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Patrick Henry delivered his famous “Give me Liberty or Give me Death ” speech in 1775 in St. John’s Church in Richmond that was crucial for deciding Virginia’s (then the largest of the 13 colonies) participation in the First Continental Congress and setting the course for revolution and independence. Thomas Jefferson, who would soon write the United States Declaration of Independence, George Washington, who would soon command the Continental Army, were in attending at this critical moment on the path to the American Revolution.
On April 18, 1780, as Virginia’s population moved further west, the state capital was moved from the colonial capital of Williamsburg to Richmond, to provide a more centered location , as well as to isolate the capital from British attack.Under the command of Benedict Arnold, Richmond was burned by British troops causeing Governor Thomas Jefferson to flee the city in 1781 . Yet Richmond shortly recovered and, by 1782, Richmond was once again a thriving city.
In 1786, one of the most important and influential passages of legislation in American history was passed at the temporary state capital in Richmond, the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom. Written by Thomas Jefferson and sponsored by James Madison, the statute was the basis for the separation of church and state, and led to freedom of religion for all Americans as protected in the religion clause in the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment. Its importance is recognized annually by the President of The United States, with January 16 established as National Religious Freedom Day.
The Virginia State Capitol building, designed by Thomas Jefferson with the assistance of Charles-Louis Clérisseau, was finished in 1788. It is the second-oldest US statehouse in continuous use (Maryland’s is the oldest) and was the first US government building reinforced in the neo-classical Roman style of architecture, setting the trend for other state houses and the federal government buildings (including the White House and The Capitol) in Washington, D.C.. It underwent a complete renovation which was completed in May 2007.
After the Revolutionary War, Richmond emerged an important industrial center . George Washington proposed and received the support of the Virginia legislature for the establishment of the James River and Kanawha Canal, the first canal system to be established in the U.S. The canal allowed goods and services coming up the James River to be navigated around the waterfall at Richmond and connect Richmond and the eastern part of Virginia with the west. As a result, Richmond became home to some of the largest manufacturing facilities in the country, including iron works and flour mills, the largest facilities of their kind in the south.In the 1860′s canal traffic peaked and slowly gave way to railroads, allowing Richmond to become a major railroad crossroads, til now including the site of the world’s first triple railroad crossing. The Canal officially ceased operations in the 1880s, although portions of the canal have been preserved and rebuilt in the late 1990s, spurring some tourism and economic development along the old canal route.
Besides transportation and industry, antebellum Richmond was also the center of regional communications, with several newspapers and book publishers, including John Warrock, helping shape public opinion and further the education of the populace.
The resistance to the slave trade was growing by the mid-nineteenth century; in one famous case in 1848
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