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The
recorded History of Virginia began with the
settlement of the geographic region now known as the
Commonwealth of Virginia in
the United States
thousands of years ago by
Native Americans. European settlement did not
permanently occur until the establishment of
Jamestown in
1607, by English colonists.
Tobacco emerged as a
profitable export crop, and the
Virginia Colony
became one of the wealthiest and most populated of
the British colonies in North America.
As one of
the original 13 United States that won their independence
from Great Britain during the
American Revolutionary
War, Virginia produced more national leaders than any
state, including four of the first five presidents
(Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe). During the
first half of the 19th century, the
Virginia Board of
Public Works assisted in engineering and funding
transportation improvements such as
turnpikes, canals and
railroads. There were regional
disparities, as the power of the eastern counties was felt
to cause neglect of western needs. Several attempts to
improve this factionalism failed.
When the
issue of slavery finally divided the
young nation, although it was a slave
state, as were neighbors Maryland and Kentucky, Virginia
was reluctant to secede in 1861. When it did, Virginia
became the major battlefield of the
American Civil War. The
westernmost counties broke away from those in the eastern
part of the state to form West
Virginia, which was officially admitted to the Union as
a separate state in 1863.
Virginia
was impoverished after 1865, though the new popularity of
cigarettes boosted its tobacco industry. A fair share of the
state's pre-Civil War debt to be allocated to West Virginia
was finally determined by the
U.S. Supreme Court in 1915, and paid by 1939. 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 D.C. known as
Northern Virginia saw the
greatest growth and prosperity, a trend which was also seen
in the Hampton Roads region.
Politically, the state was a stronghold of conservative
Democrats 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.
As of 2007, Governor
Tim Kaine, a Democrat, interacts
with a General Assembly
with a Republican majority in both houses. In the
U.S. Congress, each party has
one Senate seat, and the Representatives come from both
parties as well.
The year
2007 marks the 400th anniversary of the
first permanent English settlement at Jamestown. An 18
month-long celebration called
Jamestown 2007 began in 2006, and events were planned
including a state visit from Queen
Elizabeth II of
Great Britain and her consort, Prince Phillip, reprising
the honor they paid Virginia in 1957 for the 350th
anniversary.
Native Americans
The portion
of the New World designated Virginia in honor of the "Virgin
Queen" (Elizabeth I) in the late
16th century had been inhabited by many groups of Native
Americans for at least 3,000 years, based upon ongoing
archaeological and historical research by archaeologist
Helen Rountree and others.
At the end
of the 16th century, among
Native
American people living in what now is
Virginia were the
Cherokee,
Chesepian, Chickahominy,
Mattaponi,
Meherrin, Monacan,
Nansemond,british and japense
Nottoway,
Pamunkey, Pohick,
Powhatan,
Rappahannock, Saponi, and
Tuscarora. The natives are
often divided into three groups, based to a large extent
upon language differences. The largest group are known as
the Algonquian who numbered over
10,000. The other groups are the
Iroquoian (numbering 2,500) and the
Siouan.
When the
first English settlers arrived at Jamestown in 1607,
Algonquian tribes controlled most of Virginia east of the
fall line and virtually all were
united in what has been historically called the
Powhatan Confederacy,
although researcher Rountree has noted that "confederacy"
is a misnomer, and the word "empire"
more accurately describes the political structure. In the
late 16th and early 17th centuries, a Chief named
Wahunsunacock created this
powerful empire by conquering or affiliating by agreement
with approximately 30 tribes covering much of eastern
Virginia, which he called Tenakomakah
("densely-inhabited Land"), and he himself was known as
Chief Powhatan. This was advantageous to some tribes, who
were periodically threatened by other non-friendly Native
Americans, such as the Monacans.
The Native
Americans had a very different culture than the English, and
despite some successful interaction, ownership and control
of land and trust became major issues of conflict. Virginia
experiences drought conditions an average of every three
years, and the colonists did not understand that the natives
were ill-prepared to feed them during hard times. In the
years after 1612, the colonists cleared land to farm export
tobacco, their crucial
cash crop. As the land became
fallow after only a few seasons of growing the nutrient
hungry tobacco crops, replacement farming land was
continuously needed. This reduced wooded land which could be
used for hunting to supplement the natives' food crops. More
and more colonists arrived and they wanted more and more
land.
The tribes
made some efforts to fight this trend, and major conflicts
took place with the
Indian massacre of 1622 and another in 1644, both under
the leadership of the late Chief Powhatan's younger brother,
Chief Opechancanough. However,
by the mid 17th century, the Powhatans were in serious
decline in the area, as the European colonists had
continually expanded to the extent that they controlled
virtually all the land east of the fall line that had formed
the mighty Powhatan Confederacy a scant 50 years earlier.
Members of
many tribes assimilated into the general population of the
colony, although some retained their identity and heritage.
In the 21st century, the Pamunkey and Mattaponi maintain
reservations in
King William County, and there are active groups of
other tribes which have preserved portions of the heritage
and have been seeking recognition, with interest increased
by the 400th anniversary of Jamestown approaching in
2007.
Colonial Period
After their
discovery of the New World in the 15th century, European
states began trying to establish New World colonies. Among
these were notably England, the
Dutch Republic,
France,
Portugal, and
Spain.
When
England began to colonize North
America, "Virginia" was the name Queen
Elizabeth I of England
(who was known as the "Virgin Queen" because she never
married) gave to the whole area explored by the 1584
expedition of Sir Walter Raleigh
along the coast of North America, eventually applying to the
whole coast from South Carolina
to Maine and the Canadian Maritimes.
In the much
smaller area now known as Virginia, the Spanish were the
first to attempt to establish a colony, although they
failed. The first permanent settlement in the same area was
established nearby over 36 years later at a swampy
mosquito-infested island which the new colonists named
"Jamestown" in honor of their King,
James I of England.
Spanish Mission on the Virginia
Peninsula
A Spanish
exploration party had come to the lower
Chesapeake Bay region of
Virginia about 1560 and met the
Native
Americans living on the
Virginia Peninsula. A 17-year-old
Powhatan boy from the village of
Chiskiack (located on the lands of the present-day U.S.
Naval Weapons
Station Yorktown), who was the son of a chief, agreed to
leave with them. He was baptized and renamed
Don Luis, in honor of his sponsor,
Luis de Velasco. Don Luis was
educated in Mexico and
Madrid, Spain.
In the fall
of 1570, ten years later, the native-convert Don Luis
returned to Virginia to help as a guide and translator in
the establishment of the Jesuit's
planned Ajacan Mission to be
named for St. Mary on the lower
peninsula. Shortly after they were left by a Spanish ship,
Don Luis abandoned the group, returning to his people, where
he became a Weroance. The following
February, Don Luis and a group of Powhatans returned and
killed the 8 Jesuit missionaries, stealing their clothes and
possessions, sparing only the life of a Spanish servant boy
named Alonzo. This young boy escaped and made his way to a
rival tribe, where he stayed until later rescued by another
Spanish ship bringing supplies.
When told
of the events by young Alonzo, in the early part of 1572,
the Spanish governor of Florida,
Pedro Menendez de Aviles,
returned to Virginia to retaliate. The Spanish ultimately
captured and hanged some of the Indians believed responsible
for the massacre, but they were unable to locate Don Luis.
While this marked the end of Spanish efforts to colonize the
area which became Virginia, there is some speculation over
400 years later that Don Luis and
Opechancanough, who was later Chief of the
Powhatan Confederacy,
may have been the same individual. The name Opechancanough
meant "He whose Soul is White" in the
Algonquin language used by the Powhatan people.
Roanoke Island: The Lost Colony
The
Roanoke Colony was the first
English
colony in the New World. It was
founded at Roanoke Island in
what was then Virginia, and is now
part of Dare County
in the state of North Carolina.
Between
1584 and 1587, there were two major groups of settlers
sponsored by Sir Walter Raleigh
who attempted to establish a permanent settlement at Roanoke
Island, and each failed. The final group disappeared
completely after supplies from England were delayed three
years by a war with Spain. Their disappearance and the fact
that their fate has never been authoritatively ascertained
is the source of the continuing mystery of what came to be
called "The Lost Colony".
Virginia Company: Plymouth and
London Branches
After the
death of Queen Elizabeth I, in 1603 King
James I assumed the throne
of England. After years of war, England was strapped for
funds, so he granted responsibility for England's New World
colonization to the Virginia
Company, which became incorporated as a
joint stock company by a
proprietary charter drawn up on April 10,
1606. There were two competing branches
of the Virginia Company and each hoped to establish a colony
in Virginia in order to exploit gold (which the region did
not actually have), to establish a base of support for
English privateering against Spanish ships, and to spread
Protestantism to the New World in competition with Spain's
spread of Catholicism.
Within the
Virginia Company, the Plymouth
Company branch was assigned a northern portion of the
area known as Virginia, and the
London Company area to the south. An overlapping portion
in between was part of the competition.
In the late
summer of 1607, the Plymouth Company established their
Popham Colony in what is now
the U.S. state of Maine. However, it
only lasted a year, and was abandoned in 1608.
By the time
a successor to the Plymouth Company sent Pilgrims aboard the
Mayflower to establish a
permanent settlement in what became
Massachusetts in 1620, the area was no longer considered
part of Virginia, but had been renamed
New England. However, 12 years
before then, the competing London Company branch of the
Virginia Company was more successful in establishing a
permanent settlement at Jamestown.
Jamestown and surrounding area
First landing: April 1607
In
December, 1606, the London Company dispatched a group of 104
colonists in three ships: the
Susan Constant,
Godspeed, and
Discovery, under the command of Captain
Christopher Newport. The
voyage was a rough and lengthy one. After 144 days, the
colonists finally arrived in Virginia on
April 26, 1607 at the entrance to
the Chesapeake Bay. They named
the Virginia capes after the sons of their king,
Cape Henry for
Henry Frederick,
Prince of Wales, and Cape
Charles for his younger brother,
Charles, Duke of York.
At Cape Henry, they went ashore, erected a cross, and did a
small amount of exploring, an event which came to be called
the "First Landing."
Under
orders from London to seek a more inland and ostensibly
safer location ( primarily from ships of other Europeans,
such as the Spanish), they explored the
Hampton Roads area and sailed
up the newly christened
James River to the fall line at
what would later became the cities of
Richmond and
Manchester.
Jamestown and Captain John Smith:
1607-1609
After weeks
of exploration, the colonists selected a location and
founded Jamestown on
May 14, 1607. It
was named in honor of King James I (as was the river).
However, while the location at
Jamestown Island was favorable for defense against
foreign ships, the low and marshy terrain was harsh and
inhospitable for a settlement. It lacked drinking water,
access to game for hunting, or much space for farming. While
it seemed favorable that it was not inhabited by the Native
Americans, within a short time, the colonists were attacked
by members of the local Paspahegh
tribe.
The
colonists arrived ill-prepared to become self-sufficient.
They had planned on trading with the Native Americans for
food, were dependent upon periodic supplies from England,
and had planned to spend some of their time seeking gold.
Leaving the Discovery behind for their use, Captain
Newport returned to England with the Susan Constant
and the Godspeed, and came back twice during 1608
with the First Supply and Second Supply missions. Trading
and relations with the Native Americans was tenuous at best,
and many of the colonists died from disease, starvation, and
conflicts with the Natives. After several failed leaders,
Captain John Smith
took charge of the settlement, and many credit him with
sustaining the colony during its first years, as he had some
success in trading for food and leading the discouraged
colonists.
However, in
August 1609, Smith was injured in an accident and forced to
return to England a few months later for medical treatment.
In one of history's ironies, he left just as a drought was
creating a shortage of food for the Native Americans and the
English colonists, and as a weather disaster had disrupted
the supply missions from England.
1609-1610: the "Starving Time"
After
Smith's departure, there was an interruption in the
scheduled arrival of supplies due to the shipwreck on
Bermuda of the
Sea Venture, the new
flagship of the
Third Supply mission from
England as a result of a massive 3-day hurricane. The Sea
Venture had became separated from the other ships of the
Third Supply mission, 7 of which had arrived at Jamestown
with hundreds of additional colonists, but little in the way
of food and supplies, which had been aboard the flagship.
During the
winter of 1609-10 and continuing into the spring and early
summer, no more ships arrived. The colonists faced what
became known as the
"starving time". The leader who had replaced John Smith,
Captain John Ratcliffe of the
Discovery, was captured and killed by the
Powhatans, who were much more
aggressive after Smith's departure. Only a small amount of
food was traded, and at very high prices, as the colonists
gave up valuable tools and equipment. The colonists had no
way of knowing if help would ever come. However, they had
not been forgotten, and separate events were underway at
Bermuda and in England to re-supply them.
Shipwrecked
on the uninhabited archipelago of Bermuda, over a period of
10 months, the leaders of the Third Supply and the survivors
of the Sea Venture constructed two smaller ships,
using many parts from their destroyed flagship. Leaving a
few men on Bermuda to retain possession, they set sail again
for Jamestown. (The Virginia Company remained in physical
possession of Bermuda from the time of the Sea Venture
wreck, and its Third Charter, in 1612, extended the
boundaries of Virginia far enough out to sea to include
Bermuda, also known as the Somers Isles. A separate company,
the Somers Isles Company,
was formed by the same shareholders in 1615, administering
Bermuda until 1684).
When
Captain Newport, his Admiral, Sir
George Somers, and the new governor, Sir
Thomas Gates, finally arrived at
Jamestown on May 23,
1610, they anticipated finding a thriving colony.
Instead, they discovered something much different. Over 80%
of the 500 colonists had perished, and many remaining alive
were sick. On their two small ships, the Sea Venture
survivors had brought few supplies from Bermuda. The stark
reality was that the situation was only slightly improved at
Jamestown with their arrival. It appeared that using the two
ships to leave the hostile environment was the only viable
option, one which the leaders were reluctant to embrace.
Finally, they began to sail down the James River.
Meanwhile,
back in England, the Virginia Company had been reorganized
under its Second Charter, ratified on May
23, 1609, which gave most leadership
authority of the colony to the governor, the newly-appointed
Thomas West,
3rd Baron De La Warr (known in modern times as "Lord
Delaware"). Word had reached England through
Samuel Argall, captain of one
of the other ships of the Third Supply, that the Sea
Venture (with most of the supplies of that mission) had
not arrived at Jamestown, and that food and supplies there
were quite low, despite an increased number of colonists.
Saving Jamestown: Lord Delaware
and John Rolfe
On
April 1, 1610, De
La Warr left for Jamestown with 150 men and additional food
and supplies to rescue to colonists and assume leadership
over the colony. Upon his arrival in June, as he sailed up
the James River, he was met by two ships sailing downriver
near Mulberry Island. There
is little doubt that he was as surprised to learn of the
fate of the Sea Venture and that its survivors had
made it to Jamestown as they were to see English ships
arriving.
Lord
Delaware was likely less surprised to find them all
preparing to abandon the colony. Instead, he required them
to stay in Virginia and work with his fresh colonists and
supplies to continue the settlement. The timing of Lord
Delaware's arrival must have been a disappointment to those
who hoped to leave Jamestown forever. However, neither they,
nor Lord Delaware, could have known that the man who help
the key to Virginia's economic future was also returning to
Jamestown with them.
One of the
Sea Venture survivors was a businessman named
John Rolfe. Despite leaving
England with great expectations aboard the beautiful new
Sea Venture, his trip thus far with Captain Newport had
not gone well at all. His wife and son had died on the
voyage since leaving London. He himself had finally made it
to Jamestown, only to discover the result of the "Starving
Time." Although he had some marketing ideas and some new
seeds for sweeter strains of tobacco
with him, both were as yet untried. That was about to
change.
As he
became established, De La Warr began a violent campaign,
First Anglo-Powhatan War,
against the natives. Under his leadership,
Samuel Argall kidnapped
Pocahontas, daughter of the
Powhatan chief, and hold her at Henricus.
Attempts at ransom failed, however.
The economy
of the Colony was another problem. Gold had never been
found, and efforts to introduce profitable industries in the
colony had all failed until Rolfe introduced his two foreign
types of tobacco: Orinoco and Sweet
Scented. These produced a better crop than the local variety
and with the first shipment to England in 1612, the
customers found the flavor to be favorable. This
identification of a cash crop to
export marked the beginning of
Virginia's economic viability.
While
ransoming the chief's daughter had not worked, the First
Anglo-Powhatan War ended when John Rolfe married Pocahontas
in 1614. The union seemed to create good feelings between
the vastly different cultures. If only for a few years, a
comparative peace was established. Their son,
Thomas Rolfe, was born in 1615.
The
Virginia Colony began to prosper with a thriving tobacco
industry, but required more and more of the land the natives
considered their own. Especially after the death of
Pocahontas in 1617 during a trip to England and her father,
Chief Powhatan in 1618, conflicts with the Powhatans
escalated again. There were also conflicts among the
colonists. De La Warr's deputy, Samuel Argall, who had been
left in charge of the colony, ran Jamestown as an autocrat.
Responding to accusations of Argall's abuses, De La Warr
left to return to the colony in 1618 but died en route.
1619: a watershed year
1619 was a
watershed year for the Virginia Company.
George Yeardley took over as
Governor of Virginia in
1619. In the long view, the most important development was
that he reformed the old autocratic system and created a
more democratic one. He established the
House of Burgesses, the
first elected legislative assembly in the New World, which
first met on July 30,
1619 in the Jamestown church (the current
House of Delegates in the
Virginia General
Assembly traces its routes to the Burgesses).
Also in
1619, the Virginia Company sent 90 single women as potential
wives for the male colonists to help populate the
settlement. Prior to that time, the only females to arrive
had been wives and children.
That same
year the colony acquired a group of "twenty and odd"
Angolans, brought by two English privateers. They were
probably the first Africans in the colony. They, along with
many European indentured
servants helped to expand the growing tobacco industry
which was already the colony's primary product. Although
these black men were treated as indentured servants, this
marked the beginning of
America's
history of slavery, although major introduction of
African slaves by both African and Europeans profiteers did
not take place until much later in the century.
Also in
1619, all of the the plantations and developments were
divided into four "incorporations" or "citties" (sic), 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,
know 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 some
areas, individual rather than communal land ownership or
leaseholds were established, providing families individual
motivation to increase production, improved standards of
living, and gain wealth. Perhaps nowhere was this more
progressive at than Sir Thomas Dale's
ill-fated Henricus, a westerly-lying
development located along the south bank of the James River,
where natives where also to be provided an education at the
Colony's first college.
About 6
miles south of the falls at present-day Richmond, in Henrico
Cittie the Falling Creek
Ironworks was established near the confluence of Falling
Creek, using local ore deposits to make
iron. It was the first in North America.
Extant records indicate the production of iron had begun,
but the events of March, 1622 interrupted continued
operations.
1622-1646: Fundamental conflict
grows: colonists vs. natives
While the
developments of 1619 and continued growth in the several
following years were seen as favorable by the English, many
aspects, especially the continued need for more and more
land to grow tobacco were the source of increasing concern
to the Native Americans most affected, the Powhatans.
The central
issue was who would be in charge. The Powhatans formally and
ritually admitted Virginia into their political system in
1607 and 1608, and for years under the rule of Chief
Powhatan, and even later, they fought to enforce the control
they felt was rightfully theirs. The colonists, however,
never recognized Powhatan authority, and they also acted to
take control.
By this
time, the remaining Powhatan Empire was led by
Chief Opechancanough, chief of
the Pamunkeys, and brother of Chief
Powhatan. He had earned a reputation as a fierce warrior
under his brother's chiefdom. Soon, he gave up on hopes of
diplomacy, and resolved to eradicate the English colonists.
On
March 22, 1622,
a Good Friday, about 400
colonists were killed in an event which came to be called
the Indian Massacre of
1622. Coordinated attacks struck almost all the English
settlements along the James River, on both shores, from
Newport News Point on
the east at Hampton Roads all
the way west upriver to Falling Creek, a few miles above
Henricus and John Rolfe's plantation,
Varina Farms.
At
Jamestown itself, the death and destruction would have been
worse had an Indian boy named Chanco
not defied orders to kill his employer,
Richard Pace, and instead warned
him of the attack the night before. Pace secured his
plantation, and rowed across the
river during the night to alert Jamestown, allowing for some
preparation. However, there had been no time to spread the
warning to other English outposts. There were deaths and
some colonists were captured at almost every outpost.
Several entire communities were essentially wiped out,
including Henricus and
Wolstenholme Towne at
Martin's Hundred. At the
Falling Creek Ironworks, which had been seen as so promising
for the Colony, two women and three children were among the
27 killed, leaving only two colonists alive. The facilities
were destroyed.
However,
despite the losses, two thirds of the colonists survived
that fateful day. After initially withdrawing to Jamestown,
many of them returned to the outlying plantations, although
some were abandoned. There were reprisals against the
Powhatans by the English as well. The colonists and natives
fought for about a year until a truce was struck.
Meeting at
Jamestown, a toast of liquor was proposed. However, Dr.
John Potts and some of the
Jamestown leadership had poisoned the natives' share of the
liquor, which killed about 200 of them. Another 50 Indians
were killed by hand.
The period
between the coups of 1622 and another in 1644 marked a
turning point in the relations between the Powhatans and the
English, from a situation where both sides felt that they
not only could dictate, but were dictating, the terms of the
relationship, to the period after 1646, where the colony was
clearly in control.
The
colonists defined the 1644 coup as an "uprising", but even
at that late date, Chief Opechancanough expected the outcome
would reflect what he considered the morally correct
position that the colonists were violating their pledges to
the Powhatans. During the 1644 event, Chief Opechancanough
was captured. While imprisoned, he was murdered by one of
his guards.
After the
death of Opechancanough, and following the repeated colonial
attacks in 1644 and 1645, the remaining Powhatan tribes had
little alternative but to accede to the demands of the
settlers.
Virginia as a royal colony
In 1624,
the Virginia Company's charter was revoked and the colony
transferred to royal authority as a
crown colony, but the elected representatives in
Jamestown continued to exercise a fair amount of power.
Under royal authority, the colony began to expand to the
North and West with additional 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. This fort would become
Middle Plantation and later
Williamsburg, Virginia.
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.
Also in
1634, a new 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. These shires were renamed as
counties only a few years later. They
were:
Of these,
as of 2007, five of the eight original
shires of Virginia are
considered still extant in essentially their same political
form (county), although some boundaries have changed in
almost 400 years. Also, including the earlier names of the
citties (sic) in their names resulted in the source of some
confusion, as that resulted in such seemingly contradictory
names as "James City County" and "Charles City County".
(Citizens of the now-extinct
"Elizabeth City
County" voted to be consolidated with the
independent city of
Hampton in 1952, and also
voted to assume the better-known and less cumbersome name).
The first
significant attempts at exploring the Trans-Allegheny region
occurred under the administration of Governor
William Berkeley. Efforts to
explore farther into Virginia were hampered in 1644 when
about 500 colonists were killed in another Indian massacre
led, once again, by Opechancanough. Berkeley is credited
with efforts to develop others sources of income for the
colony besides tobacco such as cultivation of
mulberry trees for
silkworms and other crops at his
large Green Spring
Plantation, now a largely unexplored archaeological site
maintained by the National
Park Service near Jamestown and Williamsburg.
Most of
Virginian colonists were loyal to the English monarchy
during the English Civil War,
but, in 1652 Oliver Cromwell
sent a force to remove and replace Gov. Berkeley with
governors loyal to the
Commonwealth of England. These governors were moderate
Puritans who allowed the local
legislature to exercise most controlling authority.
Many
royalists fled to Virginia after their defeat in the English
Civil War. Many of them established what would become the
most important families in Virginia. After the
Restoration, in
recognition of Virginia's loyalty to the crown, King
Charles II of England
bestowed Virginia with the nickname "The Old Dominion",
which it still bears today.
Berkeley,
who remained popular after his first administration,
returned to the governorship at the end of Commonwealth
rule. However, Berkeley's second administration was
characterized with many problems. Disease, hurricanes,
Indian hostilities, and economic difficulties all plagued
Virginia at this time. Berkeley established autocratic
authority over the colony. To protect this power, he refused
to have new legislative elections for 14 years in order to
protect a House of Burgesses that supported him. He only
agreed to new elections when rebellion became a serious
threat.
Berkeley
finally did face a rebellion in 1676. Indians had begun
attacking encroaching settlers as they expanded to the north
and west. Serious fighting broke out when settlers responded
to violence with a counter-attack against the wrong tribe,
which further extended the violence. Berkeley did not assist
the settlers in their fight. Many settlers and historians
believe Berkeley's refusal to fight the Indians stemmed from
his investments in the fur trade. Large scale fighting would
have cut off the Indian suppliers Berkeley's investment
relied on. Nathaniel Bacon of
Henrico organized
his own militia of settlers who retaliated against the
Indians. Bacon became very popular as the primary opponent
of Berkeley, not only on the issue of Indians, but on other
issues as well. Berkeley condemned Bacon as a rebel, but
pardoned him after Bacon won a seat in the House of
Burgesses and accepted it peacefully. After a lack of
reform, Bacon rebelled outright, captured Jamestown, and
took control of the colony for several months. The incident
became known as Bacon's
Rebellion. Berkeley returned himself to power with the
help of the English militia. Bacon burned Jamestown before
abandoning it and continued his rebellion, but died of
disease. Berkeley severely crushed the remaining rebels. In
response to Berkeley's harsh repression of the rebels, the
English government removed him from office. After the
burning of Jamestown, the capital was temporarily moved to
Middle Plantation, located
on the high ground of the
Virginia Peninsula equidistant from the James and
York Rivers.
Following a
failure at Henricus earlier in the
century, under Governor Francis
Nicholson, Virginia's first permanent institute of
higher learning was founded. In 1691, with urging and
support of the House of Burgesses,
Reverend Dr. James Blair,
the colony's top religious leader, went back to England and
in 1693, obtained a charter from King
William and Queen
Mary II of England. The
college was named the
College of William and Mary in honor of the two
monarchs.
The rebuilt
statehouse in Jamestown burned again in 1698. After that
fire, upon suggestion of students of the College of William
and Mary, the colonial capital was permanently moved to
nearby Middle Plantation again, and the town was renamed
Williamsburg, in honor
of William of Orange, King
William III.
Border dispute
The colony
of Maryland and Virginia had a long
series of border disputes of which one continues to this
day. The dispute revolved around the boundary that King
Charles I granted the
charter to George Calvert the
baron of Maryland in 1632. It granted him feudal rights of
the region between lat. 40°N and the
Potomac River which Virginia
claimed. The disputes over the area were mostly resolved in
1930. However Maryland and Virginia still dispute the usage
of the Potomac and water rights.
Exploration; Shenandoah Valley
Alexander Spotswood
became acting
royal
governor of Virginia in 1710, and in 1716 he led an
expedition of westward exploration, It reached the top ridge
of the Blue Ridge Mountains
at Swift Run Gap (elevation
2,365 feet). This was known as the
Knights of the Golden Horseshoe Expedition.
Social Order
Historian
Douglas Southall Freeman has explained the social structure
of the 1740s:
West of
the fall line ... the settlements fringed toward the
frontier of the Blue Ridge and the Valley of the
Shenandoah. Democracy was real where life was raw. In
Tidewater, the flat country East of the fall line, there
were no less than eight strata of society. The uppermost
and the lowliest, the great proprietors and the Negro
slaves, were supposed to be of immutable station. The
others were small farmers, merchants, sailors, frontier
folk, servants and convicts. Each of these constituted a
distinct class at a given time, but individuals and
families often shifted materially in station during a
single generation. Titles hedged the ranks of the
notables. Members of the Council of State were termed
both "Colonel" and "Esquire." Large planters who did not
bear arms almost always were given the courtesy title of
"Gentlemen." So were Church Wardens, Vestrymen, Sheriffs
and Trustees of towns. The full honors of a man of
station were those of Vestryman [of the Church], Justice
[lifetime member of the County Court, appointed by the
legislature] and Burgess [elected member of the
legislature]. Such an individual normally looked to
England and especially to London and sought to live by
the social standards of the mother country.[Freeman,
Washington 1:79]
Established Church
In the
1740s, the established Anglican
church had about 70 parish priests around the colony.
There was no bishop, and indeed, there was fierce political
opposition to having a bishop in the colony. The Anglican
priests were supervised directly by the
Bishop of London. Each
county court gave tax money to the local vestry, comprised
of prominent layman. The vestry provided the priest a
glebe of 200 or 300 acres, a house, and
perhaps some livestock. The vestry paid him an annual salary
of 16,000 lbs. of tobacco, plus 20 shillings for every
wedding and funeral. While not poor, the priests' living
were modest and their opportunities for improvement were
slim. Some ethnic groups, especially the German
Lutherans and Scottish
Presbyterian funded their own
ministers. A majority of families had no religious
affiliation whatsoever. By the 1760s,
Baptist missionaries were drawing Virginians, especially
farmers, into a new, much more democratic religion. Many
slaves attended Baptist services. Historians have debated
the implications of the religious rivalries for the American
Revolution. The Baptist farmers did introduce a new
equalitarian ethic that largely displaced the
semi-aristocratic ethic of the Anglican planters. However,
both groups supported the Revolution.
George Washington, for
example, was active in his vestry.
Revolution: Virginia Declares
Independence
Antecedents
Revolutionary sentiments first began appearing in Virginia
shortly after the French
and Indian War ended in 1763. The very same year, the
British and Virginian governments clashed in the case of
Parson's Cause. The Virginia
legislature had passed the Two-Penny Act to stop clerical
salaries from inflating.
King George III vetoed the measure, and clergy sued for
back salaries. Patrick Henry
first came to prominence by arguing in the case against the
veto, which he declared tyrannical.
The British
government had accumulated a great deal of debt through
spending on its wars. To help payoff this debt, Parliament
passed the Sugar Act in 1764 and
the Stamp Act in 1765. The General
Assembly opposed the passage of the Sugar Act on the grounds
of no taxation
without representation. Patrick Henry opposed the Stamp
Act in the Burgesses with a famous speech advising George
III that "Caesar had his Brutus, Charles I his Cromwell.."
and the king "may profit by their example." The legislature
passed the "Virginia Resolves"
opposing the tax. Governor
Francis Fauquier responded by dismissing the Assembly.
Opposition
continued after the resolves. The
Northampton County
court overturned the Stamp Act
February 8, 1766. Various political
groups, including the Sons of
Liberty met and issued protests against the act. Most
notably, Richard Bland
published a pamphlet entitled An Enquiry into the Rights
of Ike British Colonies. This document would set one of
the basic political principles of the Revolution by stating
that Virginia was a part of the British Empire, not the
Kingdom of England, so it only owed allegiance to the Crown,
not Parliament.
The Stamp
Act was repealed, but additional taxation from the
Revenue Act and the 1769 attempt
to transport Bostonian rioters to London for trial incited
more protest from Virginia. The Assembly met to consider
resolutions condemning on the transport of the rioters, but
Governor Botetourt, while
sympathetic, dissolved the legislature. The Burgesses
reconvened in Raleigh Tavern
and made an agreement to ban British imports. Britain gave
up the attempt to extradite the prisoners and lifted all
taxes except the tax on tea in 1770.
In 1773,
because of a renewed attempt to extradite Americans to
Britain, Richard Henry Lee,
Thomas Jefferson,
Patrick Henry,
George Mason, and others created
a committee of
correspondence to deal with problems with Britain.
Unlike other such committees of correspondence, this one was
an official part of the legislature.
Following
the closure of the port in Boston and several other
offenses, the Burgesses approved June 1,
1774 as a day of "Fasting, Humiliation, and Prayer" in a
show of solidarity with Massachusetts. The Governor,
Lord Dunmore, dismissed the
legislature. The first
Virginia Convention was held August 1-6 to respond to
the growing crisis. The convention approved a boycott of
British goods, expressed solidarity with Massachusetts, and
elected delegates to the
Continental Congress where Virginian
Peyton Randolph was selected
as president of the Congress.
On
April 20, 1775,
a day after the
Battle of Lexington and Concord, Dunmore ordered royal
marines to remove the gunpowder from the Williamsburg
Magazine to a British ship. Patrick Henry led a group of
Virginia militia from
Hanover in response to Dunmore's order.
Carter Braxton negiotiated a
resolution to the
Gunpowder
Incident by transferring royal funds as payment for the
powder. The incident exacerbated Dunmore's declining
popularity. He fled the
Governor's Palace to the British ship Fowey at
Yorktown. On November 7, Dunmore
issued a proclamation declaring Virginia was in a state of
rebellion and that any slave fighting for the British would
be freed. By this time, George
Washington had been appointed head of the American
forces by the Continental Congress and Virginia was under
the political leadership of a Committee of Safety formed by
the Third Virginia Convention in the governor's absence.
On
December 9, 1775,
Virginia militia moved on the governor's forces at the
Battle of Great Bridge.
The British had held a fort that guarded the land route to
Norfolk. The British feared
the militia, who had no cannon for a siege, would receive
reinforcements, so they abandoned the fort and attacked. The
militia won the 30 minute battle. Dunmore responded by
bombarding Norfolk with his ships on
January 1, 1776.
The Fifth
Virginia Convention met on May 6 and
declared Virginia a free and independent state on
May 15, 1776. The
convention instructed its delegates to introduce a
resolution for independence at the Continental Congress.
Richard Henry Lee
introduced the measure on June 7.
While the Congress debated, the Virginia Convention adopted
George Mason's
Bill of Rights (June 12) and a constitution (June 29)
which established an independent
commonwealth.
Congress approved Lee's proposal on July 2
and approved Jefferson's
Declaration of
Independence on July 4.
Independence
The
constitution of the Fifth Virginia Convention created a
system of government for the state that would last for 54
years. The constitution provided for a chief magistrate, a
bicameral legislature with both the
House of Delegates
and the Senate. The
legislature elected a governor each year (picking Patrick
Henry to be the first) and a council of eight for executive
functions. In October, the legislature appointed Jefferson,
Edmund Pendleton, and
George Wythe to adopt the
existing body of Virginia law to the new constitution.
After the
Battle of Great Bridge, little military conflict took place
on Virginia soil for the first part of the
American Revolutionary
War. Nevertheless, Virginia sent forces to help in the
fighting to the North and South, including
Daniel Morgan and his company
of marksmen who fought in early battles in the north.
Charlottesville
served as a prison camp for the
Convention Army, Hessian and British soldiers captured
at Saratoga. Virginia also sent forces to the frontier in
the Northwest, George Rogers
Clark led forces in this area and captured the fort at
Kaskaskia and won the
Battle of Vincennes,
capturing the royal governor,
Henry Hamilton. Clark maintained control of the
Northwest territories throughout the war.
The British
brought the war back to Virginia in May, 1779 when George
Collier landed troops at Hampton
Roads and used Portsmouth (after destroying the naval
yard) as a base of attack. The move was part of an attempted
blockade of trade with the West
Indies. The British abandoned the plan when
reinforcements from General
Henry Clinton failed to arrive to support Collier.
Fearing the
vulnerability of Williamsburg, then-Governor
Thomas Jefferson moved the
capital farther inland to
Richmond in 1780. That October, the British made another
attempt at invading Virginia. British General
Alexander Leslie entered the
Chesapeake with 3,000 troops and used Portsmouth as a base;
however, after the British defeat at the
Battle of King's
Mountain, Leslie moved to join
Cornwallis farther south. In December,
Benedict Arnold, who had
betrayed the Revolution and become a general for the
British, attacked Richmond with 1,000 soldiers and burned
part of the city. Arnold moved his base of operations to
Portsmouth and joined with General
William Phillips.
George
Washington sent the French
General
Lafayette to lead the defense of Virginia. Lafayette
marched south to Petersburg.
Cornwallis, frustrated in the Carolinas, responded by
attacking Virginia in pursuit of Lafayette. Lafayette only
had 3,200 troops to face Cornwallis's 7,200. The outnumbered
Lafayette avoided direct confrontation and harried
Cornwallis in a series of skirmishes. Lafayette retreated to
Fredericksburg, met
up with General Anthony Wayne,
and then marched into the southwest. Cornwallis dispatched
two smaller missions: 500 soldiers under Colonel
John Graves Simcoe to take
the arsenal at Point of
Fork and 250 under Colonel
Banastre Tarleton to march on Charlottesville and
capture Gov. Jefferson and the legislature. The expedition
to Point of Fork defeated General
Friedrich Wilhelm
von Steuben while Tarleton's mission captured only seven
legislators and some officers thanks to
Jack Jouett's all night ride to
warn Jefferson and the legislators of Tarleton's coming.[1]
Cornwallis reunited his army in
Elk Hill and
marched to the
Tidewater region. Lafayette, uniting with von Steuben,
now had 5,000 troops and followed Cornwallis.
Under
orders from Gen.
Henry Clinton, Cornwallis moved down the
Virginia Peninsula towards
the Chesapeake Bay were Clinton planned to extract part of
the army for a siege of New York
City. Cornwallis passed through Williamsburg and near
Jamestown. 800 of Lafayette's troops under Gen. Wayne were
caught by the much larger, 5,000 soldier, main body of
Cornwallis's forces and the two fought at the minor
Battle of Green Spring
on July 6, 1781.
Wayne ordered a charge against Cornwallis in order to feign
greater strength and stop the British advance. Causalities
were light with the Americans losing 140 and the British 75,
but the ploy allowed the Americans to escape.
Cornwallis
moved his troops across the James to Portsmouth to await
Clinton's orders. Clinton decided that a position on the
peninsula must be held and that
Yorktown would be a
valuable naval base. Cornwallis received orders to move his
troops to Yorktown and begin construction of fortifications
and a naval yard. The Americans had initially expected
Cornwallis to move either to New York or the Carolinas and
started to make arrangements to move from Virginia. Once
they discovered the fortifications at Yorktown, the
Americans began to place themselves around the city. Gen.
Washington saw the opportunity for a major victory. He moved
a portion of his troops, along with
Rochambeau's French troops, from New York to Virginia.
The plan hinged on French reinforcements of 3,200 troops and
a large naval force under the
Admiral de Grasse. On September 5,
Admiral de Grasse defeated British navy at the
Battle of the
Virginia Capes. The defeat ensured French dominance of
the water around Yorktown, thereby preventing Cornwallis
from receiving troops or supplies and removing the
possibility of evacuation. Between October 6 and 17 the
American forces laid siege to Yorktown. Out gunned and
completely trapped, Cornwallis decided to surrender. Papers
for surrender were officially signed on
October 19. As a result of the
defeat, the British Prime Minister,
Lord North, resigned and the British government offered
peace in April, 1782. The
Treaty of Paris of 1783 officially ended the war.
Statehood
Making the Constitution
By the end
of the Revolutionary War, the new American states had joined
together under the
Articles of Confederation. The Confederation granted
very little power to the federal government. Virginia helped
begin the move to stronger union by meeting with
representatives from Maryland to discuss trade and
navigation issues in 1785. The two states invited other to
the Annapolis
Convention, held in September 1786, to discuss these
issues. Washington, Madison, and
Alexander Hamilton all saw
the talks as an opportunity for stronger union. The
Annapolis Convention agreed to meet again in Philadelphia
for a
Constitutional Convention. At the Convention, Edmund
Randolph promoted the Virginia Plan
designed by Madison. This plan called for a strong national
government with a bicameral legislature, where
representatives were allocated proportionally based on
population. Some of the ideas of the plan were adopted, but
smaller states did not like having proportional
representation, so compromise was struck and each state
received two Senators in the upper house. The Virginia
delegates also pushed for a bill
of rights. Most agreed to sign the
United States
Constitution on the promise that a bill of rights would
be quickly adopted, but George Mason
and Randolph refused to sign. Madison wrote several of the
Federalist papers and took
other measures to push for ratification of the Constitution.
Mason and Patrick Henry led the political opposition. Many
in the Piedmont region
and southwest Virginia opposed ratification because of fears
over tariffs and since importation of slaves were still
allowed. Virginia narrowly ratified the Constitution on
June 25, 1788,
and became the tenth state to enter the Union.
Changing borders
After
declaring independence, Virginia's borders shifted a great
deal. In 1779, Virginia extended its southern border with
North Carolina westward. In 1784 and 1785, Virginia
negiotiated its northern border with Pennsylvania. Virginia
and Pennsylvania also had disputes along the
Virginia-Pennsylvania border areas throughout the colonial
period. After the areas in dispute became part of the
newly-formed United States, the new states of Virginia and
Pennsylvania (each one of the first thirteen states which
formed the union) soon reached an agreement, and most of
Yohogania County, claimed by
both, became part of Pennsylvania in the 1780s under terms
agreed of the state legislatures of both Virginia and
Pennsylvania. A small remaining portion left in Virginia was
too small to form a county, and was annexed to another
Virginia county, Ohio
County.
Most
significantly, Virginia relinquished its claims to the
Northwest Territory in
1784. This vast area, consisting of much of the modern
Midwest and Great Lakes region, was frontier land at the
time. Several of the states claimed the territory, but all
eventually agreed to let the federal government take control
under the Northwest Ordinance.
Virginia did not relinquish all land, it preserved the
Virginia Military
District, an area of land set aside to reward veterans
of the Revolutionary War. In 1790, both Virginia and
Maryland ceded territory to form the
new District of Columbia,
but in an Act of the
U.S. Congress
dated July 9, 1846,
the area south of the Potomac that
had been ceded by Virginia
was retroceded to
Virginia effective 1847, and is now
Arlington County
and part of the City of
Alexandria.
Virginia: 1789-1848
As the new
nation of the United
States of America experienced growing pains and began to
speak of Manifest Destiny,
Virginia, too, found its role in the young republic to be
changing and challenging. Beginning with the
Louisiana Purchase, many
of the Virginians whose grandparents had created the
Virginia Establishment began to expand westward.
Famous
Virginian-born Americans affected not only the destiny of
the state of Virginia, but the rapidly developing
American Old West.
Beginning
in the 1750s, the Ohio Company of
Virginia was created to survey and settle its new lands.
Following the French and
Indian War, westward settlement by Virginians was
limited to more southern portions of the
American Old West.
Virginians
Meriwether Lewis and
William Clark were
influential in their
famous expedition to explore the Missouri River and
possible connections to the Pacific Ocean.
Notable
names such as Stephen F. Austin,
Edwin Waller,
Haden Harrison Edwards
were famous Texan pioneers from Virginia. Even eventual
Civil War general Robert E. Lee
distinguished himself as a military leader in Texas during
the 1846-1848
Mexican-American War.
Regional differences, secession
1818-1861
As the
western reaches of Virginia were developed in the first half
of the 19th century, the vast differences in the
agricultural basis, cultural, and transportation needs
became a major issue for the
Virginia General
Assembly. In the older, eastern portion, large tracts of
land were farmed with tobacco and cotton as major crops,
each requiring a great deal of manual labor. Slavery had
become an economic institution upon which the farmers
depended. Watersheds on most of this area eventually drained
to the Atlantic Ocean. In the
western reaches, smaller homesteads were mostly farmed
without non-family labor, and mining of minerals and
harvesting of timber were expanding activities. The land
drained to the Ohio River Valley,
and trade tended to also center in that direction.
Representation in the state legislature was heavily skewed
in favor of the more populous eastern areas. This was
compounded by the partial allowance for slaves when counting
population, despite the fact that these individuals (and all
women and children) had no vote. Efforts to mediate the
disparities several times including a state constitutional
convention ended without meaningful resolution. Thus, at the
outset of the American Civil War, Virginia was caught not
only in national crisis, but a long-standing factional one
within its own boundaries. While other "border states" had
similar regional differences, Virginia had more than any
other Northern or Southern state, and probably as a result,
was the only state to actually become subdivided into two
separate states during the War.
Civil War 1861-65
Virginia
began a convention about secession on
February 13, 1861 after six states
seceded to form the
Confederate States of America on
February 4. The convention deliberated for several
months, but, on April 15 Lincoln
called for troops from all states still in the Union in
response to the firing on Fort Sumter. On
April 17, 1861 the convention voted
to secede. With the entry of Virginia into the Confederacy,
the decision to move the Confederate capital from
Montgomery, Alabama to
Richmond was made on May 6 and enacted
on May 29. Virginians ratified the
articles of secession on May 23.[2]
The following day, the Union army
moved into northern Virginia and captured
Alexandria without a
fight.
The first
major battle of the Civil War occurred on
July 21, 1861. Union forces
attempted to take control of the railroad junction at
Manassas for use as a
supply line, but the Confederate
Army had moved its forces by train to meet the Union.
The Confederates won the
First Battle of Manassas (known as "Bull Run"in Northern
naming convention) and the year went on without a major
fight.
The first
and last significant battles were held in Virginia. The
first being the Battle of
Manassas and the last being
Battle of
Appomattox Courthouse. During the American Civil War,
Richmond was the capital of the Confederate States of
America. The White
House of the Confederacy, located a few blocks north of
the State Capital, was home to the family of Confederate
President Jefferson Davis.
In April
1865, Richmond was burned by a retreating
Confederate Army and was
returned to Northern control. Virginia was administered as
the "First Military
District" during the
Reconstruction period (1865-1870) under General
John Schofield. The state
formally rejoined the Union on January
26, 1870.
Industrialization
Various
textile production was present prior to 1861 but nothing of
great signifigance. A center of iron production during the
civil war was located in
Richmond at Tredegar Iron
Works. Tredegar was run partially by slave labor, and it
produced most of the artillery for the war, making Richmond
an important point to defend.
West Virginia split
Virginia
was one of the last states to join the Confederacy largely
because the lack of support in the North-Western region due
to the lack of slavery in this region. After it did join, an
upheaval in that region soon followed. After a successful
revolt, the area consisting of 48 counties became known as
the State of Kanawha and
later West Virginia. The act
was upheld by the
United States
Supreme Court in 1870.
Berkeley County
and Jefferson
County (in the extreme northern edge of the state)
remained in the Confederacy and Virginia throughout the
Civil War, and were not part of the formation of the
State of Kanawha, renamed
West Virginia, when it was
admitted to the Union with 48 former Virginia counties on
January 1, 1863.
Rather, after the War, during
Reconstruction, in 1866, these two counties decided in
local referendums that they also wanted to be part of the
new state of West Virginia, bringing the total to 50.
With the
formation of West Virginia, Virginia no longer shared a
border with Pennsylvania. However, even the Virginia-West
Virginia border was subject to some fluctuation, with two
Virginia counties electing to join West Virginia in 1866.
Even in the 20th century, there were still some disputes
about the precise location of the border in some of the
northern mountain reaches of Virginia between
Loudoun County and
Jefferson County,
West Virginia. In 1991, both state legislatures
appropriated money for a boundary commission to look into 15
miles of the border area.
Reconstruction: 1865-1877
Virginia
remained under military control until 1869, since the Union
commander, General John M.
Schofield, refused to authorize a vote on the
constitution drafted by a Radical convention. President
Grant called for a vote in 1869 that included a vote on the
Constitution, a separate one on its disfranchisement clause
that would have stripped the vote from most former rebels,
and a separate vote for state officials. The Radicals
nominated Henry H. Wells, a
former general and provisional governor who was close to
Schofield. The leader of the Democrats was
William Mahone, a Democrat who
said it was time for a
New
Departure. That is, Democrats had to accept the results
of the war, including civil rights
and the vote for Freedmen. He denounced the
Baltimore and Ohio
Railroad railroad as too powerful, and called for new
Virginia-based railroads that would lead the state to
prosperity. He won over many moderate pro-business
Republicans.
Mahone's
candidate for governor Gilbert
C. Walker was elected and the disfranchisement clause
defeated. The new Underwood Constitution was approved by a
vote of 210,585 to 9,136, while the disfranchisement clauses
were rejected by votes of 124,715 to 83,458 and 124,360 to
84,410 respectively. The state did not experience the
corruption and race conflict that characterized the
Reconstruction period in other southern states, yet white
Virginians generally came to share the bitterness so typical
of the southern attitudes.
Virginia
was thus the only southern state not to have a civilian
Radical government.
New South 1877-1913
The
Readjuster Party was a
political faction formed in Virginia
in the late 1870s during the turbulent period following
Reconstruction. The so-called Readjusters aspired "to break
the power of wealth and established privilege" and to
promote public education. The Readjusters were led by
Harrison H. Riddleberger
of Woodstock, an
attorney, and William Mahone,
a former
Confederate general who was president of several
railroads. Mahone was a controlling force in Virginia
politics from around 1870 until 1883, when the Readjusters
lost control to the "Conservative Democrats."
A division
among Virginia politicians occurred in the 1870s, when those
who supported a reduction of Virginia's pre-war debt ("Readjusters")
opposed those who felt Virginia should repay its entire debt
plus interest ("Funders"). Virginia's pre-war debt was
primarily for infrastructure improvements overseen by the
Virginia Board of
Public Works, largely in canals, roads, and railroads.
Prior to 1861, the State had purchased a total of
$48,000,000 worth of stock in turnpike, toll bridge, canal,
and water and rail transportation enterprises. Many these
improvements were heavily damaged or destroyed during the
Civil War by Union forces. Much of those remaining were
located in the portion of the state which became
West Virginia and much of the
debt was held by "northerners", making the issue of debt
repayment complex.
After his
unsuccessful bid for the Democratic nomination for governor
in 1877, Mahone became the leader of the "Readjusters",
forming a coalition of conservative
Democrats,
as a Republicans,
and African-Americans
seeking a reduction in Virginia's prewar debt, and an
appropriate allocation made to the former portion of the
state which constituted the new
State of West Virginia. For several decades thereafter,
the two states disputed the new state's share of the
Virginian government's debt. The issue was finally settled
in 1915, when the
United States Supreme Court ruled that West Virginia
owed Virginia $12,393,929.50. The final installment of this
sum was paid off in 1939.
The
Readjuster Party promised to "readjust" the state debt,
repeal the poll tax and increase
funding for schools and other public facilities. The
Readjuster Party was successful in electing its candidate,
William E. Cameron as
governor, and he served from 1882-1886. Mahone served as a
Senator in the U.S.
Congress from 1881 to 1887. However, in Congress, he
became primarily aligned with the Republican Party, as did
fellow Readjuster Harrison H. Riddleberger, who served in
the U.S. Senate from 1883-1889. Both Mahone and Riddleberger
were replaced in the U.S. Senate by Democrats.
Readjusters
effective control of Virginia politics lasted until 1883,
when they lost majority control in the state legislature,
followed by the election of Democrat
Fitzhugh Lee as governor in 1885. Mahone stayed active
in politics, but lost his bid for reelection as U.S.
Senator, and as well as another bid for Governor (as a
Republican). Riddleberger died in 1890, Mahone in 1895.
After the
Readjuster Party disappeared, Virginia's Democratic Party
was to rule the state's politics for the next 80 years.
War, Depression and War, 1913-1950
The Pentagon was finished in
1943.
Postmodern State, 1975-2007
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.
On
January 13, 1990,
Douglas Wilder became the
first African American to be elected as Governor of a US
state since
Reconstruction when he was elected Governor of Virginia.
Virginia
was targeted in the
September 11, 2001 attacks, as
American Airlines
Flight 77 was hijacked and crashed into
the Pentagon in
Arlington County.
Local, regional political
structure, cooperation issues
The
independent cities in
Virginia enabled by an 1871 change in the state constitution
are unusual in the United States. Combined with the
annexation laws, the situation provided both the motivation
and methods for almost all the communities in the extreme
southeastern section of Hampton
Roads region of Virginia to become independent cities.
In this status, they were equal to each other and this
immune from annexation by adjacent localities, an action
much-feared by those in many communities.
However,
this transition left the region with some oddities, such as
the entire Virginia portion of the
Great Dismal Swamp being
located entirely within cities (Chesapeake
and Suffolk). It is hard to
imagine a less populated portion of a traditional city, save
perhaps Central Park in
New York City.
Although
incorporated towns are
located within counties, and
independent cities are
separate, both the towns and the cities long held a powerful
tool for growth through Virginia's annexation laws, which
basically provided for seizure of unincorporated territory
from the counties. However, the annexation laws also have
long been felt by many leaders to be a barrier to regional
cooperation among localities, causing wounds which took many
years to heal, and with some individuals negatively
impacted, never did.
A
moratorium on major annexations by the larger cities and
adjacent counties has been in place since the late 20th
century by actions in the
Virginia General
Assembly. Other changes have allowed cities to revert to
town status and rejoin a county.
South Boston and
Clifton Forge took
such actions, and several other smaller cities have studied
doing so. Additionally, some Regional cooperation among the
localities has been stimulated by the legislature through
favorable funding incentives, with new regional
jails as a prime example.
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