That's where they were able to find the resources they needed for economic growth like minerals such as iron and gold. They didn't settle somewhere else because no other land had the resources they were looking for.
The History of Virginia begins with documentation by the first Spanish explorers to reach the area in the 1500s, when it was occupied chiefly by Algonquian, Iroquoian, and Siouan peoples. In 1607, permanent English colonization began in Virginia with Jamestown. The Virginia Company colony was looking for gold but failed, and the colonists could barely feed themselves. The famine during the harsh winter of 1609 forced the colonists to eat leather from their clothes and boots and resort to cannibalism.[1] The colony nearly failed until tobacco emerged as a profitable export. It was chiefly grown on plantations, using primarily indentured servants for the intensive hand labor involved. After 1662, the colony turned black slavery into a hereditary racial caste. By 1750, the primary cultivators of the cash crop were West African slaves. While the plantations thrived because of the high demand for tobacco, most white settlers would raise their families on subsistence farms. Warfare with the Virginia Indian nations had been an ongoing factor during the 17th century. After 1700, there was continued conflict with natives east of the Alleghenies, especially in the French and Indian War (1754–1763), when the tribes were allied with the French.[2] The westernmost counties including Wise and Washington, only became safe with the death of Bob Benge in 1794.
