ENTRY

Samuel Argall (bap. 1580–1626)

SUMMARY

Samuel Argall was a longtime resident of Jamestown and the deputy governor of Virginia (1617–1619). He pioneered a faster means of traveling to Virginia by following the 30th parallel, north of the traditional Caribbean route, and he first arrived in June 1610, just after the “Starving Time” when the surviving colonists were ready to quit for Newfoundland. Although he joined in the war against the Virginia Indians, Argall also engaged in diplomacy, negotiating provisions from Iopassus (Japazaws) of the Patawomeck tribe. Argall explored the Potomac River region in the winter of 1612 and spring of 1613, and there, with Iopassus’s complicity, kidnapped Pocahontas, a move that helped establish an alliance between the Patawomecks and the Virginians. In 1613 and 1614, Argall explored as far north as present-day Maine and Nova Scotia, and made hostile contact with the Dutch colony at Manhattan. He also helped negotiate peace with the Pamunkey and Chickahominy tribes. As deputy governor, Argall improved military preparedness but did not enforce martial law in the same way as Sir Thomas Dale had, making his administration a bridge between the old politics and a new more democratic era. Knighted by James I in 1622, Argall led an English fleet against the Spanish in 1625 and died at sea in 1626.

Early Years

Argall was born in England at the manor of East Sutton in the county of Kent, and baptized on December 4, 1580. He was the fifth son and last of eleven children to survive infancy of Richard Argall, a gentleman with extensive properties in Kent, Essex, and London, and Mary Scott Argall, daughter of Sir Reginald Scott, of Scots Hall, Kent. Richard Argall died when his youngest child was eight years of age, and Mary Scott Argall remarried. The single clue to Samuel Argall’s early education is John Pory‘s remark that Argall was “a soldier truly bred in that university of warre the lowe Countries.” In 1606 Argall was working in the transatlantic fishing trade between Newfoundland, Spain, and England, experience that proved useful three years later when he was placed in command of a small ship and charged with discovering a shorter route to the Virginia colony, fishing for sturgeon, and selling provisions.

Argall left England on May 15, 1609, and reached the colony on July 23, 1609. By following the 30th parallel, which took him north of the Caribbean route, he trimmed the voyage from the twelve to eighteen weeks it had taken previously to just nine weeks and six days. Argall returned to England that autumn and in March 1610 set sail again, this time transporting Thomas West, baron De La Warr, the new governor. Traveling the northern route resulted in his entering the James River on June 10, 1610—just in time to prevent Sir Thomas Gates and those sixty-five colonists who had survived the “Starving Time” of 1609–1610 from abandoning the colony for Newfoundland.

War, Diplomacy, and Exploration

Determined to relieve and reform the distressed colony, which had suffered 350 deaths and cost the company some £20,000 since 1607, De La Warr appointed Argall captain of a fifty-man company of musketeers and ordered him to seek provisions on Bermuda. Argall left Jamestown on June 19, 1610, but encountered violent storms and wound up off Cape Cod, where he loaded his pinnace with fish before sailing down the coast and reaching the Chesapeake on August 31. In the interim the colonists had initiated retaliatory raids against the Algonquian-speaking Virginia Indians under Powhatan. Argall joined the effort early in September 1610 by attacking and burning the Warraskoyack village.

When the Jamestown garrison again required provisions in December, Argall was dispatched to the Potomac River and procured maize and furs there from Iopassus (Japazaws), the weroance of Passapatanzy, a Patawomeck town. On March 28, 1611, Argall sailed for England, accompanied by the malaria-ridden De La Warr. He remained there until July 23, 1612, when he commanded Sir Robert Rich’s 130-ton ship, Treasurer, which reached Virginia on September 17 after a fifty-seven-day voyage that was the fastest then recorded.

The Abduction of Pocahontas

Between December 1612 and May 1613 Argall sailed the Potomac River and the northern Chesapeake Bay, reaching the falls near present-day Washington, D.C. During this time he observed bison, investigated minerals and water thought to have medicinal purposes, explored much of the Eastern Shore, and traded with Iopassus. Early in April 1613 Argall used his extensive knowledge of the area and its Indian population to kidnap Pocahontas while she was with the Patawomecks—an event that ultimately helped bring the devastating Anglo-Powhatan War of 1609–1614 to a conclusion. Argall obtained Iopassus’s complicity in the kidnapping by threatening that they would otherwise “be no longer brothers nor friends,” but he also rewarded him for his assistance and established an alliance to protect the Patawomecks from Powhatan’s wrath. This diplomacy proved as damaging to the paramount chief as had the English raids, for Eastern Shore tribes also repudiated domination by the Powhatan chiefdom after they learned from the Patawomecks of Argall’s “courteous usage of them.”

Between July and November 1613 Argall routed a French outpost on what is now Mount Desert Island in Maine, claimed it for James I, devastated two other French settlements on the coast of Nova Scotia, and paid a hostile visit to the “pretended Dutch governor” at Manhattan. Having thus rendered inestimable service for England’s future colonization of New England, Argall assisted Sir Thomas Dale, the deputy governor of Virginia, in negotiating a peace with the Pamunkey and Chickahominy in March and April 1614. That England’s first Indian war ended diplomatically, with the John Rolfe–Pocahontas marriage, and not as a bloody Armageddon, owed more to Argall’s strategic alliances with friendly Indians than to Dale’s terroristic tactics against hostile ones. Returning to London late in the spring of 1614, Argall was exonerated of charges that he had encroached on French rights in Canada. He returned to Virginia during the summer of 1615, having again traveled the northern route but inexplicably taken almost five months for the journey. Argall again commanded a ship returning to England when Pocahontas, her husband, and their young son took passage in the spring of 1616. He also commanded the Virginia-bound George from which Pocahontas came ashore, ill and dying, at Gravesend, Kent, late in March 1617.

Deputy Governor

Argall finally left Plymouth on April 10 and arrived in Virginia about May 15, 1617, when he assumed the office of deputy governor to the absent De La Warr. His administration during this key transitional period between the martial law invoked by Dale and Sir Thomas Smythe, Virginia Company treasurer, and the representative government initiated by subsequent leaders remains controversial thanks to sparse and contradictory records. Although feuding factions in the Virginia Company and changing conditions in the colony made Deputy Governor Argall a universal scapegoat, he successfully administered Virginia by balancing old and new policies. He improved military preparedness and cautiously restricted the colonists’ contacts with Indians, much as had John Smith. He continued to invoke articles of Dale’s Lawes Divine, Morall and Martiall but rarely enforced the harshest of its provisions. He was troubled over the colonists’ growing dependence on tobacco to the neglect of foodstuffs, but by promoting private settlements, of which Argall’s Gift (1617) was probably the first, he helped erode the Virginia Company’s power, which rested on public landownership.

In effect, Argall’s administration anticipated the collapse of the company. His promotion of a self-sufficient, militarily and economically strong colony governed by an experienced leader who merged public policy with private profits served as the model for Virginia’s ruling oligarchy in the 1620s and 1630s. When other Kentishmen established an Anglo-Indian entrepreneurial empire in the northern Chesapeake, they followed Argall’s precedents in fur trading, exploration, native diplomacy, and relations with London merchants and imperialistic noblemen. After enduring considerable criticism from both sides of the Atlantic, Deputy Governor Argall turned the government over to Nathaniel Powell on April 9, 1619, and left Jamestown within the next few days. Sir George Yeardley arrived on April 18 and assumed the position of deputy governor.

Later Years

Successfully defending himself against new charges leveled against him in London, Argall refurbished his reputation by commanding a ship in a 1620 attack on Algiers and being appointed admiral of New England and a member of the Council for New England. James I knighted him on June 26, 1622. On July 15, 1624, Argall was appointed to the Mandeville Commission, which oversaw the reorganization of Virginia following the demise of the Virginia Company. He voted to surrender the company’s charter but was defeated in his bid for election as the royal colony’s governor. After commanding a large English fleet in an abortive attack on Cádiz in the fall of 1625, Sir Samuel Argall, of the manor of Lowhall, Walthamstow, Essex, died at sea aboard the Swiftsure on January 24, 1626. He was survived by one daughter, Ann Argall Percivall.

RELATED CONTENT
MAP
TIMELINE
December 4, 1580
Samuel Argall, born in England at the manor of East Sutton in the county of Kent, is baptized.
May 15, 1609
Samuel Argall leaves England for Virginia, following the 30th parallel, which takes him north of the traditional Caribbean route.
July 23, 1609
Samuel Argall arrives in Virginia from England, having followed the 30th parallel, which took him north of the traditional Caribbean route. A voyage that normally takes twelve to eighteen weeks has taken him just nine weeks and six days.
March 1610
Having returned to England from Virginia the previous autumn, Samuel Argall sets sail for the colony again, this time transporting Thomas West, baron De La Warr, the new governor.
June 10, 1610
Samuel Argall and Governor Thomas West, baron De La Warr, arrive in Virginia just in time to prevent Sir Thomas Gates and the sixty-five colonists who survived the "Starving Time" of 1609—1610 from abandoning the colony for Newfoundland.
June 19, 1610
Captain of a fifty-man company of musketeers, Samuel Argall leaves Jamestown en route to Bermuda to seek provisions. He encounters violent storms and winds up off Cape Cod, instead, where he loads his pinnace with fish before sailing down the coast.
August 31, 1610
Samuel Argall returns to the Chesapeake Bay with a ship laden with Cape Cod fish. He had planned to sail to Bermuda but storms sent him north, instead.
September 1610
Samuel Argall leads a force of Virginia colonists in attacking and burning the Warraskoyack village.
December 1610
Samuel Argall is dispatched by the Virginia authorities to the Potomac River to procure maize and furs there from Iopassus (Japazaws), the weroance of Passapatanzy, a Patawomeck town.
March 28, 1611
Governor Thomas West, baron De La Warr, ill with malaria or scurvy, leaves Virginia on a ship piloted by Samuel Argall and bound for Nevis in the West Indies.
July 23, 1612
Samuel Argall commands Sir Robert Rich's 130-ton ship, Treasurer, bound for Virginia.
September 17, 1612
Samuel Argall, commanding Sir Robert Rich's 130-ton ship, Treasurer, arrives in Virginia after a fifty-seven-day voyage that is the fastest recorded up to this point.
December 1612—May 1613
Samuel Argall sails the Potomac River and northern Chesapeake Bay, reaching the falls near modern Washington, D.C. He observes bison, investigates minerals and water thought to have medicinal purposes, explores the Eastern Shore, and trades with Iopassus (Japazaws), the weroance of Passapatanzy, a Patawomeck town.
April 1613
Samuel Argall uses his extensive knowledge of the Potomac River—northern Chesapeake area and its Indian population to kidnap Pocahontas while she is with the Patawomeck—an event that ultimately helps to bring the devastating First Anglo-Powhatan War to a conclusion in 1614.
July—November 1613
Samuel Argall routs a French outpost on Mount Desert Island in modern-day Maine, claims it for James I, devastates two other French settlements on the coast of Nova Scotia, and pays a hostile visit to the "pretended Dutch governor" of Manhattan.
March—April 1614
Samuel Argall assists Sir Thomas Dale, the deputy governor of Virginia, in negotiating a peace with the Pamunkey and Chickahominy tribes of Virginia Indians.
Spring 1614
Samuel Argall travels to England, where he is exonerated of charges that he encroached on French rights in Canada.
Summer 1615
Samuel Argall returns to Virginia, having again traveled the shorter, northern route. Still, the trip inexplicably takes almost five months.
Spring 1616
The Virginia Company of London sponsors a voyage to England. Led by Sir Thomas Dale, other passengers include Pocahontas, her husband John Rolfe, their son Thomas, a retinue of young Indian women (some of whom will remain in England), and the priest Uttamatomakkin, a brother-in-law of Pocahontas's father Powhatan. Samuel Argall commands the ship.
March 1617
Samuel Argall commands the Virginia-bound George from which Pocahontas comes ashore, ill and dying, at Gravesend, Kent.
April 10, 1617
Samuel Argall leaves Plymouth, England, for Virginia.
May 15, 1617
On about this day, Samuel Argall arrives from England in Virginia, where he assumes the office of deputy governor to the absent Thomas West, baron De La Warr.
April 9, 1619
Virginia deputy governor Samuel Argall turns the government over to Nathaniel Powell and leaves Jamestown within the next few days.
April 18, 1619
Sir George Yeardley arrives in Jamestown and assumes the position of deputy governor. Government under the Lawes Divine, Morall and Martiall ceases.
1620
Samuel Argall commands a ship in an attack on Algiers.
June 26, 1622
Samuel Argall, having been appointed admiral of New England and a member of the Council for New England, is knighted by King James I of England.
July 15, 1624
Sir Samuel Argall is appointed to the Mandeville Commission, which oversees the reorganization of Virginia following the demise of the Virginia Company.
Autumn 1625
Sir Samuel Argall commands a large English fleet in an abortive attack on the Spanish port city of Cádiz.
January 24, 1626
Sir Samuel Argall dies at sea aboard the Swiftsure.
FURTHER READING
  • Fausz, J. Frederick. “Argall, Samuel.” In The Dictionary of Virginia Biography, Vol. 1, edited by John T. Kneebone, J. Jefferson Looney, Brent Tarter, and Sandra Gioia Treadway, 197–199. Richmond: Library of Virginia, 1998.
CITE THIS ENTRY
APA Citation:
Fausz, J. & Dictionary of Virginia Biography. Samuel Argall (bap. 1580–1626). (2020, December 07). In Encyclopedia Virginia. https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/argall-samuel-bap-1580-1626.
MLA Citation:
Fausz, J., and Dictionary of Virginia Biography. "Samuel Argall (bap. 1580–1626)" Encyclopedia Virginia. Virginia Humanities, (07 Dec. 2020). Web. 31 May. 2023
Last updated: 2021, December 22
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