The Old Dominion

By Warren M. Billings

Book Overview

Historians and students of America's colonial period have long felt the need for a convenient collection of seventeenth-century Virginia documentary source materials. This new addition to the "Documentary Problems in Early American History Series" admirably fills this need. Using the observations, descriptions, and legal records of the colonists themselves, this new collection makes it possible to reconstruct the process by which order was established in the wilderness during Virginia's first century. The documents will take their place as invaluable tools for the study of early Virginia and as a stimulus to research in colonial history.

Warren M. Billings has carfully selected and brought together in this unique collection of more than two hundred documents, over half of which have not been published previously. These documents are organized topically into ten chapters, each of which is introduced with an interpretive essay. These essays provide a general summary of the particular aspect of seventeenth-century Virginia dealt with in the chapter and place the illustrative documents in context. Taken together the brief, cogently written essays constitute a concise history of Virginia during the years 1606-89.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0807812374
• ISBN13: 9780807812372
• Release Date: March 1975
• Publisher: University of North Carolina Press
• Length: 354 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.1" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

The Old Dominion in the Seventeenth Century

This book attempts to provide a documentary history of early Virginia. To a large extent it succeeds in its purpose, but it attempts to cover too much ground to be truly extraordinary. The documents it includes provide insight into the colony's early development, but how many more were excluded? A single volume is not really a place for a thorough analysis of a colony's documentary history. The book begins with the establishment of Jamestown and the starving time that soon followed. It even mentions cannibalism by at least one or two of the early colonists. It moves on to document how self government emerged over time. Democracy does not happen overnight, so those who wish to use this book as an illustration of how democracy came to be will be hard-pressed to make valid points. Likewise, a colony's economy did not thrive from the beginning, and Virginia had its share of troubles. Finding workders became a constant challenge and though slavery did not begin in 1619, this book does not do the emergence of slavery justice. All in all this is a good attempt to provide insight into the primary documents of early Virginia history. It could have done much more, but the author's intent of illustrating the highpoints seems to have been met. This book is not for the casual reader, unless that reader is a true student of history. But it is a good book and worthy to be considered as required reading by instructors of colonial Virginia history classes.