Browse Items (29 total)

After the Battle of Great Bridge on December 9, 1776, Lord Dunmore and his fleet abandoned the city of Norfolk. Patriot soldiers from North Carolina and Virginia took control of the city. They refused to provide food and supplies to the British…

This engraving, attributed to Harry C. Mann, depicts the burning of Jamestown during Bacon’s Rebellion in 1676.Bacon’s Rebellion was named after its leader, Nathaniel Bacon, who was an outspoken opponent of Governor Sir William Berkeley. While the…

Throughout much of the nineteenth century, women of wealthy backgrounds were involved in the public sphere, most often in the areas of religious- based or charitable work. Such activities were considered socially appropriate for women as extensions…

Located among the odds and ends of Accomack County court records is this 1758 advertisement from Landon Carter of Richmond County for his runaway slave Will.  The advertisement is typical of runaway ads in that it seeks to provide as much information…

On 6 May 1776, during the sixteenth year of the reign of King George III, assistant clerk Jacob Bruce made the last entry recorded in the official journals of the Virginia House of Burgesses, an assembly of elected representatives from Virginia that…

During the Revolutionary War in 1781, an enslaved Black man named Billy, owned by John Tayloe, was indicted for "feloniously and traitorously" joining the British. He was captured and tried for treason, and pled not guilty, testifying that he had…

The Virginia Declaration of Rights was drafted by George Mason and adopted on June 12, 1776. The Virginia Declaration of Rights was written after the members of Virginia's fifth Revolutionary Convention voted in favor of preparing a new plan of…

When the first English settlers arrived in 1607, the Church of England served as the official state church of the Virginia Colony. Under the 1689 English Act of Toleration, Protestants who were not members of the Church of England were still required…