Virginia Geography
This large body of water and the Atlantic Ocean helped shape Virginia’s trade and settlement.
What is the Chesapeake Bay?
People who first lived in Virginia before Europeans are called-
What are Indigenous People?
One main reason European countries wanted to establish colonies in North America was to gain more ____ and power.
What is wealth or resources?
In what year did the English found Jamestown?
What is 1607?
This plant became Virginia’s most profitable cash crop and changed the colony’s economy.
What is tobacco?
Name one of the five geographic regions of Virginia known for mountains.
What is the Blue Ridge Mountains or Appalachian Plateau?
Werowocomoco was an important village and served as the capital for which tribe?
What is the Powhatan tribe?
he group that funded and organized the Jamestown settlement was called the Virginia Company of ____.
What is London?
This leader helped Jamestown survive by making rules and trading with Indigenous peoples.
Who is Captain John Smith?
When colonists traded goods without money, this system was used.
What is barter?
A "line" of waterfalls and rapids where rivers drop from higher to lower land affected travel and settlement.
What is the Fall Line?
Name one of the three main Indigenous language groups in Virginia around 1600.
What is Algonquian, Siouan, or Iroquoian?
Name one economic reason England wanted colonies in North America.
trade, natural resources, new markets, tobacco profits, finding gold.
Name one hardship the Jamestown settlers faced in the early years.
starvation, disease, contaminated water, lack of farming experience.
Name two different kinds of labor used in colonial Virginia.
indentured servants, enslaved labor, family labor, hired workers.
Explain how the Chesapeake Bay and rivers like the James helped the colonial economy.
transportation for trade, fishing, and access to markets.
Give one example of how Indigenous Peoples used the environment to meet basic needs.
farmed near rivers, fished, used local materials for tools and shelter.
Explain how ocean winds and currents affected the colonists’ route to Virginia.
Ships used wind and currents to cross the Atlantic; routes were planned to use favorable winds and currents.
In 1619 two major events happened: the arrival of Africans and the first meeting of this representative government body.
What is the General Assembly or House of Burgesses?
Explain one difference between an indentured servant and an enslaved person.
Indentured servants worked for a limited time in exchange for passage; enslaved people were forced to work for life with no freedom.
Describe two ways Virginia’s physical geography influenced where people settled and the industries that developed.
fertile land in the Tidewater for farming/tobacco, forests across Virginia for timber and shipbuilding by the coast, mountains and valleys for mining and different crops, rivers for trade etc
Explain how archaeologists help us learn about Indigenous peoples’ lives.
archaeologists find artifacts—tools, pottery, structures—that show daily life, where people lived, what they ate, and how they made things.
Describe what a charter did for companies like the Virginia Company of London.
A charter was an official document giving permission and certain rights to start a colony and act on behalf of the crown.
Explain one way interactions with Chief Powhatan and the Powhatan people affected the survival of Jamestown settlers.
Powhatan people supplied food, taught farming and local resources, traded—these helped settlers survive especially early on.
Describe how the growth of tobacco farming affected Virginia’s society and labor system.
tobacco required intense labor and large plots, which increased demand for workers and led to greater reliance on enslaved labor; laws later codified race-based slavery, changing social and economic structures.