Virginia

The Colony of Virginia (also known frequently as the Virginia Colony, the Province of Virginia, and occasionally as the Dominion and Colony of Virginia) was the English colony in North America that existed briefly during the 16th century, and then continuously from 1607 until the American Revolution (as a British colony after 1707^[11]). The name Virginia was first applied by Sir Walter Raleigh and Queen Elizabeth I in 1584. Jamestown was the first town created by the Virginia colony. After the English Civil War in the mid 17th century, the Virginia Colony was nicknamed “The Old Dominion” by King Charles II for its perceived loyalty to the English monarchy during the era of the Commonwealth of England.

While other colonies were being founded, Virginia continued to grow. Tobacco planters held the best land near the coast, so new settlers pushed inland. Sir William Berkeley, the colony’s governor, sent explorers over the Blue Ridge Mountains to open up the backcountry of Virginia to settlement.

After independence from Great Britain in 1776, the Virginia Colony became the Commonwealth of Virginia, one of the original thirteen states of the United States, adopting as its official slogan “The Old Dominion”. After the United States was formed, the entire states of West Virginia, Kentucky, Indiana and Illinois, and portions of Ohio were all later created from the territory encompassed earlier by the Colony of Virginia, the first Southern state.