Berkeley, Sir William

Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)

Sir William (1610-1677), a colonial governor of Virginia. He was a graduate of Oxford. He was sent out to Virginia in 1641, where, except during Cromwell's regime, he acted as governor until 1677. He appears to have been actively interested in the agricultural prospects of the colony. He instituted experiments in the raising of cotton, hemp, flax, silk, indigo, and rice, and encouraged the production of supplies for the English navy, including tar and masts. Governor Berkeley was aristocratic in his notions, and seemed to regard the common people as a sort of rabble who were not to be trusted with authority or education. He drove Quakers and Puritans out of the colony, and forbade the setting up of printing presses. He is credited with saying, "Thank God, there are no free schools nor printing press; and I hope we shall not have these hundred years; for learning has brought disobedience, and heresy, and sects into the world, and printing has divulged these, and libels against the best government." He established a profitable monopoly of trade with the Indians and was accused of self interest. When Indian outbreaks and massacres occurred, he took no steps to suppress the Indians, fearing, the people believed, to impair the profitable trade he had with them. When an insurrection under Nathaniel Bacon came to an end, he had so many people hanged that Charles II of England called him home with the remark, "The old fool has taken more lives in that naked country than I have taken for the murder of my father." See Virginia ; Bacon