History of Petersburg, Virginia
aspect of history
The history of Petersburg, Virginia, United States as a modern settlement begins in the 17th century when it was first settled. The city was incorporated in 1748. It was occupied by the British during the American Revolutionary War, and Major-General William Phillips died of fever at Blandford (later a neighborhood of Petersburg) during bombardment from the Marquis de Lafayette's positions north of the river. After the war, it became a destination for many free blacks in Virginia, as well as a growing hub for railroads. By 1860, it was the second largest city in Virginia. For nine months in 1864 and 1865 it was the subject of the Siege of Petersburg; the fall of the city unleashed a chain of events over the following two weeks that resulted in the end of the American Civil War. After the war, it again flourished as a destination for Freedmen. Petersburg was a notable focal point in the organization of the Civil Rights Movement in the mid-20th century. In the late 20th century, the city suffered significant economic decline.
Indigenous people
In 2006 archaeological excavations at Pocahontas Island found evidence of prehistoric Native American settlement dated to 6500 B.C. This is in the early third of the Archaic Period (8000 to 1000 BC).
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q17021022. The Library of Congress control number is sh95002078. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1748, 1860, 1864 and 1865.
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This entry incorporates text from “History of Petersburg, Virginia” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.