Document Bank of Virginia
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  • Collection: Colonization and Settlement

Fry Jefferson Map 1755.jpg
The Fry- Jefferson map was first published in 1753. It was, at the time, the most comprehensive map of 18th Century Virginia. Joshua Fry and Peter Jefferson were two of the most successful surveyors in the Virginia Colony. They collaborated and…

GW_Augusta-Land-Survey_07_0034_0129.jpg
Among his many skills, George Washington was a well-respected land surveyor. After the death of his father in 1743, eleven-year-old George Washington did not attend school in England like his older half-brothers, but had private tutors and may have…

Spotswood_portrait_07_0978_ART064_12.jpg
Alexander Spotswood served from 1710 to 1722 as lieutenant governor of Virginia, in the place of the royal governor who never came to the colony. During his tenure Spotswood sought to improve the colony's security and economy and relations with…

Meherrin Petition to the Governor_1723_07_1019_16.jpg
Indigenous Virginians and the English colonists conceived landownership in different ways. Tribal members did not "own" land individually, but lived in small communities and hunted, planted, and gathered food or other materials in the larger…

72dpi.jpg
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.…

Phillip Gowen Petition_1675__98_0825.jpg
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…

ANTHONYJOHNSON.jpg
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…

Portrait of William Berkley 72dpi.jpg
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…

Proclamation Concerning Tobacco_1630_08_1203_01(resized).jpg
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…

General Assembly monument, 1907.jpg Thumbnail.jpg
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…
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