Virginia
Jamestown Settlement
Founded in 1607, Jamestown was the first permanent English colony in the New World. The colony was sponsored by the Virginia Company of London, a group of investors who hoped to profit from the venture, who received a charter from King James I whom wanted to counter the global influence of the French and Spanish. Three ships, the Susan Constant, Godspeed and Discovery, departed England in December 1606 carrying a total of 105 passengers. The expedition led by Captain Christopher Newport reached the Virginia coast in late April 1607. After two weeks of exploration for a suitable site, the passengers came ashore on May 14, 1607 at a site along the James River that offered deep water anchorage and good defensive position.
The fledgling colony immediately faced serious problems for it was located in the midst of a chiefdom of about 14,000 Algonquian-speaking Indians ruled by the powerful leader Powhatan. Relations with the Powhatan Indians were tenuous, although trading opportunities were established. An unfamiliar climate, as well as brackish water supply and lack of food led to disease and death. Many of the original colonists were upper-class Englishmen, and the colony lacked sufficient laborers and skilled farmers. Subsequent arrivals to Jamestown in 1608 included the first women and skilled laborers that the colony needed.
Captain John Smith became Jamestown’s leader in September 1608 and was very instrumental in turning the colony around and improving relations with the Powhatan Indians. However, following an injury in 1609, Smith returned to England and the colony quickly fell on hard times. During a period known as the “starving time”, there was warfare with the Indians and many colonists died from starvation and disease. Just as the Jamestown colonists were ready to call it quits, a new group of settlers with supplies arrived in Spring 1610 bringing with them better military leadership to help turn the colony around.
One of the new arrivals was John Rolfe who introduced tobacco as a cash crop to the colony in 1613. Rolfe also married one of Powhatan’s daughters named Pocahontas and this union brought about an end to hostilities between the colonists and Indians. Tobacco proved to be the highly profitable crop the Virginia Company’s investors had been seeking, but it required large amounts of land and labor. Colonists began moving onto land occupied by the Powhatan Indians, and increased the number of indentured servants sent to Virginia. The first documented Africans in Virginia arrived in 1619. They were from the kingdom of Ndongo in Angola and had been captured during war with the Portuguese who sold them to English merchants heading to Virginia. This began the practice of enslaving Africans and replaced indentured servants as the primary labor force in the colony.
The first representative government in British America began in Jamestown in 1619 with the convening of a general assembly at the request of the settlers who wanted input in the laws governing them. Following war with the Powhatan Indians in 1622 and mismanagement by the Virginia Company, the King dissolved the charter and Virginia became a royal colony. Jamestown continued as the center of Virginia’s political and social life until 1699 when the seat of government moved to Williamsburg. Although Jamestown ceased to exist as a town by the mid-1700s, it set the foundation for the United States we know today.
The Jamestown Settlement today is a museum of galleries and living history. The indoor galleries are full of artifacts and interactive exhibits that chronical the English settlers, Powhatan Indians, and arrival of African enslaved people. Although none of the original settlement remains, the outdoors portions of Jamestown Settlement include reproductions of a Powhatan village, the three sailing ships on the James River, and the James Fort.
Colonial Williamsburg
Williamsburg was the thriving capital of Virginia when the dream of American freedom and independence was taking shape. From 1699 to 1780, Williamsburg was the political, cultural and educational center of what was then the largest, most populous, and most influential of the American colonies. Influential founding fathers such as Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, and Peyton Randolph all studied law and spent time in Williamsburg. It was this community shared between the English gentry, skilled laborers, and enslaved people that became a crucible for revolution.
Relations between the Virginia colonists and their royal governor, John Murray 4th Earl Dunmore, were already strained when then colony’s legislative body, the House of Burgesses, passed resolutions to support the Boston uprisings against the Intolerable Acts. In response, Dunmore dissolved the House of Burgesses in 1774 forcing Virginia’s representatives to meet secretly at Williamsburg’s Raleigh Tavern. Meeting in Richmond on March 20, 1775, out of Dunmore’s earshot, Patrick Henry delivered his fiery “give me liberty, or give me death!” speech to the delegates of the Second Virginia Convention. At that convention, the delegates also selected representatives to attend the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia in direct defiance of Dunmore’s instructions to not send delegates to Philadelphia.
Early on the morning of April 21, 1775, residents of Williamsburg awoke to find that under the cover of night Dunmore had ordered royal marines to remove gunpowder stores from the public powder magazine in the center of town. Angry colonists soon mustered in the city center and in front of the Governor’s Palace, threatening the governor if he did not return the stolen powder. Cooler heads prevailed and colonial leaders met with Dunmore inside the Governor’s Palace to voice their outrage. Their primary concern was that the confiscated gunpowder left Williamsburg defenseless, particularly against a slave rebellion. This event, which came to be known as the Gunpowder Incident, fanned the already burning flame of discontent and suspicion between Virginia’s last royal governor and patriot colonists. The Gunpowder Incident proved to be a milestone event in Virginia’s turn towards revolution and open rebellion against royal authority.
About a week after the Gunpowder Incident, news of the shots fired at Lexington and Concord reached the inflamed community of Williamsburg. Lord Dunmore evacuated his family to the safety of a British warship and colonial militias began to convene on Williamsburg. Dunmore fled from the Governor’s Palace to Norfolk where he began to raise an army. He recruited escaped slaves with the promise of freedom and reinforced them with British regulars. The primary approach to Norfolk was over Great Bridge and Dunmore ordered the construction of a fortification on the north side of the bridge. On December 7, 1775, Patriot forces arrived at the south side of the bridge with about 900 militiamen to confront the British force of 400. The first shots of the American Revolution in Virginia occurred at Great Bridge and in a little less than an hour of fighting, there were 100 British casualties and just one to the patriots. With their positioned compromised, the British fled and Lord Dunmore, the last royal governor, left Virginia for good.
The seat of government in Virginia moved to Richmond in 1780. Williamsburg reverted to a rural county seat and quiet college town as home of The College of William & Mary. In hindsight, Williamsburg’s loss of capital city status was its salvation as many 18th century buildings survived into the early twentieth century. In 1926, the Rev. Dr. W.A.R. Goodwin, rector of Bruton Parish Church, joined with philanthropist John D. Rockefeller Jr. to restore the town to its 18th-century appearance. National attention soon focused on the restoration effort. During a landmark visit in 1934, Franklin D. Roosevelt proclaimed its main thoroughfare, the Duke of Gloucester Street, the most historic avenue in America.
In 1932, Colonial Williamsburg opened its first public exhibition building: the reconstructed Raleigh Tavern, where patriot members of Virginia’s House of Burgesses met and cast votes during the Revolutionary era in defiance of the colony’s royal governors. In 1932, the hostesses working at the reconstructed tavern became the first to wear period costumes and soon every Colonial Williamsburg hostess was in 18-century costumes. During the late-1930s, Colonial Williamsburg began interpreting the historic colonial trades with shopkeepers demonstrating the skills of cabinetmaking, blacksmithing, and silversmithing. Today, Colonial Williamsburg has over 20 historic trades showcasing authentic techniques period to colonial Virginia.
The 301-acre Colonial Williamsburg has 89 historic buildings. The most extravagant structure in Williamsburg is the Governor’s Palace which was home to seven royal governors. The Virginia General Assembly agreed in 1705 to finance the construction of home for the governor to display the colony’s wealth and power. At great cost to the colony, the palace wasn’t completed until 1722. The entranceway of the Governor’s Palace is decorated with hundreds of firearms and swords, many of which were removed and used during the French and Indian War as well as early stages of American Revolution. The grounds of the Governor’s Palace are landscaped with ornate, former gardens and the royal coat of arms.
The historic district of Colonial Williamsburg is a living history museum measuring 1 mile by a half mile. Visitors are free to roam the dirt and cobblestone streets to explore the historic buildings and trades. On the far east side of the historic district is the Capitol building which was the center of British authority in Virginia for most of the 18th century. This large brick building was where the people of Virginia passed laws, debated revolutionary ideas, appeared in court, and pled for emancipation. There were two chambers in the Capitol. The House of Burgesses was the lower branch of colonial Virginia’s legislature, elected by property-owning voters throughout Virginia. Many of Virginia’s leading revolutionaries, including Peyton Randolph, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Patrick Henry, served as Burgesses. The Governor’s Council, whose members were appointed by the King or Queen, served as the upper house of the Virginia legislature. They considered legislation originating from the Burgesses and served as the colony’s highest civil and criminal court.
In the 1970s, costumed actors began telling stories of 18th-century Colonial Williamsburg people in live performances. Familiar founding fathers like Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry perform alongside lesser-known residents of Williamsburg from the Revolution era. During my visit, these performances were my favorite part of Williamsburg experience, particularly the actor presenting General Washington’s 1796 farewell address. Today, Williamsburg is known internationally as the premier center for the preservation and interpretation of American colonial history,
Yorktown
Yorktown was established in 1691 by Virginia’s colonial government to help regulate trade and collect taxes on both imports and exports for Great Britian. A well-developed waterfront boasted wharfs, docks, storehouses and businesses which quickly made Yorktown the economic center of Virginia. When hostilities broke out with Great Britian in 1775, Yorktown had a population of almost 2,000 residents and roughly 300 buildings.
The American Revolution had entered its seventh year when, in 1781, British general Lord Charles Cornwallis brought his army to Yorktown to establish a naval base. In the spring of 1781, General Washington and his Continental Army were considering two courses of action: attack the British in New York City or pursue them at Yorktown. Washington and his French ally, Lt. Gen. Comte de Rochambeau, bet on the south, where they were assured critical naval support from the French Fleet. In the largest troop movement of the American Revolution, Washington marched 20,000 men hundreds of miles from their encampment north of New York City to Yorktown.
Cornwallis and his 9,000-man army had been expecting reinforcements and resupply from the British fleet, but they were soundly defeated by French naval forces on September 5, 1781. When Washington and his Continental Army arrived at Yorktown on September 28, they immediately set siege to Cornwallis’ forces which had been abandoned by the British Navy. During a three-week siege, Washington’s forces inflicted heavy casualties on the British with over 8,500 men dead, missing, or captured. On October 17, the British walked onto the field of battle under a white flag to seek terms of surrender from Washington. He offered the British the same terms as they had extended to Americans in Charleston: unconditional surrender. The surrender of Cornwallis’s troops in Yorktown on October 19, 1781 marked the collapse of the British military campaign. When news of this decisive American victory reached London, Parliament passed a bill authorizing the government to make peace with America.
The American Revolution Museum at Yorktown tells the story of the nation’s founding, from the twilight of the colonial period to the dawn of the Constitution. The indoor galleries of the museum feature period artifacts, interactive exhibits, and immersive films. Presented on a 180-degree surround screen with dramatic special effects, the film “The Siege of Yorktown” places the viewer in the 1781 battlefield. The outdoor portion of the museum is a living history where guests can experience daily life in a re-created Continental Army encampment or explore what a Revolution-era farm was like.
Monticello
Born on April 13, 1743, Thomas Jefferson grew up at Shadwell, one of the largest tobacco plantations in Virigina. At the age of 21, he inherited several thousand acres of land that encompassed the family estate as well as his favorite boyhood hangout: a nearby hilltop called Monticello (Italian for “little mountain”) where he resolved to build his own home. In 1768, a year after the future president was admitted to the Virginia bar, workers broke ground on the site, beginning a decades-long process that would captivate Jefferson, bankrupt his family, and produce one of America’s most iconic and historically significant architectural masterpieces.
Remembered for drafting the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson also drafted the blueprints for Monticello’s neoclassical mansion, outbuildings, gardens and grounds. Though he had no formal training, he had read extensively about architecture, particularly that of ancient Rome and the Italian Renaissance. In 1770, the family house at Shadwell burned down, forcing Jefferson to move into Monticello’s South Pavilion, a one-room outbuilding, until the main house was completed. He was joined two years later by his new bride, Martha Wayles Skelton, and the couple had six children at Monticello, two of whom lived to adulthood. Martha died in 1782 and a devastated Jefferson left for France to serve as the U.S. ambassador between 1785 to 1789. Two things happened to Jefferson while in France: he gained an appreciation for French architecture and he began a relationship with his daughters’ 16-year-old enslaved maid, Sally Hemings.
Sally Hemings arrived in Paris in 1787 after accompanying Jefferson’s youngest daughter, Maria, on the trans-Atlantic voyage to join her father and older sister, Martha, in France. While serving in the capacity of the girls’ maid, Jefferson began a relationship with Sally who as an enslaved woman had no right to consent. France had staunch anti-slavery laws and had Sally wished to remain in France she would have become a freed person. However, Jefferson convinced her to return to Virginia as an enslaved person with the promise of lighter work duties and freedom for any of her unborn children upon their 21st birthdays. Sally agreed and returned to Virginia pregnant with the first of Jefferson’s six children with her. Decades later, Jefferson honored their agreement by freeing all of Sally Hemings’ surviving children – Beverly and Harriet left Monticello in the early 1820s; Madison and Eston were freed upon Jefferson’s death in 1826. Although Jefferson never freed Sally, she was allowed to leave Monticello following his death and was not pursued. She died in Charlottesville in 1835 living with her freed son.
There were always rumors of light-skinned enslaved people at Monticello and newspaper articles even alluded to Jefferson’s inappropriate relationship with Sally during the 1801 presidential campaign. However, Jefferson denied these claims to his death, Sally never spoke of the paternity of her children, and Jefferson’s allies suppressed the stories. Over the decades, oral histories from Sally Hemings’ decedents kept the story alive which began to attract the interest of more researches. Finally in 1998, researchers conducted DNA testing on the male-line Jefferson and Hemings decedents. Science found that Jefferson was likely the father of all six of Sally Hemings’ children listed in Monticello records. Today, it is widely accepted that Thomas Jefferson fathered children with Sally Hemings.
Jefferson returned from France with 86 crates of art, books, and furniture along with a new vision for Monticello. Among other enhancements, he added a central hallway, a mezzanine bedroom floor, and an octagonal dome–the first of its kind in the United States. This updated version of Monticello was double the size of its original incarnation, designed to accommodate not only Jefferson’s steady stream of houseguests but also his boundless collections of books, European art, Native American artifacts, natural specimens and mementos from his travels. Monticello was also filled with dozens of Jefferson’s unique – and often ingenious – personal inventions. In his study, he had a revolving bookstand and a document duplicator that made a copy with a second pen as he drafted it. The entrance way at Monticello has two Jefferson inventions: a dial connected to the windvane to read wind direction and a 7-day clock that indicated hours, minutes, seconds, and days of the week. The clock had a gong on the hour to notify the enslaved people the time of day as they worked in the fields. To keep the clock from constantly having to be wound, it featured weights hanging from long chains that extended through the first floor into the cellar.
Jefferson didn’t get to spend much time at Monticello once the new Constitutional government was established. He served as Washington’s secretary of state (1790 to 1793) and then as John Adam’s vice president (1797-1801). During his term as the third president of the United States (1801-1809), Jefferson often spent the summers at Monticello and it was here in 1802 that he and Meriwether Lewis developed the plan for an expedition to discovery a water passage to the Pacific Ocean. In fact, Montecillo was adorn with many artifacts from the Lewis & Clark Expedition including Indian artifacts, fossil samples, and a prairie dog. When Thomas Jefferson left Washington, DC on March 4, 1809, he returned to Monticello to enjoy his retirement as a planter vowing to never leave: he never did!
Jefferson returned to Monticello hoping for a quiet retirement, but those hopes quickly faded. As a founding father and America’s leading statesman, visitors flocked to Monticello to meet Jefferson. He found himself spending large portions of his days receiving guests and a lot of his money entertaining them in the evening which strained his finances. Like many Virgina planters, Jefferson was land rich and cash poor, purchasing many of his household needs on credit, He was always in debt and after the British burned Washington in 1814, Jefferson’s friends arranged the purchase of his private library to rebuild the Library of Congress in order to help him with his debt.
During his retirement years, Jefferson’s oldest daughter, Martha, and her husband, Thomas Mann Randolph, along with their twelve children lived at Monticello on the second floor. With a house full of grandchildren, Jefferson’s home was anything but quiet. He spent much of his time in his study and library on the first floor where he would read and write. Jefferson’s bedroom was conveniently located adjacent to his study and featured an alcove bed built into the wall which allowed access from both the study and bedroom. Jefferson also didn’t design closets into his home, he found them a waste of space, and his bedroom featured storage for out of season clothing in a space above his bed inside the wall.
In many ways, Monticello was designed with the first floor as the primary consideration and the rest of the structure an afterthought. The rooms of the first floor had high windows and ceilings. The windows of the second-floor bedrooms were low to give an impression from the outside that the first floor was even taller. The entryway of Monticello features that Jefferson designed clock over the front door and is like a museum with Indian artifacts on the walls, art pieces, and items collected by Jefferson over his lifetime. Also on the first floor is a tea room, guest bedroom, and dining room which featured a dumb waiter designed by Jefferson built into the chimney to bring wine bottles up from the cellar.
One of the key architectural features of Monticello is the octagon room on the third floor with a domed roof. Although quite beautiful with its large circular windows and oculus skylight, the function of the Dome Room is not completely understood. There is no evidence that it was every used for anything more than storage despite the fact Jefferson spent a lot of money and attention to its construction. Jefferson is said to have rarely ventured above the first floor of his home, and the steep, narrow staircases reflect that he didn’t put much emphasis into the upper two floors.
Jefferson was one of the leading sommeliers in America and large portions of his cellar were devoted to the storage of wine as well as beer which was brewed on the plantation. Two wings were constructed adjacent to the main mansion and were connected to the cellar with long breezeways. These wings provided work areas for the approximately 130 enslaved people who worked on the plantation some in the kitchen, smokehouse, and dairy. One of the men who worked in the kitchen was James Hemings who Jefferson had taken to Paris with him to learn techniques of French cuisine. He was Jefferson’s personal chef for years and one of few enslaved people he freed upon his death.
Mulberry Row was the dynamic, industrial hub of Jefferson’s 5,000-acre agricultural enterprise at Monticello. As the principal plantation street, it was the center of work and domestic life for dozens of people — free whites, free blacks, indentured servants, and enslaved people. It was populated by more than 20 dwellings, workshops, and storehouses during the Jefferson era. One of those workshops on Mulberry Row was where young enslaved boys pounded out nails which became a highly profitable use of Jefferson’s enslaved population. Just to the south of Mulberry Row was Monticello’s vegetable garden which was designed by Jefferson who was also experimenting with agricultural techniques. It included a small brick structure called the Garden Pavilion where Jefferson would sit contemplating and overlooking work in his garden.
After a long illness, Thomas Jefferson died on the nation’s 50th birthday, July 4, 1826, in his bedroom at Monticello. At his request, he was buried in the family burial grounds that is just down the hill from the mansion. Jefferson designed his own simple obelisk headstone which listed the three accomplishments he prized more than all others: author of Declaration of Independence, author of Virginia’s religious freedom statute, and founder of the University of Virginia. Amazingly, he did not list the fact he was the third president of the United States.
Following his death, Jefferson left behind $107,000 in debt and his family was forced to sell off his possessions to pay off creditors. The roughly 100 enslaved people at Monticello were all sold at auction, separating many families something which Jefferson himself resisted doing. In his will, Jefferson only freed five enslaved people. One was his chef John Hemings and two others were his natural sons with Sally Hemings whom he freed as promised. The idiosyncratic mansion proved harder to sell and was finally sold in 1830 to a Charlottesville pharmacist named James Barclay for $7,500. Barclay despised Jefferson’s political ideals and only wanted the property for a scheme to open a silkworm farm. He removed many of the trees and gardens that Jefferson had planted in order to plant mulberry trees. Once his business venture failed to take off, Barclay sold the property in 1834 to a naval officer named Uriah Phillips Levy.
Although it had fallen into disrepair, Monticello remained in the Levy family until 1923 when it was sold to the Thomas Jefferson Foundation for $500,000. The Foundation immediately removed everything from the home that wasn’t from the Jefferson era and set to an extensive renovation of a property long neglected. Using inventories from the auctions, they began to re-acquire the furniture and items that once adorned this great mansion. Great effort has been made to tell the story of the enslaved people that worked at Monticello. In fact, the Foundation doesn’t hide around the story of Sally Hemings and openly discusses her relationship with Jefferson. In 1987, Monticello was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
I think one of the great fascinations with Thomas Jefferson, at least for me, has to be the great contradiction between the man who authored “all Men are created equal” and a man who owned over 600 enslaved people in his lifetime. Many scholars have written that Jefferson knew that slavery was inherently wrong, but also did not see a way out of the practice during his lifetime. During my tour of Monticello, I attended a talk with an actor portraying Thomas Jefferson who recited the former president’s thoughts on the subject. Jefferson put it this way, “we have the wolf by the ear, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other.” Jefferson chose preservation in his lifetime.
I think Franklin D. Roosevelt best described what a visit to Monticello is like. He famously wrote, “More than any historic home in America, Monticello speaks to me as an expression of the personality of its builder.” I could not agree more with that quote. While visiting Monticello, Jefferson’s personality, interests, passions, and flaws are fully on display unlike any home in the nation.
