European people were now beginning to use tobacco. Most of it came from the Spanish colonies. Tobacco grew wild in Virginia. But the colonists at first did not know how to dry it and make it fit for smoking. After a few years they found out how to prepare it. They now worked with great eagerness and planted tobacco on every spot of cleared land. Men with money came over from England. They brought many workingmen with them and planted large pieces of ground. Soon tobacco became the money of the colony, and the whole life of Virginia turned on its cultivation. But it was difficult to find enough laborers to do the necessary work.

Most of the laborers were white men and women who were bound to service for terms of years. These were called servants. Some of them were poor persons who sold their labor to pay for their passage to Virginia. Others were unfortunate men and women and even children who were stolen from their families and sold to the colonists. Still others were criminals whom King James sent over to the colony because that was the cheapest thing to do with them. In 1619 the first negro slaves were brought to Virginia by a Dutch vessel. The Virginians bought them all—only twenty in number. But the planters preferred white laborers. It was not until more that twenty-five years had passed away that the slaves really became numerous enough to make much difference in the life of the colony.

The men who first formed the Virginia Company had long since lost interest in it. Other men had taken their places. These latter were mostly Puritans or were the friends and workers with the Puritans. The best known of them was Sir Edwin Sandys, the playmate of William Brewster—one of the Pilgrim Fathers. Sandys and his friends sent Sir George Yeardley to Virginia as governor. They ordered him to summon an assembly to be made up of representatives chosen by the freemen of the colony. These representatives soon did away with Dale's ferocious regulations, and made other and much milder laws.

The Virginians thought this was a very good way to be governed. But King James thought that the new rulers of the Virginia Company were much too liberal, and he determined to destroy the company. The judges in those days dared not displease the king for he could turn them out of office at any time. So when he told them to destroy the Virginia charter they took the very first opportunity to declare it to be of no force. In this way the Virginia Company came to an end, and Virginia became a royal province with a governor appointed by the king.