The Virginia Colony (APUSH Notes)

These notes on the Virginia Colony were written to accompany my YouTube video lecture on the subject.

The historical events discussed in this lecture align with Period 2 (1607-1754) in the AP US History Course Description and specifically with Key Concept 2.1, which addresses European colonizers, their imperial goals, and relationships with Native Americans.

The British Empire's Rough Start

In the nineteenth century, the British presided over the largest empire in history. It was often written around that time that “the sun never sets on the British Empire.” But this was not always the case. As with many success stories, the construction of the British Empire began with a series of failures. During the Age of Exploration, the Spanish were the first to emerge as Europe’s preeminent colonial power. The Spanish were the first to create a permanent settlement in the present-day United States with the founding of St. Augustine in Spanish Florida in 1565.

Sir Walter Raleigh, an English gentleman and explorer, sought to rival the Spanish by creating a permanent settlement of his own. While Raleigh did end up making a name for himself in the history of Colonial America, his name is associated with failure, as the “Lost Colony” at Roanoke disappeared after being ignored for three years while England was at war with Spain. Other than the word, CROATAN, carved into a tree, the colonists left no evidence of what became of the Roanoke Colony, leaving MrBettsClass asking “Where’d it go?”

Check out MrBettsClass' hilarious music video
​about the Roanoke Colony!

Three Types of Colonies

Click for a brief slideshow explaining the three types of colonies.

The defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 placed England’s Royal Navy on par with that of the Spanish. A 1604 peace treaty ended the Anglo-Spanish War and opened the way for the English to make a more serious effort at establishing a colony on the Chesapeake Bay chartered as Virginia, in honor of Elizabeth, the Virgin Queen. The Virginia Company was chartered as a joint stock company and tasked with creating a profitable settlement in Virginia.

The first settlement founded in Virginia was named Jamestown in honor of Elizabeth’s successor, James I. The colony, founded in 1607, was the first permanent English settlement in the Americas. This makes 1607 an important turning point in the history of Colonial America, as the English, who would become the dominant colonial power in North America, had finally established a permanent colonial presence.

Although the Jamestown settlement would be permanent, it did not have a promising beginning. The Powhatan tribe had a strong presence in the area and the relationship between the colonists and the tribe was rocky from the very beginning. In addition, the Virginia Company had ordered the colonists to find gold so that the company could get a return on its investment. The problem with this is that there was no gold in Virginia (although there was no shortage of pyrite, or “fool’s gold”). Several of the Jamestown colonists viewed the search for gold as more important than planting crops – especially some of the gentlemen who viewed agricultural labor as beneath them. Eventually, Captain John Smith intervened, declaring that any colonists who did not work would not eat.

Captain John Smith

While Smith’s leadership is credited with saving the colony in its infancy, he soon returned to England. During the winter of 1609-1610, nobody ate regardless of whether they worked or not. Only 60 of over 200 colonists survived the colony’s “starving time.” Unable to keep people alive – much less turn a profit – Jamestown was not on its way to becoming any more successful than the previous venture at Roanoke.
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Enter John Rolfe. Although Rolfe is more famous in pop culture for marrying Pocahontas, his agricultural innovations were much more important to the future of the colony. Previously, tobacco had been known to the English, but it had not become popular because they didn’t like how it tasted. Rolfe cultivated a sweeter strain of tobacco that became popular in England, striking “brown gold” that turned Virginia into a profitable colony with an economy driven by the cultivation of tobacco as a cash crop. Sir Walter Raleigh, while imprisoned in the Tower of London, wrote of tobacco, “It was my companion at that most miserable time.”

Tobacco and the Cash Crop Labor Economy

Tobacco – an extremely labor-intensive crop – required a massive labor force. For the first several decades of the colony’s existence, indentured servants were brought into the colony to labor in the tobacco fields. These servants, drawn from England’s lower classes, agreed to work for a fixed period (usually around seven years) in return for passage across the Atlantic Ocean. In 1619, a foreign ship arrived at the colony and unloaded a cargo of twenty African slaves. African slavery, however, did not become the dominant labor force until the last quarter of the seventeenth century.

Lecture Available on YouTube

The second part of my video lecture on the Virginia Colony focuses on labor systems.

When indentured servants finished their terms of servants, they tended to settle inland on the frontier, as most of the coastal Tidewater land was already owned by established planters – large landowners whose plantations were worked by servants and slaves. Over time, the interests of these Tidewater planters and the frontier farmers diverged, resulting in tensions that would continue in Virginia for two centuries, resulting in the creation of West Virginia during the Civil War.  In 1676, Nathaniel Bacon led a rebellion of frontier farmers who believed that the colony’s government – dominated by the Tidewater planters – was not taking adequate measures to defend frontier settlers from Indian attacks. In what is known as Bacon’s Rebellion, Bacon and his men attacked Jamestown and demanded the governor’s resignation. Bacon’s Rebellion shook the planters’ confidence in indentured servitude as a labor force, as is evidenced by the rapid increase of African slaves in Virginia between 1675 and 1700.

Click to enlarge this graph showing the increased prevalence of slavery in Colonial Virginia in the late sixteenth century.

Bacon's Rebellion is often noted as a turning point in the labor system in Colonial Virginia, leading planters to prefer African slaves over indentured servants.

The Virginians and the Powhatan Indians

In regard to the Indians, the English colonists had little use for them after they were done starving. Since the English cultivated cash crops, they did not rely on trade for profit like the French; nor did they rely on Indian labor like the Spanish, since they imported their labor. English colonists’ chief desire concerning the Indians was that they’d get out of the way. As more English colonists arrived, the Powhatans were pressured to move inland, away from their ancestral hunting grounds. In 1622, the Indians were determined to strike a fatal blow to the Virginia colonists, launching what is known as the 1622 Indian Massacre.

Lecture Available on YouTube

Click to view my YouTube video lecture on the 1622 Indian Massacre, which includes a story about my ancestor in Jamestown.

347 English settlers were killed in this attack, including several people who were in the home of an ancestor of this writer (if he had been home, you would not be reading these lecture notes). Some colonists were luckier than others, able to find safety within the walls of palisaded plantations. The Virginia Colony survived, but the crown was not pleased with the Virginia Company’s management. In 1624, the crown revoked the Virginia Company’s charter and Virginia became a royal colony – a status that it would maintain until declaring its independence from Britain in 1776.