This photograph shows a deerskin mantle that was believed to have been presented by Paramount Chief Powhatan (whose given name was Wahunsonacock) to Captain Christopher Newport of the Virginia Company in 1608. The mantle is embroidered with shells…
By the 17th century, England was becoming a leader in the intercontinental trade of goods. Wealthy merchants created joint-stock companies which would promote exploration and increase trade routes. Investors in these companies pooled their resources…
Thomas West (1576–1618), the twelfth Baron De La Warr, was appointed by King James I in 1606 to be part of the royal council that oversaw the Virginia Company of London. He monitored the situation in the Virginia colony from England and may have…
Pocahontas was the daughter of Powhatan, the powerful paramount chief of the Algonquin Indians in eastern Virginia. She was about eleven years old when the English colonists arrived at Jamestown in 1607. Although she had been named Matoaka, she has…
The first representative assembly in English North America met in the church at Jamestown on July 30, 1619. Following instructions from the Virginia Company of London, the governor was empowered to call a general assembly to handle public matters…
After John Rolfe's successful experimentation with the West Indies tobacco plant, Nicotaiana tabacum, the Virginia Company of London realized that it had found a profitable product to export from the colony. Tobacco cultivation spread widely through…
William Berkeley (1605–1677) was the longest-serving royal governor of Virginia. He served as a Crown governor (an appointee of the King) between 1642 until 1652 and again from 1660 until his death in 1677. In his late twenties, Berkeley was a part…
In the 17th Century, Anthony Johnson of Northampton County, was one of only a few documented Black landowners in the Virginia Colony. Anthony arrived in the Virginia Colony in 1621. He was likely from Angola and was renamed “Antonio” after he was…
Phillip Gowen (whose surname sometimes appears as Cowen or Corven) was the son of a freed African servant. He was bound out as an indentured servant late in the 17th century. He was, like all indentured servants at that time, required to serve a…
In 1716, Virginia Lieutenant Governor Alexander Spotswood led an expedition over the Blue Ridge Mountains into the Shenandoah Valley. The land was claimed for King George I of England, eventually being divided and distributed through land grants.…