Antebellum Virginia

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. 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. 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. 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.

Precontact

For milliennia before the arrival of the Europeans, Indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands inhabited the lands that would be named Virginia. Archaeological and historical research by anthropologist Helen C. Rountree and others has documented 3,000 years of settlement in much of the Tidewater. Even so, a historical marker dedicated in 2015 states that recent archaeological work at Pocahontas Island has revealed precontact settlement dating to about 6500 BCE.

Indigenous peoples

In 16th century, what is now Virginia was occupied by three main linguistics groups: Iroquoian, 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 and Neuse rivers). Inland were two Iroquoian tribes, the Nottoway and the Meherrin. The rest of Virginia was settled almost entirely by Eastern Siouan-speaking peoples, 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, communities from Mississippian cultures may have just barely crossed over into the state into its southwestern corner. Later, these tribes merged to form the Yuchi.

Algonquian

Rountree wrote 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 30 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"). 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. 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). 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. 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 but relocated to New York in 1778. Afterward, they dissolved, with groups joining the Iroquois and Lenape.

The English forced the Chowanoke onto reservation lands in 1677, where they remained until the early 19th century. By 1821, they had merged with other tribes and were generally dissolved.

Eastern Siouan

Many of the Siouan-speaking 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, , 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. 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). John Smith was the first to note two groups in the Virginian interior—the Monaghans and the Monahoacs. The words came from the Powhatan and translations are uncertain; however, Monaghan seems similar to a known Lenape word, ''Monaquen,'' which means "to scalp." They were also commonly referred to as the Eastern Blackfoot, which explains why some Saponi today identify as the Siouan-Blackfoot people, 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. 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.Batt's "Journal & Relation of a New Discovery" N.Y. Hist. Col. Vol. III, p. 191 (1671) 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, 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." 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 Iroquois in the region, the governors of Virginia, Pennsylvania and New York joined to organize a peace treaty, which did ultimately end the conflict. Sometime 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. 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. 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.

Iroquoian peoples

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. (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.

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.

In the mid 17th century, around 1655–1656, 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. Then, following the Yamasee War (1715–1717), the Yuchi were force across Appalachia 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.

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

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