Introduction to History of Virginia
Virginia was inhabited at least 10,000 years ago by prehistoric nomads who hunted big game. After the big game disappeared from the area, these early Indians turned to fishing, gathering edible plants, and hunting smaller animals. About 2,000 years ago, they began practicing agriculture. At the time of European colonization in the 17th century, the region was inhabited by some 17,000 Indians—mainly Siouan, Algonquian, and Iroquoian.
The Powhatan Confederacy, composed of Algonquian tribes, lived on the Eastern Shore and in the Tidewater area, where the first white settlements were made. Siouan tribes inhabited the area from the headwaters of the James, Rappahannock, and Potomac rivers to the mountains. Iroquoian tribes were scattered throughout the southeast and southwest.
Important dates in Virginia1607 The Virginia Company of London established the colony of Jamestown.1612 John Rolfe helped save the colony by introducing tobacco growing and exporting.1619 America's first representative legislature, the House of Burgesses, met in Jamestown. Dutch traders brought the first blacks to Jamestown.1624 Virginia became a royal colony.1676 Nathaniel Bacon led a rebellion against the government.1693 The College of William and Mary was founded.1775 George Washington, a Virginian, became commander in chief of the Continental Army.1776 Virginia declared its independence and adopted its first constitution, which included a declaration of rights. Thomas Jefferson of Virginia wrote the Declaration of Independence.1781 Lord Cornwallis surrendered to George Washington at Yorktown in the last major battle of the Revolutionary War in America.1788 Virginia became the 10th state on June 25.1789 George Washington became the first president of the United States.1792 Kentucky was formed from Virginia's westernmost counties.1801-1825 Three Virginians served as president: Thomas Jefferson (1801-1809), James Madison (1809-1817), and James Monroe (1817-1825).1831 Nat Turner led a famous slave revolt.1841 William Henry Harrison, born in Virginia, became president. Harrison died a month later. Vice president John Tyler, also a Virginian, became president.1849 Zachary Taylor, another Virginian, became president.1861-1865 Virginia seceded from the Union and became the major battleground of the Civil War.1863 West Virginia was formed from northwestern Virginia.1870 Virginia was readmitted to the Union.1912 Woodrow Wilson became the eighth Virginian to be elected president.1940-1945 New industries opened during World War II.1969 A. Linwood Holton, Jr., became the first Republican to be elected Virginia's governor since 1869.1971 A new state constitution went into effect.1990-1994 L. Douglas Wilder served as Virginia's governor. Wilder was the first African American ever elected governor of a U.S. state.European Settlement
On May 14, 1607, slightly more than 100 men of the Virginia Company of London (also called the London Company) founded the first permanent English colony in America. They had come from London on three ships—the Susan Constant , the God-Speed , and the Discovery —under the command of Captain Christopher Newport. (Women did not arrive until a year later, and not in large numbers until 1619.) A site for the settlement was chosen some 30 miles (48 km) upstream on a river the colonists called the James, after the English king, James I. The settlement was named Jamestown.
In the early years the colonists, for a time led by Captain John Smith, suffered from disease, starvation, and Indian attacks. The prospects for Jamestown's survival improved after the introduction of tobacco cultivation by John Rolfe in 1612, for it gave the colony a potentially profitable crop to export. After Rolfe's marriage in 1614 to Pocahontas, daughter of the Indian leader Powhatan, relations with the Indians improved.
In 1619 the House of Burgesses was organized; it was the first representative assembly in America. Also in that year, the first black Africans to be brought to North America landed in Virginia. (They were indentured servants; blacks did not come as slaves until decades later.) After Powhatan's death, the Indians were led by Opechancanough, who hoped to drive out the English. In 1622 the Indians attacked the colony, killing 347 people, about one-third of the settlement's inhabitants. King James used the "Great Massacre," as it was called, and the slow economic growth of Virginia as reasons to revoke the London Company's charter and place the colony under royal control in 1624.
Royal Colony
In 1644 Opechancanough again led an Indian attack on the colony; about 500 settlers were killed. The colony, however, was strong enough to withstand the attack and went on to flourish and to expand westward. By the mid-17th century, the population was about 15,000, including 300 blacks.
For the first few decades after becoming a royal colony, Virginia remained relatively free of interference from England, mainly because the mother country was preoccupied by internal political and religious conflicts. In 1660, however, England enacted the Navigation Act, which put restrictions on colonial trade and caused economic hardships in Virginia. As a result, political antagonism began to develop between Virginians and the mother country. There was also growing hostility between the politically dominant planter class (the "Tidewater aristocracy") and the small farmers on the frontier. In 1676 Nathaniel Bacon led frontiersmen in a rebellion against the autocratic rule of Lieutenant Governor William Berkeley.
In 1699 the seat of government was moved from Jamestown 11 miles (18 km) inland to Middle Plantation, which was renamed Williamsburg in honor of King William III. Virginia had been the most populous of the British colonies in North America since its founding; by 1715 it had a population of approximately 72,500 whites and 23,000 black slaves. During the administration of Lieutenant Governor Alexander Spotswood (1710–22), westward expansion was encouraged; a peace treaty was negotiated with the Indians; and Williamsburg became the political, educational, and cultural center of Virginia.
With the start of the second quarter of the 18th century, Virginia entered a period of economic prosperity and cultural development. It was also a time of growing dissatisfaction with English rule, as the government in England began to exert increased authority over the colony.
Westward expansion had brought the colony into conflict with Indians on the frontier and also with the French, who claimed part of the western land. Virginia took an active part in the French and Indian War (1754–63), in which British soldiers and American colonists defeated the French and put an end to France's dream of establishing an empire in North America.
Statehood
Virginians after 1760 were in the forefront of the opposition to Great Britain's increasingly repressive colonial policies. Peyton Randolph, Richard Henry Lee, George Washington, Patrick Henry, and Benjamin Harrison were part of a delegation chosen to represent the colony at the First Continental Congress (1774) in Philadelphia. It was called to protest acts of the British parliament; Randolph was chosen president of the Congress. In March, 1775, at a convention in Richmond that selected delegates to the Second Continental Congress, Henry became the first Virginian to publicly call for independence, proclaiming "I know not what course others may take; but, as for me, give me liberty, or give me death."
When the Revolutionary War began in April, 1775, Washington was named commander of the American army. In June, 1776, Virginia's delegates to the Second Continental Congress proposed the Declaration of Independence, and Thomas Jefferson, a Virginian, wrote it. Also that month, Virginia became the first of the colonies to establish a government independent of Great Britain and adopt a state constitution and a bill of rights (the Virginia Declaration of Rights, written by George Mason). Henry was elected the first governor.
In 1779, Richmond, more centrally located than Williamsburg, was made the capital. In that year, fighting reached Virginia's borders. The surrender of Lord Cornwallis and his troops—marking the virtual end of the war—took place at Yorktown in 1781. During the war, George Rogers Clark and his Virginia militia had secured the Northwest Territory for the United States. In 1788 Virginia became the 10th state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.
Four of the first five Presidents of the United States were Virginians—Washington (who held office 1789–97), Jefferson (1801–09), James Madison (1809–17), and James Monroe (1817–25). Although these and other Virginians played important roles in developing the federal system, Virginia became an ardent proponent of states' rights in order to protect its economic and political interests.
In the 19th century, Virginia lost its position of prominence as other states surpassed it in wealth and influence. It remained predominantly rural, with most of its population living on plantations or farms. While only a small percentage of Virginians had slaves, the economy of the state was closely tied to the plantation system and slave-owning. The fact that political power remained in the hands of the aristocratic planters in the east caused friction with non-slaveholding small farmers of western Virginia.
Civil War
As the 19th century progressed, slavery and the issue of states' rights caused division between Northern and Southern states. In Virginia, however, sentiment was moderate and there was a willingness to seek conciliation with the North. This attitude prevailed despite such incidents as a bloody slave uprising in Southampton County led by Nat Turner in 1831 and a raid on Harpers Ferry by John Brown and his abolitionist followers in 1859.
When the Civil War began in 1861, Virginia seceded reluctantly. The settlers west of the Alleghenies remained loyal to the Union and formed the new state of West Virginia. Virginia lost more than 30 per cent of its land area and 25 per cent of its population.
Richmond became the Confederate capital. Robert E. Lee of Virginia was named principal military adviser to Confederate president Jefferson Davis and given command of the Army of Northern Virginia, the main Confederate force. Throughout the war, from the first major battle, at Bull Run (Manassas) in July, 1861, to the fall of Richmond and Petersburg in early April, 1865, Virginia was the center of fighting. The surrender of General Lee and his troops took place at Appomattox Court House in Virginia, on April 9, 1865.
In the Reconstruction era, the period that followed the war, Virginia was placed under military rule by the federal government. A new constitution allowing black suffrage was adopted in 1869, and on January 26, 1870, Virginia was readmitted to the Union.
Modern Development
The post-Reconstruction period was one of poverty and political strife; the state was in ruins and burdened by a $45 million public debt. Most of the more than 350,000 freedmen (former slaves) were destitute. With the plantation system destroyed, large estates were broken up into small tenant farms. Tobacco remained the principal crop, but a number of farmers turned to raising vegetables and livestock.
The slow process of economic recovery started in the 1880's. New railroad construction led to the opening of coal mining districts in the mountains. Newport News developed as a port for coal export. The manufacture of cigarettes began in Richmond. Roanoke became an important urban center after the Norfolk and Western Railway located its shops there. Prosperity, however, did not return until the 1890's.
In politics, two parties vied for control of the government. They were the Conservatives (the traditional Democratic state leadership that had controlled Virginia in the antebellum, or prewar, period) and the Readjusters (mainly Radical Republicans, disgruntled Democrats, and freedmen). The Readjusters had some electoral success in the early 1880's, appealing to blacks and to poor whites. In 1885, however, the Conservative faction (by then having resumed the name Democratic party) came to power. The party espoused conservatism and white supremacy.
In 1902 a new constitution was adopted. It imposed a poll tax and a literacy test, which effectively excluded nearly all blacks and many poor whites from voting and thus strengthened the Democratic party. Oneparty government, controlled by business and financial interests, became firmly entrenched in the 20th century. The Democrats' domination of state government lasted for decades. During that time, the party organization was headed successively by three United States senators—Thomas S. Martin (who served in the Senate, 1893–1919); Carter Glass (1919–46); and Harry F. Byrd, Sr. (1933–65). Byrd was also governor, 1926–30.
In the first half of the 20th century, the state's largely agrarian society was transformed into a more urban, industrialized one. Although about 85 per cent of the population still lived in rural areas in the first decade of the 1900's, money and power had shifted to the cities, including Richmond, Norfolk, Newport News, Petersburg, Roanoke, and Lynchburg. In these years, coal mining and the manufacture of tobacco products and textiles grew rapidly. World War I brought increased prosperity to the state. There was a boom in the shipbuilding industry, munitions plants were built, and military and naval installations were established.
Economic growth continued in the 1920's. After Byrd's election as governor in 1925, measures to attract new industry were adopted, appropriations for highways and education were significantly increased, and state government was reorganized and streamlined. The national depression of the 1930's slowed the state's economy, but Virginia was not as severely affected as other states and was able to recover more rapidly than most. The expansion of the federal bureauracy under President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal led to spectacular growth in the northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C. From 1930 to 1940, population rose 11 per cent, exceeding the national average growth rate.
As in World War I, Virginia during World War II was one of the most prosperous states of the Southeast. War industries sprang up throughout the state and military and naval facilities expanded. Population underwent significant growth both in the Washington suburbs and in the Hampton Roads area, increasing 25 per cent from 1940 to 1950. Also during the decade, an improved highway system brought tourists in large numbers to the state's many historic sites.
Virginia opposed desegregation of schools when it was mandated by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1954. The state carried out a program of resistance through legal maneuvers. It failed, however, and the first steps toward integration were taken in 1959. Beginning in the 1960's, Republicans were elected to statewide office, marking the reestablishment of two-party politics in Virginia after nearly 80 years of Democratic dominance. In 1970 A. Linwood Holton, Jr., became the first Republican governor in nearly a century.
In the 1980's, Virginia benefited economically from the national defense build-up under the Reagan Presidency. Also during the decade, voters elected the first black and the first woman to hold statewide office. In 1990, L. Douglas Wilder became the first black governor of the state; he served until 1994.
In the early 21st century, Virginia kept its economy strong through its broad base of manufacturing, agriculture, tourism, and federal government activities. This economic situation has kept the state’s unemployment levels below the national average. The most deadly shooting in U.S. history occurred in 2007 at Virginia Polytechnic and State University (Virginia Tech) in Blacksburg. The gunman was a student of the school, and killed 27 fellow students, 5 teachers, and wounded many others before turning the gun on himself.