VIRGINIA
456
VIRGINIA
(now Richmond), 10 June, 1607; this event they com-
memorated by setting up a cross. On the party's re-
turn to Jamestown, Smith found himself in disgrace,
and the colony upset, owing to an attacli by the In-
dians. He was arrested and tried for ambitious
machinations, the charge being the result of jealousy.
President Wingfield acquitted him and restored him
to favour, after which Smith became the real leader,
and, later, the president of the colony. As might be
expected, the colonists had many ups and do'mis.
The arrival of Lord Delaware, Sir Thomas Gates, and
Sir George Somers prevented the abandonment of the
colony. About 1611 settlements were made at Hen-
rico (now Dutch Gap), and where the James and
Appomattox Rivers join near Bermuda Hundred.
Some ten years later new settlements were made on
Chesapeake Bay and the James, York, and Potomac
Rivers. The marriage of John Rolfe, 1613, to Poca-
hontas, the daughter of the great chieftain, Powhatan,
helped for a time the maintenance of peace between
the EngUsh and the Indians.
In 1619 slavery was introduced. The same year a shipload of young women, to serve as wives for the colonists, came to Virginia. One hundred and twenty pounds of tobacco was the purchase price of a wife. The London Company was dissolved in 1624, Vir- ginia becoming a colony of the Crown. During the troubles with Parhament, Virginia remained loyal to the king, Charles I. Tobacco constituted the great staple and wealth of the colonists. King Charles ap- pointed Sir George Yeardley governor of the colonies, to succeed Samuel Argall, recalled. From time to time, Indian massacres of the whites occurred. Ow- ing to the tjTanny of Lord Berkeley, Nathaniel Bacon, with some followers, headed a rebelHon against him in 1676, which did not accomphsh its purpose, owing to Bacon's death. Berkeley's successors were Sir Herbert Jeffries, Sir Henry Chicheley, and Lord Culpeper. WilUam and Mary College, the oldest col- lege, after Harvard, in the United States, was founded in 1693, and the seat of government, shortly after (1698), transferred to Williamsburg. Governor Spots- wood proved a far greater governor than any of his predecessors. Under his able rule of twelve years, be- ginning in 1710, Virginia made marked progress. In the French and Indian War, which began in 1754, George Washington won distinction during the regime of Governor Dinwiddle. Braddock's defeat was due to his not following Washington's advice. Francis Fau- quier succeeded Governor Dinwiddle.
Revolutionary Period (1775-81). — Owing princi- pally to the wars carried on by the mother-country, the colonies were burdened with taxation, and this, too, without representation. Nor were they al- lowed to trade with any nation other than England. These were the primary causes of the Revolutionary War, which was fanned into flame by the passage of the Stamp Act and Patrick Henry's historic speech in St. John's Church, Richmond. Other great Virginia statesmen of the time who helped the cause of liberty were Thomas Jefferson, Richard Henry Lee, Pey- ton Randolph, Edmund Pendleton, Richard Bland, George Mason, CJeorge Wythe, James Monroe, James Madison, and John Marshall. Washington was ap- pointed Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army, 15 June, 1775, and the war began in earnest. George Mason wrote the Bill of State Rights, which was followed by the Declaration of Independence, composed by Thomas Jefferson and adopted by the colonists, 4 July, 1776. Each colony was to have a governor, legislature, and three courts. Patrick Henry was elected as Virginia's first governor. The Seal of Virginia w.as adopted from the suggestion of George Wythe. This was followed by a law ensuring liberty of conscience as to religion. Henry would not stand for re-election, and Jefferson was chosen second governor. In 1779 Richmond became the
state capital. The British were defeated in their
ships from shore at Hampton, but (1779) burned Nor-
folk, and in 1781 Richmond was burned and occupied
by Benedict Arnold. The war ended with the sur-
render of CornwaUis to Washington, assisted by La-
fa j'ette, Rochambeau, and Count De Grasse, at
Yorktown, 19 Oct., 1781.
American Period (1781-1861). — A special Virginia convention, 2 to 25 June, 1788, adopted the code of laws proposed by the Philadelphia National Conven- tion of May, 1787. In the war with the British of 1812 some little fighting occurred along the Virginian coast at and near Norfolk and Hampton. Meantime Virginia grew in wealth, power, and influence. The state constitution was revised at Richmond, 5 Octo- ber, 1829. A serious negro insurrection took place under Nat Turner in 1831. The slave question be- came now a paramount issue. Virginia, as far back as 1778, with other states, introduced in congress a bill for the abolition of slavery, which was defeated by the New England states, which made money by importing negroes to be sold to the South, and by the cotton states, desirous of negro service for the planta- tions. Later, after being freed from the presence of the negroes, New England became the hotbed of abo- lition. Because of agricultural interests, Virginia was naturally a .slave state. The agitation of the slave question, together with that of state rights, grew in bitterness, culminating in John Brown's raid at Harper's Ferry, October, 1859, which helped mate- rially to precipitate the Civil War.
The Confederacy (1861-65). — Virginia brought about a peace conference of the States at Washington with no result, 4 February, 1861. Lincoln's call for 75,000 troops caused Virginia to secede from the Union, 17 April, the vote of the General Assembly being ratified by the people, 23 May. Jefferson Davis had already been chosen President of the Con- federacy. It was with untold reluctance and grief that the state was practically forced out of the Union, for which she had fought, and to further whose inter- ests she had supplied seven presidents, the revolu- tionary commander-in-chief, the drafter of the Bill of Rights and that of the Declaration of Independence, a Patrick Henry, the mouthpiece of Ubertj', a chief justice, John Marshall, and many other national heroes of renown. The state could not remain neu- tral. The question was whether she would take up arms against the North or her sister states of the South. The Confederate capital was removed from Montgomery, Alabama, to Richmond, 21 May, 1861, and the command of the Virginia forces tendered to Col. Robert E. Lee, who later became commander-in-chief. General Thomas (Stonewall) J. Jackson proved his mainstay, and, with Lee, won widespread fame. Virginia also gave to the Confederacy Generals Joseph E.Johnston, J. E.B. Stuart, Jubal A. Early, and other notable military leaders. The state became a verit able batt le-field, t he scene of many of the most sanguinarj' conflicts of all time. The Southern troops, at first victorious, were later overcome by su- perior numbers and the tremendous resources of the North; the war being virtually ended by Lee's sur- render to Grant at Appomattox, 9 April, 1865.
The so-called "Reconstruction Days" were the darkest in the history of the state. Her former pres- tige gone, many of her best sons killed, or maimed, in war, families broken up and scattered, agriculture and industries paralyzed, burdened with debt, the negro problem to handle, and part of her territory formed into another state, the prospects of Virginia after the war were gloomy in t he ext reme. The South was put under federal military rule and became the rendezvous of unscrupulous ofiice seekers and fraudu- lent persons.
Rcreiil Progress (1870-1912).— The state was restored to her constitutional rights, 26 January,
