page_title: Colony of Virginia
section_title: Crown colony (1624–1652)
hierarchical_section_title: Colony of Virginia / History / Crown colony (1624–1652)
caption_attribution_description: English: Virginia Colonial Records - Briefe Declaration
context_page_description: The Colony of Virginia, chartered in 1606 and settled in 1607, was the first enduring English colony in North America, following failed proprietary attempts at settlement on Newfoundland by Sir Humphrey Gilbert in 1583, and the subsequent farther south Roanoke Island by Sir Walter Raleigh in the late 1580s.
  The founder of the new colony was the Virginia Company, with the first two settlements in Jamestown on the north bank of the James River and Popham Colony on the Kennebec River in modern-day Maine, both in 1607. The Popham colony quickly failed due to a famine, disease, and conflict with local Native American tribes in the first two years. Jamestown occupied land belonging to the Powhatan Confederacy, and was also at the brink of failure before the arrival of a new group of settlers and supplies by ship in 1610. Tobacco became Virginia's first profitable export, the production of which had a significant impact on the society and settlement patterns.
  In 1624, the Virginia Company's charter was revoked by King James I, and the Virginia colony was transferred to royal authority as a crown colony.
context_section_description: In 1620, a successor to the Plymouth Company sent colonists to the New World aboard the Mayflower. Known as Pilgrims, they successfully established a settlement in what became Massachusetts. The portion of what had been Virginia north of the 40th parallel became known as New England, according to books written by Captain John Smith, who had made a voyage there.
  In 1624, the charter of the Virginia Company was revoked by King James I and the Virginia Colony was transferred to royal authority in the form of a crown colony. Subsequent charters for the Maryland Colony in 1632 and to the eight Lords Proprietors of the Province of Carolina in 1663 and 1665 further reduced the Virginia Colony to roughly the coastal borders it held until the American Revolution. (The exact border with North Carolina was disputed until surveyed by William Byrd II in 1728.)
caption: Briefe Declaration of 1624
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