There was once a time when the entire Eastern Seaboard was known (to Europeans and settlers) as “Virginia.” Maps from the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries show that English settlers didn’t really set out clear borders when they first arrived in North America, since they had no idea just how large the continent is. They completely ignored the borders of indigenous nations. Once they landed, the entire area around them—whatever it looked like, whoever already lived there—was claimed for Queen Elizabeth I of England. It may be a bit hard to tell, but this queen is actually the namesake of the colony—and future state. In the 1580s, almost a century after the journey of Christopher Columbus sparked the European colonization of the Americas, Spain was England’s greatest rival for power. The spoils of wars and conquest had made Spain incredibly wealthy—although English pirates had long been stealing Spanish gold from ships in the Atlantic Ocean. But Queen Elizabeth knew that the best way to challenge Spain was to establish colonies of her own. Her attention turned towards North America, which had been explored and navigated by the English but not permanently settled.  The Queen issued her patent for settlement on March 25, 1584, instructing the explorer Sir Walter Raleigh “to discover, search, find out, and view” land that could be settled by English colonists.[1] Instead of going himself, Raleigh sent two captains, Philip Amadas and Arthur Barlowe, and their crews to complete the mission for him. Preparations were speedy—Amadas and Barlowe departed England in April. The English expedition sailed first to the Caribbean, following a well-traveled route, before turning north and sailing up the Florida coast. At the time, this was mostly Spanish territory—Amadas and Barlowe knew they needed to find land that was unclaimed by any Europeans. On July 13, 1584, the company landed on Cape Hatteras in North Carolina.[2] Though they didn’t give the area an official name, they claimed it for England and Queen Elizabeth. But through contact with the local tribes, including the Secotan people, Amadas and Barlowe did learn the local names for the area. Barlowe, especially, took detailed notes based on conversations with indigenous chiefs. Some of the names are still used in North Carolina today: “Hatteras,” for example, or the nearby island “Roanoke.”[3] Barlowe reported (perhaps incorrectly) that the entire area was called “Wingandacoa” by the Secotan, then ruled over by a “wereoance,” or principal chief, named Wingina. Barlowe took these notes back to England, where he presented his findings to Raleigh and Queen Elizabeth. George R. Stewart, a historian who wrote about American place names in the 1940s, proposed an interesting theory surrounding the naming of England’s North American territory.[4] He believed that, upon reading the name of the Secotan chief, Raleigh decided to put his own spin on the local name—probably to show dominance, rather than honor a potential rival, since colonists killed Wingina a few years later. “Wingina” does bear some resemblance to the name “Virginia,” so it’s tempting to believe Stewart’s theory. But there’s a much more obvious and commonly accepted etymology. Though remembered as an explorer and adventurer, Raleigh was also a politician and courtier who constantly fought to be noticed by Queen Elizabeth. Hoping to flatter her and win approval, he decided to name the new colony—already claimed in her name—after her. Instead of a straightforward name, Raleigh chose something a bit more poetic. Because she never married and ruled in her own right, Elizabeth was known in England as “the Virgin Queen,” a moniker which inspired the Latin “Virginia.”[5] Rather than the name of a single colony, “Virginia” was the English name given to all of North America not controlled by the Spanish or French. It was even listed as one of the Queen’s dominions in her title. However ubiquitous, though, it didn’t come to be associated with the area of our modern-day state until the early 1600s. After the early colonial enterprises in North Carolina failed in the 1580s, the English didn’t attempt any further settling until after the death of Queen Elizabeth. In 1606, interest in Virginia was sparked again with the creation of “the Virginia Company,” two joint-stock companies given permission to settle the North American coast. Explorers from the Virginia Company landed in the Chesapeake Bay on April 26, 1607—later establishing their permanent colony, Jamestown, named for King James I.[6] But Virginians shouldn’t get too cocky—the name didn’t apply to all of British North America for very long. As England (and other countries) established more colonies in North America, the precise location of Virginia began to shift. Jamestown and the surrounding area, the oldest English colonies settled by the Virginia Company, retained the name—colonies to the north, established by other people under other charters, were given names like “New England” or “New Amsterdam.” Colonial names were better established throughout the seventeenth century, as the official boundaries of the colonies surrounding Virginia—Maryland, for example, established in 1632—confined it to the approximate area we know today. In 1788, the state’s name became official when it became the tenth to ratify the United States Constitution.[7] Perhaps, in some alternate history, the name “Virginia” may have applied to our entire country—for a time, that was certainly the case. But Virginians can rest easy knowing that their state name definitely holds some prestige, since it’s one of the oldest English place names in the country.
In 1607, Jamestown became Great Britain's first settlement in North America, the first foothold of the Virginia Colony. Its permanency came after three failed attempts by Sir Walter Raleigh beginning in 1586 to attempt to establish a stronghold in the land he called Virginia after his queen, Elizabeth I. And its continued survival was very much in doubt for the first 15 years.
On April 10, 1606, King James I (ruled 1566–1625) issued a charter creating two companies for Virginia, one based in London and one in Plymouth, to settle all of the land between the Passamaquoddy Bay in Maine and the Cape Fear River in North Carolina. Plymouth would get the north half and London the south. The Londoners left on December 20, 1606, in three ships carrying 100 men and four boys, and they landed in what is today the Chesapeake Bay area. A landing party scouted for a suitable area, and the three ships worked their way up what they called (and is still called) the James River, landing at the site of Jamestown on May 13, 1607. The location of Jamestown was chosen because it would be easily defended since it was surrounded by water on three sides; the water was deep enough for the colonists' ships, and Indigenous tribes did not inhabit the land. Unfortunately, there were reasons Indigenous peoples did not inhabit the land; there was no potable water source, and the marshy landscape emitted great clouds of mosquitoes and flies. Disease, heat, and skirmishes with Indigenous peoples consumed both colonists and their supplies, and by the time the first supply ship arrived in September, only 37 of the original 104 colonists were living. Captain John Smith assumed the colony's leadership in September 1608, and his leadership is credited with improving conditions and stockpiling stores. England continued to send supplies and colonists and in late Spring 1609, after the colony had been reorganized into a joint stock venture, London sent nine ships and 500 colonists. The ship bearing the deputy governor Thomas Gates wrecked off the Bermuda coast. The 400 survivors straggled into Jamestown in the late summer, too sick to work but fully capable of consuming the stockpile of stores. Disease and famine set in, and between October 1609 and March 1610, the colony population dropped from 500 to about 60. The winter became known as "The Starving Time," and the colony became known as a deathtrap. During the early period of the colony, Jamestown was primarily a military outpost, populated by men, either gentlemen or indentured servants. The servants who survived were obligated to work for their passage for a period of seven years. By 1614, those indentures began to expire and those who chose to remain became free laborers. Leadership of the colony by Thomas Dale and Thomas Gates kept the colony going between 1610 and 1616, and the colony began to grow strong after John Rolfe began his experiments with tobacco, Nicotiana rustica, to make it more palatable to the English taste. When a royal family member of the Powhatan tribe named Pocahontas married John Rolfe in 1614, relations with the Indigenous community eased. That ended when she died in England in 1617. The first enslaved Africans were brought to the colony in 1619. Jamestown had a high mortality rate due to disease, colonial mismanagement, and raids from Indigenous peoples. The presence of women and family units encouraged some growth and stability, but factionalism and fiscal insolvency continued to plague Virginia. In 1622, a Powhatan attack on Virginia killed 350 settlers, plunging the colony into warfare that lasted a decade. Jamestown was originally founded from a desire to gain wealth and to a lesser extent to convert Indigenous locals to Christianity. Jamestown went through several forms of government in its first decades, and by 1624, they used a representative assembly known as the House of Burgesses, the first institutional instance of representative self-government on the North American continent. Threatened by the House of Burgesses, though, James I revoked the charter of the bankrupt Virginia Company in 1624, but his timely death in 1625 ended his plans for disbanding the assembly. The colony's formal name was the Colony and Dominion of Virginia. Virginia was involved in fighting against what they saw as British tyranny from the end of the French and Indian War. The Virginia General Assembly fought against the Sugar Act which had been passed in 1764. They argued that it was taxation without representation. In addition, Patrick Henry was a Virginian who used his powers of rhetoric to argue against the Stamp Act of 1765 and legislation was passed opposing the act. A Committee of Correspondence was created in Virginia by key figures including Thomas Jefferson, Richard Henry Lee, and Patrick Henry. This was a method by which the different colonies communicated with each other about the growing anger against the British. Virginia residents who were sent to the First Continental Congress in 1774 included Richard Bland, Benjamin Harrison, Patrick Henry, Richard Henry Lee, Edmund Pendleton, Peyton Randolph, and George Washington. Open resistance started in Virginia the day after Lexington and Concord occurred, on April 20, 1775. Other than the Battle of Great Bridge in December 1775, little fighting happened in Virginia though they sent soldiers to help in the war effort. Virginia was one of the earliest to adopt independence, and its hallowed son, Thomas Jefferson, penned the Declaration of Independence in 1776.
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The virginia colony was named after her.
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