Facts and Figures
Area, 40,817 sq mi (105,716 sq km).
Pop. (1990) 6,187,358, an 15.7% increase over 1980 pop.
Capital, Richmond.
Largest city, Norfolk.
Statehood, June 25, 1788 (10th of original 
13 states to ratify the Constitution). 
Highest pt., Mt. Rogers, 5,729 ft (1,747 m); 
lowest pt., sea level. 
Nickname, Old Dominion. 
Motto, Sic Semper Tyrannis [Thus Always to Tyrants]. 
State bird, cardinal. 
State flower, dogwood. 
State tree, dogwood. 
Abbr., Va.; VA

Geography
The most northerly of the Southern states, Virginia is roughly 
triangular in shape. The small section of the state that, along 
with Maryland and Delaware, occupies the Delmarva peninsula 
between Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean is separated
from the main part of Virginia and is called the Eastern Shore. 
The coastal plain or tidewater region (Hampton Roads) of 
E Virginia, generally flat and partly swampy, is cut by four great 
tidal rivers—the Potomac (forming most of the border with Maryland 
and beyond which also lies Washington, D.C.), the Rappahannock, 
the York, and the James—all of which empty into Chesapeake Bay. 
In the tidewater region stretch vast forests of pine and hardwood, 
highlighted in early spring by flowering redbud and dogwood.

At its western extension the tidewater region rises to c.300 ft. 
(90 m) at the fall line (passing through Richmond) and gives way 
to the Piedmont—rolling, generally fertile country that broadens 
gradually as it extends south to the North Carolina line. Rising 
rather abruptly in the western Piedmont is the Blue Ridge range, 
carpeted with bluegrass and ablaze in spring with rhododendron 
and mountain laurel; the Blue Ridge rises to the state's highest 
peak, Mt. Rogers (5,720 ft/1,743 m). Between the Blue Ridge 
and the Allegheny Plateau, both part of the Appalachian range, 
lies the valley and ridge province. One of the most prominent of 
these valleys is the Valley of Virginia; another is the rich, beautiful, 
and historic Shenandoah Valley.

Virginia's shores, mountains, mineral springs, natural wonders, and 
numerous historic sites draw thousands of visitors annually. Crowning 
the hilltops and river bluffs from the Chesapeake region west to the 
Blue Ridge and adding to the grace and elegance of the Virginia 
landscape are the classic, Greek revival homes and public buildings 
with their stately porticoes. Major tourist attractions include Shenandoah 
National Park, Colonial National Historical Park at Williamsburg, and 
Arlington House National Memorial. Other historic points of interest 
include Appomattox Court House National Historical Park; Manassas 
and Richmond national battlefield parks; Booker T. Washington and 
George Washington Birthplace national monuments; Jamestown 
National Historic Site; National Capital Parks (shared with Washington,
D.C. and Maryland); and several national cemeteries and military parks.

Virginia is officially styled a commonwealth. Richmond is the capital, 
and Norfolk the largest city; other large cities are Newport News; 
Portsmouth; and Alexandria and Arlington, both suburbs of Washington, 
D.C.

Economy
Like many Sunbelt states, Virginia has an economy that is highly 
diversified. Agriculture, once the mainstay of the state's economy, 
has been replaced by other sectors. Tobacco, Virginia's traditional 
staple, is still produced in substantial quantities, as are hay, corn, 
soybeans, peanuts, sweet potatoes, and apples (especially in the 
Shenandoah valley) are important. Wine producing is also important 
to the economy. Livestock and related products are a major source 
of agricultural income. The Valley of Virginia is well known as a cattle 
area, and dairy and poultry farms are also important there. The 
coastal fisheries are large, and Virginia shellfish—especially oysters 
and crabs—yield a large annual catch.

Coal is Virginia's chief mineral; stone, cement, sand, and gravel are 
also important. Roanoke is a center for the rail transport equipment 
industry, and a high proportion of the nation's shipyards are 
concentrated on the shores of Hampton Roads, especially in Newport 
News. Norfolk serves as a major U.S. naval base, and Portsmouth as a 
U.S. naval shipyard; Hampton is an important center for aeronautical 
research. Other leading industries include tourism and the manufacture 
of chemicals, electrical equipment, and food, textile, and paper products.

Government, Politics, and Higher Education
The Virginia constitution was revised extensively in the late 1960s. 
The legislature (called the general assembly) consists of a house of 
delegates of 100 members, elected to two-year terms, and a senate 
with 40 members, elected to four-year terms. The governor serves a 
four-year term and is ineligible for reelection. In 1989 Douglas Wilder, 
a Democrat, became the first African-American elected governor in the 
United States. Wilder briefly sought the Democratic nomination for 
president in 1992.  Republican George Allen was elected governor in 
1993. Virginia sends 10 Representatives and 3 Senators to the U.S. 
Congress and has 13 electoral votes.

Among Virginia's many institutions of higher learning are the Univ. 
of Virginia, mainly at Charlottesville, with Mary Washington College 
at Fredericksburg; George Mason Univ., at Fairfax; the College of 
William and Mary in Virginia, mainly at Williamsburg; Hampton Univ., 
at Hampton; Randolph-Macon College, at Ashland; Randolph-Macon 
Woman's College, at Lynchburg; Sweet Briar College, at Sweet Briar; 
Virginia Military Institute and Washington and Lee Univ., at Lexington; 
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State Univ., at Blacksburg; and 
Virginia State College, at Petersburg.

History
Early Settlements of the Virginia Company
Virginia (named for Elizabeth I, the Virgin Queen) at first included in 
its lands the whole vast area of North America not held by the Spanish 
or French. The colony on Roanoke Island, organized by Sir Walter 
Raleigh, failed, but the English soon made another attempt slightly 
farther north. In 1606 James I granted a charter to the London Company 
(better known later as the Virginia Company), a group of merchants 
lured by the thought of easy profits in mining and trade. The company 
sent three ships and 144 men under captains Christopher Newport, 
Bartholomew Gosnold, and John Ratcliffe to establish a base, and 
the tiny force entered Chesapeake Bay in April, 1607. On a peninsula 
in the James River they founded (May 13, 1607) the first permanent 
English settlement in America, which they called Jamestown. It soon 
became clear that the company's original plans were unrealistic, and 
the Jamestown settlers began a long and unexpected struggle to live 
off the land.

By 1608, despite the firm and resourceful leadership of John Smith, 
hunger and disease had reduced their numbers to 38. The company 
responded by sending supplies and men as well as new leadership 
in the person of Sir Thomas Gates, who was to take charge as deputy 
governor under the authority of a new charter (1609). Gates arrived in 
1610 to find that only a handful of settlers had survived the terrible 
winter (the “starving time”) of 1609–10. He decided to take them back 
to England, but as they were about to abandon the colony in June, 
1610, his superior, Governor Thomas West, Baron De la Warr, ordered 
them to reoccupy Jamestown. Although sickness and starvation 
continued to take a heavy toll, the settlement at last began to make 
headway under the harsh regimes of Sir Thomas Dale, De la Warr's 
successor in 1611, and later under that of Sir Samuel Argall.

Tobacco, first cultivated by John Rolfe in 1612, gave the company 
new hope of a profitable return on its investment. To encourage 
settlement and improve agricultural productivity it granted colonists 
(still technically employees and shareholders) the right to own private 
gardens, then, at the urging of Sir Edwin Sandys, promised to give 
100 acres (40 hectares) of its land to purchasers of stock and 50 
acres (20 hectares) to settlers who brought over other settlers at 
his own expense (the “head-right” system). The company also set 
upsmaller joint-stock companies to settle vast tracts known as 
“colonies” or “hundreds.” In 1619, at the instruction of the company, 
Governor George Yeardley provided additional incentives to settlers 
by forming a house of burgesses—the first representative assembly 
in the New World— and in 1620 by beginning to send women to 
the colony.

Although these various expedients did succeed in attracting new 
settlers and strengthening the colony, the company itself failed to 
prosper. Rolfe's marriage (1614) to Pocahontas, daughter of chief 
Powhatan, secured good relations with the Native Americans for 
a time, but in 1622 Powhatan's son Opechancanough led the 
Powhatan Confederacy in a surprise attack on the colony, killing 
350 settlers (about one third of the total community). English 
retaliation effectively ended Native American resistance, except 
for a final uprising of the Confederacy in 1644. However, the 1622 
attack had delivered a fatal blow to the company, and in 1624, beset 
by internal dissension, it surrendered its charter to the crown.

A Royal Colony
After almost two decades as a private enterprise, Virginia became 
a royal colony, the first in English history. Partly because the 
English kings were occupied with affairs at home, the Virginia house 
of burgesses was able to continue its functions and won formal 
recognition in the late 1630s. Thus representative government under 
royal domain was assured. By 1641, when Sir William Berkeley 
became governor, the colony was well established and extended 
on both sides of the James up to its falls.

Three fourths of the European settlers (about 7,500 in 1641) had 
come as indentured servants or apprentices, but many of them 
became freemen and small farmers. In 1641 there were also about 
250 Africans (the first had arrived in 1619 on a Dutch ship), most of 
whom were indentured servants rather than slaves. The freeholders, 
together with the merchant class (from which were descended most 
of the “first families of Virginia”), controlled the government. Only 
white males were enfranchised, and property-owning qualifications 
for voting continued during and after the colonial period.

Most of the white settlers were Anglicans, and during the civil war 
in England, many well-to-do Englishmen (mainly Anglicans and 
supporters of Charles I, if not actually Cavaliers) came to Virginia. 
The colony was understandably loyal to the crown until 1652, when 
an expedition sent by Oliver Cromwell forced it to adhere to the Puritan 
Commonwealth. With the Commonwealth busy at home, Virginia was 
practically independent until 1660, engaging in free trade with foreigners, 
especially the Dutch, and enjoying the profits of the expanding tobacco 
and fur trade. This prosperous era came to an end with the Restoration 
in 1660.

The Navigation Acts forced the tobacco trade to use only English ships
and English ports, which were at first insufficient to handle it; tobacco 
piled up in Virginia and in England, and prices plummeted. The wealthy 
planters weathered this depression, but the small farmers faced ruin. 
Serious discontent spread and was aggravated by Governor Berkeley's 
high-handed policies, by his favoritism toward the wealthy tidewater 
planters, and by his refusal to sanction a campaign against the Native
Americans who had been attacking frontier settlements. These 
grievances brought the eruption of Bacon's Rebellion in 1676. The 
unfortunate death of Nathaniel Bacon left the yeomen leaderless, 
and they were put down so ruthlessly that Berkeley was recalled 
to England.

Tidewater Plantations and Westward Migration
Expansion of the plantation system was made possible only with 
the use of slave labor (first recognized in law in 1662), and tens of 
thousands of Africans were being imported every year by the end 
of the century. Small, independent cultivators, unableto compete
with the plantation-slave system, formed the nucleus of a poor 
white class that drifted southward or pioneered to the west. Also 
contributing to westward settlement were the French Huguenots, 
who came to Virginia by the end of the 17th century and began to 
settle the Piedmont.

Westward movement was stimulated under Gov. Alexander 
Spotswood, who himself discovered (1716) the Swift Run Gap in 
the Blue Ridge Mts., leading into the Shenandoah valley. 
Spotswood also imported (1714–17) Germans to work his iron 
furnaces in the Piedmont area, and numerous others followed 
their countrymen. They helped settle the Shenandoah valley 
(beginning c.1730) as did many newcomers from Pennsylvania—
German Lutherans, English Quakers, Scotch-Irish Presbyterians, 
and a lesser number of Welsh Baptists.

Soil exhaustion from continuous tobacco cultivation hastened 
the westward march, as did the settlement activities of land 
speculators like Spotswood and William Byrd (d. 1744). Many 
of these speculators were indebted eastern planters attempting 
to salvage their fortunes. The Ohio Company grant (1749) furthered 
exploration beyond the Allegheny Mts. but brought conflict with 
the French.

The activities and interests of the new frontier settlements 
contrasted sharply with the plantation life of the tidewater region, 
where the lavish material life of the planter aristocracy was 
complemented by high cultural accomplishments and by the 
spread of the ideas of the Enlightenment. The last of the French 
and Indian Wars, in which Virginians—notably Col. George Washington
were prominent, ended the French obstacle to westward migration.

After the war many indebted planters were disturbed by England's own 
limitations on westward settlement.

The American Revolution
Along with Massachusetts, Virginia was a leader in the movement that 
culminated in the American Revolution although, despite the burning 
oratory of Patrick Henry and the enlightened political writings of Thomas 
Jefferson and other brilliant native spokesmen, Virginia was never as 
politically discontent or radical as Massachusetts. In 1773 the burgesses 
at Williamsburg (the capital since 1699), led by Richard Henry Lee, 
formed an intercolonial committee of correspondence. The Virginia 
leaders proposed (May, 1774) a congress of all the colonies, delegates 
were chosen at the First Virginia Convention (Aug.), and in September 
Virginia's Peyton Randolph was elected president of the First Continental 
Congress. The next year, in June, George Washington was made 
commander in chief of the Continental Army.

After the patriots forced the royal governor, John Murray, earl of Dunmore, 
to flee, the Fifth Virginia Convention (May 6–June 29, 1776) declared the 
colony's independence, instructed the Virginia delegates to the Continental 
Congress to propose general colonial independence (resulting in the 
Declaration of Independence written by Thomas Jefferson), and adopted a 
declaration of rights and the first constitution of a free American state, both 
drawn up by George Mason. Patrick Henry was elected the first governor.

Although the British had burned Norfolk in Jan., 1776 they did not invade 
the state in full force until 1779, when they took Portsmouth and Suffolk. 
Continentals under Lafayette came to Virginia in 1780, and the British 
cause was lost as American land forces and a French fleet combined 
to bring about Cornwallis's surrender (Oct. 19, 1781) in the Yorktown 
campaign. Meanwhile, George Rogers Clark and his Virginians had 
wrested (1779) the Northwest Territory from the British, and in 1784 
Virginia yielded its claim to this area to the federal government.

Virginia's Role in the New Nation
During the Revolution a degree of religious freedom had been instituted 
in Virginia under the lead of Jefferson. Other reforms had removed entail and 
primogeniture from land tenure, liberalized the legal code, and abolished  
further importation of slaves. A liberal law for formal emancipation of slaves 
was passed in 1782 and remained in force for more than 20 years. In 
1786 a statute for religious freedom, championed by James Madison, 
completed the disestablishment of the Anglican Church and established 
complete religious equality for all Virginians.

In replacing the unsatisfactory Articles of Confederation with the Constitution 
of the UnitedStates, Virginians, especially James Madison, again played 
leading roles. Other leaders such as Patrick Henry, Edmund Pendleton, 
and Edmund Randolph at various times opposed the document, but the state 
ratified it (June 26, 1788) with both tidewater and western support. Later, 
another Virginian, Chief Justice John Marshall, later gave the document 
much of its strength. The Old Dominion ceded (1789) a portion of its 
Potomac lands to the United States for the creation of the District of 
Columbia. In 1792, Kentucky, a Virginia county since 1776, was admitted 
to the Union as a separate state. After Madison and Jefferson raised an 
opposition to the financial program of Treasury Secretary Alexander 
Hamilton, Virginia supported the emerging Democratic-Republican 
party's struggle against the Federalists and became a hotbed of states' 
rights sentiment (see Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions).

Of the first 12 Presidents of the United States, seven were Virginians -
Washington, Jefferson, Madison, James Monroe (these four comprising 
the “Virginia Dynasty”), William Henry Harrison, John Tyler, and Zachary 
Taylor. Later, in the 20th century, the name of Woodrow Wilson was to 
further lengthen the generally distinguished list of Virginian presidents.

The native sons who led the country during the 1800s sometimes 
expanded national power and national development to an extent that 
many states' rights Virginians deemed unconstitutional. However, 
Virginia itself, stimulated by western complaints, embarked on a vigorous 
policy of internal improvements in the second and third decades of the 
19th century. The tidewater majority made few concessions to western 
demands for male suffrage and other reforms in the constitution of 1830. 
Economically, however, the whole state benefited from transportation 
improvements, from the growth of scientific agriculture and the spread 
of wheat cultivation, and from the growth of such industries as tobacco 
processing and iron manufacture.

Slavery, Insurrection, and Civil War
As the cotton economy grew in the newer Southern states the tidewater 
became a breeding ground for the slaves they needed. Elsewhere in the 
state, especially in the west, antislavery sentiment was strong in the early 
19th century, and following the slave insurrection (1831) led by Nat Turner 
the house of delegates voted down a bill to abolish slavery by the narrow 
margin of seven votes. The insurrection did result in harsher laws and more 
conservative policies regarding African Americans. The constitution of 1851, 
granted suffrage to “every white male citizen,” and thus effected 
reapportionment of representation.

For the most part Virginians labored to avert conflict between North and 
South. But “fire-eaters” such as Edmund Ruffin and abolitionists such as 
John Brown of Harpers Ferry fame, shaped the course that led to the Civil 
War. Secession came (April 17, 1861) only after all attempts to keep peace 
had failed. Virginia joined the Confederacy, and Richmond became the 
Confederate capital. Robert E. Lee entered the military service of the South's 
new government, but not a few Virginians such as Winfield Scott, George H. 
Thomas, and David G. Farragut remained loyal to the Union. Most Virginians 
who lived west of the Appalachians also opposed secession, and on June 20, 
1863, this section was admitted to the Union as the new state of West Virginia. 
As the conflict progressed, Virginia emerged as the chief battleground of the 
Civil War.

In the beginning the Union armies repeatedly suffered set-backs—at the first 
battle of Bull Run (July 21, 1861), in the Seven Days battles of the Peninsular 
campaign (April-July, 1862) after the Monitor and Merrimack had clashed in 
Hampton Roads, and in lesser but related campaigns such as the triumph 
of Thomas J. (Stonewall) Jackson in the Shenandoah valley. The second 
battle of Bull Run (Aug., 1862) was a smashing victory for Lee, but in the 
Antietam campaign (Sept., 1862) he fared no better than Union Gen. 
George B. McClellan in invading enemy country. However, in the battles of
Fredericksburg (Dec. 13, 1862) and Chancellorsville (May 2–4, 1863), the 
Federals under Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside and then under Gen. Joseph 
Hooker were again repulsed.

Thus encouraged, Lee and his lieutenants—James Longstreet, R. S. Ewell, 
A. P. Hill, and J. E. B. Stuart—undertook another invasion of the North but
failed against George G. Meade in the Gettysburg campaign (June–July, 1863). 
That campaign marked the beginning of the end for the Confederacy, although it 
took considerable bloody pounding by Gen. U. S. Grant in the Wilderness campaign
 (May–June, 1864) and the siege of Petersburg (1864–65) before Lee surrendered 
what remained of his Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox Courthouse on 
April 9, 1865. President Jefferson Davis had already fled Richmond, and the 
Confederacy soon collapsed.

Postwar Political Reform and a New Economy
The war left its marks on the land and the people. The Shenandoah Valley
was particularly desolate after the campaigns of Confederate Gen. Jubal A. 
Early and Union Gen. Philip H. Sheridan in 1864. But poverty-stricken as it
was after the war, the state, under Gov. Francis H. Pierpont, escaped the 
worst aspects of Reconstruction. Radical Republicans were but briefly in 
power. On the recommendation (1869) of President Ulysses S. Grant, 
Congress allowed Virginia to vote without coercion, and the state passed 
the essential clauses of a constitution that the Radicals had drafted (1868), 
providing for free public schools and heavy taxes on land. More importantly, 
Virginia was allowed to elect to office its own moderate party, the “white 
Republicans,” led by Gen. William Mahone. Radical sway was ended. In 
1870, after the Virginia assembly had ratified the 14th and 15th amendments 
to the Constitution, the state was readmitted to the Union.

The abolition of slavery and the hard agricultural times of postwar decades 
ended the plantation system in Virginia and brought some increase in farm 
tenancy, but the economy benefited from diversification as fruit farming and 
the tobacco industry became important. To offset declines in demand for dark 
Virginia tobacco, the bright-leaf variety was increasingly grown.

Politics and Industry in the 20th Century
In 1902 a new state constitution demanded rigorous literacy tests for voters, 
thus completing the long process of reducing the black electorate. During 
the years preceding World War I, Virginia's prosperity grew as dairy farming
in particular gained importance. During the war agriculture boomed, as did 
industry. Especially prosperous were the important shipbuilding works at 
Hampton Roads.

In the mid-1920s, Harry Flood Byrd assumed direction of the state's 
powerful Democratic organization, formerly headed by U.S. Senator 
Thomas S. Martin and Methodist Episcopal Bishop James Cannon, Jr. 
Byrd, governor from 1926 to 1930 and U.S. Senator from 1933 until 
1965, became the most influential figure in the state. As chief executive 
he initiated a sound reorganization of the state government, brought about 
the passage of the first antilynching law adopted by any state, and 
improved the highway system. However, the organization's chief boast was 
that the state was entirely free of debt due to a rigid “pay-as-you-go” policy. 
Liberals criticized this financial policy for scrimping on public education and 
welfare.

In the Great Depression of the 1930s Virginia fared better than many states. 
Its industries had not been overexpanded, and, more important, the state's 
economy was built around consumer goods—foods, textiles, and tobacco—
that remained in relatively high demand. Farmers benefited from the 
Agricultural Adjustment Administration, but conservative Virginians resisted 
some of the economic policies of the New Deal. In World War II Virginia was 
the scene of much military training, and the shipyards at Hampton Roads and
other industries again aided the war effort. In the prosperous postwar period the 
conservative Byrd organization maintained its power.

Desegregation
After the 1954 Supreme Court decision on public school integration, attempts at 
desegregating Virginia's schools proceeded slowly. After Virginia courts and 
Federal courts ruled illegal the order by Gov. J. Lindsay Almond, Jr., to close 
public schools in nine counties, a lame compromise of “local option” was adopted. 
With the exception of Prince Edward County, where schools remained closed from 
1959 until 1964, all parts of Virginia had accepted token integration by the mid-1960s.

Virginia benefited from increased military expenditures in the 1980s as the 
state's shipbuilding industry thrived. The greatest growth however, has 
come in the private sector; northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C., 
such as Vienna and Reston, have flourished.