History of Virginia

As of the 16th Century, what is now the state of Virginia was occupied by three main culture groups: the Iroquoian, the Eastern Siouan and the Algonquian. The tip of the Delmarva Peninsula south of the Indian River was controlled by the Algonquian Nanticoke. Meanwhile, the Tidewater region along the Chesapeake Bay coastline appears to have been controlled by the Algonquian Piscataway (who lived around the Potomac River), the Powhatan and Chowanoke, or Roanoke (who lived between the James River and Neuse River.). Inland of them were two Iroquoian tribes known as the Nottoway, or Managog, and the Meherrin. The rest of Virginia was almost entirely Eastern Sioux, divided between the Monaghan and the Manahoac, who held lands from central West Virginia, through southern Virginia and up to the Maryland border (the region of the Shenandoah River Valley was controlled by a different people). Also, the lands peoples connected to the Mississippian Culture may have just barely crossed over into the state into its southwestern corner. Later, these tribes merged to form the Yuchi.[5][6]

• Algonquian

Rountree has noted that "empire" more accurately describes the political structure of the Powhatan. In the late 16th and early 17th centuries, a chief named Wahunsunacock created this powerful empire by conquering or affiliating with approximately thirty tribes whose territories covered much of what is now eastern Virginia. Known as the Powhatan, or paramount chief, he called this area Tenakomakah ("densely inhabited Land").[7] The empire was advantageous to some tribes, who were periodically threatened by other groups, such as the Monacan. The first English colony, Jamestown, was allegedly allowed to be settled by Chief Powhatan as he wanted new military and economic advantages over the Siouans west of his people. The following chief, Opechancanough, succeeded him within only a couple of years after contact and had a much different view of the English. He led several failed uprisings, which caused his people to fracture, some tribes going south to live among the Chowanoke or north to live among the Piscataway. After that, one of his sons took several Powhatans and moved off to the northwest, becoming the Shawnee and took over former Susquehannock territories.[8] Recorded in the states of Maryland and Pennsylvania throughout the 17th century, they eventually made their way into the Ohio River Valley, where they are believed to have merged with a variety of other native peoples to form the powerful confederacy that controlled the area that is now West Virginia until the Shawnee Wars (1811-1813).[9] By only 1646, very few Powhatans remained and were policed harshly by the English, no longer even allowed to choose their own leaders. They were organized into the Pamunkey and Mattaponi tribes.[10] They eventually dissolved altogether and merged into Colonial society.

The Piscataway were pushed north on the Potomac River early in their history, coming to be cut off from the rest of their people. While some stayed, others chose to migrate west. Their movements are generally unrecorded in the historical record, but they reappear at Fort Detroit in modern-day Michigan by the end of the 18th century. These Piscataways are said to have moved to Canada and probably merged with the Mississaugas, who had broken away from the Anishinaabeg and migrated southeast into that same region. Despite that, many Piscataway stayed in Virginia and Maryland until the modern day. Other members of the Piscataway also merged with the Nanticoke.

The Nanticoke seem to have been largely confined to Indian Towns,[11] but were later relocated to New York in 1778. Afterward, they dissolved, with groups joining the Iroquois and Lenape.[12]

The Chowanoke were moved to reservation lands by the English in 1677, where they remained until the 19th century. By 1821, they had merged with other tribes and were generally dissolved, however the descendants of these peoples reformed in the 21st century and re-acquired much of their old reservation in 2014.

• Eastern Siouan

Many of the Siouan peoples of the state seem to have originally been a collection of smaller tribes with uncertain affiliation. Names recorded throughout the 17th century were the Monahassanough, Rassawek, Mowhemencho, Monassukapanough, Massinacack, Akenatsi, Mahoc, Nuntaneuck, Nutaly, Nahyssan, Sapon, Monakin, Toteros, Keyauwees, Shakori, Eno, Sissipahaw, Monetons and Mohetons living and migrating throughout what is now West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina.[13][14][15][16][17] All were said to have spoken, at least two distinct languages—Saponi (which appears to be a missing link language existing between the Chiwere and Dhegihan variants) and Catawba (which is most closely related to Biloxi and the Gulf Coast Siouan languages).[18][19][20] John Smith was the first to note two groups in the Virginian interior—the Monaghans and the Monahoacs. The words came from the Powhatan[21] and translations are uncertain, however Monaghan seems similar to a known Lenape word, Monaquen, which means "to scalp."[22] They were also commonly referred to as the Eastern Blackfoot, which explains why some Saponi today identify as the Siouan-Blackfoot people,[13][23] and later still as the Christannas.

As far as can be assumed, however, it seems that they were arranged thus—from east to west along the north shore of the James River, just inland of the Powhatan, would have been the Eno, Shakori and Saponi. Around the source of the river (and probably holding some of the river's islands a ways back east) should have been the Occaneechi, or Akenatsi. They were believed to have been the "grandfather" tribe of the region, a term among native peoples for any tribe highly respected and venerated for being the first or oldest people of their kind. West of the Occaneechi and primarily located in what is now West Virginia were, at least, two more tribes believed to have been related—the Moneton of the Kanawha River and the Tutelo of the Bluestone River, which separates West Virginia from Kentucky. About midway along the southern shores of the James River should have been the Sissipahaw. They were probably the only Eastern Siouan tribe in the state who would have spoken a form of Catawba language, rather than Saponi/ Tutelo. North of them were the Manahoac, or Mahock. The Keyauwee are also of note. It is difficult to say whether they were a subtribe of others mentioned, a newly formed tribe, or from somewhere else.

Originally existing along the entirety of the current western border of Virginia and up through some of the southwestern mountains of West Virginia and Kentucky, they seem to have first been driven east by the Iroquoian Westo during the Beaver Wars.[24][25] Historians have since come to note that the Westo were almost definitely the Erie and Neutrals/ Chonnonton, who had conquered wide swathes of what is now northern and eastern Ohio approximately during the 1630s and were subsequently conquered and driven out by the Iroquois Confederacy around 1650. The Tutelo of West Virginia first seem to be noted as living north of the Saponi, in northern Virginia in around 1670.[26] Later in the Beaver Wars, the Iroquois lost their new lands in Ohio and Michigan to the French and their new native allies around the western Great Lakes. Sometime during the 1680s-90s,[27] the Iroquois started pushing south and declared war on the Saponi related tribes, pushing them down into North Carolina. It is noted in 1701 that the Saponi, Tutelo, Occaneechi, Shakori and Keyauwee were then going to form a confederacy to take back their homeland. The writer assumes that all five tribes were driven south, but the Tutelos are noted as allies from the "western mountains."[28] This is the same year that the Iroquois surrendered to the French, but it appears that hostilities with the Saponi continued long term. The Iroquois were soon after convinced by the English to start selling off all their extended lands, which were nearly impossible for them to hold. All they kept was a string of territory along the Susquahanna River in Pennsylvania.

The Saponi attempted to return to their lands, but were unable to do so. Around 1702, the Governor of the Virginia Colony gave them reservation land and opened Fort Christanna nearby. All the tribes appear to have returned, except the Keyauwee, who remained among the Catawba. They came to be known as the Christanna People at this time. This fort offered economic and educational aid to the locals, but after the fort closed in 1718, the Saponi dispersed. With continued conflicts between the Saponi and Iroquios in the region, the governors of Virginia, Pennsylvania and New York joined to organize a peace treaty, which did ultimately end the conflict. Some time around 1722, the Tutelo and some other Saponis migrated to the Iroquoian-held Pennsylvania territory and settled there, among many other refugees of local tribes who had been destroyed, absorbed into Colonial society, or simply moved on without them.[29][30] In 1753, the Iroquois reorganized them all into Tutelo, Delaware and Nanticoke Tribes, relocated them to New York and gave them full honors among the Confederacy, despite none of them being Iroquoian.[31] After the American Revolution, these tribes accompanied them to Canada. Later, the descendants of the Tutelos migrated again to Ohio, becoming the Saponi and Tutelo Tribes of Ohio. Many of the other Siouan peoples of Virginia were also noted to have merged with the Catawba and Yamasee tribes.[32]

• Iroquoian

While mainly noted in Virginia, it appears that the Tuscarora migrated into the region from the Delmarva Peninsula early in the 17th century. John Smith noted them on an early map as the Kuskarawocks.[33] (They may have also absorbed the Tockwoghs, who also appear on the map and were most likely Iroquoian.) After an extended war with the English, the Tuscarora began leaving for New York and began merging with the Iroquois in groups around 1720, continuing approximately until the Iroquois were banished to Canada following the American Revolution.[34] Those who remained became a new tribe—the Coharie—and migrated south to live near the Meherrin.[35]

The Meherrin aided the Tuscarora in that war, but did not follow them north. In 1717, the English gave them a reservation just south of the North Carolina border. The North Carolina government contested their land rights and tried to take them away due to a surveyor's error that caused both Native and English settlers to claim parts of the reservation. However, they managed to, more or less, stay put well into the modern day. The Nottoway also managed to largely stay in the vicinity of Virginia until the modern day without much conflict or loss of heritage.

Although the Beaver Wars were primarily centered in Ohio, the Iroquois Confederacy of New York were also in a long strung conflict with the Susquehannocks of central Pennsylvania, as was the English colony of Maryland, although the two were not known to be allies themselves. Sometime around the 1650s or 1660s, Maryland made peace with and allied themselves to the Susquehannocks, thus the Iroquois labelled them an enemy as well, despite being allied with England by this time. After ending their war with the Susquehannocks in 1674, however, the Iroquois went on a more or less inexplicable rampage against Maryland and its remaining Native allies, which included the Piscataways and the Eastern Siouans tribes. The Eastern Siouans were forced out of the state during the 1680s. After the Beaver Wars officially ended in 1701, the Iroquois sold off their extended holdings—including their land in Virginia—to the English.[26]

In the mid 17th century, around 1655-6, an Iroquoian group known as the Westo invaded Virginia. While many theories abound as to their origins, they appear to have been the last of the Eries and Chonnontons who invaded Ohio at the start of the Beaver Wars.[36] The Westo seem to have pushed into southern West Virginia, then moved straight south to move on the smaller Siouan tribes of the Carolinas. In the 1680s, they were destroyed by a coalition of native warriors led by a tribe called the Sawanno.[37] There is also a note from the Cherokee that a group of "Shawnee" were living among them in the 1660s (following the Westo invasion, but prior to their defeat), then migrated into southern West Virginia.

• Other Tribes of Note

The first Spanish and English explorers appear to have greatly overestimated the size of the Cherokee, placing them as far north as Virginia. However, many historians now believe that there was a large, mixed race/ mixed language confederacy in the region, called the Coosa. The Spanish also gave them the nicknames Chalaques and Uchis during the 16th century and the English turned Chalaques into Cherokees.[38] The Cherokees we know today were among these people, but lived much further south and both the Cherokee language (of Iroquoian origin) and the Yuchi language (Muskogean) have been heavily modified by Siouan influence and carry many Siouan borrow words.[39][40] This nation would have existed throughout parts of the states of Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, North and South Carolina and Georgia, with cores of different culture groups organized at different extremes of the territory and, probably, speaking Yuchi as a common tongue.

After the Westo punched straight through them, they seem to have split along the line of the Tennessee River to create the Cherokee to the south and the Yuchi to the north.[41] Then, following the Yamasee War (1715–1717), the Yuchi were force across Appalachia[42] and split again, into the Coyaha and the Chisca. The French, seeing an opportunity for new allies, ingratiated themselves with the Chisca and had them relocated to the heart of the Illinois Colony to live among the Algonquian Ilinoweg. Later, as French influence along the Ohio River waned, the tribe seems to have split away again, taking many Ilinoweg tribes with them, and moved back to Kentucky, where they became the Kispoko. The Kispoko later became the fourth tribe of Shawnee.[43]

Meanwhile, the Coyaha reforged their alliance with the Cherokee and brought in many of the smaller Muskogean tribes of Alabama (often referred to as the Mobilians) to form the Creek Confederacy. While this tribe would go on to have great historical influence to the remaining Colonial Era and the early history of the United States, they never returned to Virginia.[44]

Furthermore, alike the Sawannos, it seems many splinter groups fractured off from the core group and moved into places like West Virginia and Kentucky. Afterwards, those lands seemed to be filled with native peoples who claimed "Cherokee" ancestry, yet had no organized tribal affiliation. The descendants of those people live throughout West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Kentucky and Ohio today. However, it also seems probable that these populations married into the surviving Monongahela and other Siouan groups, yet the populations must have been quite small on both sides to allow that these peoples never reformed a government and remained nomadic for a great deal of time afterwards.

In 1540, a party led by two Spaniards, Juan de Villalobos and Francisco de Silvera, sent by Hernando de Soto, entered what is now Lee County in search of gold.[45] In the spring of 1567, Hernando Moyano de Morales, a sergeant of Spanish explorer Juan Pardo, led a group of soldiers northward from Fort San Juan in Joara, a native town in what is now western North Carolina, to attack and destroy the Chisca village of Maniatique near present-day Saltville.[46] The attack near Saltville was the first recorded battle in Virginia history.[47]

Another Spanish party, captained by Antonio Velázquez in the caravel Santa Catalina, explored to the lower Chesapeake Bay region of Virginia in mid-1561 under the orders of Ángel de Villafañe.[48][49] During this voyage, two Kiskiack or Paspahegh[50] youths, including Don Luis were taken back to Spain.[48] In 1566, an expedition sent from Spanish Florida by Pedro Menéndez de Avilés reached the Delmarva Peninsula. The expedition consisted of two Dominican friars, thirty soldiers and Don Luis, in a failed effort to set up a Spanish colony in the Chesapeake, believing it to be an opening to the fabled Northwest Passage.[51][52]

In 1570, Spanish Jesuits established the Ajacán Mission on the lower peninsula. However, in 1571 it was destroyed by Don Luis and a party of his indigenous allies.[53] In August 1572, Pedro Menéndez de Avilés arrived from St. Augustine with thirty soldiers and sailors to take revenge for the massacre of the Jesuits, and hanged approximately 20 natives.[52] In 1573, the governor of Spanish Florida, Pedro Menéndez de Márquez, conducted further exploration of the Chesapeake.[54] In the 1580s, captain Vicente González led several voyages into the Chesapeake in search of English settlements in the area.[55] In 1609, Spanish Florida governor Pedro de Ibarra sent Francisco Fernández de Écija from St. Augustine to survey the activities of the Jamestown colonists, yet Spain never attempted a colony after the failure of the Ajacán Mission.[55]

The Roanoke Colony was the first English colony in the New World. It was founded at Roanoke Island in what was then Virginia, now part of Dare County, 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. Because they disappeared, they were called "The Lost Colony."

The name Virginia came from information gathered by the Raleigh-sponsored English explorations along what is now the North Carolina coast. Philip Amadas and Arthur Barlowe reported that a regional "king" named Wingina ruled a land of Wingandacoa. Queen Elizabeth modified the name to "Virginia", perhaps in part noting her status as the "Virgin Queen." Although the word is latinate, it stands as the oldest English language place-name in the United States.[56]

On the second voyage, Raleigh learned that, while the chief of the Secotans was indeed called Wingina, the expression wingandacoa, heard by the English upon arrival, actually meant "You wear good clothes" in Carolina Algonquian, and was not the native name of the country, as previously misunderstood.[57]

Seal of the Virginia Company of London

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 in 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.

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. After a long, rough voyage of 144 days, the colonists finally arrived in Virginia on April 26, 1607 at the entrance to the Chesapeake Bay. 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 location safe from Spanish raids, they explored the Hampton Roads area and sailed up the newly christened James River to the Fall Line at what would later become the cities of Richmond and Manchester.

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.

Sketch of Jamestown c.1608

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.

After Smith's return to England in August 1609, there was a long delay in the scheduled arrival of supplies. 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". When the new governor Sir Thomas Gates, finally arrived at Jamestown on May 23, 1610, along with other survivors of the wreck of the Sea Venture that resulted in Bermuda being added to the territory of Virginia, he discovered over 80% of the 500 colonists had died; many of the survivors were sick.

Back in England, the Virginia Company was 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. In June 1610, he arrived with 150 men and ample supplies. De La Warr began the First Anglo-Powhatan War, against the natives. Under his leadership, Samuel Argall kidnapped Pocahontas, daughter of the Powhatan chief, and held her at Henricus.

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 John 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 enjoyed the flavor, thus making tobacco a cash crop that established Virginia's economic viability.

The First Anglo-Powhatan War ended when Rolfe married Pocahontas in 1614.

Map depicting the Colony of Virginia. Made between 1609 and 1638 by Willem Blaeu.

George Yeardley took over as Governor of Virginia in 1619. He ended one-man rule and created a representative system of government with the General Assembly, the first elected legislative assembly in the New World.

Also in 1619, the Virginia Company sent 90 single women as potential wives for the male colonists to help populate the settlement. 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. Major importation of enslaved Africans by European slave traders did not take place until much later in the century.

In some areas, individual rather than communal land ownership or leaseholds were established, providing families with motivation to increase production, improve standards of living, and gain wealth. Perhaps nowhere was this more progressive than at Sir Thomas Dale's ill-fated Henricus, a westerly-lying development located along the south bank of the James River, where natives were also to be provided an education at the Colony's first college.

About 6 miles (9.7 km) 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.

Virginians were intensely individualistic at this point, weakening the small new communities. According to Breen (1979) their horizon was limited by the present or near future. They believed that the environment could and should be forced to yield quick financial returns. Thus everyone was looking out for number one at the expense of the cooperative ventures. Farms were scattered and few villages or towns were formed. This extreme individualism led to the failure of the settlers to provide defense for themselves against the Indians, resulting in two massacres.[58]

A European artist's depiction of the Indian Massacre of 1622

English settlers soon came into conflict with the natives. Despite some successful interaction, issues of ownership and control of land and other resources, and trust between the peoples, became areas of conflict. Virginia has drought conditions an average of every three years. 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 tobacco exhausted the soil, the settlers continually needed to clear more land for replacement. This reduced the wooded land which Native Americans depended on for hunting to supplement their food crops. As more colonists arrived, they wanted more land.

The tribes tried to fight the encroachment by the colonists. Major conflicts took place in the Indian massacre of 1622 and the Second Anglo-Powhatan war, both under the leadership of the late Chief Powhatan's younger brother, Chief Opechancanough. 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. The European colonists had expanded territory so that they controlled virtually all the land east of the fall line on the James River. Fifty years earlier, this territory had been the empire of the mighty Powhatan Confederacy.

Surviving members of many tribes assimilated into the general population of the colony. Some retained small communities with more traditional identity and heritage. In the 21st century, the Pamunkey and Mattaponi are the only two tribes to maintain reservations originally assigned under the English. As of 2010, the state has recognized eleven Virginia Indian tribes. Others have renewed interest in seeking state and Federal recognition since the celebration of the 400th anniversary of Jamestown in 2007. State celebrations gave Native American tribes prominent formal roles to showcase their contributions to the state.

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 land to grow tobacco, were the source of increasing concern to the Native Americans most affected, the Powhatan.

By this time, the remaining Powhatan Empire was led by Chief Opechancanough, chief of the Pamunkey, 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, the Powhatan killed about 400 colonists in the Indian Massacre of 1622. With coordinated attacks, they 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.[59]

At Jamestown, a warning by an Indian boy named Chanco to his employer, Richard Pace, helped reduce total deaths. Pace secured his plantation, and rowed across the river during the night to alert Jamestown, which allowed colonists some defensive preparation. They had no time to warn outposts, which suffered deaths and captives at almost every location. 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 promising for the Colony, two women and three children were among the 27 killed, leaving only two colonists alive. The facilities were destroyed.

Despite the losses, two thirds of the colonists survived; after withdrawing to Jamestown, many returned to the outlying plantations, although some were abandoned. The English carried out reprisals against the Powhatan and there were skirmishes and attacks for about a year before the colonists and Powhatan struck a truce.

The colonists invited the chiefs and warriors to Jamestown, where they proposed a toast of liquor. Dr. John Potts and some of the Jamestown leadership had poisoned the natives' share of the liquor, which killed about 200 men. Colonists killed another 50 Indians by hand.

The period between the coup of 1622 and another Powhatan attack on English colonists along the James River (see Jamestown) in 1644 marked a turning point in the relations between the Powhatan and the English. In the early period, each side believed it was operating from a position of power; by the Treaty of 1646, the colonists had taken the balance of power, and had established control between the York and Blackwater Rivers.

Slaves processing tobacco for export 1670

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.

The colonists defined the 1644 coup as an "uprising". Chief Opechancanough expected the outcome would reflect what he considered the morally correct position: that the colonists were violating their pledges to the Powhatan. 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.[60]

Most Virginia colonists were loyal to the crown (Charles I) during the English Civil War, but in 1652, Oliver Cromwell sent a force to remove and replace Gov. Berkeley with Governor Richard Bennett, who was loyal to the Commonwealth of England. This governor was a moderate Puritan who allowed the local legislature to exercise most controlling authority, and spent much of his time directing affairs in neighboring Maryland Colony. Bennett was followed by two more "Cromwellian" governors, Edward Digges and Samuel Matthews, although in fact all three of these men were not technically appointees, but were selected by the House of Burgesses, which was really in control of the colony during these years.[61]

Many royalists fled to Virginia after their defeat in the English Civil War. Some intermarried with existing plantation families to establish influential families in Virginia such as the Washingtons, Randolphs, Carters and Lees. However, most 17th-century immigrants were indentured servants, merchants or artisans. 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.[62]

Governor 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 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.[63]

The Bodleian Plate, showing (top row; also middle row, center) the Wren Building at the College of William and Mary; (middle row left) views of the first Capitol at Williamsburg; (middle-row right) the Governor's Palace.

Local leaders had long desired a school of higher education, for the sons of planters, and for educating the Indians. An earlier attempt to establish a permanent university at Henricus failed after the Indian Massacre of 1622 wiped out the entire settlement. Finally, seven decades later, with encouragement from the Colony's House of Burgesses and other prominent individuals, Reverend Dr. James Blair, the colony's top religious leader, prepared a plan. Blair went to England and in 1693, obtained a charter from Protestants King William and Queen Mary II of England who had just deposed Catholic James II of England in 1688 during the Glorious Revolution. 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 college students, the colonial capital was permanently moved to nearby Middle Plantation again, and the town was renamed Williamsburg, in honor of the king. Plans were made to construct a capitol building and plan the new city according to the survey of Theodorick Bland.

Byrd plantation, showing how imports and exports came by ship to the front door

As the English increasingly used tobacco products, tobacco in the American colonies became a significant economic force, especially in the tidewater region surrounding the Chesapeake Bay. Vast plantations were built along the rivers of Virginia, and social/economic systems developed to grow and distribute this cash crop. Some elements of this system included the importation and employment of slaves to grow crops. Planters would then fill large hogsheads with tobacco and convey them to inspection warehouses. In 1730, the Virginia House of Burgesses standardized and improved quality of tobacco exported by establishing the Tobacco Inspection Act of 1730, which required inspectors to grade tobacco at 40 specified locations.

In terms of the white population, the top five percent or so were planters who possessed growing wealth and increasing political power and social prestige. They controlled the local Anglican church, choosing ministers and handling church property and disbursing local charity. They sought elected and appointed offices.[64] About 60 percent of white Virginians were part of a broad middle class that owned substantial farms; By the second generation, death rates from malaria and other local diseases had declined so much that a stable family structure was possible. The bottom third owned no land, and verged on poverty. Many were recent arrivals, or recently released from indentured servitude.[65] Social stratification was most severe in the Northern Neck, where the Fairfax family had been given a proprietorship. In some districts there 70 percent of the land was owned by a handful of families, and three-fourths of the whites had no land at all. In the frontier districts, large numbers of Irish and German Protestants had settled, often moving down from Pennsylvania. Tobacco was not important there; farmers focused on hemp, grain, cattle, and horses. Entrepreneurs had begun to mine and smelt the local iron ores.[66]

Sports occupied a great deal of attention at every social level, starting at the top. In England hunting was sharply restricted to landowners, and enforced by armed gameskeepers. In America, game was more than plentiful. Everyone—including servants and slaves—could and did hunt. Poor men with a good rifle aim won praise; rich gentlemen who were off target won ridicule. In 1691, Sir Francis Nicholson, the governor, organized competitions for the "better sort of Virginians onely who are Batchelors," and he offered prizes "to be shot for, wrastled, played at backswords, & Run for by Horse and foott."[67] Horse racing was the main event. The typical farmer did not own a horse in the first place, and racing was a matter for gentlemen only, but ordinary farmers were spectators and gamblers. Selected slaves often became skilled horse trainers. Horse racing was especially important for knitting the gentry together. The race was a major public event designed to demonstrate to the world the superior social status of the gentry through expensive breeding, training, boasting and gambling, and especially winning the races themselves.[68] Historian Timothy Breen explains that horse racing and high-stakes gambling were essential to maintaining the status of the gentry. When they publicly bet a large sum on their favorite horse, it told the world that competitiveness, individualism, and materialism where the core elements of gentry values.[69]

Historian Edmund Morgan (1975) argues that Virginians in the 1650s—and for the next two centuries—turned to slavery and a racial divide as an alternative to class conflict. "Racism made it possible for white Virginians to develop a devotion to the equality that English republicans had declared to be the soul of liberty." That is, white men became politically much more equal than was possible without a population of low-status slaves.[70]

By 1700, the population reached 70,000 and continued to grow rapidly from a high birth rate, low death rate, importation of slaves from the Caribbean, and immigration from Britain and Germany, as well as from Pennsylvania. The climate was mild, the farm lands were cheap and fertile.[71]

Between 1730 and 1776, the Virginia colony expanded past the Shenandoah valley to encompass modern day West Virginia, Kentucky, and most of the Northwest Territory.

1751 Fry-Jefferson map depicting 'The Great Waggon Road to Philadelphia'

In 1716, Governor Alexander Spotswood led the Knights of the Golden Horseshoe Expedition, reaching the top ridge of the Blue Ridge Mountains at Swift Run Gap (elevation 2,365 feet (721 m)).[72][73] Spotswood promoted Germanna, a settlement of German immigrants brought over for the purpose of iron production, in modern-day Orange County.[74]

By the 1730s, the Three Notch'd Road extended from the vicinity of the fall line of the James River at the future site of Richmond westerly to the Shenandoah Valley, crossing the Blue Ridge Mountains at Jarmans Gap.[75][76] Around this time, Governor William Gooch promoted settlement of the Virginia backcountry as a means to insulate the Virginia colony from Native American and New France settlements in the Ohio Country[77] In response, a wide variety of settlers traveled southward on the Indian Trail later known as the Great Wagon Road along the Shenandoah Valley from Pennsylvania. Many, including German Palatines and Scotch-Irish American immigrants, settled along former Indian camps. According to Encyclopedia Virginia, "By 1735 there were as many as 160 families in the backcountry region, and within ten years nearly 10,000 Europeans lived in the Shenandoah Valley."[78]

1736-37 map of the Northern Neck Proprietary

As colonial settlement moved into the piedmont area from the Tidewater/Chesapeake area,[79] There was some uncertainty as to the exact tax boundaries of Virginia land versus the Land patent quit-rent rights held by Thomas Fairfax, 6th Lord Fairfax of Cameron in the Northern Neck Proprietary. When Robert "King" Carter died in 1732, Lord Fairfax read about his vast wealth in The Gentleman's Magazine and decided to settle the matter himself by coming to Virginia. Lord Fairfax travelled to Virginia for the first time between 1735 and 1737 to inspect and protect his lands.[80] He employed a young George Washington[81] (Washington's first employment) to survey his lands lying west of the Blue Ridge.[82] Once this legal battle was ironed out, Frederick County, Virginia was founded in 1743 and the "Frederick Town" settlements there became a fourth city charter in Virginia, now known as Winchester, Virginia in February 1752.[83]

New borders drawn by the Royal Proclamation of 1763.

In the late 1740s and the second half of the 18th century, the British angled for control of the Ohio Country.[84] Virginians Thomas Lee and brothers Lawrence and Augustine Washington organized the Ohio Company to represent the prospecting and trading interests of Virginian investors.[85] In 1749, the British Crown, via the colonial government of Virginia, granted the Ohio Company a great deal of this territory on the condition that it be settled by British colonists.[86] Governor Robert Dinwiddie of Virginia was an investor in the Ohio Company, which stood to lose money if the French held their claim.[87] To counter the French military presence in Ohio, in October 1753 Dinwiddie ordered the 21-year-old Major George Washington (whose brother was another Ohio Company investor) of the Virginia Regiment to warn the French to leave Virginia territory.[88] Ultimately, many Virginians were caught up in the resulting French and Indian War that occurred 1754–1763. At the completion of the war, the Royal Proclamation of 1763 forbade all British settlement past a line drawn along the Appalachian Mountains,[89] with the land west of the Proclamation Line known as the Indian Reserve. British colonists and land speculators objected to the proclamation boundary since the British government had already assigned land grants to them. Many settlements already existed beyond the proclamation line,[90] some of which had been temporarily evacuated during Pontiac's War, and there were many already granted land claims yet to be settled. For example, George Washington and his Virginia soldiers had been granted lands past the boundary. Prominent American colonials joined with the land speculators in Britain to lobby the government to move the line further west. Their efforts were successful, and the boundary line was adjusted in a series of treaties with the Native Americans. In 1768, the Treaty of Fort Stanwix and the Treaty of Hard Labour, followed in 1770 by the Treaty of Lochaber, opened much of what is now Kentucky and West Virginia to British settlement within the Virginia Colony. However, the Northwest Territories north of the Ohio continued to be occupied by native tribes until US forces drove them out in the early decades of the 1800s.

Patrick Henry's speech on the Virginia Resolves.

Revolutionary sentiments first began appearing in Virginia shortly after the French and Indian War ended in 1763. 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 of Parson's Cause 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, and in turn passing the "Virginia Resolves" opposing the tax. Governor Francis Fauquier responded by dismissing the Assembly. 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 The British Colonies, setting forth the principle that Virginia was a part of the British Empire, not the Kingdom of Great Britain, 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 in the legislature created a committee of correspondence to deal with problems with Britain. This committee would serve as the foundation for Virginia's role in the American Revolution.

After the House of Burgesses expressed solidarity with the actions in Massachusetts, the Governor, Lord Dunmore, again dissolved 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 and elected delegates to the Continental Congress.

Lord Dunmore fleeing to the Fowey

On April 20, 1775, Dunmore ordered the gunpowder removed 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 negotiated 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 a British ship at Yorktown. On November 7, Dunmore issued a proclamation declaring Virginia was in a state of rebellion. 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, winning a victory in the small action there. Dunmore responded by bombarding Norfolk with his ships on January 1, 1776. 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, as well as the frontier in the northwest.

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. The constitution of the Fifth Virginia Convention created a system of government for the state that would last for 54 years, and converting House of Burgesses into a bicameral legislature with both a House of Delegates and a Senate. Patrick Henry serves as the first Governor of the Commonwealth (1776-1779).

Surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown (John Trumbull, 1797)

The British briefly brought the war back to coastal Virginia in May 1779. Fearing the vulnerability of Williamsburg, Governor Thomas Jefferson moved the capital farther inland to Richmond in 1780. However, in December, Benedict Arnold, who had betrayed the Revolution and become a general for the British, attacked Richmond and burned part of the city before the Virginia Militia drove his army out of the city.

Arnold moved his base of operations to Portsmouth and was later joined by troops under General William Phillips. Phillips led an expedition that destroyed military and economic targets, against ineffectual militia resistance. The state's defenses, led by General Baron von Steuben, put up resistance in the April 1781 Battle of Blandford, but were forced to retreat. The French General Lafayette and his forces arrived to help defend Virginia, and though outnumbered, engaged British forces under General Charles Cornwallis in a series of skirmishes to help reduce their effectiveness. Cornwallis dispatched two smaller missions under Colonel John Graves Simcoe and Colonel Banastre Tarleton to march on Charlottesville and capture Gov. Jefferson and the legislature, though was foiled when Jack Jouett rode to warn Virginia government.

Cornwallis moved down the Virginia Peninsula towards the Chesapeake Bay, where Clinton planned to extract part of the army for a siege of New York City. After surprising American forces at the Battle of Green Spring on July 6, 1781, Cornwallis received orders to move his troops to the port town of Yorktown and begin construction of fortifications and a naval yard, though when discovered American forces surrounded the town. Gen. Washington and his French ally Rochambeau moved their forces from New York to Virginia. The defeat of the Royal Navy by Admiral de Grasse at the Battle of the Virginia Capes ensured French dominance of the waters around Yorktown, thereby preventing Cornwallis from receiving troops or supplies and removing the possibility of evacuation. Following the two-week siege to Yorktown, Cornwallis decided to surrender. Papers for surrender were officially signed on October 19.

As a result of the defeat, the king lost control of Parliament and the new British government offered peace in April 1782. The Treaty of Paris of 1783 officially ended the war.

The Revolution meant change and sometimes political freedom for enslaved African Americans, too. Tens of thousands of slaves from southern states, particularly in Georgia and South Carolina, escaped to British lines and freedom during the war. Thousands left with the British for resettlement in their colonies of Nova Scotia and Jamaica; others went to England; others disappeared into rural and frontier areas or the North.[100]

Inspired by the Revolution and evangelical preachers, numerous slaveholders in the Chesapeake region manumitted some or all of their slaves, during their lifetimes or by will. From 1,800 persons in 1782, the total population of free blacks in Virginia increased to 12,766 (4.3 percent of blacks) in 1790, and to 30,570 in 1810; the percentage change was from free blacks' comprising less than one percent of the total black population in Virginia, to 7.2 percent by 1810, even as the overall population increased.[101] One planter, Robert Carter III freed more than 450 slaves in his lifetime, more than any other planter. George Washington freed all of his slaves at his death.[102]

Many free blacks migrated from rural areas to towns such as Petersburg, Richmond, and Charlottesville for jobs and community; others migrated with their families to the frontier where social strictures were more relaxed.[103] Among the oldest black Baptist congregations in the nation were two founded near Petersburg before the Revolution. Each congregation moved into the city and built churches by the early 19th century.[104]

Twice slave rebellions broke out in Virginia: Gabriel's Rebellion in 1800, and Nat Turner's Rebellion in 1831. White reaction was swift and harsh, and militias killed many innocent free blacks and black slaves as well as those directly involved in the rebellions. After the second rebellion, the legislature passed laws restricting the rights of free people of color: they were excluded from bearing arms, serving in the militia, gaining education, and assembling in groups. As bearing arms and serving in the militia were considered obligations of free citizens, free blacks came under severe constraints after Nat Turner's rebellion.

In the late 18th century, the Wilderness Road through the Cumberland Gap in far southwestern Virginia served as a key route across the Appalachians to Kentucky, and for points west until the National Road opened in the early 19th century.

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. For one, the vast lands of the Virginia Colony were subdivided into other US states and territories. In 1784, Virginia relinquished its claims to the Illinois County, Virginia, except for the Virginia Military District (Southern Indiana). In 1775, Daniel Boone blazed a trail for the Transylvania Company from Fort Chiswell in Virginia through the Cumberland Gap into central Kentucky. This Wilderness Road became the principal route used by settlers for more than fifty years to reach Kentucky from the East. The fledgling US government rewarded veterans of the Revolutionary War with plots of land along the Ohio River in the Northwest Territory. In 1792, three western counties split off to form Kentucky.

A second influence: the lands seemed to be more fertile in the west. Virginia's heavy farming of tobacco for 200 years had depleted its soils.[105]

The 1803 Louisiana Purchase only accelerated the westward movement of Virginians out of their native state. Many of the Virginians whose grandparents had created the Virginia Establishment began to emigrate and settle westward. Famous Virginian-born Americans affected not only the destiny of the state of Virginia, but the rapidly developing American Old West. Virginians Meriwether Lewis and William Clark were influential in their famous 1804-1806 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, and Dr. John Shackelford were famous Texan pioneers from Virginia. Even eventual Civil War general Robert E. Lee distinguished himself as a military leader in Texas during the 1846–48 Mexican–American War.

Historians estimate that one million Virginians left the commonwealth between the Revolution and the Civil War.[106] With this exodus, Virginia experienced a decline in both population and political influence[107] Prominent Virginians formed the Virginia Historical and Philosophical Society to preserve the legacy and memory of its past. At the same time, with Virginians settling so much of the west, they brought their cultural habits with them. Today, many cultural features of the American South can be attributed to Virginians who migrated west.[108]

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 of the area became a major issue for the Virginia General Assembly. In the older, eastern portion, slavery contributed to the economy. While planters were moving away from labor-intensive tobacco to mixed crops, they still held numerous slaves and their leasing out or sales was also part of their economic prospect. Slavery had become an economic institution upon which planters depended. Watersheds on most of this area eventually drained to the Atlantic Ocean. In the western reaches, families farmed smaller homesteads, mostly without enslaved or hired labor. Settlers were expanding the exploitation of resources: mining of minerals and harvesting of timber. The land drained into the Ohio River Valley, and trade followed the rivers.

Representation in the state legislature was heavily skewed in favor of the more populous eastern areas and the historic planter elite. This was compounded by the partial allowance for slaves when counting population; as neither the slaves nor women had the vote, this gave more power to white men. The legislature's efforts to mediate the disparities ended without meaningful resolution, although the state held a constitutional convention on representation issues. Thus, at the outset of the American Civil War, Virginia was caught not only in national crisis, but in a long-standing controversy within its own boundaries. While other border states had similar regional differences, Virginia had a long history of east-west tensions which finally came to a head; it was the only state to divide into two separate states during the War.

Begun in the late 18th century, the James River and Kanawha Canal was intended to form a transportation link between the James River in the east, and the Kanawha River (flowing into the Ohio River) across the Appalachians.

After the Revolution, various infrastructure projects began to be developed, including the Dismal Swamp Canal, the James River and Kanawha Canal, and various turnpikes. Virginia was home to the first of all Federal infrastructure projects under the new Constitution, the Cape Henry Light of 1792, located at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. Following the War of 1812, several Federal national defense projects were undertaken in Virginia. Drydock Number One was constructed in Portsmouth in the 1827. Across the James River, Fort Monroe was built to defend Hampton Roads, completed in 1834.

In the 1830s, railroads began to be built in Virginia. In 1831, the Chesterfield Railroad began hauling coal from the mines in Midlothian to docks at Manchester (near Richmond), powered by gravity and draft animals. The first railroad in Virginia to be powered by locomotives was the Richmond, Fredericksburg and Potomac Railroad, chartered in 1834, with the intent to connect with steamboat lines at Aquia Landing running to Washington, D.C.. Soon after, others (with equally descriptive names) followed: the Richmond and Petersburg Railroad and Louisa Railroad in 1836, the Richmond and Danville Railroad in 1847, the Orange and Alexandria Railroad in 1848, and the Richmond and York River Railroad. In 1849, the Virginia Board of Public Works established the Blue Ridge Railroad. Under Engineer Claudius Crozet, the railroad successfully crossed the Blue Ridge Mountains via the Blue Ridge Tunnel at Afton Mountain.

Petersburg became a manufacturing center, as well as a city where free black artisans and craftsmen could make a living. In 1860, half its population was black and of that, one-third were free blacks, the largest such population in the state.

Remains of the Washington Iron Furnace in Franklin County, which operated from about 1770 to 1850.[109]

With extensive iron deposits, especially in the western counties, Virginia was a pioneer in the iron industry. The first ironworks in the new world was established at Falling Creek in 1619, though it was destroyed in 1622. There would eventually grow to be 80 ironworks, charcoal furnaces and forges with 7,000 hands at any one time, about 70 percent of them slaves. Ironmasters hired slaves from local slave owners because they were cheaper than white workers, easier to control, and could not switch to a better employer. But the work ethic was weak, because the wages went to the owner, not to the workers, who were forced to work hard, were poorly fed and clothed, and were separated from their families. Virginia's industry increasingly fell behind Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Ohio, which relied on free labor. Bradford (1959) recounts the many complaints about slave laborers and argues the over-reliance on slaves contributed to the failure of the iron-masters to adopt improved methods of production for fear the slaves would sabotage them. Most of the blacks were unskilled manual laborers, although Lewis (1977) reports that some were in skilled positions.[110][111]

The western counties could not tolerate the Confederacy. Breaking away, they first formed the Union state of Virginia (recognized by Washington); it is called the Restored government of Virginia and was based in Alexandria, across the river from Washington. The Restored government did little except give its permission for Congress to form the new state of West Virginia in 1862.[115][116] From May to August 1861, a series of Unionist conventions met in Wheeling; the Second Wheeling Convention constituted itself as a legislative body called the Restored Government of Virginia. It declared Virginia was still in the Union but that the state offices were vacant and elected a new governor, Francis H. Pierpont; this body gained formal recognition by the Lincoln administration on July 4.[117] On August 20 the Wheeling body passed an ordinance for the creation; it was put to public vote on Oct. 24. The vote was in favor of a new state—West Virginia—which was distinct from the Pierpont government, which persisted until the end of the war.[118] Congress and Lincoln approved, and, after providing for gradual emancipation of slaves in the new state constitution, West Virginia became the 35th state on June 20, 1863. In effect there were now three states: the Confederate Virginia, the Union Restored Virginia, and West Virginia.[119]

The state and national governments in Richmond did not recognize the new state, and Confederates did not vote there. The Confederate government in Richmond sent in Robert E. Lee. But Lee found little local support and was defeated by Union forces from Ohio. Union victories in 1861 drove the Confederate forces out of the Monongahela and Kanawha valleys, and throughout the remainder of the war the Union held the region west of the Alleghenies and controlled the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in the north. The new state was not subject to Reconstruction.[120]

For the remainder of the war, many major battles were fought across Virginia, including the Seven Days Battles, the Battle of Fredericksburg, the Battle of Chancellorsville, the Battle of Brandy Station

Over the course of the War, despite occasional tactical victories and spectacular counter-stroke raids, Confederate control of many regions of Virginia was gradually lost to Federal advance. By October 1862 the northern 9th and 10th Congressional districts along the Potomac were under Union control. Eastern Shore, Northern, Middle and Lower Peninsula and the 2nd congressional district surrounding Norfolk west to Suffolk were permanently Union-occupied by May. Other regions, such as the Piedmont and Shenandoah Valley, regularly changed hands through numerous campaigns.

In 1864, the Union Army planned to attack Richmond by a direct overland approach through Overland Campaign and the Battle of the Wilderness, culminating in the Siege of Petersburg which lasted from the summer of 1864 to April 1865. By November 6, 1864, Confederate forces controlled only four of Virginia's 16 congressional districts in the region of Richmond-Petersburg and their Southside counties.[121]

In April 1865, Richmond was burned by a retreating Confederate Army ; Lincoln walked the city streets to cheering crowds of newly freed blacks. The Confederate government fled south, pausing in Danville for a few days. The end came when Lee surrendered to Ulysses Grant at Appomattox on April 9, 1865.

The Triple Crossing in Richmond, finished in 1901, was the intersection of (from top to bottom) the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad, the Seaboard Air Line, and the Southern Railway

In addition to those that were rebuilt, new railroads developed after the Civil War. In 1868, under railroad baron Collis P. Huntington, the Virginia Central Railroad was merged and transformed into the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad. In 1870, several railroads were merged to form the Atlantic, Mississippi and Ohio Railroad, later renamed Norfolk & Western. In 1880, the towpath of the now-defunct James River & Kanawha canal was transformed into the Richmond and Allegheny Railroad, which within a decade would merge into the Chesapeake & Ohio. Others would include the Southern Railroad, the Seaboard Air Line, and the Atlantic Coast Line; still others would eventually reach into Virginia, including the Baltimore & Ohio and the Pennsylvania Railroad. The rebuilt Richmond, Fredericksburg, and Potomac Railroad eventually was linked to Washington, D.C..

In the 1880s, the Pocahontas Coalfield opened up in far southwest Virginia, with others to follow, in turn providing more demand for railroads transportation. In 1909, the Virginian Railway opened, built for the express purpose of hauling coal from the mountains of West Virginia to the ports at Hampton Roads. The growth of railroads resulted in the creation of new towns and rapid growth of others, including Clifton Forge, Roanoke, Crewe and Victoria. The railroad boom was not without incident: the Wreck of the Old 97 occurred just north of Danville, Virginia in 1903, later immortalized by a popular ballad.

With the invention of the cigarette rolling machine, and the great increase in smoking in the early 20th century, cigarettes and other tobacco products became a major industry in Richmond and Petersburg. Tobacco magnates such as Lewis Ginter funded a number of public institutions.

Former Confederate General William Mahone led the Readjuster Party during the 1870s.

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, much of which were destroyed during the war or in the new State of West Virginia.

After his unsuccessful bid for the Democratic nomination for governor in 1877, former confederate General and railroad executive William Mahone became the leader of the "Readjusters", forming a coalition of conservative Democrats and white and black Republicans. The so-called Readjusters aspired "to break the power of wealth and established privilege" and to promote public education. The party promised to "readjust" the state debt in order to protect funding for newly established public education, and allocate a fair share to the new State of West Virginia. Its proposal to repeal the poll tax and increase funding for schools and other public facilities attracted biracial and cross-party support.

The Readjuster Party was successful in electing its candidate, William E. Cameron as governor, and he served from 1882 to 1886. Mahone served as a Senator in the U.S. Congress from 1881 to 1887, as well as fellow Readjustor Harrison H. Riddleberger, who served in the U.S. Senate from 1883 to 1889. 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. The Virginia legislature replaced both Mahone and Riddleberger in the U.S. Senate with Democrats.

In 1888, the exception to Readjustor and Democratic control was John Mercer Langston, who was elected to Congress from the Petersburg area on the Republican ticket. He was the first black elected to Congress from the state, and the last for nearly a century. He served one term. A talented and vigorous politician, he was an Oberlin College graduate. He had long been active in the abolitionist cause in Ohio before the Civil War, had been president of the National Equal Rights League from 1864 to 1868, and had headed and created the law department at Howard University, and acted as president of the college. When elected, he was president of what became Virginia State University.

While the Readjustor Party faded, the goal of public education remained strong, with institutions established for the education of schoolteachers. In 1884, the state acquired a bankrupt women's college at Farmville and opened it as a normal school. Growth of public education led to the need for additional teachers. In 1908, two additional normal schools were established, one at Fredericksburg and one at Harrisonburg, and in 1910, one at Radford.

After the Readjuster Party disappeared, Virginia Democrats rapidly passed legislation and constitutional amendments that effectively disfranchised African Americans and many poor whites, through the use of poll taxes and literacy tests. They created white, one-party rule under the Democratic Party for the next 80 years. White state legislators passed statutes that restored white supremacy through imposition of Jim Crow segregation. In 1902, Virginia passed a new constitution that reduced voter registration.

Blacks comprised a third of the population but lost nearly all their political power. The electorate was so small that from 1905 to 1948 government employees and officeholders cast a third of the votes in state elections. This small, controllable electorate facilitated the formation of a powerful statewide political machine by Harry Byrd (1887–1966), which dominated from the 1920s to the 1960s.[148] Most of the blacks who remained politically active supported the Byrd organization, which in turn protected their right to vote, making Virginia's race relations the most harmonious in the South before the 1950s, according to V.O. Key.[149] Not until Federal civil rights legislation was passed in 1964 and 1965 did African Americans recover the power to vote and the protection of other basic constitutional civil rights.

A Little Joe rocket being prepared for launch at the Wallops Flight Facility near Chincoteague, as part of Project Mercury

In addition to general postwar growth, the Cold War resulted in further growth in both Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads. With the Pentagon already established in Arlington, the newly formed Central Intelligence Agency located its headquarters further afield at Langley (unrelated to the Air Force Base). In the early 1960s, the new Dulles International Airport was built, straddling the Fairfax County-Loudoun County border. Other sites in Northern Virginia included the listening station at Vint Hill. Due to the presence of the U.S. Atlantic Fleet in Norfolk, in 1952 the Allied Command Atlantic of NATO was headquartered there, where it remained for the duration of the Cold War.[152] Later in the 1950s and across the river, Newport News Shipbuilding would begin construction of the USS Enterprise—the world's first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier—and the subsequent atomic carrier fleet.

Virginia also witnessed American efforts in the Space Race. When the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics was transformed into the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in 1958, the resulting Space Task Group headquartered at the laboratories of Langley Research Center.[153] From there, it would initiate Project Mercury, and would remain the headquarters of the U.S. manned spaceflight program until its transfer to Houston in 1962.[153] On the Eastern Shore, near Chincoteague, Wallops Flight Facility served as a rocket launch site, including the launch of Little Joe 2 on December 4, 1959, which sent a rhesus monkey, Sam, into suborbital spaceflight.[154] Langley later oversaw the Viking program to Mars.[155]

The new U.S. Interstate highway system begun in the 1950s and the new Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel in 1958 helped transform Virginia Beach from a tiny resort town into one of the state's largest cities by 1963, and spurring the growth of the Hampton Roads region linked by the Hampton Roads Beltway. In the western portion of the state, completion of north-south Interstate 81 brought better access and new businesses to dozens of counties over a distance of 300 miles (480 km) as well as facilitating travel by students at the many Shenandoah area colleges and universities. The creation of Smith Mountain Lake, Lake Anna, Claytor Lake, Lake Gaston, and Buggs Island Lake, by damming rivers, attracted many retirees and vacationers to those rural areas. As the century drew to a close, Virginia tobacco growing gradually declined due to health concerns, although not at steeply as in Southern Maryland. A state community college system brought affordable higher education within commuting distance of most Virginians, including those in remote, underserved localities. Other new institutions were founded, most notably George Mason University and Liberty University. Localities such as Danville and Martinsville suffered greatly as their manufacturing industries closed.

In 1944, Irene Morgan refused to give up her seat on an interstate bus and was arrested in Middlesex County, Virginia pursuant to Virginia's segregation laws. Morgan appealed her case up to the U.S. Supreme Court and, in 1946, won Irene Morgan v. Commonwealth of Virginia, which struck down racial segregation in interstate buses. Virginia continued to enforce interstate bus segregation, and in 1947, activists organized a series of integrated rides, the Journey of Reconciliation, through Virginia and other states of the Upper South in an act of civil disobedience against Virginia's defiance of the Supreme Court's ruling. Another U.S. Supreme Court ruling involving Virginia, Boynton v. Virginia (1960), desegregated interstate bus terminals. Morgan, Boynton, and the Journey of Reconciliation inspired the 1961 Freedom Rides that fought bus segregation in the Deep South. Along with the bus desegregation cases, Virginia was a contestant in the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that invalidated laws prohibiting interracial marriage, Loving v. Virginia (1967).

Senator Harry Byrd, the state's dominant politician, was long a champion of constitutional rights against expansion of federal power. He deployed two doctrines in a last ditch battle against racial integration after the Brown decision of 1954: interposition and massive resistance. The first doctrine proclaimed that the U.S. Constitution allowed the states to interpose state sovereignty blocking rulings of federal courts from taking effect on local school boards. The new doctrine of Massive Resistance became a rallying cry across the southern United States to block orders by federal courts to integrate public schools. The test cases came in Virginia, when in 1956 the legislature adopted interposition and urged fellow states to join in. Governor Stanley abandon his earlier moderation, and the legislature adopted the Stanley Plan. It included 13 segregationist laws, including five that were designed to intimidate the NAACP. The governor now had the power to close public schools, and he shut down the first one in Warren County in 1958, followed by Charlottesville and Norfolk. In 1959 both the Virginia supreme Court of Appeals, and the federal court declared the Stanley Plan unconstitutional in terms of both the state and federal constitutions. Governor J. Lindsay Almond broke with Byrd; the General assembly voted to end massive resistance. Nevertheless, in 1959-1963, Prince Edward County closed all its public schools.[156]

The first black students attended the University of Virginia School of Law in 1950, and Virginia Tech in 1953.[157] In 2008, various actions of the Civil Rights Movement were commemorated by the Virginia Civil Rights Memorial in Richmond.

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