Tag Archives: jamestown

1610: Henry Paine, shipwrecked mutineer

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On this date in 1610, Henry Paine was executed on the island of Bermuda for mutiny.

Paine arrived on the island most unfortunately on the Sea Venture, the flagship for the London Company bound for the New World under the command of Admiral George Somers.

Her freight was approximately 150 passengers, among them Sir Thomas Gates, who had been appointed as the new governor of Jamestown, Virginia. The ship was caught in a hurricane and wrecked near the Bermuda Islands in July of 1609. All aboard survived the wreck, and they took up temporary settlement on the islands. Neither natives nor other Europeans had settled there, possibly due to the difficult weather conditions.

The castaways determined that they could rebuild and continue to Jamestown using many of the salvaged supplies and parts of the wrecked Sea Venture; Gates and the colonists began building while they waited to hear back from the rest of their fleet — six other ships which had sailed on to Virginia.

But no word came, and soon enough a dispute between Somers and Gates over who held command split the survivors into factions. Somers and his crew of mostly sailors relocated to a nearby island and began work on a smaller ship.

Throughout the winter months, both factions worked to build amid growing discord.

William Strachey, who chronicled the events firsthand in his account entitled A True Reportory of the Wreck and Redemption of Sir Thomas Gates, Knight, upon and from the Islands of the Bermudas: His Coming to Virginia and the Estate of that Colony Then and After, under the Government of the Lord La Warr, July 15, 1610, makes it clear that he did not exactly find Bermuda to be a tropical paradise. But repeated attempts at mutiny suggest that many of the colonists thought it might be nice to just stay put. Jamestown, after all, was struggling through a period known as the Starving Time, and the population had dwindled by more than 80% in recent years thanks to famine, illness, and a hostile relationship with nearby natives. In Bermuda, food — fruit, fish, and wild hog — was plentiful.

In March of 1610, both vessels were nearing completion, forcing the dissident factions to either go along with the colonization plan or try one more time to break free.

Henry Paine, hardly more than a footnote in the more spectacular tale of the shipwreck, survival, and remarkable eventual landing at Jamestown, was apprehended for stealing supplies to be used for a mutinous group that hoped to relocate to another island and remain there. He assaulted the commanding officer and said some very naughty things about the governor, which would prove to be his doom (particularly since Gates’ own toughness had come into question after prior pardons for both mutiny and murder).

Strachey wrote:

Paine replied with a settled and bitter violence and in such unreverent terms as I should offend the modest ear too much to express it in his own phrase; but the contents were how that the governor had no authority of that quality to justify upon anyone (how mean so ever in the colony) an action of that nature, and therefore let the governor (said he) kiss, etc. Which words, being with the omitted additions brought the next day unto every common and public discourse, at length they were delivered over to the governor, who, examining well the fact (the transgression so much the more exemplary and odious as being in a dangerous time, in a confederate, and the success of the same wishedly listened after, with a doubtful conceit what might be the issue of so notorious a boldness and impudency), calling the said Paine before him and the whole company, where (being soon convinced both by the witness of the commander and many which were upon the watch with him) our governor, who had now the eyes of the whole colony fixed upon him, condemned him to be instantly hanged. And the ladder being ready, after he had made many confessions, he earnestly desired, being a gentleman, that he might be shot to death, and toward the evening he had his desire, the sun and his life setting together.

Aside from his being a gentleman (and thereby having his preferred method of execution), little has been written about Paine. But the several Virginia Charters issued by this time gave the governor of a colony broad authority to convict, punish, and execute criminals in this manner.

Paine’s execution seemed to put a stop to most rumblings of mutiny; Somers and Gates set aside their differences and the two ships, Deliverance and Patience, were soon completed. The marooned men and women set sail again on May 10, 1610 and successfully made their way to Jamestown.

Two of those lost on Bermuda in the interim were the wife and infant daughter of John Rolfe, who would later go on to famously marry Pocahontas.

Three men did successfully desert the company and remain behind on Bermuda: Robert Waters, Edward Chard, and Christopher Carter. When the British returned to claim and settle Bermuda properly in 1612, they were all seized, imprisoned, and shipped back to England. Captain Somers returned to the islands later in 1610 hoping to collect supplies for Virginia, but he became ill on the journey and died in Bermuda (which was for a time later referred to as The Somers Isles).

The story of the Sea Venture is often cited as a possible inspiration for William Shakespeare’s The Tempest, which was written around the same time period and includes a similar storyline of a shipwreck and disputed leadership … but has a lot more magic in it.

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1623: Daniel Frank, the first hanging in the USA

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On this date in 1623 one Daniel Frank was condemned to hang for theft in the Jamestown colony. It was the first hanging to take place in that part of the British North American colonies that eventually broke away as the United States.

Frank is actually not the very first entry in Watt Espy’s encyclopedic 15,000-plus catalogue of “American” executions — he’s the second. In 1608, George Kendall had been shot for a mutinous plot, also in Jamestown, Virginia. We don’t have a firm date for that event.

But rigorous calendaring, like lenient penal theories, took a back seat in the tiny and tenuous New World colony. Jamestown was the successor to Walter Raleigh‘s failed Roanoke settlement, which disappeared without a trace — and planted in harsh and distant environs, Jamestown had a couple of brushes with the very same fate.


Jamestowne, surrounded by Indian settlements and illustrated wilderness. Excerpt from 1608 map of John Smith (yes, the Pocahontas guy) found here.

Still, this was a delicate balance: Jamestown didn’t have the resources to countenance potential recidivism, but it also didn’t have the resources to go killing productive colonists — or scaring away potential productive colonists. A draconian 1612 Laws Divine, Moral and Martial evidently never sent anyone to the gallows, but was rolled back all the same in 1619 for fear of disaffecting investors.

Sithence we are not to bee a little carefull, and our young Cattell, & Breeders may be cherished, that by the preservation, and increase of them, the Colony heere may receive in due time assured and great benefite … so profitable succeeding a Commodity, as increase of Cattel, Kine, Hogges, Goates, Poultrie &c. must of necessity bee granted …

wee do strictly charge and command, that no man shall dare to kill, or destroy any Bull, Cow, Calfe, Mare, Horse, Colt, Goate, Swine, Cocke, Henne, Chicken, Dogge, Turkie, or any tame Cattel, or Poultry, of what condition soever; whether his owne, or appertaining to another man, without leave from the Generall, upon paine of death.

-The 1612 legal code, topically.

Daniel Frank — “Daniell Francke” to ye olde time Virginians — drew a hanging sentence for stealing and killing a calf belonging to George Yeardley, a major landowner and the former (and future) colonial governor of the Virginia terrtory. Frank, we can assume, was in a state of agonizing hunger when he undertook this desperate act.

Though Mr. Espy’s register of historical executions is an astounding resource, double-checking the dates is a recommended practice. In this case, I believe he’s used a highly fragmentary original record (pdf) and mistakenly ascribed the legal proceedings to the last previous date heading, March 1, 1622. [This would be March 1, 1623 by current reckoning; see footnote here.] This date has been repeated by any number of sources.*

But the narration very clearly states that “the tryall of Danyell Francke and George Clarke vppon Tewsday the fyfth of August 1623” proceeded on the charge of

felonyously steal[ing] and kill[ing] one Calf ye goodes and Chattles of Sr: George Yardley kn[ight] of the woorth and Pryce of three poundes sterling. And after the saide Daniell Francke had killed the said Calfe, Thow the saide George Clarke as Access[orie] to the saide Felony didst help the saide Daniell Fra[nck] to carry the saide Calfe into thy owne house, a[nd] didst helpe to dress eate and spend the same, contrary to the peace of our Sou’ainge Lorde the Ki[ng] his Crowne and Dignitie.

Both men “Receaved sentenc of Death Accordinge to Lawe. Daniell Francke was executed: George Clarke repriued” — either because Clarke was merely an accessory, or as Martha McCartney plausibly speculates, because the gunsmith Clarke was a lot more valuable to the colony than the indentured laborer Francke.

The latter had to make do with his milestone distinction: The first documented hanging in the future US, and the first known execution under normal criminal law.

* My reading of the date is also corroborated (and Espy’s undermined) by a February, 1623 [i.e., 1624] record of the colony’s deaths “since April last.”

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