Why was the Chesapeake Colony important?

Why was the Chesapeake Colony important?

The Chesapeake colonies of Virginia and Maryland served a vital purpose in the developing seventeenth-century English empire by providing tobacco, a cash crop.

What is the Chesapeake Bay known for?

The Chesapeake Bay has the largest land-to-water ratio (14:1) of any coastal water body in the world. More than 100,000 streams and rivers thread through the watershed and eventually flow into the Bay. Everyone within the Chesapeake Bay watershed is just minutes from one of the streams or rivers.

What are three facts about Chesapeake Bay?

10 Things You Didn’t Know About the Chesapeake Bay

• The Bay holds about 18 trillion gallons of water.
• Only about half of the water in the Bay comes from the ocean.
• Roughly 51 billion gallons of water enter the Bay each day from the 100,000 streams, creeks, and rivers that feed it.

Why is the Chesapeake Bay important to Virginia?

As such a large estuary, the Bay impacts the health and safety of thousands of species of animals and plants, as well as the 18 million people who live in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. The Chesapeake Bay’s ecosystem impacts the quality of the air we breathe, the water we drink and the food we eat.

When was Chesapeake Bay founded?

1607
The first English colonists arrived in Chesapeake Bay aboard the Susan Constant, Godspeed, and Discovery in April 1607, settling Jamestown the following month. (The town was named after the English king and the colony in honor of the virginity of Elizabeth I.)

Why was the Chesapeake Bay so important in the Civil War?

The Chesapeake Bay’s strategic location between the northern and southern states meant its lands and waters were important to both sides during the Civil War. The capitals of both the Confederacy and the United States were located on Bay tributaries: Richmond, Virginia, on the James River and Washington, D.C., on the Potomac.

When did the history of the Chesapeake Bay begin?

Many tend to begin its history with the establishment of Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607. But the story of the Bay began millions of years before that. African Americans in the Chesapeake Discover how African-American history shaped the culture and economy of the Chesapeake Bay, from the 1600s to today.

How does the Chesapeake Bay affect your local waterways?

The Chesapeake Bay has a vast watershed, which means that the water—and the pollution it carries—drains from parts of Maryland, Virginia, Delaware, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York and all of the District of Columbia and into the Bay. That means that the health of your local waterways, parks and forests are connected to the health of the Bay.

What can we learn from the Chesapeake Bay?

The Chesapeake Bay, due to its sheer size and scope, could be an example for estuaries around the country and around the world, for better or worse. Every action we take on the land affects our local streams and rivers, and ultimately the Bay, so it’s up to us to take the correct actions – ones that will help,…