When the first settlers of Virginia arrived in 1607, a bountiful land extending west through rolling hills, forested mountains, and fertile river valleys lay before them. It might have seemed like Eden until the colonists faced the droughts of summer and the long deprivation of winter. Though the first colonists barely survived, the land proved ideal for growing tobacco. Virginia established itself as a colony with borders drawn on paper all the way to the Mississippi River. Great plantations hugged the wide mouths of its bays and rivers, where its cash crops could be easily exported. Its piedmont, mountains, and great valley remained unsettled….