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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
1861 to 1876
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If Virginians were instrumental in creating the Union in 1776, they were also pivotal in breaking it apart eighty-five years later. Most Virginians rejected secession until they were called upon to provide troops after the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter. The far northwestern counties refused to secede and instead formed West Virginia. Virginia became the bloodiest battleground of the war. At its conclusion, slavery was ended and black males could vote, but the daily lives and standard of living of African Americans changed little. Virginia was put under military rule for three years.
Time Period
1877 to 1924
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After the Civil War, Virginia remained largely rural, but Virginians embraced economic development and the new technologies that were revolutionizing everyday life. At the same time, however, they resisted political and social change––especially racial and gender equality. Living standards improved and income rose, but the political system became less democratic and society was rigidly segregated by race. “The New South” brought economic renewal but little reform. The Virginia legislature rejected a woman’s right to vote in 1919, and it passed a regressive Racial Integrity Act in 1924.
Time Period Chapter
A New Virginia
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In the early twentieth century, the nation’s economy was becoming more industrialized and its population more urbanized.
Time Period Chapter
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...
Time Period Chapter
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
Racial Inequality
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Confederate defeat threatened to change white southern identity. Suddenly African Americans were free to determine the...
Time Period Chapter
Reconstruction
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During the decade following the Civil War, former Confederate states were required to “reconstruct” their state...
Time Period Chapter
The Battlefront in Virginia
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Home to the Confederate capital, Virginia became a battleground.
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...
Time Period Chapter
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.
Time Period Chapter
Virginia and Women’s Suffrage
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Despite the socio-political changes that occurred during Reconstruction, women at the dawn of the twentieth century...
Time Period Chapter
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...
Time Period Chapter
War on the Home Front
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For some, the war brought deprivation, horror, and loss right to their very doorsteps.