HISTORY History haunts Virginia like a lost lover. Images, mementos, whispers of the past float along her rivers, get tangled in the thick press of her forests, stand beside the too-gallant statues that posture in her courthouse squares. So much history, and so many of them. Native American and European, male and female, black and white. Every little borough has its own story, as does every long-standing Virginia family. It''s fair to say that the first 250 years of this state''s recorded history read like a saga filled with its own theatrics: heroes, devils, tragedies, comedies, victories, and defeats. After all, Virginians trace themselves back to the first colonists, to major players in the Revolution, to "founding fathers" of the new nation. And then the state was capital of the Confederacy and the primary battleground for the Civil War.

For octogenarian Virginians -- and younger ones who cleave to the Commonwealth''s past -- that war, regardless of its cost, was a moment of glory. Glory clearly tinges Virginia''s past, sometimes to the Old Dominion''s detriment. Virginians have had a deserved reputation for courting old traditions, for looking backward more often than forward. But that old-line conservatism seems itself to be receding into the past. While Virginia can''t be counted as one of America''s most progressive states, she has learned in recent decades to move forward, with the past as a sort of patina about her. She may not be an angel, but her charms are considerable. Fruitfullest Virginia Virginia''s saga actually began somewhere in the vaguest past, when bands of nomads drifted out of Asia and into the area. When they reached the Atlantic they could drift no farther.

And so they spread out along its tributaries, settled into the endless coastal forests, lived off the abundance of the land, slowly resolving themselves into tribes and kingdoms. We know little of their culture except that they were a prosperous people and members of the Algonquian language group. Then, in the sixteenth century another band of restless wanderers unceremoniously entered their world. These were, of course, the European explorers, intent on a kind of migration of their own, only in reverse of what the Asian nomads had done: They were pushing west toward the riches of the Indies -- until North America got in their way. In the 1560s, Spanish adventurers captured a native chief from the coast of what is now Virginia, named him Don Luis de Valasco, and brought him back to Madrid for an education. When Spanish Jesuits returned Don Luis to Virginia in 1570, he reasserted his rights as a chief, and the Jesuits built a mission hoping to convert the Indians to Christ. Instead, Don Luis dispatched the Jesuits to the Great Spirit. Little was heard from Europeans until aspiring English colonists bumped up upon the shore 37 years later.

The Powhatan chief who watched them land was probably Don Luis''s son, and by now leader of the combined Algonquian groups along the coast. The English, meanwhile, had moored their ships and named the area on which they''d landed after their beloved Elizabeth, the virgin queen. They called it Virginia. Jamestown Established The ships set sail carrying aspiring adventurers, plus the ships'' crews. About half of the 105 colonists who survived the trip were the younger sons of gentry who had nothing to gain by staying in seventeenth-century England, where they would inherit neither land nor wealth. This exotic Virginia held the promise of untold riches and opportunity. That they would have to work for any of this seemed to have escaped them as they set sail with high hopes, few skills, and even less of the grit they would need to survive. The other half of the expedition was composed mostly of artisans weary of England''s entrenched class structure and lack of opportunity.

Unfortunately, their particular crafts and experiences weren''t exactly what was needed to tame a wilderness -- but who knew then what was needed? Only one man among the hundred on board seems to have been well-suited to deal with and establish a new world. A seasoned mercenary and adventurer, his name was John Smith, and he would prove to be a godsend to the expedition. But none of them knew that at the time, and, in fact, his chronic braggadocio managed to get him arrested before the ships had crossed the Atlantic. After four and a half months en route, the English sighted the coastline of Virginia. Coming alongside the capes at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay, the English stopped to erect a cross in gratitude. They then proceeded up a wide river that they called James, for their king. The newcomers chose a small island 60 miles (97 km) upstream on which to build a fort. Connected by a narrow isthmus to the mainland, the island, they reasoned, would be easy to defend against French or Spanish warships, and against attacks from the hostile half-clothed natives that had already assaulted them when they landed at Cape Henry.

Also, the island had good deep anchorage for their ships just offshore. In high spirits, the small band set about transforming the island they had named Jamestown into a facsimile of Britain. They built a stockaded, triangular fort and planted crops. They also searched voraciously for gold, believing optimistically that the very river sands were spangled with its glint. And very soon, they began to die. Throughout the summer, the combination of malnutrition, bad water, and typhoid, a disease they had unwittingly brought with them from England, carried away half the members of the Jamestown band.