Williamsburg Williamsburg Virginia United States

During Jamestown's recovery, the Virginia legislature meets first at Governor William Berkeley's nearby Green Spring Plantation, and later at Middle Plantation, which had been started in 1632 as a fortified community inland on the Virginia Peninsula, about eight miles (thirteen kilometers) distant.

Charles II of England and representatives from various native tribes of Virginia sign the Treaty of 1677 (or the Treaty Between Virginia And The Indians 1677 or Treaty of Middle Plantation) in Virginia on May 28, 1677.

Completion of the treaty ushers in a time of peace between the Virginia tribes and the English.

This treaty is signed by more tribal leaders than that of 1646.

It reinforces the annual tribute payments and adds the Siouan and Iroquoian tribes to the Tributary Indians of the colonial government.

More reservation lands are established for the tribes, who are permitted to maintain their territories and fishing rights, but the treaty requires Virginia native leaders to acknowledge they and their peoples are subjects of the King of England.

James Blair, ordained in the Church of England in 1679 but deprived of his parish in Edinburgh in 1681 for refusing to take an oath supporting the legitimate claim of the Roman Catholic duke of York (afterward James II) as heir to the throne, had left in 1685 he left for North America, where he was elected rector of Varina parish, Henrico county, Virginia.

Appointed bishop's representative in Virginia in 1689, Blair had in 1691 proposed the founding of a college to develop clergymen and civil servants for the colony.

With the endorsement of the Virginia General Assembly he returned to England to secure from the English sovereigns William III and Mary II a charter and a grant of funds for the college, which was named for its royal patrons.

The charter is granted on February 8, 1693.

As the first president of the college, the second oldest institution of higher education in the United States (after Harvard College), Blair proves to be a canny and expert fund-raiser, extracting money from people of all ranks and persuasions and, especially, from the estate of the natural philosopher Robert Boyle.

A school of higher education has long been an aspiration of the Virginia colonists.

An early attempt at Henricus had failed after the Indian Massacre of 1622.

The location at the outskirts of the developed part of the colony had left it more vulnerable to the attack.

The colonists in the 1690s try again to establish a school, commissioning Reverend James Blair, who has spent several years in England lobbying, and finally succeeds when King William III and Queen Mary II of England grant a royal charter on February 8, 1693.

It is to be named the College of William and Mary in honor of the monarchs.

When Reverend Blair returns to Virginia, the new school is founded in a safe place, Middle Plantation, later in 1693.

When the Virginia statehouse burned again in 1698, this time accidentally, the legislature again temporarily relocated to Middle Plantation, and has able to meet in the new facilities of the College of William and Mary, which had been established after receiving a royal charter in 1693.

Rather than rebuilding at Jamestown again, the capital of the colony is moved permanently to Middle Plantation in 1699.

The town is soon renamed Williamsburg, to honor the reigning monarch, King William III.

A new Capitol building and "Governor's Palace" will be erected here in the following years.

This is a dramatic change that spells the decline and dooms Jamestown.

Catawba diplomats arrive in Virginia by July 1715 to inform the British of their willingness to not only make peace, but to assist South Carolina militarily.

Virginia's Governor Alexander Spotswood is concerned that the supposedly retired freebooter and his crew are living in nearby North Carolina.

Some of Teach's former crew have already moved into several Virginian seaport towns, prompting Spotswood to issue a proclamation on July 10, requiring all former pirates to make themselves known to the authorities, to give up their arms and to not travel in groups larger than three.

Spotswood, as head of a Crown colony, views the proprietary colony of North Carolina with contempt; he has little faith in the ability of the Carolinians to control the pirates, who he suspects will be back to their old ways, disrupting Virginian commerce, as soon as their money runs out.

The news of Teach and Vane's impromptu party, as it spreads throughout the neighboring colonies, worries the Governor of Pennsylvania enough to send out two sloops to capture the pirates.

They are unsuccessful.

Governor Spotswood had meanwhile learned that William Howard, the former quartermaster of Queen Anne's Revenge, is in the area.

Believing that he might know of Teach's whereabouts, he has had the pirate and his two slaves arrested.

Spotswood has no legal authority to have pirates tried, and as a result, Howard's attorney, John Holloway, brings charges against Captain Brand of HMS Lyme, where Howard is imprisoned.

He also sues on Howard's behalf for damages of five hundred pounds, claiming wrongful arrest.

Spotswood's council claims that Teach's presence is a crisis and that under a statute of William III, the governor is entitled to try Howard without a jury.

The charges refer to several acts of piracy supposedly committed after the pardon's cutoff date, in "a sloop belonging to ye subjects of the King of Spain", but ignored the fact that they had taken place outside Spotswood's jurisdiction and in a vessel then legally owned.

Another charge cites two attacks, one of which is the capture of a slave ship off Charleston Bar, from which one of Howard's slaves is presumed to have come.

Howard is sent to await trial before a Court of Vice-Admiralty, on the charge of piracy, but Brand and his colleague, Captain Gordon (of HMS Pearl) refuse to serve with Holloway present.

Incensed, Holloway has no option but to stand down, and is replaced by the Attorney General of Virginia, John Clayton, who Spotswood describes as "an honester man [than Holloway]". (Lee, Robert E. (1974), Blackbeard the Pirate (2002 ed.), North Carolina: John F. Blair.)

Howard is found guilty and sentenced to be hanged, but is saved by a commission from London, which directs Spotswood to pardon all acts of piracy committed by surrendering pirates before July 23, 1718.

Spotswood has meanwhile obtained from Howard valuable information on Teach's whereabouts, and he plans to send his forces across the border into North Carolina to capture him.

He gains the support of two men keen to discredit North Carolina's Governor—Edward Moseley and Colonel Maurice Moore.

He also writes to the Lords of Trade, suggesting that the Crown might benefit financially from Teach's capture.

Spotswood personally finances the operation, possibly believing that Teach has fabulous treasures hidden away.

He orders Captains Gordon and Brand of HMS Pearl and HMS Lyme to travel overland to Bath.

Lieutenant Robert Maynard of HMS Pearl is given command of two commandeered sloops, to approach the town from the sea.

An extra incentive for Teach's capture is the offer of a reward from the Assembly of Virginia, over and above any that might be received from the Crown.

Alexander Spotswood was born in the Colony of Tangier, Morocco, Africa, about 1676 to Catharine (née Maxwell, c. 1638 - December 1709) and her second husband, Dr Robert Spottiswoode (September 17, 1637 - 1680), the Chirurgeon (surgeon) to the Tangier Garrison.

Through his father, Alexander is a grandson of Judge Robert Spottiswoode (1596–1646), a great-grandson of Archbishop John Spottiswoode (1565–1639), and a descendant of King Robert II of Scotland through the 2nd Earls of Crawford.

Alexander's older half-brother (by his mother's first marriage to George Elliott) was Roger Elliott (circa 1655 - May 15, 1714), who had become one of the first Governors of Gibraltar.

Following the death of Robert Spotswood, his mother had married thirdly, Reverend Dr. George Mercer, the Garrison's Schoolmaster.

Alexander had on May 20, 1693, become an Ensign in the Earl of Bath's Regiment of Foot.

Commissioned in 1698, and promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel in 1703, he had been appointed Quartermaster-General of the Duke of Marlborough's army the same year, and was wounded at the Battle of Blenheim the following year.

Spotswood had been appointed Lieutenant Governor of Virginia in 1710,  under the nominal governorship of George Hamilton, 1st Earl of Orkney.

He is the first to occupy the new Governors Mansion, which many citizens think overly extravagant (its twentieth-century reconstruction is now one of the principal landmarks in Colonial Williamsburg).

He had intervened  in 1711 in Cary's Rebellion in North Carolina, sending a contingent of Royal Marines from the Chesapeake to put down the rebellion.

A Tobacco Act requiring the inspection of all tobacco intended for export or for use as legal tender is passed in 1713.

The next year, he had founded the First Germanna Colony, and regulates trade with native Americans at another of his pet projects, Fort Christanna.

He buys three thousand two hundred and twenty-nine acres (thirteen square kilometers) at Germanna in 1715.

He leads the Knights of the Golden Horseshoe Expedition in 1716 up the Rappahannock River valley and across the Blue Ridge Mountains at Swift Run Gap into the Shenandoah Valley to expedite settlement.

The following year sees the foundation of the Second Germanna Colony and the repeal of regulation of trade with native Americans.

A Third Germanna Colony follows in 1719, and the following year Germanna will be made the seat of Spotsylvania County.