History of Virginia

History of Virginia
By year Colony of Virginia American Revolution U.S. Civil War Post–Civil War Topics: African-Americans • Cities • Politics • Slavery
Virginia portal
v t e

The written history of Virginia begins with documentation by the first Spanish explorers to reach the area in the 16th century, when it was occupied chiefly by Algonquian, Iroquoian, and Siouan peoples. In 1607, English colonization began in present-day Virginia with Jamestown, which became the first permanent English settlement in North America.

The Virginia Company colony was looking for gold and spices, and land to grow crops, however they would find no fortunes in the area, and struggled to maintain a food supply. The settlement survived the famine during the harsh winter of 1609, which forced colonists to eat leather from their clothes and boots, and resort to cannibalism.^[1] In 1610, survivors abandoned Jamestown, although they returned after meeting a resupply convoy in the James River. Soon thereafter during the early 17th century, tobacco emerged as a profitable export. It was chiefly grown on plantations, using primarily enslaved labor for the intensive hand labor involved. After 1662, the colony turned black slavery into a hereditary racial caste. Jamestown would serve as the Colony of Virginia's capital from 1607 to 1699, until the capital was moved to Williamsburg, Virginia, from 1699 to 1780. Since 1780, Virginia's capital city has been Richmond, Virginia.

By 1750, the primary cultivators of the cash crop were West African slaves. While the plantations thrived because of the high demand for tobacco, most white settlers in the colony raised their families on subsistence farms. Warfare with the Virginia Indian nations had been an ongoing factor during the 17th century. After 1700, there was continued conflict with natives east of the Alleghenies, especially in the French and Indian War (1754–1763), when the tribes were allied with the French.^[2] The Virginia Colony became the wealthiest and most populated of the Thirteen Colonies in North America with an elected General Assembly. The colony was dominated by wealthy planters, who were also in control of the established Anglican Church. Baptist and Methodist preachers brought the Great Awakening, welcoming black members, and leading to many evangelical and racially integrated churches.

In 1776, Virginia and the rest of the American Colonies, would declare independence from Great Britain, helping form the United States. Virginia planters had a major role in gaining independence and in the development of Democratic-Republican ideals of the United States. They were important in the Declaration of Independence, writing the Constitutional Convention (and preserving protection for the slave trade), and establishing the Bill of Rights. In 1780, the capital of Virginia moved to Richmond, Virginia, where it has remained since. Virginia was the tenth state to ratify the U.S. Constitution on June 25, 1788. The state of Kentucky separated from Virginia in 1792. Four of the first five U.S. presidents were Virginians: George Washington, the "Father of his country"; and after 1800, "The Virginia Dynasty" of presidents for 24 years: Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe.

During the first half of the 19th century, tobacco prices declined and tobacco lands lost much of their fertility. Planters adopted mixed farming, with an emphasis on wheat and livestock, which required less labor. The Constitutions of 1830 and 1850 expanded suffrage but did not equalize white male apportionment statewide. The population grew slowly from 700,000 in 1790, to 1 million in 1830, to 1.2 million in 1860. Virginia was the largest state population wise to join the Confederate States in 1861. It became the major theater of war during the American Civil War (1861–1865). Southern Unionists in western Virginia created the separate state of West Virginia in 1863. Virginia's economy was devastated during the Civil War and disrupted in the Reconstruction era (1865–1877), when it was administered as Military District Number One. The first signs of recovery were seen in tobacco cultivation and the related cigarette industry, followed by coal mining, and increasing industrialization within the state. In 1883, conservative white Democrats regained power in the state government, leading to the implementation of Jim Crow laws. The 1902 Constitution would hinder many poor white voters and effectively disfranchised blacks from voting, until federal civil rights legislation in the mid-1960s.

From the early to mid-20th century, the state was dominated by the Byrd Organization, with dominance by rural counties aligned in a Democratic party machine. Their hold was broken over their failed Massive Resistance to school integration. As with the rest of the country the Great Depression of the 1930s brought hard economic times. During and after World War II, the state's economy thrived, with a new industrial and urban base. A statewide community college system would develop during the 1960s. By the 1980s, Virginia's population growth was mainly fueled from economic growth in the Washington, D.C., area in Northern Virginia, in large part due to expansion of the federal government.^[3] The first African American governor of a U.S. state since the Reconstruction era, and first African American ever to be elected as state governor, was Virginia's Douglas Wilder in 1990.

From the late 20th century and into the 21st century, the contemporary economy of Virginia continued to grow and become more diversified, with added high-tech industries and defense-related businesses. In the 2020 U.S. census, Virginia's population reached 8.6 million people.