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The First Seventeen Years is the story of the Virginia colony during the tenure of the Virginia Company of London. In the first half of the book, the author follows the key events leading to the settlement and survival of the Virginia colony from 1607 to 1624, such as the founding of Jamestown, overcoming the difficulties of supply, the introduction of tobacco cultivation by John Rolfe, etc. The second half of the book pinpoints the spread of population in short essays about the founders and founding of some fifty early 17th-century settlements. Richly illustrated and featuring a map of the region and a helpful bibliography, this is one booklet that genealogists and Virginiaphiles alike will cherish.