Another booklet in this series contains a selected bibliography of works on seventeenth-century Virginia. The interested student should consult that booklet for a more detailed listing of works used in preparing this account of Virginia in the period 1625-1660.

The best secondary account of Virginia in the period covered by this booklet is Wesley Frank Craven, The Southern Colonies in the Seventeenth Century, 1607-1689 (Baton Rouge, 1949). Craven skilfully combines research in Virginia local history with a broad understanding of developments in England and in other colonies. He points out the social and political significance of many hitherto ignored aspects of Virginia history. Other important works include Charles McLean Andrews, The Colonial Period of American History, I (New Haven, 1934), Thomas Jefferson Wertenbaker, Virginia under the Stuarts (Princeton, 1914), Herbert L. Osgood, The American Colonies in the Seventeenth Century, 3 vols. (New York, 1904-1907), and Edward D. Neill, Virginia Carolorum: The Colony under the Rule of Charles the First and Second, A.D. 1625-A.D. 1685 (Albany, 1886).

Any study of colonial Virginia must begin with a perusal of Philip Alexander Bruce, Economic History of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century, 2 vols. (New York, 1895), and his Institutional History of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century, 2 vols. (New York, 1910). Bruce's work is the indispensable platform upon which political and social accounts of the period must rest. Morgan PoitÎaux Robinson, Virginia Counties: Those Resulting from Virginia Legislation [Virginia State Library, Bulletin, IX, Nos. 1-3] (Richmond, 1916), is a carefully documented study of the growth of Virginia as evidenced by the formation of its counties. Maps showing the area of settlement at frequent intervals give a graphic account of the nature and extent of Virginia's expansion.

There are a number of local histories chronicling the growth of particular regions in Virginia. An outstanding local history is Fairfax Harrison, Landmarks of Old Prince William (Richmond, 1924), which analyzes the growth of settlement in the Potomac River valley. Histories of the Eastern Shore are numerous: Susie M. Ames, Studies of the Virginia Eastern Shore in the Seventeenth Century (Richmond, 1940), Jennings Cropper Wise, Ye Kingdome of Accawmacke, or the Eastern Shore of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century (Richmond, 1911), and Ralph T. Whitelaw, Virginia's Eastern Shore, 2 vols. (Richmond, 1951).

A reading of but a few works in Virginia history will be enough to show that the interpretations and conclusions of the authors must be accepted with extreme caution. There are two conflicting interpretations for nearly every important event in Virginia's history. History may be defined as the attempt to state what happened in the past on the basis of inadequate evidence existing in the present. The reader should keep always in mind that historical writing is largely a series of guesses more or less intelligently elaborated.

Much of the original manuscript material upon which an account of the period must be based has been published in the following sources: William Waller Hening, The Statutes at Large; being a Collection of all the Laws of Virginia, Vol. I (Richmond, 1809), H. R. McIlwaine, Minutes of the Council and General Court of Colonial Virginia, 1622-1632, 1670-1676 (Richmond, 1924), H. R. McIlwaine, Journals of the House of Burgesses of Virginia, 1619-1658/59 (Richmond, 1914), Nell Marion Nugent, Cavaliers and Pioneers: Abstracts of Virginia Land Patents and Grants, 1623-1666 (Richmond, 1934), Virginia Magazine of History and Biography (Richmond, 1893 to present), William and Mary Quarterly (Williamsburg, 1892 to present), The Southern Literary Messenger, January 1845 (documents on the recall of Governor Berkeley by the Burgesses and Council of Virginia in 1660), and W. Noel Sainsbury, Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series, 1574-1660, Preserved in the State Paper Department of Her Majesty's Public Record Office (London, 1860). The essential guide to most of this material is Earl G. Swern, Virginia Historical Index, 2 vols. (Roanoke, 1934).

The most important unpublished manuscript materials of the period are the county records, some of which are complete from the earliest period of settlement. Originals or transcripts of the county records are available in the Virginia State Library, Richmond. Another important source of unpublished manuscript material for the period is the "Virginia, Book No. 43" manuscript in the Library of Congress, Washington, D. C., which contains numerous commissions and proclamations for the period 1626-1634. Among the Virginia papers of the Barons of Sackville, Knole Park, are a few documents relating to the period which have not been printed either in the documentary articles in the American Historical Review, XXVII (1922), Nos. 3-4, or elsewhere. They are now available on microfilm in the Library of Congress, having been photographed by the British Manuscripts Project of the American Council of Learned Societies.

Important unpublished dissertations include James Kimbrough Owen, "The Virginia Vestry: A Study in the Decline of a Ruling Class" (Ph. D. dissertation, Princeton University, 1947), and Edna Jensen, "Sir John Harvey: Governor of Virginia" (M. A. thesis, University of Virginia, 1950).