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A Declaration of the State of the Colony: Photographic facsimile edition
Edward Waterhouse and Dylan Ruediger
Edward Waterhouse’s Declaration of the State of the Colony is the Virginia Company's official response to the Powhatan attack on the plantation in the spring of 1622. The attack, often called the “Jamestown Massacre,” cost the lives of 25% of the population of the colony (individually listed by Waterhouse in a harrowing catalog of the dead). It led to massive retaliation by the English. It also significantly changed the ideological basis of the colonial project in Virginia from one based on naïve hopes that Indians would voluntarily subordinate themselves to the English towards an aggressive colonialism of dispossession. Waterhouse’s text also sought to reassure potential English investors and migrants that the attack would prove a boon to the colony. For this reason, he appended to his account a treatise on the Northwest Passage by Henry Briggs, an account of the charitable donations the colony had secured, and a broadside containing information about the supplies needed by colonists. The British Virginia edition of Waterhouse’s Declaration, edited and introduced by Dylan Ruediger, is the most accessible edition of the text available to students and scholars. It is presented here in two formats, a photographic facsimile of this rare text featuring searchable, full color images of the copy held by the Virginia Historical Society (F229 .W32 1622), and a type facsimile that retains original spelling and layout.
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A Declaration of the State of the Colony: Type facsimile edition
Edward Waterhouse and Dylan Ruediger
Edward Waterhouse’s Declaration of the State of the Colony is the Virginia Company's official response to the Powhatan attack on the plantation in the spring of 1622. The attack, often called the “Jamestown Massacre,” cost the lives of 25% of the population of the colony (individually listed by Waterhouse in a harrowing catalog of the dead). It led to massive retaliation by the English. It also significantly changed the ideological basis of the colonial project in Virginia from one based on naïve hopes that Indians would voluntarily subordinate themselves to the English towards an aggressive colonialism of dispossession. Waterhouse’s text also sought to reassure potential English investors and migrants that the attack would prove a boon to the colony. For this reason, he appended to his account a treatise on the Northwest Passage by Henry Briggs, an account of the charitable donations the colony had secured, and a broadside containing information about the supplies needed by colonists. The British Virginia edition of Waterhouse’s Declaration, edited and introduced by Dylan Ruediger, is the most accessible edition of the text available to students and scholars. It is presented here in two formats, a photographic facsimile of this rare text featuring searchable, full color images of the copy held by the Virginia Historical Society (F229 .W32 1622), and a type facsimile that retains original spelling and layout.
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Virginia: A Sermon Preached at White-Chappel. Photographic facsimile edition.
William Symonds
British Virginia is a series of peer-reviewed, open-access editions of original documents related to the colony. British Virginia publications illustrate both the enduring ideological discourse of English settlement in and around the James River, and the unique historical artifacts that record the area's modern colonization. Editions derive from original sources and original research on them. The first two publications in the series, by Professor Joshua Eckhardt (VCU English), are each documentary (or, in other words, single-witness) editions of the Virginia Historical Society's copy of a printed sermon preached by William Symonds to the Virginia Company of London in April, 1609 (VHS Rare Books F 229 S98). One of the two editions is a type facsimile: a retyped reproduction of the VHS copy that retains original spelling and layout. This edition offers the advantages of sharp visual contrast and a small file size. The other is a photographic facsimile. It offers searchable, full-color images of the VHS copy. Symonds' sermon is the first of "The Virginia Company Sermons," which different preachers addressed to both the company and the London public, in some cases from the pulpit and in each case from the bookstall. Reexamining these scarce or seldom-read works reveals the subtle arguments for colonization, as well as the indirect presence of opposition voices seeking to question the moral and political assumptions behind the colonization of Virginia.
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Virginia: A Sermon Preached at White-Chappel. Type facsimile edition.
William Symonds
British Virginia is a series of peer-reviewed, open-access editions of original documents related to the colony. British Virginia publications illustrate both the enduring ideological discourse of English settlement in and around the James River, and the unique historical artifacts that record the area's modern colonization. Editions derive from original sources and original research on them. The first two publications in the series, by Professor Joshua Eckhardt (VCU English), are each documentary (or, in other words, single-witness) editions of the Virginia Historical Society's copy of a printed sermon preached by William Symonds to the Virginia Company of London in April, 1609 (VHS Rare Books F 229 S98). One of the two editions is a type facsimile: a retyped reproduction of the VHS copy that retains original spelling and layout. This edition offers the advantages of sharp visual contrast and a small file size. The other is a photographic facsimile. It offers searchable, full-color images of the VHS copy. Symonds' sermon is the first of "The Virginia Company Sermons," which different preachers addressed to both the company and the London public, in some cases from the pulpit and in each case from the bookstall. Reexamining these scarce or seldom-read works reveals the subtle arguments for colonization, as well as the indirect presence of opposition voices seeking to question the moral and political assumptions behind the colonization of Virginia.
British Virginia is a series of scholarly editions of documents touching on the colony. These texts range from the 16th and 17th-century literature of English exploration to the 19th-century writing of loyalists and other Virginians who continued to identify with Great Britain. British Virginia editions appear principally in digital form, freely downloadable. The editorial offices sit appropriately at the research university nearest both the falls of the James River, and the site of the first English college planned for North America, Henricus Colledge. For more information, visit https://english.vcu.edu/about-us/british-virginia/.
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