Hampton Roads, formed by the confluence of the Elizabeth, James, and Nansemond rivers, is the world’s largest natural harbor. English settlers named it jointly in honor of the Earl of Southampton, a stockholder in the Virginia Company of London, and for the nautical term “roadstead.” Colonists shipped tobacco to England through these waters and imported European manufactured goods, cargo so valuable that the English established fortifications at Old Point Comfort to the east and Newport News Point to the west. Even with these defenses, the harbor attracted pirates and foreign invaders. In 1667, during the Second Anglo-Dutch Naval War, the Dutch sent an expedition into Hampton Roads as part of a struggle for command of the English Channel and worldwide trade. Colonel Miles Cary, Sr., the colony’s ranking militia officer, died defending Old Point Comfort from the Dutch. The Dutch were repulsed, but local planters and merchants continued to contend with pirates operating from inland waterways along the Chesapeake Bay and Hampton Roads, and the colonial government took stern measures against them, hanging many as examples.
