Immigration

On 3 March 1866 the General Assembly agreed "to promote and encourage" immigration into the state. With the end of the Civil War and the abolition of slavery, the state experienced a shortage of laborers. Also, many young men and women had left Virginia before the war looking for the rich soil and opportunity of the Deep South and West. By forming the Board of Immigration, legislators hoped that emigrants from Europe, particularly England and Scotland, would make their homes in Virginia. The act required those who received workers through these efforts to pay the board a bonus of five dollars for each male, and two dollars for each single female over eighteen.

In an address written by members of the Board of Immigration titled The State of Virginia to The People of Great Britain, the board advertised for "an industrious, sober and moral class of immigrants. . . ." This address, along with a pamphlet associated with Roger J. Page, an agent of emigration for Virginia, describes in great detail the benefits of living in Virginia. The Tidewater region had ". . .a navigable stream at almost every door. . .," and the Piedmont possessed the "greatest inducements for the erection of manufacturing establishments. . . ." The board touted the Valley's fertile soil, future wine production in the Blue Ridge, and cattle-grazing opportunities in the Alleghenies. Although farmers needed laborers, the board also hoped that offering immigrants idle land, available from two to twenty dollars per acre, would increase the production of goods in Virginia.

The effectiveness of these efforts was questionable. In 1872, a letter from Commodore Matthew Fontaine Maury titled "Immigration to the South" appeared in the Rockbridge Citizen of Lexington. In it, Maury discussed the success of the North in attracting immigrants, describing the efforts of the southern states as "fruitless." He believed prejudice on the part of Europeans kept them away from the South.

It would be 1950 before the number of white people entering Virginia surpassed the number departing the state, although blacks continued to leave in large numbers. As of the 2000 census, Virginia's population totaled 7,078,515, with close to two million of those born in other states, and 675,833 born in foreign countries.