of
Rosewell, painted by
John Wollaston. The Rosewell
plantation was called one of the finest homes in colonial America and built of brick imported from England. The English colonists who eventually became the First Families emigrated to the new
Colony of Virginia. Their migration took place from the settlement of Jamestown through the
English Civil War and
English Interregnum period (1642–1660). Some royalists left England on the accession to power of Oliver Cromwell and his Parliament. Because most of Virginia's leading families recognized
Charles II as King following the execution of
Charles I in 1649, Charles II reputedly called Virginia his "Old Dominion" – a nickname that endures today. The affinity of many early Virginia settlers for the Crown led to the term "distressed
Cavaliers", often applied to the Virginia
slavocracy. Some Cavaliers who served under King Charles I fled to Virginia. FFVs often refer to Virginia as "
Cavalier Country". These men were offered land or other rewards by King Charles II, but most who had settled in Virginia stayed in Virginia. Many such early settlers in Virginia were called Second Sons.
Primogeniture favored the first sons' inheriting lands and titles in England. Second or third sons went out to the colonies to make their fortune, or entered the military and the clergy.
Tidewater Virginia evolved as a society descended from second or third sons of Englishmen who inherited
land grants or land in Virginia. They formed part of what became the
Southern elite in
Colonial America. In some cases, longstanding ties among families in England were carried to the new colony, where they were reinforced by marriage and other relations. For instance, there were ancestral ties between the
Spencer family of Bedfordshire and the
Washington family; a Spencer secured the land grant later purchased by the Washingtons, where they built their
Mount Vernon home. These sorts of ties were common in the early colony, as families shuttled back and forth between England and Virginia, maintaining their connections with the mother country and with each other. A thin network of increasingly interrelated families made up the planter elite and held power in colonial Virginia. "As early as 1660, every seat on the ruling Council of Virginia was held by members of five interrelated families," writes British historian
John Keegan, "and as late as 1775, every council member was descended from one of the 1660 councillors." The ties among Virginia families were based on marriage. In a pre-Revolutionary War economy dependent on the production of tobacco as a commodity crop, the ownership of the best land was tightly controlled. It often passed between families of corresponding social rank. The Virginia economy was based on slave labor as the colony became a slave society. The landed gentry could keep tight rein on political power, which passed in somewhat orderly fashion from family to family. (In the more modern mercantile economy of the north, social mobility became more prominent. The power of the elite was muted by newcomers who gained wealth in the
market economy.) == Pocahontas ==