17th century

In Stafford County: Omens of 1675
17th century, Bacon's Rebellion, cicadas, Doeg Indians, History Feature Articles, Indians of the Eastern Woodlands, Rappahannock River, Robert Hodge, Smith Fort, Stafford County (Va.), Virginia History, History Blog
03/19/2010 - 8:50am

In the year 1675 four interesting events were recorded in Stafford County. Three of these were considered omens of the fourth, and the fourth was considered of significance to the history of our area.

The first event was in the heavens. In the southwestern sky, for more than a week, each day appeared a large comet with a long tail resembling that of a horse on a windy day. The Indians and the whites alike wondered what might be the meaning of this heavenly sign.

The Powhatan Confederation
History Feature Articles, Indians of North America, Kids Homework Help, Pocahontas, Powhatan Indians, Teen Homework Help, Virginia History, Virginia history for kids
03/15/2010 - 11:02am

By Jane Kosa

Pocahontas, the Powhatan princess who befriended the Jamestown colonists, married the Englishman John Rolfe in 1614, and is believed by many to have saved John Smith's life -- that is why the world knows the Powhatan Confederacy. Her father, Powhatan, almost alone, united the small scattered Algonquian tribes of present-day Virginia and Delaware into a thirty tribe group in the late 1500s. We know this group as the Powhatan Confederacy. The Confederacy included 128 Algonquian villages and 20,000+ people at its peak in the early 1600s.

Colonial Virginia
African American, Businesses, Colonial Virginia, Craftsmen, Education, Games, George Washington, Holidays, Jamestown, Kids Homework Help, Medicine, Recipes, Slavery, Teacher Resources, Virginia History, Virginia history for kids, Virginia Johnson, Williamsburg
03/15/2010 - 10:56am

What was it like to live long ago when Virginia belonged to England? When there were no cars, no computers, no hospitals and no public schools?

Without cars, trains or airplanes, people traveled by boat, horseback or on foot by "shank's mare". The reason so many colonial towns were located next to rivers is that often the roads were terrible seas of mud. It was so much easier to travel on the rivers!

"The Queene of Pomonky"
17th century, History, History Feature Articles, Pamunkey, Powhatan Indians, Teacher Resources, Virginia History, Virginia Johnson
03/04/2010 - 3:15pm
XII. That each Indian King, and Queen have equall power to govern their owne people and none to have greater power then other, except the Queen of Pomunky to whom severall scattered Indians doe now againe owne their antient Subjection, and are agreed to come in and plant themselves under power and government, whoe with her are alsoe hereby included into this present League and treatie of peace, & are to keep, and observe the same towards the said Queen in all things as her Subjects, as well as towards the English.
The Shipwreck That Saved Jamestown: The Sea Venture Castaways and the Fate of America
1600-1609, 17th century, Jamestown, New in Virginiana, Virginia History, Virginia Johnson
01/13/2010 - 1:38pm

Anyone interested in Virginia's earliest colonial history ought to get to know the passengers and crew of the Sea Venture. This ship was sent to relieve Jamestown's starving colonists but never made it. The survivors landed on Bermuda, known as the Devil's Isle, where their saga continued.  Their story was the inspiration for Shakespeare's The Tempest.

First New World English Thanksgiving Was Celebrated in Virginia
17th century, James River, Jamestown, Thanksgiving, Virginia History, Virginia Johnson, History Blog
11/23/2009 - 12:22pm

The Pilgrims get the fame for their feast in New England, but two years prior on December 4, 1619, thirty-eight Virginians at Berkeley Hundred celebrated “a day of thanksgiving’ to God as required by their charter:

Fit for a Queen: The Legacy of Sidney E. King
Barbara Crookshanks, Elizabeth II, History Feature Articles, Jamestown, National Park Service, Virginia History
11/02/2009 - 2:14pm

Sidney King: "It's a colorful country of ours. I've made it my business to make sure Mr. and Mrs. America get a glimpse of things as they happened." - from James A. Crutchfield 's Tribute to an Artist, the Jamestown Paintings of Sidney E. King

A Request for Assistance
Bacon's Rebellion, Dispatches, Indians of North America, Jamestown, Multicultural, Pamunkey, Politics, Teacher Resources, Virginia History
11/02/2009 - 2:11pm

By Thomas Mathew

When Nathaniel Bacon rose against the colonial government in 1676, the royal governor and his burgesses realized they needed the Queen of Pamunkey's help to staunch the insurrection amongst their own people. A remarkable first-hand account survives from all those years ago. It details the Queen's emotional reaction to their demands.

The Beginning, Progress, and Conclusion of Bacon's Rebellion in Virginia, In the Years 1675 and 1676
1670s, Bacon's Rebellion, Colonial Virginia, Dispatches, Jamestown, Pamunkey, Rappahannock River, Stafford County (Va.), Virginia History
10/29/2009 - 12:15pm

By T.M., a planter and representative from Stafford County

But to return from this digression, the Susquehanoughs were newly driven from their habitations, at the head of Chesepiack bay, by the Cineca Indians, down to the head of Potomack, where they sought protection under the Pascataway Indians, who had a fort near the head of that river, and also were our ffriends.

A Brief and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia
16th century, Colonial Virginia, Dispatches, Farm Life, Food, Indians of North America, Language, Thomas Hariot, Virginia History
10/28/2009 - 4:12pm

By Thomas Hariot

The Second Part
CONCERNING SUCH COMMODITIES AS VIRGINIA
IS KNOWN TO YIELD FOR FOOD AND THE SUSTENANCE
OF LIFE, CUSTOMARILY EATEN BY THE NATIVES
AND USED BY US WHILE WE WERE THERE

FIRST, CONCERNING SUCH AS ARE SOWN AND FARMED.
Pagatowr is a kind of grain. It is called maize in the West Indies; Englishmen name it Guinea wheat or Turkey wheat, after the countries from which a similar grain has been brought. This grain is about the size of our ordinary English peas and, while similar to them in form and shape, differs in color, some grains being white, some red, some yellow, and some blue. All of them yield a very white and sweet flour which makes excellent bread. We made malt from the grain while we were in Virginia and brewed as good an ale of it as could be desired. It also could be used, with the addition of hops, to produce a good beer. The grain increases on a marvelous scale-a thousand times, fifteen hundred, and in some cases two thousand fold. There are three sorts, of which two are ripe in ten, eleven, and, at the most, twelve weeks, when their stalks are about six or seven feet in height. The third one ripens in fourteen weeks and is ten feet high. Its stalks bear one, two, three, or four heads, and every head contains five, six, or seven hundred grains, as near as I can say. The inhabitants not only use it for bread but also make food of these grains. They either parch them, boiling them whole until they break, or boil the flour with water into a pap.