The Englishmen who settled in Virginia in 1607 said that they owned the land. During the the colonel period, individual colonist got real land mostly from the Virginia grant company. In 1776 a man named Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration Of Independence. Followed by the Revolutionary war Virginia became the 10th state. But in 1861 Virginia left the Union and that became the Civil War. Eventually in 1880 Virginia joined the Union but that was 5 years after the war.