Colony of Virginia
Washington first came to Virginia in 1656 and stayed at the house of Col. Nathaniel Pope, a plantation owner. During this stay, he fell in love with his host's daughter Anne.
After his marriage to Anne Pope and the wedding gift from Anne's father of 700 acres (2.8 km2) on Mattox Creek in Westmoreland County of the Northern Neck, Washington became a successful planter. He depended on the labor of slaves and indentured servants to cultivate tobacco and kitchen crops. He was selected for the Virginia House of Burgesses and became a politician in the colony.
During the events leading to Bacon's Rebellion, Washington was appointed a colonel in the Virginia militia. He led a company to back a group of Marylanders during a planned parley with the opposition and American Indian leaders. The militia killed six chiefs of various tribes, and their peoples retaliated for the massacre in later raids and attacks against the colonists. The governor William Berkeley strongly criticized Washington for the murders of the American Indian chiefs, but colonists supported Washington in the massacre. Relations between the Indians and colonists deteriorated.
Read more about this topic: John Washington
Famous quotes containing the word colony:
““Tall tales” were told of the sociability of the Texans, one even going so far as to picture a member of the Austin colony forcing a stranger at the point of a gun to visit him.”
—Administration in the State of Texa, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)