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Time Period
16,000 BCE to 1622 CE
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At the time of the great northern glaciers, Native Americans followed the game they hunted to Virginia. Ten thousand years later, as the cold of the Ice Age gave way to a warmer, drier climate, they relied also on foraging and farming. After about 900 CE they settled into villages that united into chiefdoms. In 1607, in pursuit of opportunity in a new world, English settlers intruded into an eastern Virginia chiefdom of thirty-two tribes (15,000 to 20,000 people). Its leader then was Wahunsenacawh, whom the new settlers called by his title, Powhatan.
Time Period
1623 to 1763
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The colony prospered. Tobacco—grown by indentured servants and enslaved Africans—sustained the economy. The first popularly elected legislative body in the New World was established. Following the failed Indian uprising in 1622 and on orders from London, the native peoples were “removed” and reduced in number to 3,000 by a “War of Extermination.” During the next hundred years, the remainder of Virginia’s population expanded a hundred fold. Social inequalities, however, and frontier conflicts with the French and with Indians made this distant dominion increasingly difficult to govern from London.
Time Period
1925 to Today
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A century of foreign wars expanded the presence of both the federal government in Northern Virginia and the military in the Hampton Roads area. Growth in those regions helped transform the state from a rural to a primarily urban one, from a poor to a relatively affluent one, and from a state with few non-natives to one with many. Only painstakingly, however, have minorities gained equality. Since 1960, the population has doubled. The largest employer now is the government, next is agriculture, which adds billions of dollars to the state’s economy.
Time Period Chapter
A Century of Foreign Wars
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Virginians were engulfed by the many wars that spanned the twentieth century and touched every generation.
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Contact and Conflict
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The first settlers were welcomed by the Indians with ceremony. However, following Capt. John Smith’s return to England...
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Exploration of the New World
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Initially, European nations were searching for a water route to the Far East, not a New World.
Time Period Chapter
Made in Virginia
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For more than 400 years, Virginians have been part of a global community—exporting ideas, products, and culture to the...
Time Period Chapter
The French and Indian War
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To shield against Indian attacks and French expansion, and to deter runaway slaves from establishing colonies in the...
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The Struggle for Equality
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The American concept that all people are equal and all have unalienable rights was introduced by Virginians George Mason...
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Virginia and the Planter Class
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Governor William Berkeley set out to imitate the society of inequality of wealth and education that he knew in England.
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Virginia’s Traffic in the Atlantic World
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Tobacco proved to be good as gold for Virginians. Wealth from its sale and easy navigation of the colony’s rivers...
Time Period Chapter
Wandering, Foraging, and Farming
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Over more than 16,000 years, Indians in Virginia transitioned from nomadic bands of hunter gatherers to sedentary...