Virginia Vignettes

At the conclusion of the French and Indian War a number of issues divided the colonies and the mother country–the settlement of western lands, the protection of the Native Americans, and trade regulations. But of greatest importance was the increased need to raise more revenue to help pay for a much enlarged British Empire and [...]

Although Indians had inhabited the Shenandoah Valley for centuries (the name of the river comes from an Indian word meaning “beautiful daughter of the stars”), European settlement of the Shenandoah Valley did not begin until the 1730s. The vast majority of settlers in the Valley were of German and Scotch-Irish background who had left Europe [...]

A religious revival called the Great Awakening hit the colonies in the 1740s. Many colonists, particularly in the middle and lower classes found the staid, ritualistic Anglican service unfulfilling or chaffed against their assigned place at the bottom of the traditional social order. The Awakening brought an evangelical message of “new birth” that divided older [...]

A good case could be made that it was the Reverend James Blair by virtue of his leadership of the Church of England in Virginia and the College of William and Mary, which gained its charter in 1693 primarily through his efforts. A Scotsman who had lost his parish in the religious debates of the [...]