Virginia

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The name "Virginia" is the oldest designation for English claims in North America. In 1584, Sir Walter Raleigh sent Philip Amadas and Arthur Barlowe to explore what is now the North Carolina coast, and they returned with word of a regional king (weroance) named Wingina, who ruled a land supposedly called Wingandacoa. "Virginia" was originally a term used to refer to England's entire North American possession and claim along the east coast from the 34th parallel (close to Cape Fear) north to 45th parallel. This area included a large section of Canada and the shores of Acadia.^[6]

The name Virginia for a region in North America may have been originally suggested by Raleigh who named it for Queen Elizabeth I in approximately 1584.^[7] In addition, the term Wingandacoa may have influenced the name Virginia."^[8][9] On his next voyage, Raleigh learned that while the chief of the Secotans was indeed called Wingina, the expression wingandacoa heard by the English upon arrival actually meant "What good clothes you wear!" in Carolina Algonquian and was not the name of the country as previously misunderstood.^[10]

The colony was also known as the Virginia Colony, the Province of Virginia, and occasionally as the Dominion and Colony of Virginia or His Majesty's Most Ancient Colloney and Dominion of Virginia.^[11][12]

Old Dominion

According to tradition, in gratitude for the loyalty of Virginians to the crown during the English Civil War, Charles II gave it the title of "Old Dominion".^[13][14] The colony seal stated from Latin en dat virginia quintum, in English 'Behold, Virginia gives the fifth', with Virginia claimed as the fifth English dominion after England, France, Scotland and Ireland.

The Commonwealth of Virginia maintains "Old Dominion" as its state nickname. The athletic teams of the University of Virginia are known as the "Cavaliers", referring to supporters of Charles II, and Virginia has a public university called "Old Dominion University".

Colonization attempts in the New World (1583–1590)

In 1583, Sir Humphrey Gilbert established a charter in Newfoundland. Once established, he and his crew abandoned the site and traveled back to England. On the return trip, Gilbert's ship capsized, and all aboard perished. The charter was abandoned.

In 1585, Raleigh sent his first colonization mission to the island of Roanoke (in present-day North Carolina), with over 100 male settlers. However, when Sir Francis Drake arrived at the colony in summer 1586, the colonists opted to return to England because there was a lack of supply ships, abandoning the colony. Supply ships arrived at the abandoned colony later in 1586; 15 soldiers were left behind to hold the island, but no trace of these men was later found.^[15]

In 1587, Raleigh sent another group to attempt to establish a permanent settlement. The expedition leader, John White, returned to England for supplies that same year but was unable to return to the colony because of the war between England and Spain. When he finally did return in 1590, he found the colony abandoned. The houses were intact, but the colonists had disappeared. Although there are numerous theories about the fate of the colony, it remains a mystery and has come to be known as the "Lost Colony". Two English children were born in this colony; the first was named Virginia Dare (Dare County, North Carolina, was named in her honor), who was among those whose fate is unknown. The word Croatoan was found carved into a tree, the name of a tribe on a nearby island.^[15]

Virginia Company (1606–1624)

Following the failure of the previous colonization attempts, England resumed attempts to set up colonies. This time joint-stock companies were used rather than giving extensive grants to a landed proprietor such as Gilbert or Raleigh.^[4]

Charter of 1606

Main article: Charter of 1606

The site of the 1607 Popham Colony is shown by "Po" on the map. The settlement at Jamestown is shown by "J".

King James granted a proprietary charter to two competing branches of the Virginia Company, which were supported by investors. These were the Plymouth Company and the London Company.^[16] By the terms of the charter, the Plymouth Company was permitted to establish a colony of 100 miles (160 km) square between the 38th parallel and the 45th parallel (roughly between Chesapeake Bay and the current U.S.–Canada border). The London Company was permitted to establish between the 34th parallel and the 41st parallel (approximately between Cape Fear and Long Island Sound), and also owned a large portion of Atlantic and Inland Canada. In the area of overlap, the two companies were not permitted to establish colonies within one hundred miles of each other.^[16] During 1606, each company organized expeditions to establish settlements within the area of their rights.

The London company formed Jamestown in its exclusive territory, whilst the Plymouth company formed the Popham Colony in its exclusive territory near what is now Phippsburg, Maine.^[17] The Popham colony quickly failed because of famine, disease, and conflicts with local Native American tribes in the first two years.

Charter of 1609 – the London company expands

Main article: Second Virginia Charter

The 1609 charter for the Virginia colony "from sea to sea"

In 1609, with the abandonment of the Plymouth Company settlement, the London Company's Virginia charter was adjusted to include the territory north of the 34th parallel and south of the 39th parallel, with its original coastal grant extended "from sea to sea". Thus, at least according to James I's writ, the Virginia Colony in its original sense extended to the coast of the Pacific Ocean, in what is now California, with all the land in between belonging to Virginia. For practical purposes, though, the colonists rarely ventured far inland to what was known as the "Virginia Wilderness."

Third supply

Map depicting the Colony of Virginia (according to the Second Charter), made by Willem Blaeu between 1609 and 1638

For the third supply, the London Company had a new ship built. The Sea Venture was specifically designed for emigration of additional colonists and transporting supplies. It became the flagship of the admiral of the convoy, Sir George Somers. The third supply was the largest to date, with eight other ships joining the Sea Venture. The captain of the Sea Venture was the mission's Vice Admiral Christopher Newport. Hundreds of new colonists were aboard the ships. However, weather was to drastically affect the mission.

A few days out of London, the nine ships of the third supply mission encountered a hurricane in the Atlantic Ocean. They became separated during the three days the storm lasted. Admiral Somers had the Sea Venture, carrying most of the supplies of the mission, deliberately driven aground onto the reefs of Bermuda to avoid sinking. However, while there was no loss of life, the ship was wrecked beyond repair, stranding its survivors on the uninhabited archipelago, to which they laid claim for England.^[21]

The survivors at Bermuda eventually built two smaller ships and most of them continued on to Jamestown, leaving a few on Bermuda to secure the claim. The company's possession of Bermuda was made official in 1612, when the third and final charter extended the boundaries of Virginia far enough out to sea to encompass Bermuda.^[22]

Upon their arrival at Jamestown, the survivors of the Sea Venture discovered that the 10-month delay had greatly aggravated other adverse conditions. Seven of the other ships had arrived carrying more colonists but little in the way of food and supplies. Combined with a drought and hostile relations with the Native Americans, the loss of the supplies that had been aboard the Sea Venture resulted in the Starving Time in late 1609 to May 1610, during which over 80% of the colonists perished. Conditions were so adverse it appears, from skeletal evidence, that the survivors engaged in cannibalism.^[23] The survivors from Bermuda had brought few supplies and food with them, and it appeared to all that Jamestown must be abandoned and it would be necessary to return to England.

Second Anglo-Powhatan War (1622–1632)

The relations with the Natives took a turn for the worse after the death of Pocahontas in England and the return of Rolfe and other colonial leaders in May 1617. Disease, poor harvests and the growing demand for tobacco lands caused hostilities to escalate. After Chief Powhatan's death in 1618, he was succeeded by his own younger brother, Opechancanough. He maintained friendly relations with the colony on the surface, negotiating with them through his warrior Nemattanew, but by 1622, after Nemattanew had been slain, Opechancanough was ready to order a limited surprise attack on the colonists, hoping to persuade them to move on and settle elsewhere.

The Indian massacre of 1622, depicted in a 1628 woodcut

Chief Opechancanough organized and led a well-coordinated series of surprise attacks on multiple English settlements along both sides of a 50-mile (80 km) long stretch of the James River, which took place early on the morning of March 22, 1622. This event resulted in the deaths of 347 colonists (including men, women, and children) and the abduction of many others. The massacre caught most of the Virginia Colony by surprise and virtually wiped out several entire communities, including Henricus and Wolstenholme Towne at Martin's Hundred. Jamestown was spared from destruction because an Indian boy named Chanco learned of the planned attacks from his brother and gave warning to colonist Richard Pace with whom he lived. Pace, after securing himself and his neighbors on the south side of the James River, took a canoe across the river to warn Jamestown, which narrowly escaped destruction, although there was no time to warn the other settlements.

A year later, Captain William Tucker and Dr. John Pott worked out a truce with the Powhatan and proposed a toast using liquor laced with poison. 200 Virginia Indians were killed or made ill by the poison, and 50 more were slaughtered by the colonists. For over a decade, the English settlers killed Powhatan men and women, captured children and systematically razed villages, seizing or destroying crops.

By 1634, a six-mile-long palisade was completed across the Virginia Peninsula. The palisade provided some security from attacks by the Virginia Indians for colonists farming and fishing lower on the Peninsula from that point. On April 18, 1644, Opechancanough again tried to force the colonists to abandon the region with another series of coordinated attacks, killing almost 500 colonists. However, this was a smaller proportion of the growing population than had been killed in the 1622 attacks.

Crown colony (1624–1652)

Cover to a history of the Plantation of Virginia between 1612 and 1624, compiled by its planters

In 1620, a successor to the Plymouth Company sent colonists to the New World aboard the Mayflower. Known as Pilgrims, they successfully established a settlement in what became Massachusetts. The portion of what had been Virginia north of the 40th parallel became known as New England, according to books written by Captain John Smith, who had made a voyage there.

In 1624, the charter of the Virginia Company was revoked by King James I, and the Virginia Colony was transferred to royal authority in the form of a crown colony. Subsequent charters for the Maryland Colony in 1632 and to the eight lords proprietors of the Province of Carolina in 1663 and 1665 further reduced the Virginia Colony to roughly the coastal borders it held until the American Revolution. (The border with North Carolina was disputed until surveyed by William Byrd II in 1728.)

Treaty of 1646

Red line showing the boundary between the Virginia Colony and Tributary Indian tribes, as established by the Treaty of 1646. The Red dot shows Jamestown, the capital of the Virginia Colony.

In the peace treaty of October 1646, the weroance Necotowance and the subtribes formerly in the confederacy each became tributaries to the King of England. At the same time, a racial frontier was delineated between Indian and English settlements, with members of each group forbidden to cross to the other side except by a special pass obtained at one of the newly erected border forts.

The extent of the Virginia Colony open to patent by English colonists was defined as: All the land between the Blackwater and York rivers, and up to the navigable point of each of the major rivers – which were connected by a straight line running directly from modern Franklin on the Blackwater, northwesterly to the Appomattoc village beside Fort Henry, and continuing in the same direction to the Monocan village above the falls of the James, where Fort Charles was built, then turning sharp right, to Fort Royal on the York (Pamunkey) river. Necotowance thus ceded the English vast tracts of still-uncolonized land, much of it between the James and Blackwater. English settlements on the peninsula north of the York and below the Poropotank were also allowed, as they had already been there since 1640.

English Civil War and Commonwealth (1642–1660)

While the newer Puritan colonies, most notably Massachusetts, were dominated by Parliamentarians, the older colonies sided with the Crown. The Virginia Company's two settlements, Virginia and Bermuda (Bermuda's Puritans were expelled as the Eleutheran Adventurers, settling the Bahamas under William Sayle), Antigua and Barbados were conspicuous in their loyalty to the Crown and were singled out by the Rump Parliament in An Act for prohibiting Trade with the Barbadoes, Virginia, Bermuda and Antego in October 1650. This dictated that:

[D]ue punishment [be] inflicted upon the said Delinquents, do[es] Declare all and every the said persons in Barbada's, Antego, Bermuda's and Virginia, that have contrived, abetted, aided or assisted those horrid Rebellions, or have since willingly joyned with them, to be notorious Robbers and Traitors, and such as by the Law of Nations are not to be permitted any maner of Commerce or Traffique with any people whatsoever; and do[es] forbid to all maner of persons, Foreiners, and others, all maner of Commerce, Traffique and Correspondency whatsoever, to be used or held with the said Rebels in the Barbada's, Bermuda's, Virginia and Antego, or either of them.

The act authorized Parliamentary privateers to act against English vessels trading with the rebellious colonies: "All Ships that Trade with the Rebels may be surprized. Goods and tackle of such ships not to be embezeled, till judgement in the Admiralty; Two or three of the Officers of every ship to be examined upon oath."

Virginia's population swelled with cavaliers during and after the English Civil War. Under the tenure of Crown Governor William Berkeley (1642–1652; 1660–1677), the population expanded from 8,000 in 1642 to 40,000 in 1677.^[29] Despite the resistance of the Virginia Cavaliers, Virginian Puritan Richard Bennett was made governor answering to Oliver Cromwell in 1652, followed by two more nominal "commonwealth governors". Nonetheless, the colony was rewarded for its loyalty to the Crown by Charles II following the Stuart Restoration when he dubbed it the ''Old Dominion''.

With the Restoration in 1660 the governorship returned to Berkeley. In 1676, Bacon's Rebellion challenged the political order of the colony. While a military failure, its handling did result in Governor Berkeley being recalled to England. In 1679, the Treaty of Middle Plantation was signed between King Charles II and several Native American groups.

Williamsburg era

Virginia was the largest, richest, and most influential of the American colonies, where conservatives were in full control of the colonial and local governments. At the local level, Church of England parishes handled many local affairs, and they in turn were controlled not by the minister but rather by a closed circle of rich landowners who comprised the parish vestry. Ronald L. Heinemann emphasizes the ideological conservatism of Virginia while noting there were also religious dissenters who were gaining strength by the 1760s:

The tobacco planters and farmers of Virginia adhered to the concept of a hierarchical society that they or their ancestors had brought with them from England. Most held to the general idea of a Great Chain of Being: at the top were God and his heavenly host; next came kings...who were divinely sanctioned to rule, then an hereditary aristocracy who were followed in descending order by wealthy landed gentry, small, independent farmers, tenant farmers, servants....Aspirations to rise above one's station in life were considered a sin.^[30]

In actual practice, colonial Virginia never had a bishop to represent God nor a hereditary aristocracy with titles like 'duke' or 'baron'. However, it did have a royal governor appointed by the king, as well as a powerful landed gentry. The status quo was strongly reinforced by what Thomas Jefferson called "feudal and unnatural distinctions" that were vital to the maintenance of aristocracy in Virginia. He promoted laws such as entail and primogeniture by which the oldest son inherited all the land. As a result increasingly large plantations, worked by white tenant farmers and by black slaves, gained in size and wealth and political power in the eastern ("Tidewater") tobacco areas. Maryland and South Carolina had similar hierarchical systems, as did New York and Pennsylvania.^[31] During the American Revolutionary era, all such laws were repealed by the new states.^[32] The most fervent Loyalists left for Canada or Britain or other parts of the British Empire. They introduced primogeniture in Upper Canada in 1792, and it lasted until 1851. Such laws lasted in England until 1926.^[33]

Iroquois Confederacy

Map of the Iroquois expansion during the Beaver Wars, 1638–1711

As the English settlements expanded beyond the Tidewater territory traditionally occupied by the Powhatan, they encountered new groups with which there had been minimal relations with the colony. In the late 17th century, the Iroquois Confederacy expanded into the western region of Virginia as part of the Beaver Wars. They arrived shortly before the English settlers, and displaced the resident Siouan tribes.

Lt. Gov. Alexander Spotswood made further advances in policy with the Virginia Indians along the frontier. In 1714, he established Fort Christanna to help educate and trade with several tribes with which the colony had friendly relations, as well as to help protect them from hostile tribes. In 1722 the Treaty of Albany was signed by leaders of the Five Nations of Iroquois, Province of New York, Colony of Virginia, and Province of Pennsylvania.

Early settlements

The fort at Jamestown, founded in 1607, remained the primary settlement of the colonists for several years. A few strategic outposts were constructed, including Fort Algernon (1609) at the entrance to the James River. Early attempts to occupy strategic locations already inhabited by natives at what is now Richmond and Suffolk failed owing to native resistance.

A short distance farther up the James, in 1611, Thomas Dale began the construction of a progressive development at Henricus on and about what was later known as Farrar's Island. Henricus was envisioned as possible replacement capital for Jamestown, and was to have the first college in Virginia. (The ill-fated Henricus was destroyed during the Indian massacre of 1622). In addition to creating the settlement at Henricus, Dale also established the port town of Bermuda Hundred, as well as "Bermuda Cittie" in 1613, now part of Hopewell, Virginia. He began the excavation work at Dutch Gap, using methods he had learned while serving in Holland.

"Hundreds"

Bermuda Hundred and other early English settlements upriver of Jamestown

Once tobacco had been established as an export cash crop, investors became more interested, and groups of them united to create largely self-sufficient "hundreds." The term "hundred" is a traditional English name for an administrative division of a shire (or county) to define an area which would support one hundred heads of household.^[34] In the colonial era in Virginia, the "hundreds" were large developments of many acres, necessary to support tobacco crops. The "hundreds" were required to be at least several miles from any existing community. Soon, these patented tracts of land sprang up along the rivers. The investors sent shiploads of settlers and supplies to Virginia to establish the new developments. The administrative centers of Virginia's hundreds were essentially small towns or villages and were often palisaded for defense.

An example was Martin's Hundred, located downstream from Jamestown on the north bank of the James River. It was sponsored by the Martin's Hundred Society, a group of investors in London. It was settled in 1618, and Wolstenholme Towne was its administrative center, named for John Wolstenholme, one of the investors.

Bermuda Hundred (now in Chesterfield County) and Flowerdew Hundred (now in Prince George County) are other names which have survived over centuries. Others included Berkeley Hundred, Bermuda Nether Hundred, Bermuda Upper Hundred, Smith's Hundred, Digges Hundred, West Hundred and Shirley Hundred (and, in Bermuda, Harrington Hundreds). Including the creation of the "hundreds", the various incentives to investors in the Virginia Colony finally paid off by 1617. By this time, the colonists were exporting 50,000 pounds of tobacco to England per year and were beginning to generate enough profit to ensure the economic survival of the colony.

Cities, shires, and counties

In 1619, the plantations and developments were divided into four "incorporations" or "citties", as they were called. These were Charles Cittie, Elizabeth Cittie, Henrico Cittie, and James Cittie, which included the relatively small seat of government for the colony at Jamestown Island. Each of the four "citties" (sic) extended across the James River, the main conduit of transportation of the era. Elizabeth Cittie, known initially as Kecoughtan (a Native word with many variations in spelling by the English), also included the areas now known as South Hampton Roads and the Eastern Shore.

In 1634, a system of local government was created in the Virginia Colony by order of the King of England. Eight shires were designated, each with its own local officers. Within a few years, the shires were renamed counties, a system that has remained to the present day.

Later settlements

In 1630, under the governorship of John Harvey, the first settlement on the York River was founded. In 1632, the Virginia legislature voted to build a fort to link Jamestown and the York River settlement of Chiskiack and protect the colony from Indian attacks. In 1634, a palisade was built near Middle Plantation. This wall stretched across the peninsula between the York and James rivers and protected the settlements on the eastern side of the lower peninsula from Indians. The wall also served to contain cattle.

In 1699, a capital was established and built at Middle Plantation, soon renamed Williamsburg.

Northern Neck Proprietary

In the period following the English Civil War, the exiled King Charles II hoped to shore up the loyalty of several of his supporters by granting them a significant area of mostly uncharted land to control as a proprietary in Virginia (a claim that would only be valid were the king to return to power). While under the jurisdiction of the Virginia Colony, the proprietary maintained complete control of the granting of land within that territory (and revenues obtained from it) until after the American Revolution. The grant was for the land between the Rappahannock and Potomac Rivers, which included the titular Northern Neck, but as time went on also would include all of what is today Northern Virginia and into West Virginia. Due to ambiguities of the text of the various grants causing disputes between the proprietary and the colonial government, the tract was finally demarcated via the Fairfax Line in 1746.

Population

Ethnic origins

England supplied the great majority of colonists. In 1608, the first Poles and Slovaks arrived as part of a group of skilled craftsmen.^{[39][40][41][42]} In 1619, the first Africans arrived. Many more Africans were imported as slaves, such as Angela.^[43] In the early 17th century, French Huguenots arrived in the colony as refugees from religious warfare.^[44]

In the early 18th century, indentured German-speaking colonists from the iron-working region of Nassau-Siegen arrived to establish the Germanna settlement.^[45] Scots-Irish settled on the Virginia frontier.^[46] Some Welsh arrived, including some ancestors of Thomas Jefferson.^[47]

Servitude and slavery

With the boom in tobacco planting, there was a severe shortage of laborers to work the labor-intensive crop. One method to solve the shortage was through the usage of indentured servants.

By the 1640s, legal documents started to define the changing nature of indentured servants and their status as servants. In 1640, John Punch was sentenced to lifetime servitude as punishment for trying to escape from his master Hugh Gwyn. This is the earliest legal sanctioning of slavery in Virginia.^[48] After this trial, the relationship between indentured servants and their masters changed, as planters saw permanent servitude a more appealing and profitable prospect than seven-year indentures.

As many indentured workers were illiterate, especially Africans, there were opportunities for abuse by planters and other indenture holders. Some ignored the expiration of servants' indentured contracts and tried to keep them as lifelong workers. One example is with Anthony Johnson, who argued with Robert Parker, another planter, over the status of John Casor, formerly an indentured servant of his. Johnson argued that his indenture was for life and Parker had interfered with his rights. The court ruled in favor of Johnson and ordered that Casor be returned to him, where he served the rest of his life as a slave.^[49] Such documented cases marked the transformation of Black Africans from indentured servants into slaves.

In the late 17th century, the Royal African Company, which was established by the King of England to supply the great demand for labor to the colonies, had a monopoly on the provision of African slaves to the colony.^[50] As plantation agriculture was established earlier in Barbados, in the early years, enslaved people were shipped from Barbados (where they were seasoned) to the colonies of Virginia and Carolina.

Religion

In 1619, the Anglican Church was formally established as the official religion in the colony, and would remain so until shortly after the American Revolution. Establishment meant that local tax funds paid the parish costs, and that the parish had local civic functions such as poor relief. The upper class planters controlled the vestry, which ran the parish and chose the minister. The church in Virginia was controlled by the Bishop of London, who sent priests and missionaries, but there were never enough, and they reported very low standards of personal morality.^[51] By the 1760s, dissenting Protestants, especially Baptists and Methodists, were growing rapidly and started challenging the Anglicans for moral leadership.^[52][53][54]

Education and literacy

Rear view of the Wren Building at the College of William & Mary, begun in 1695

The first printing press used in Virginia began operation in Jamestown on June 8, 1680, though within a few years it was shut down by the Governor and Crown of England for want of a license.^[55] It was not until 1736 that the first newspaper, the Virginia Gazette, began circulation under printer William Parks of Williamsburg.^[55]

The Syms-Eaton Academy, started in 1634, became the first free public school in America. Private tutors were often favored among those families who could afford them.^[56]

For most of the 17th century, a university education for settlers of Virginia required a journey to England or Scotland.^[56] Such journeys were undertaken by wealthy young men. In the early years, many settlers received their education prior to immigrating to the colony.^[56]

In 1693, the College of William & Mary was founded at Middle Plantation (soon renamed Williamsburg). The college included a common school for Virginia Indians, supplemented by local pupils, which lasted until a 1779 overhaul of the institution's curriculum.^[56] The college, located in the capital and heart of the Tidewater region, dominated the colony's intellectual climate until after independence.^[56][57]

After 1747, some Virginians began to attend institutions at Princeton and Philadelphia. Generations began to move west into the Piedmont and Blue Ridge areas.^[56] It is in this region of Virginia that two future Presbyterian colleges trace their origins to lower-level institutions founded in this time period. First, what would become Hampden–Sydney College was founded in 1775, immediately prior to the American Revolution. Likewise, Augusta Academy was a classical school that would evolve into Washington and Lee University (though would not grant its first bachelor's degree until 1785).