"Countrymen, the long experience of our late miseries I hope is sufficient to persuade everyone to a present correction of himself... He that will not work shall not eat (except by sickness he be disabled). For the labors of thirty or forty honest and industrious men shall not be consumed to maintain a hundred and fifty idle loiterers." — Captain John Smith, The Generall Historie of Virginia (1624), recounting his rule at Jamestown c. 1608
Smith's authoritarian leadership at Jamestown best reflects which broader feature of early English colonization?
- A
Self-governing covenanted communities organized around congregational churches
- B
Proprietary grants modeled on William Penn's Quaker pacifist principles
- Ccheck_circle
Joint-stock companies operating colonies as profit ventures with militarized discipline
- D
Crown-administered royal colonies governed directly by appointed viceroys
Explanation
The Virginia Company was a joint-stock enterprise expecting returns to shareholders. Strict labor discipline under figures like Smith and later Sir Thomas Dale (the Lawes Divine, Morall and Martiall) reflected the for-profit, quasi-military character of early Virginia.