Hallowed Heritage: The Life of VirginiaTorpey, Dorothy Margaret
History
Hallowed Heritage: The Life of Virginia
Torpey, Dorothy Margaret
Virginia -- Civilization
After the burning of Jamestown during Bacon's Rebellion, the State
House was rebuilt, but it burned again in October 1698. Since the
Assembly then had no meeting place, it met in 1699 at the private
residence of Mrs. Sarah Lee and in a building of William and Mary
College. At one meeting, Governor Granci Nicholson suggested that
the capital be moved to Middle Plantation. After a successful vote,
the seat of the Virginia Colony government was officially moved
from Jamestown, the first capital, to Middle Plantation, the name
of which was changed to Williamsburg in honor of King William
III. Plans for the State House were immediately made and the main
street was named Duke of Gloucester Street, in honor of the Duke
of Gloucester who was Queen Anne's oldest son. The first official
Capitol building was constructed at one end of the main street and
the College of William and Mary had been constructed at the other
end.
In 1698, a Scotsman, Francis Makemie, a Presbyterian missionary,
migrated from Pennsylvania to Accomack County, Virginia, where he
held services in his home. He was soon arrested for not having
a license to preach, but he was so sincere in his religious
beliefs that he was later awarded a license. He is the founder of
Presbyterianism in Virginia and, near Temperanceville, one may see a
monument consisting of a stone figure of Francis Makemie attired in
his usual clerical garb.
Shortly before the beginning of the eighteenth century, the General
Assembly passed an act requiring an import tax of twenty shillings
upon each Negro imported into the Virginia Colony. England, however,
opposed such action and, as additional laws were passed by the
Virginia General Assembly levying high import taxes on slaves,
she consistently vetoed them. The number of Negroes in Virginia
increased as the production and the value of tobacco increased
until, by 1700, there were approximately 7,000 Negroes out of 72,000
inhabitants within the colony. The colonists expressed their desire
to prohibit or at least restrict the importation of Negroes in 1713,
but the mother country would not authorize the Virginia Colony to
forbid slave importation.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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