MONEY
The indian word wampum meant "shells." Wampum and copper were the Indians' substitute for gold and silver. The early settlers also used the Indian wampum as a medium of exchange.
Wampum, in Virginia, was usually made from the oyster shell. The dark wampum, which was made from the black or purple part of the shell, had twice the value of the white. For instance, three of the dark beads or six of the white beads equalled one English penny.
The beads were cylindrical in shape about an eighth of an inch in diameter and one-fourth of an inch long. They were rubbed against stones until they were polished smooth. A hole was bored through the center of each bead with a flint instrument so that it could be strung on thread. Much of this wampum was made by tribes who manufactured and carried on commerce.
The most common wampum, made of white shell, was called rhoanoke. In old records wampum was sometimes referred to as "a chain of pearl." In a Northumberland County record there is listed among the items in the estate of "James Claughton, dec'd: Mr. Richard Thompson per order 20 arms length of Rhoanoke." Another early settler of the Northern Neck, Moore Fauntleroy, paid the Indians for his land "ten fathoms of peake" and "thirty arms length of Rhoanoke."
The English went so far as to import imitation wampum of white porcelain for sale to the Indians.
The early settlers also used beaver skins as currency. Northern Neck records about 1656 show that Colonel Nathaniel Pope offered to go security for John Washington "in beaver skins." Even hens were used for currency.
Tobacco soon became the most important currency in the colony. The words of the old song—"Where money grows on white oak trees," was almost true in Virginia for there tobacco was money and tobacco grew everywhere. Instead of gold and silver the colonial had his "tobacco note." The chief reason that metallic coin was scarce throughout the whole colonial period in Virginia was the fact that tobacco was currency.
It seems that there was always a small stock of coin in the colony, but it was either used in trade with other countries or it was hoarded by the colonists. A Virginia county record of 1700 says that: "Spanish money may not be exported out of this colony, but that it may pass currently from man to man and that all pieces of eight pass for five shillings specie."
The most convenient metallic money in Virginia (1722-1835) was a Portuguese gold coin called a johannes. A full johannes was called a "half-joe," and a double johannes was called a "joe."