The first British attempt to settle in North America was made at the end of Elizabeth I's reign. It was made at Roanoke and ended in disaster in 1597. However, Virginia, where the attempt to form a colony had been made, was named after the "Virgin Queen" from then on.

A permanent settlement was made in 1607 and came to be known as Jamestown, after James I At first it was thought that America might provide what were called "naval stores". These were raw materials necessary for shipbuilding, such as timber, hemp (to make rope), flax (to make into linen for sails) and tar (to seal wooden hulls on ships). Other adventurers hoped to make money from dealing in furs. Either they would set traps themselves or they would negotiate with the Indians. This was how settlements around the Hudson Bay, in the far north, came into being. Still others hoped to fish for cod off the Newfoundland coast and sell the dried fish back in England.

The settlement at Jamestown, however, was profitable for a reason that nobody had foreseen. A strange plant was cultivated, its leaves dried out in the sun, rolled up and then squeezed into a pipe and smoked. The Indians had shown Europeans the pipe and tobacco. Virginian settlers found an immense market for this plant back in England.

More and more tobacco was cultivated in the early 17th century and more and more emigrants crossed the Atlantic to settle in Virginia. Some were noblemen, some artisans and some were rogues, escaping the law in England. The poorest came as indentured servants. They had their passage paid for the Atlantic crossing but, in return, they had to work for seven years for the master who had funded them.

Finally, in 1617, the first black slaves were brought to Virginia. They worked as labourers on the vast tobacco plantations, as artisans, or as servants in the magnificent mansions that the richest planters had built.