deeds, seals, lawsuits, banks, trust and security companies, insurance
companies, express companies, railway and canal corporations,
sleeping-car, parlour-car and dining-car companies, telegraph and
telephone companies, franchise taxes, poll taxes, an inheritance tax
and taxes on various business and professional licences. The tax
laws require that property shall be assessed at its full value by
commissioners of the revenue elected by counties and cities. The
revenue is collected by county and city treasurers, clerks of courts,
and the state corporation commission, consisting of three members
appointed by the governor with the concurrence of the General
Assembly in joint session. The total receipts in the fiscal year
1908–1909 amounted to $5,536,510 and the total disbursements to
$5,796,980. By the 1st of January 1861 Virginia had incurred a
debt amounting to nearly $39,000,000, principally in aid of internal
improvements. She was unable to pay the interest on this during
the Civil War, and in March 1871 the principal together with the
overdue interest amounted to about $47,000,000. The General
Assembly passed an act at that time for refunding two-thirds of it,
claiming that the other third should be paid by West Virginia.
But the advocates of a “forcible readjustment” of the debt carried
the election in 1879 with the aid of the negro vote, and after prolonged
negotiations in 1892 a settlement was effected under which a debt
amounting to about $28,000,000 was again refunded. In 1908 this
had been reduced to about $24,000,000. The sinking fund consists
of damages recovered against defaulting revenue collectors, railway
stock and appropriations from time to time by the legislature.
History.—Virginia was the first permanent English settlement in North America. From 1583 lo 1588 attempts had been made by Sir Waller Raleigh and others to establish colonies on the coast of what is now North Carolina. The only result was the naming of the country Virginia in honour of Queen Elizabeth. But glowing accounts were brought back by the early adventurers, and in 1606 an expedition was sent out by the London Company, which was chartered with rights of trade and settlement between 34° and 41° N. lat. It landed, at a place which was called Jamestown, on the 13th of May 1607, and resulted in the establishment of many plantations along the James river. The purpose of the company was to build up a profitable commercial and agricultural community; but the hostility of the natives, unfavourable climatic conditions and the character of the colonists delayed the growth of the new community. John Smith became the head of the government in September 1608, compelled the colonists to submit to law and order, built a church and prepared for more extensive agricultural and fishing operations. In 1609 the London Company was reorganized, other colonists were sent out and the boundaries of the new country were fixed, according to which Virginia was to extend from a point 200 m. south of Old Point Comfort, at the mouth of Chesapeake Bay, to another point 200 m. north, “west and northwest to the South Sea.”
The government of the country was in the hands of the London Company, which in turn committed administrative and local affairs to a governor and council who were to reside in the colony. Before the arrival of the “government” and their shiploads of settlers the original colony was reduced to the direst straits. Captain Christopher Newport (d. 1618), Sir Thomas Gates and Sir George Somers, the new authorities, reached Jamestown at last with 150 men, but finding things in such a deplorable state all agreed (June 10, 1610) to give up the effort to found a colony on the James and set sail for Newfoundland. At the mouth of the river they met Lord Delaware, however, who brought other colonists and plentiful supplies; and they returned, set up a trading post at what is now Hampton and undertook to bring the hostile natives to subjection. In 1611, 650 additional colonists landed, the James and Appomattox rivers were explored and “plantations” were established at Henrico and New Bermuda. In 1617 Virginia fell into the hands of a rigid Puritan, Captain Samuel Argall. The colonists were compelled on pain of death to accept the doctrine of the trinity, respect the authority of the Bible and attend church. This rigid regime was superseded in 1619 by a milder system under Sir George Yeardley (d. 1627). Twelve hundred new colonists arrived in 1619. At the same time negro slaves and many “indentured” servants were imported as labourers.
At the beginning Virginia colonists had held their land and improvements in common. But in 1616 the land was parcelled out and the settlers were scattered along the shores of the James and Appomattox rivers many miles inland. Twenty thousand pounds of tobacco were exported in 1619. The community had now become self-supporting, and the year that witnessed these changes witnessed also the first representative assembly in North America, the Virginia House of Burgesses, a meeting of planters sent from the plantations to assist the governor in reforming and remaking the laws of the colony. In 1621 a constitution was granted whereby the London Company appointed the governor and a council, and the people were to choose annually from their counties, towns, hundreds and plantations delegates to the House of Burgesses. The popular assembly, like the English House of Commons, granted supplies and originated laws, and the governor and Council enjoyed the right of revision and veto as did the king and the House of Lords at home. The Council sat also as a supreme court to review the county courts. This system remained unchanged until the revolution of 1776. But in 1624 the king took the place and exercised the authority of the London Company.
Before 1622 there was a population of more than 4000 in Virginia, and the many tribes of Indians who were still the proprietors of the soil over a greater portion of the country naturally became jealous, and on the 22nd of March of that year fell upon the whites and slew 350 persons. Sickness and famine once again visited the colony, and the population was reduced by nearly one-half. These losses were repaired, however; the tobacco industry grew in importance, and the settlers built their cabins far in the interior of lowland Virginia. This rapid growth was scarcely retarded by a second Indian attack, in April 1641, which resulted in the death of about 350 settlers. By 1648 the population had increased to 15,000.
Virginia was neither cavalier nor roundhead, but both. Sir William Berkeley had been the governor since 1641, and though he was loyal enough to the crown, it was without difficulty that his authority was overthrown in March 1652 and that of Cromwell proclaimed in its stead. Richard Bennett, a Puritan from Maryland, now ruled the province. Bennett and his Puritan successors, Edward Digges and Samuel Mathews, made no serious change in the administration of the colony except to extend greatly the elective franchise. But this policy was reversed in 1660, when Berkeley was restored to power. The return of Berkeley was the beginning of a reaction which concentrated authority, both in the House of Burgesses and in the Council, in the hands of the older families, and thus created a privileged class. The governor, supported by the great families, retained the same House of Burgesses for sixteen years lest a new one might not be submissive. The increasing mass of the population dwelt along the western border or on the less fertile ridges which make up the major part of the land even in tide-water Virginia. These poorer people—who were not, however, “poor whites”—developed an abiding hostility towards the oligarchy. They desired a freer land-grant system, protection against the inroads of the Indians along the border, and frequent sessions of an assembly to be chosen by all the freeholders. But a new code of laws outlawed many of these people as dissenters, and in 1676 a burdensome tax was laid by the unrepresentative assembly. The Indians had again attacked the border farmers, and the governor had refused assistance, being willing, it was generally believed, that the border population should suffer while he and his adherents enjoyed a lucrative fur trade with the Indians. Under these circumstances, Nathaniel Bacon (1647–1676), whose grandfather was a cousin of Francis Bacon, took up the cause of the borderers and severely punished the Indians at the battle of Bloody Run. But Berkeley meanwhile had outlawed Bacon, whose forces now marched on the capital demanding recognition as the authorized army of defence. This was refused, and civil war began, in which the governor was defeated and Jamestown was burned. But Bacon fell a victim to malaria and died in October in Gloucester county. Berkeley closed the conflict with wholesale executions and confiscations. Censured by the king, he sailed to England to make his defence, but died in London in 1677 without having seen Charles. Virginia
