History of Virginia

The History of Virginia began with the settlement of the geographic region now known as the Commonwealth of Virginia in the U.S. thousands of years ago by Native Americans.

Permanent European settlement began with English settlers at Jamestown in 1607. Tobacco emerged as a profitable export crop, and the Virginia Colony became the richest and largest British colonies in North America. The year 2007 marked the 400th anniversary of the first permanent English settlement at Jamestown.

As one of the original 13 United States which won their independence from Great Britain during the American Revolution, Virginia produced more national leaders than any state, including four of the first five presidents (Washington, Jefferson, Madison and Monroe). The new state gave up its western lands to form Kentucky and Ohio. During the first half of the 19th century, Virginia grew less rapidly than industrial states to the north, or cotton states to the south. The state exported young people and slaves to form plantations and farms to the west and south.

Virginia was a slave state but refused to join the cotton states in the new Confederacy until Lincoln called for troops to invade the Confederacy. Then it seceded and Richmond became the new Confederate capital. After many decades of sectional hostility in 1861 West Virginia broke away as a separate state and joined the Union.

With the Yankees intent on capturing Richmond, Virginia became the main battlefield of the war, which it lost in 1865 as its greatest general, Robert E. Lee, surrendered.

Reconstruction brought the liberation of the state's slaves, and proved less contentious than elsewhere in the South. Virginia was poor after 1865, though the new popularity of cigarettes boosted its tobacco industry. After 1940, prosperity returned. World War II gave the state a major naval and industrial economic base. Desegregation of schools and the integration of African Americans in many other aspects of the society were major issues from the 1950s to the 1970s and the changes did not come without considerable efforts. However, in 1989 Douglas Wilder became the first elected black governor anywhere in the country. By the 1980s the suburban fringes of Washington known as "Northern Virginia" saw the greatest growth and prosperity, a trend which was also seen in the Hampton Roads region. The rest of the state was relatively poor, with little growth.

Politically, the state was a stronghold of conservative Democrats--led by Harry Byrd-- for most of the 20th century, with a new strength shown by conservative Republicans in the final decade. In the early 21st century, funding for transportation needs emerged as the most controversial single issue.

In partisan terms, the two parties compete furiously for the legislature and the governorship. In presidential elections Virginia was reliably Republican from 1968 until 2004, but in 2008 Obama won, thanks to the growing liberal strength in the Washington suburbs.

for the state today see Virginia

Indians

Before Europeans arrived, there were three main groups of American Indians living in the area now covered by Virginia. These were the Algonquian, Iroquoian (including Cherokee, Meherrin and Nottoway) and the Siouan Indians.

The Powhatan were the most powerful and numerous tribe; they lived in settled villages in the eastern shore and tidewater regions. Their food came from hunting, fishing, and garden crops, such as corn, squash, and pumpkins. The Indian population of Virginia was never great, numbering perhaps 17,000 in 1607. The numbers declined sharply because of new diseases especially smallpox. The English adopted many Indian place names, including Appomattox, Nansemond, Rappahannock, and Shenandoah.

Spanish explorers visited parts of what is now Virginia in 1560 and again in 1570 when Jesuit missionaries attempted to set up a mission, but were all killed by Indians.

English adventurer Sir Walter Raleigh led an exploration party in 1584. A group of men from England invested in a Joint Stock Company called "The Virginia Company" to find gold and other treasures. King James I granted lands to company in 1606 stretching from North Carolina to New York. The name "Virginia" honors Queen Elizabeth I (known as the "Virgin Queen" as she never married). The company in 1607 sent 105 settlers who established the first permanent settlement.

The stockade village, named "Jamestown" after King James I, was poorly sited in a grassy swamp filled with malaria-bearing mosquitos. There was a shortage of fresh water or good soil. Malaria and other diseases, "starving times" of low food supplies, low morale, poor leadership, and repeated Indian attacks left Jamestown on the verge of extinction. In 1624 the company was bankrupt and the king revoked the charter; the colony thus came under the direct administration of the crown until 1775.

Colonial Era

The royal government brought political and legal stability and largely ended the Indian threat. Prosperity came after 1660 with the realization that tobacco could be grown for a huge profit and that black slaves could do the work. Virginia developed a distinctive culture that spread from there through much of the South. Tobacco and slavery produced an economic, social, and political system dominated by a native oligarchy of rich farmers called the planter aristocracy. Poor whites operated self-sufficient farms, with a little tobacco grown for personal use and cash sales. There were no cities or even towns, as the planters shipped tobacco in barrels from small wharfs close to their plantations directly to London.

Demographic conditions after 1660 were increasingly favorable. Malaria was not fatal to people born in Virginia, and the food supply was ample. Both the white and black population grew rapidly. Wars were uncommon and small-scale. Immigration comprised mostly middle class families, plus poor teenagers who came as "indentured servants" and became fully independent at age 21. Between 1718 and 1775, Britain dumped about 20,000 convicts in Virginia (after the Revolution it sent them to Australia).

Politically the planters controlled local government through their control of the Anglican parishes and county government; neither was elected. The planters also controlled elections to the the colonial legislature, the House of Burgesses. English institutions were changed into a system of democracy--most white men owned property so they could and did vote, and usually voted for their "betters". (In England, by contrast, fewer than 10% of the men could vote.)

Women

It was a patriarchal society ruled exclusively by men. However, if a man overstepped the boundaries of local norms, the county court could intervene and punish him. Thus in 1668-70 a rich planter named Henry Smith was charged several times in court--he was accused of concubinage, wife beating, adultery, child abuse, fathering bastards, sexual harassment, rape, and brutality toward servants. The court heard damning testimony from his wife and from his mistress and other local women. Illiterate and isolated but well versed in their legal and customary rights and duties, the women knew how to handle Smith, who was found guilty.

Slaves

Historians have disagreed as to whether slavery in colonial Virginia was made politically and psychologically acceptable by an inherent racism among white Europeans, or if slavery emerged as a result of economic factors and racism developed as a consequence of it. The consensus is that the enslavement of Africans was due to economic requirements for labor, to the inability of Africans to resist slavery, and to European beliefs that Africans were an inferior branch of humanity, suited by their characteristics and circumstances to be lifelong slaves.

Frontier

Tobacco plantations were in the "tidewater" area close to the ocean. Plenty of good cheap land was available on the frontier. The settlers west of the Blue Ridge mountains from the 1720s to the 1740s were mostly German and Scotch-Irish Protestants, whose society contrasted sharply with tidewater Anglican colonists. Historians explaining the distinctiveness of the backcountry focus on two factors: the availability of good land at low prices and the pioneering efforts of land speculators encouraged by the colonial government.

Religion

The Anglican religion was established--meaning that taxes were collected to support the church and the parish handled poor relief. Most Virginians were not very religious, but most also believed in a spirit world. The supernatural world of the settlers involved belief in benevolent and demonic forces, divine judgment, omens, magic, witchcraft, combat with the devil, and other ideas brought over from England. This complex supernatural world functioned to explain the unknown, sanction colonization, demonize the native population, control the colonists, and provide a defense against internal and external enemies.

. Scattered settlements and the lack of trained Anglican ministers meant that piety was practiced mostly at home. Itinerant ministers encouraged parishioners to use the Book of Common Prayer for private prayer and devotion. This allowed Anglicans to lead an active and sincere religious life apart from formal church services. Private piety, however, weakened the Anglican Church, and what clergy there were were controlled by the laymen in the vestry. As a result Anglicans were unable to counter the First Great Awakening, which created a large Baptist denomination.

Rise of the Baptists

Created in 1758, the Sandy Creek Association was the third Baptist association formed in colonial America. It brought together all Separate Baptist churches in Virginia and the Carolinas. Its early meetings were times of singing, preaching, and encouraging and training younger pastors, but it split three ways in 1770 because Shubal Stearns, the legendary Baptist leader, established a strongly centralized organization that many churches felt they had to leave to preserve their autonomy.

From 1755 to 1790 Virginia hosted numerous local religious revivals that led to the rapid growth of the Baptist Church among poor white farmers. Converts were particularly drawn to the faith by its promise to provide social order through heightened self-discipline and its ability to elicit interpersonal contact and intense emotional release. Although the congregations have been described as favorably disposed toward slaves, an overwhelming body of evidence suggests the predominance of proslavery tendencies. Friends, relatives and neighbors brought potential converts to revival meetings, and supported them when they converted. After 1800 black slaves adopted the Baptist religion as well, ignoring the Episcopal and Presbyterian churches of their owners

The Anglican elite depended on automatic deference from ordinary farmers. Increasingly the Baptists and Presbysterians refused to doff their hats or vote the way they were told, and they managed to stick together thanks to their strong social networks. The colonial government faced the issue by creating a standing "Committee for Religion" in the House of Burgesses in 1769. It first made sure London did not impose an Anglican bishop for the colony, and thus kept Anglican church affairs in the hands of the gentry. It was forced to concede to dissenter demands for greater toleration and agreed to allow several parishes the right to elect their vestrymen. As the colonial era ended the interlocking crises of religion in Virginia remained unresolved, but the committee had served as a forum within which the ruling elite worked out solutions that were designed to win public support.

American Revolution

Physician, planter, patriot, soldier, legislator, Theodorick Bland (1742-1790) was an active participant in the major events of his time. Born into a prominent family at the zenith of Virginia's golden age, Bland was trained in medicine in Scotland, London and Paris. He gave up his medical practice in 1771, becoming a tobacco planter and politician. His public career was spent in the defense of the gentry's power and position. His principal motivation was his desire to enable the world of his birth to survive and prosper in the wake of the massive political, economic, and social upheavals that occurred during the 1770s-90s. he raised a regiment and fought alongside George Washington. Most of Washington’s officers became federalists who supported the Constitution in 1788, but not Bland. Bland's antifederalist views were the ultimate manifestation of his devotion to the world of the tobacco aristocracy. Like Patrick Henry and George Mason, Bland voted against the new constitution, viewing the document as a serious threat to their power and position. When it was adopted, he ran for and was elected to Congress, but died before he made his mark there.

New Nation

Free blacks

The free black population grew rapidly during 1771-1815. Before the American Revolution the increase in the free black population was due mainly to local emancipations, natural population increase, and migration from rural areas. During and after the Revolution, however, there were additional ways to become free, including petitions and lawsuits, the 1782 manumission act, self-purchase, purchase by already free blacks, and individual emancipation. Fear of free blacks in an age of black revolts, however, prompted whites to impose restrictions on manumission and migration and ultimately to revert to the colonial-era policy of expelling free blacks from Virginia.

Formal laws and informal customs created innumerable obstacles to the socioeconomic advance of the free black population. Laws prohibited free blacks from some activities and occupations and restricted their participation in others. Racism and terrorism by whites also made advancement difficult. Despite these disadvantages, Virginia's free black population fared rather well, with much better nutrition than people back in Europe or Africa. They grew nearly as tall as white Americans and towered over contemporary Europeans.

New South 1877-1913

The Readjuster Party was a political faction formed in Virginia in the late 1870s during the turbulent period following Reconstruction. Their leader was William Mahone, a former Confederate general who was president of several railroads. The main issue was whether or not to pay off the prewar state debt, which was primarily for stock in infrastructure improvements such as canals, roads, and railroads. By `1865 most of the improvements had been destroyed by war or were located in West Virginia, so the "Readjusters" did not want to pay for them. After his unsuccessful bid for the Democratic nomination for governor in 1877, Mahone became the leader of the "Readjusters", forming a coalition of conservative Bourbon Democrats with some support from black Republicans. Mahone was a controlling force in Virginia politics from around 1870 until 1883, when the Readjusters lost control to the "Conservative Democrats."

The Readjusters elected its governor (1882-1886) and sent Mahone to the U.S. Senate 1881 to 1887, where he aligned with the Republicans. After the Readjusters collapsed the Democratic Party was to rule the state's politics for the next 80 years.

War, Depression and War, 1913-1950

The Byrd machine dominated state politics from the 1930s to the 1960s. World War II pulled Virginia out of the depression and launched its economic modernization.

Massive Resistance and Modernization, 1950-1975

"Massive resistance" was the Byrd machine response to the Supreme Court's outlawing of segregated schools. Some counties closed their schools and in others legal turmoil lasted for years.

Postmodern State, 1975-present

The recent expansion of government programs in the areas near Washington has profoundly affected the economy of Northern Virginia, and the subsequent growth of defense projects has also generated a local information technology industry. The Hampton Roads region has also experienced much growth.

In 1990, Douglas Wilder became the first African American to be elected as governor since Reconstruction.

Bibliography

Surveys

• Dabney, Virginius. Virginia: The New Dominion (1971)
• Dinan, John. The Virginia State Constitution: A Reference Guide. Praeger, 2006. 258 pp.
• Heinemann, Ronald L., John G. Kolp, Anthony S. Parent Jr., and William G. Shade, Old Dominion, New Commonwealth: A History of Virginia, 1607-2007 (2007). ISBN 978-0-8139-2609-4.
• Salmon, Emily J., and Edward D.C. Campbell, Jr., eds. The Hornbook of Virginia history: A Ready-Reference Guide to the Old Dominion's People, Places, and Past 4th edition. (1994)
• Tarter, Brent. "Making History in Virginia." Virginia Magazine of History and Biography (2007) 115(1): 2-55. Issn: 0042-6636 Fulltext: in . Ebsco; historiography
• Wallenstein, Peter. Cradle of America: Four Centuries of Virginia History (2007). ISBN 978-0-7006-1507-0.
• WPA. Virginia: A Guide to the Old Dominion (1940)
• Younger, Edward, and James Tice Moore, eds. The Governors of Virginia, 1860– 1978 (1982)

To 1860

• Adams, Sean Patrick. Old Dominion, Industrial Commonwealth: Coal, Politics, and Economy in Antebellum America (2004)
• Ambler, Charles H. Sectionalism in Virginia from 1776 to 1861 (1910)
• Beeman, Richard R. The Old Dominion and the New Nation, 1788-1801 (1972)
• Billings, Warren M., John E. Selby, and Thad W, Tate. Colonial Virginia: A History (1986)
• Bond, Edward L. Damned Souls in the Tobacco Colony: Religion in Seventeenth-Century Virginia (2000),
• Breen T. H. Puritans and Adventurers: Change and Persistence in Early America (1980). 4 chapters on colonial social history online edition
• Breen, T. H. Tobacco Culture: The Mentality of the Great Tidewater Planters on the Eve of Revolution (1985)
• Breen, T. H., and Stephen D. Innes. "Myne Owne Ground": Race and Freedom on Virginia's Eastern Shore, 1640-1676 (1980)
• Brown, Kathleen M. Good Wives, Nasty Wenches, and Anxious Patriarchs: Gender, Race, and Power in Colonial Virginia (1996) excerpt and text search
• Byrd, William. The Secret Diary of William Byrd of Westover, 1709-1712 (1941) ed by Louis B. Wright and Marion Tinling online edition
• Bruce, Philip Alexander. Institutional History of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century: An Inquiry into the Religious, Moral, Educational, Legal, Military, and Political Condition of the People, Based on Original and Contemporaneous Records (1910) online edition
• Freeman, Douglas Southall; George Washington: A Biography Volume: 1-7. (1948). Pulitzer Prize. vol 1 online
• Gleach; Frederic W. Powhatan's World and Colonial Virginia: A Conflict of Cultures University of Nebraska Press. 1997.
• Isaac, Rhys. Landon Carter's Uneasy Kingdom: Revolution and Rebellion on a Virginia Plantation (2004)
• Isaac, Rhys. The Transformation of Virginia, 1740-1790 (1982, 1999)] Pulitzer Prize winner, dealing with religion and morality [online review
• Lebsock, Suzanne D. A Share of Honour: Virginia Women, 1600-1945 (1984)
• Majewski, John. A House Dividing: Economic Development in Pennsylvania and Virginia before the Civil War (2000)
• Morgan, Edmund S. Virginians at Home: Family Life in the Eighteenth Century (1952). online edition
• Morgan, Edmund S. American Slavery, American Freedom: The Ordeal of Colonial Virginia (1975) online edition highly influential study
• Nelson, John A Blessed Company: Parishes, Parsons, and Parishioners in Anglican Virginia, 1690-1776 (2001)
• Noe, Kenneth W. Southwest Virginia's Railroad: Modernization and the Sectional Crisis (1994)
• Rasmussen, William M.S. and Robert S. Tilton. Old Virginia: The Pursuit of a Pastoral Ideal (2003)]
• Risjord, Norman K. Chesapeake Politics, 1781-1800 (1978). in-depth coverage of Virginia, Maryland and North Carolinaonline edition
• Roeber, A. G. Faithful Magistrates and Republican Lawyers: Creators of Virginia Legal Culture, 1680-1810 (1981)
• Selby, John E. The Revolution in Virginia, 1775-1783 (1988)
• Shade, William G. Democratizing the Old Dominion: Virginia and the Second Party System 1824-1861 (1996)
• Shanks, Henry T. The Secession Movement in Virginia, 1847-1861 (1934) online edition
• Simpson, Craig M. A Good Southerner: The Life of Henry A. Wise of Virginia (1985), wide-ranging political history
• Varon; Elizabeth R. We Mean to Be Counted: White Women & Politics in Antebellum Virginia 1998
• Wertenbaker, Thomas J. The Shaping of Colonial Virginia, comprising Patrician and Plebeian in Virginia (1910); Virginia under the Stuarts (1914); and The Planters of Colonial Virginia (1922)
• Wright, Louis B. The First Gentlemen of Virginia: Intellectual Qualities of the Early Colonial Ruling Class (1964)
• Wynes, Charles E. Race Relations in Virginia, 1870-1902 (1961)

Since 1861

• Blair, William. Virginia's Private War: Feeding Body and Soul in the Confederacy, 1861-1865 (1998) online edition
• Brundage, W. Fitzhugh. Lynching in the New South: Georgia and Virginia, 1880–1930 (1993)
• Buni, Andrew. The Negro in Virginia Politics, 1902–1965 (1967)
• Crofts, Daniel W. Reluctant Confederates: Upper South Unionists in the Secession Crisis (1989)]
• Ferrell, Henry C., Jr. Claude A. Swanson of Virginia: A Political Biography (1985) early 20th century
• Gilliam, George H. "Making Virginia Progressive: Courts and Parties, Railroads and Regulators, 1890–1910." Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 107 (Spring 1999): 189–222.
• Heinemann, Ronald L. Depression and the New Deal in Virginia: The Enduring Dominion (1983)
• Heinemann, Ronald L. Harry Byrd of Virginia(1996)
• Heinemann, Ronald L. "Virginia in the Twentieth Century: Recent Interpretations." Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 94 (April 1986): 131–60.
• Kerr-Ritchie, Jeffrey R. Freedpeople in the Tobacco South: Virginia, 1860-1900 (1999)
• Key, V. O., Jr. Southern Politics in State and Nation (1949), important chapter on Virginia in 1940s
• Lassiter, Matthew D., and Andrew B. Lewis, eds. The Moderates’ Dilemma: Massive Resistance to School Desegregation in Virginia (1998)
• Lebsock, Suzanne D. "A Share of Honor": Virginia Women, 1600-1945 (1984)
• Link, William A. A Hard Country and a Lonely Place: Schooling, Society, and Reform in Rural Virginia, 1870-1920 (1986) online edition
• Martin-Perdue, Nancy J., and Charles L. Perdue Jr., eds. Talk about Trouble: A New Deal Portrait of Virginians in the Great Depression (1996)
• Moger, Allen W. Virginia: Bourbonism to Byrd, 1870-1925 (1968)
• Muse, Benjamin. Virginia's Massive Resistance (1961)
• Parramore, Thomas C., with Peter C. Stewart and Tommy L. Bogger. Norfolk: The First Four Centuries (1994)
• Pulley, Raymond H. Old Virginia Restored: An Interpretation of the Progressive Impulse, 1870-1930 (1968) online edition
• Smith, J. Douglas. Managing White Supremacy: Race, Politics, and Citizenship in Jim Crow Virginia (2002) online edition
• Sweeney, James R. "Rum, Romanism, and Virginia Democrats: The Party Leaders and the Campaign of 1928" Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 90 (October 1982): 403–31.
• Wilkinson, J. Harvie, III. Harry Byrd and the Changing Face of Virginia Politics, 1945–1966 (1968)
• Wynes, Charles E. Race Relations in Virginia, 1870-1902 (1961)

Localities and regions

• Lankford, Nelson. Richmond Burning: The Last Days of the Confederate Capital (2002)
• Parramore, Thomas C., with Peter C. Stewart and Tommy L. Bogger. Norfolk: The First Four Centuries (1994)
• Shiftlett, Crandall. Patronage and Poverty in the Tobacco South: Louisa County, Virginia, 1860-1900 (1982), new social history

Primary sources

• Jefferson, Thomas. Notes on the State of Virginia
• Duke, Maurice, and Daniel P. Jordan, eds. A Richmond Reader, 1733–1983 (1983)
• Eisenberg, Ralph. Virginia Votes, 1924–1968 (1971), all statistics

External links

• Virginia Historical Society short history of state, with teacher guide
• WPA project: Indians in Virginia
• WPA Project: History of Virginia
• Virginia and the Civil War