Company of London (see London Company ) was given permission to plant a colony 100 mi (160 km) square between lat. 34°N and lat. 41°N; the Virginia Company of Plymouth (see Plymouth Colony ), to found a colony between lat. 38°N and lat. 45°N. The overlapping area was open to settlement by either company, though neither might establish a colony within 100 mi of the other. A local council was to be set up in each colony, but the king, through a council in England, had the final authority. By 1609 the Plymouth Company had become inactive, and the London Company was granted its own individual charter in that year. The Plymouth Company later received (1620) a new charter as the Council for New England.

Virginia Company, joint‐stock corporation chartered by James I (1606) to settle colonies in America. There were two branches. That which had jurisdiction over the southern colonies, from 34° to 41° north latitude, was known as the Virginia Company of London, since its headquarters were in that city. That which was to manage the northern colonies, from 45° to 38° south latitude, was called the Virginia Company of Plymouth, and its office was in Plymouth, Devonshire. In 1607 the London Company sent an expedition under Christopher Newport, which settled Jamestown. The Plymouth Company failing to establish a settlement, the London Company obtained a new charter (1609) when Sir Thomas Gates was made absolute governor in Virginia. De la Warr arrived in 1610, when the colony was on the verge of dissolution, and served as governor until 1618. In 1612, a third charter made the Company self‐governing, and in 1619 the first legislative assembly convened. James I annulled the charter (1624) and the colony became a royal province, directly administered under the king's authority. John Smith was long the actual, if not the titular, head of the colony. Among the important sources of the colony's early history are Smith's A True Relation, Beverley's History of Virginia, Stith's History of …Virginia, and the Company's records edited by S.M. Kingsbury (1906).