Sir Edwin Sandys
Edwin Sandys was educated at Oxford. He was knighted by James I in 1603. He was an original “adventurer” in the London Company, which took possession of Sir Walter Raleigh’s new world lands in 1606. He supported Sir Thomas Smythe in his efforts to reform the company in 1609 and took over for Smythe as Treasurer (chief executive officer of the company) in 1619. He promoted the policy of “headrights,” which granted fifty acres to individuals who settled in the company’s new world dominion and the establishment of a general assembly to improve administration of the colony. The colony’s eventual success is widely attributed to Sandys’ innovative measures.
Sandy' innovative policies were designed to realize a revolutionary new concept of society which he called commonwealth.
The commonwealth Sandys created in Virginia was an assoication of individuals who pursued their private interests as members of his community. Unlike the societies later theorized by Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, the one that Sandys masterminded in Virginia rested on a symbiotic relationship in which the well-being of the community depended the success of its members. Their success depended, in turn, on the marketplace the community provided in which they could buy and sell goods, procure needed services, and fulfill their needs as social creatures.
A common communal interest developed among Virginia's planters to the extent that they realized they needed a crop that could be sold profitably and a market in which to sell it. They promoted their common good by striving to provide these essential components for their economic success. They promoted social harmony by adhering to common ways. By doing these things, a collection of individuals struggling to survive in a wilderness beyond the civilized world finally managed to form a social organism that qualifies as a civil society.
