Richmond, Virginia: History
=== Colonial era ===
After the first permanent English-speaking settlement was established at Jamestown, Virginia, in April 1607, Captain Christopher Newport led explorers northwest up the James River to an inhabited area in the Powhatan Nation, which takes its name from the location Pawat-hanne, or "falls in a stream," referring to the falls in the James River at present day Richmond, specifically Powhatan Hill.
Richmond was Arrohattoc territory where Arrohateck village was located. However, as time progressed relations between the Arrohattocs and English colonists declined, and by 1609 the tribe was unwilling to trade with the settlers. As the population began to dwindle, the tribe declined and was last mentioned in a 1610 report by the visiting William Strachey. By 1611 the tribe's Henrico town was found to be deserted when Sir Thomas Dale went to use the land to found Henricus.
In 1611, the first European settlement in Central Virginia was established at Henricus, where the Falling Creek empties into the James River. In 1619, early Virginia Company settlers established the Falling Creek Ironworks there. Decades of conflicts between the Powhatan and the settlers followed, including the Battle of Bloody Run, fought near Richmond in 1656, after tensions arose from an influx of Manahoacs and Nahyssans from the North. Nonetheless, the James Falls area saw more white settlement in the late 1600s and early 1700s.
In early 1737, planter William Byrd II commissioned Major William Mayo to lay out the original town grid, completed in April. Byrd named the city after the English town of Richmond near (and now part of) London, because the view of the James River's bend at the fall line reminded him of his home at Richmond Hill on the River Thames. In 1742, the settlement was incorporated as a town.
In 1775, Patrick Henry delivered his famous "Give me liberty or give me death!" speech in Richmond's St. John's Church, greatly influencing Virginia's participation in the First Continental Congress and the course of the American Revolution. On April 18, 1780, the state capital was moved from Williamsburg to Richmond, providing a more centralized location for Virginia's increasing western population and theoretically isolating the capital from a British attack from the coast. In 1781, Loyalist troops led by Benedict Arnold led a raid on Richmond and burnt it, leading Governor Thomas Jefferson to flee while the Virginian militia, led by Sampson Mathews, unsuccessfully defended the city. …