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Archiver > VA-SOUTHSIDE > 2002-11 > 1036768712


From: "Margaret Driskill" <>
Subject: [VA-SOUTHSIDE-L] Indentured servitude;Primogeniture;Headright;Great Wagon Road
Date: Fri, 8 Nov 2002 09:18:32 -0600


Virginia State History

Virginia was established as an economic venture that got off to a very shaky
start. In 1584 Queen Elizabeth I of England gave Sir Walter Ralegh (commonly
misspelled Raleigh) permission to establish colonies in the New World.
Gallantly, Ralegh named the area for the Virgin Queen, but undersupplied his
colonies, which disappeared between one supply ship's arrival and the next.

The second attempt began twenty years later. English entrepreneurs were
looking for a financial opportunity that would return their investment on
the fabulous scale of the six-year-old British East India Company. The
endless lands of the new world appeared to contain such a golden promise.

In 1606 King James I chartered the Virginia Company of London (often called
the London Company). In April 1607 the Susan Constant, the Godspeed, and the
Discovery, commanded by Capt. Christopher Newport, made landfall at Point
Comfort. Sealed orders appointing seven men to the Council were opened, and
the Council elected Edward Maria Wingfield president. Under his direction,
"gentlemen," craftsmen, and laborers founded the first permanent English
settlement on James Isle. Long on expectations but short on experience, they
were struck with disaster.

The struggle and hardships that decimated and discouraged the colonists are
well known. So few of those who arrived on the first three ships survived
that not many Americans living today can trace their ancestry to an original
Jamestown settler. The Colony was nearly abandoned in 1610 and might not
have survived but for one man-John Rolfe.

In 1612, John Rolfe began experiments in growing and processing tobacco. His
export of tobacco to a London merchant in 1614 began a trade that made
Virginia viable economically. Then he married Pocahontas, daughter of the
great werowance, or sub-chief, Powhatan, which helped assure a few years of
peaceful coexistence with the native tribes of Virginia.

The London Company was reorganized under the Great Charter of 1618, and by
the end of 1619, several events occurred that had far-reaching impact. Free
settlers were granted land, establishing property ownership. The House of
Burgesses, America's first representative assembly, was organized, setting
an example for representative democracy. A program encouraging emigration of
"Maides to make Wives" began in England, ensuring that the population of
Virginia would be self-sustaining. Unexpectedly, a Dutch trader from the
West Indies arrived in August 1619 with a cargo of black colonists who were
sold into indentured servitude (slavery did not yet exist in Virginia). This
event helped foreshadow slavery and the Civil War.

On Friday, 22 March 1622, disaster struck. The natives, led by Powhatan's
successor, Opechancanough, attacked the English settlements, massacred a
quarter of the population, and nearly succeeded in driving the English out.
However, disaster then struck the natives, for the English established
policies that eventually led to the near-total extermination of the Indian
people and forceful removal of the survivors to reservations.

In 1624 James I revoked the charter and made Virginia a royal colony,
henceforth under the direction-not always peaceable-of crown-appointed
governors. Between 1652 and 1660, while Oliver Cromwell was ruling in
England, Virginia experimented with what amounted to self government and was
not pleased to relinquish that control again to a royal governor.

The colony had an urgent need of merchants, skilled artisans, woodsmen, and
a large labor force to cultivate the tobacco crops. Luring laborers to
insect-ridden and swampy regions was a challenge. The English law of
primogeniture preserved the estates of the landed gentry by transmitting the
titles and property intact from eldest son to eldest son. Many younger sons
saw Virginia as a prime opportunity. The London Company lured these people
to Virginia with land.

The Company agreed to give anyone who paid his way to Virginia fifty acres
"for his owne personal adventure." Another fifty acres was offered for each
person the adventurer transported "at his owne cost." When Virginia became a
royal colony, the headright system continued. Over the next century,
thousands of settlers came because of Virginia's headright system. See Nell
Marion Nugent, Cavaliers and Pioneers, Abstracts of Virginia Land Patents
and Grants, 3 vols. (1934; reprint, Baltimore, Md.: Genealogical Publishing
Co., 1983).

As the young colony expanded, it experienced growing pains. The difficulty
of providing a labor force led to the formal establishment of slavery
(1660), disagreements with crown-appointed governors led to Bacon's
Rebellion (1676), and a precipitous decline in tobacco prices resulted in
the Plant-Cutting Revolt (1682). The end of the century was marked by the
removal of the colony's capital to Williamsburg in 1699.

Ironically, the eighteenth century saw both the establishment of the
infamous Slave Code of 1705 and the headlong rush toward the American
Revolution; each embodied different views of human rights. Even as the
slaves' plight grew worse, George Mason penned the Virginia Declaration of
Rights. Adopted by the revolutionary convention on 12 June 1776, the
Declaration was a model for the United States Bill of Rights.

It is perhaps appropriate that the first President of the United States was
a native son of the first permanent English colony in North America. George
Washington epitomized the upper-class Virginians of his time: a tobacco
farmer, an ardent lover of freedom, and a slaveholder

The eighteenth century also saw explosive expansion. The Shenandoah Valley
and the lands west of the Appalachian Mountains were opened, and settlers
poured down the Great Wagon Road from Pennsylvania. In the second half of
the century, the Cumberland Gap was discovered and settlers began filling
what would become Kentucky and West Virginia. Both were initially part of
Virginia; Kentucky became a separate state in 1792, and West Virginia in
1863.

Many of Virginia's records have been lost to fire, war, and time. Jamestown,
the original capital, was destroyed three times, and some counties lost
records during the Revolutionary War. However, the greatest destruction of
Virginia's records occurred during the Civil War. Many courthouses were
destroyed, but the most significant loss of records resulted from the
burning of Richmond in 1865. Even with the loss of records, research in most
Virginia counties remains richly rewarding.



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