The Colony of Virginia was an English colony in North America that existed briefly during the 16th century and then continuously from 1607 until the American Revolution. American Indian tribes who had long occupied the lands in the Virginia area included the Algonquian Chesepian, Chickahominy, Doeg, Mattaponi, Nansemond, Pamunkey, Pohick, Powhatan, Rappahannock, Siouan Monacan, Saponi, Iroquoian-speaking Cherokee, Meherrin, Nottoway, and Tuscarora.
From London to First Landing: Establishing Virginia
Following the death of Queen Elizabeth I in 1603, King James I ascended to the throne. James granted a proprietary charter to two competing branches of the Virginia Company: the Plymouth Company and the London Company. In 1606, each company organized expeditions to establish settlements within the area of their rights. The London Company sent its expedition in December of 1606 and came ashore at the Chesapeake Bay, an event which has come to be called the "First Landing."
Settlement Challenges in Jamestown
The settlement, given the name of Jamestown, was an island, and thus favorable for defense against foreign ships. However, the low, marshy terrain was harsh and inhospitable for settlement. It lacked drinking water, access to game for hunting, and adequate space for farming. The colonists arrived ill-prepared for self-sufficiency. In addition to securing gold and other precious minerals to send back to investors in England, the survival of Jamestown depended on regular supplies from England and trade with American Indians. Disease and conflicts caused many deaths to the American Indians and the English invaders. The London Company sent supply ships to the colony three times, but these were sometimes delayed and left the colonists with little in the way of food and supplies. Combined with a drought, this lack of supplies resulted in the "Starving Time" in late 1609 to May 1610, during which over 80% of the colonists perished. As a result, Jamestown was abandoned briefly until new supply ships arrived.
The Algonquian Chief Powhatan controlled more than 30 smaller tribes and more than 150 settlements. In 1607, the native Tidewater population was over 13,000. By the mid-17th century, the Powhatan and allied tribes were in serious decline in population, due in large part to epidemics of newly introduced infectious diseases such as smallpox and measles, to which they had no natural immunity. Surviving members of many tribes assimilated into the general population of the colony.
Success of Tobacco
John Smith, who arrived in Virginia in 1608, introduced an ultimatum to the settlers: those who did not work would not receive food or pay. His struggle to improve the colony's conditions succeeded—the colonists learned how to raise crops and trade with the nearby Indians with whom Smith had made temporary peace.
The economy of the Colony presented an additional problem. Gold was never found, and efforts to introduce profitable industries in the colony had all failed until John Rolfe introduced two foreign types of tobacco. By 1612, Rolfe's new strains of tobacco had been successfully cultivated and exported, making tobacco a cash crop that established Virginia's economic viability. A small number of slaves, along with many European indentured servants, helped to expand the growing tobacco industry. Major importation of African slaves did not take place until much later in the century, however.
Tobacco plants
By the early 1620s, tobacco cultivation began to impact every aspect of daily life in Virginia.
Tensions with American Indians
In 1614, John Rolfe, prosperous and wealthy, married Pocahontas, daughter of Chief Powhatan, bringing several years of peace between the English and American Indians. After Pocahontas and her father died and the English continued to appropriate more land for tobacco farming, relations with the Powhatans worsened. Powhatan's brother, a fierce warrior named Opchanacanough, became head of the Powhatan Confederacy.
After several years of strained coexistence, Chief Opchanacanough and his Powhatan Confederacy attempted to eliminate the English colony once and for all. On the morning of March 22, 1622, they attacked outlying plantations and communities up and down the James River. Thereafter, the British invaders waged a relentless war against the Powhatans, burning and pillaging their villages and cutting down or carrying off their crops. In 1646, Opchanacanough was captured and killed while in custody, and the Powhatan Confederacy began to decline. Opechancanough's successor then signed the first peace treaties between the Powhatan Indians and the English. The treaties required the Powhatan to pay yearly tribute payments to the English and confined them to reservations.
Leadership
In 1619, the first representative assembly in America convened in a Jamestown church. This became known as the House of Burgesses. Simultaneously, however, Virginia was declared a "crown colony," meaning the charter was transferred from the Virginia Company to the Crown of England, making Jamestown a colony now run by the English monarchy. While the House of Burgesses was still allowed to run the government, the king nevertheless appointed a royal governor to settle disputes and enforce certain British policies.
The House of Burgesses instituted individual land ownership and divided the colony into four large boroughs. Initially, the colony only allowed men of English origin to vote, but they eventually extended suffrage to white men of other nationalities. In 1624, King James revoked the Virginia Company's charter, and Virginia became a royal colony. Despite the setbacks, the colony continued to grow.
The Anglican Church
Virginia became the largest, most populous, and most important colony. The Church of England was legally established; the bishop of London made it a favorite missionary target and sent in 22 clergymen by 1624. In practice, establishment meant that local taxes were funneled through the local parish to handle the needs of local government, such as roads and poor relief, in addition to the salary of the minister. When the elected assembly, the House of Burgesses, was established in 1619, it enacted religious laws that made Virginia a bastion of Anglicanism. It passed a law in 1632 requiring uniformity among the Anglican congregations of the colony.
According to the ministers, the colonists were typically inattentive, disinterested, and bored during church services. Some ministers solved their problems by encouraging parishioners to become devout at home, using the Book of Common Prayer for private prayer and devotion (rather than the Bible). This allowed devout Anglicans to lead an active and sincere religious life apart from the unsatisfactory formal church services.
However, the stress on private devotion weakened the need for a bishop or a large institutional church of the sort Blair wanted. The stress on personal piety opened the way for the First Great Awakening, which pulled people away from the established church. Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, and other evangelicals directly challenged these lax moral standards and refused to tolerate them in their ranks. The evangelicals identified the traditional standards of masculinity as sinful, which revolved around gambling, drinking, brawling, and arbitrary control over women, children, and slaves.
Baptists, German Lutherans, and Presbyterians funded their own ministers and favored disestablishment of the Anglican Church. The dissenters grew much faster than the established church, making religious division a factor in Virginia politics into the American Revolution. The Patriots, led by Thomas Jefferson, disestablished the Anglican Church in 1786.
Bacon's Rebellion
Sir William Berkeley, the governor of Virginia from 1642–1652 and 1660–1677, tried to push for diversification in the economic activities of the colony. Governor Berkeley was a royal insider from an early age, and his governorship reflected the royal interests of Charles I and Charles II. Berkeley remained popular after his first administration and returned to the governorship in 1660. His second administration, however, was characterized by many problems—disease, hurricanes, war with American Indians, and economic difficulties all plagued Virginia at this time.
Berkeley successfully established autocratic authority over the colony. To protect this power, Berkeley refused new legislative elections for 14 years. After a lack of reform, Nathaniel Bacon began a rebellion in 1676 and captured Jamestown, taking control of the colony for several months. After the incident, which became known as Bacon's Rebellion, Berkeley returned himself to power with the help of the English militia. Bacon then burned Jamestown before abandoning it, and continued his rebellion until dying from disease. Subsequently, Berkeley managed to eliminate the remaining rebels. In response to Berkeley's harsh repression of the rebels, the English government removed him from office. The rebuilt statehouse in Jamestown burned again in 1698, after which the colonial capital was permanently moved to nearby Middle Plantation, and the town was renamed Williamsburg.
Legacy of Virginia
The Virginia Colony became the wealthiest and most populated British colony in North America. Elite planters dominated the colony and would later play a major role in the fight for independence and the development of democratic-republican ideals of the United States.