Virginia Grows and Expands Unit Interactive Notes

·  Everyday Life in Colonial Virginia

·  Tobacco

·  Forms of Exchange in Colonial Virginia

·  Capital Moves to Williamsburg

·  Cultures of Colonial Virginia

WORDS TO KNOW

Africans
barter
capital resources
cash crop
credit
debt
English
European
Germans
human resources
money
natural resources
plantation
saving
Scots-Irish
Williamsburg

Everyday Life in Colonial Virginia

People living in colonial Virginia depended on natural, human, and capital resources to produce goods and services needed. Natural resources are resources that exist in nature. Human resources are people working to produce goods or services, like a seamstress, carpenter, or farmer. Capital resources are resources that are produced by tools, machines, and factories. These various types of resources influenced the way colonial Virginians lived. Since food choices were limited, many meals were made of local produce and meats. For most colonial Virginians, their home consisted of living in a one-room home with a dirt floor; however, some farmers lived in large houses. Most colonial Virginian households made their own clothing from cotton, wool, and leather.

Life in colonial Virginia was different for whites, enslaved African Americans, and free African Americans. Most white Virginians made their living from the land as small farmers; however, a few owned large farms called plantations. Most enslaved African Americans worked tobacco, crops, and livestock on plantations and had no rights or freedom to do as they pleased. Many free African Americans owned their own business and property, but were also denied rights and freedom to do as they pleased.

Tobacco

Virginia’s economy depended on agriculture as their most important and primary source of wealth. This means farming was the best way for the colonists to make money in the new colony. In Virginia, tobacco became the most profitable agricultural product. It was sold in England as a cash crop. A cash crop is a crop that is grown to be sold for money rather than for use by the growers. The settlers were growing tobacco in order to sell to England instead of growing it for themselves.

In order for the colony to grow and sell a large amount of tobacco, they needed people to work on the plantations; people who would provide a steady and inexpensive source of labor. Many African men, women, and children were brought to Virginia, against their will, to work as slaves on farms and plantations. The Virginia colony depended on slave labor and the dependence lasted a long time.

Forms of Exchange in Colonial Virginia

In colonial Virginia, very few people had paper money, a medium of exchange/currency which includes coins and paper bills, to use to buy goods and services. After all, colonial Virginia had no banks for them to keep their money in. Some people who did have money were saving it (putting money away to save or to spend at a later time). Therefore, they had to find other ways to get the goods and services they needed without money.

Tobacco was often used in place of money. A tobacco farmer could use his tobacco to pay for goods and services that he needed.

Barter was commonly used instead of money. A barter is a trading or exchanging of goods and services without the use of money.

Farmers and other consumers could also buy goods and services on credit, buying a good or service now and paying for it later. They would pay off their debt, a good or service owed to another, when their crops were harvested and sold.

Capital Moves to Williamsburg

In 1699, Virginia’s General Assembly decided to move Virginia’s capital from Jamestown to Williamsburg. There were several reasons for this. First, Jamestown had contaminated water due to the salt water seeping into the river from the bay. Second, the marshy, unhealthy living conditions caused diseases that made it hard to survive in Jamestown. Third, fire destroyed wooden and brick buildings at Jamestown when Nathanial Bacon and his followers burned much of Jamestown during Bacon’s Rebellion.

Williamsburg seemed to be a much better place for a capital city. It would be Virginia’s capital for the rest of the colonial period.

Cultures of Colonial Virginia

Whenever people settle an area, they change the culture and landscape to reflect their beliefs, customs, and architecture. Examples of architecture that reflect different cultures include barns, homes, and places of worship such as churches.

There are several names of places in Virginia that reflect cultures of Virginia. Our capital named Richmond comes from the English culture and a Virginian city named Roanoke comes from the American Indian culture.

Different cultural groups, from other parts of the world, settled in different areas of Virginia. These cultural groups had to adapt old customs to their new environment, once they settled in Virginia. The English and other Europeans settled primarily in the Coastal Plain (Tidewater) and Piedmont regions. Africans also settled in the Coastal Plain (Tidewater) and Piedmont regions, where tobacco agriculture required a great deal of labor. Germans and Scots-Irish settled in the Shenandoah/Great Valley, which was along the migration route. Once these settlers arrived in Virginia, many American Indians were forced inland.