Although more than a third of the colonists perished in the harsh conditions, the group eventually overcame their disastrous start and founded the first permanent English settlement in the New World. Here are some of the lesser-known facts about the Jamestown Colony. Settlers landing on the site of Jamestown, Virginia, the first permanent English settlement in America. When their ships, the Susan Constant , Godspeed and Discovery , arrived near the banks of the James River on May 14, , men and boys set foot on what would soon become Jamestown.
The initial group contained well-to-do adventurers, a handful of artisans and craftsmen, and laborers eager to forge a new home. Notably absent were members of the opposite sex. It would be another nine long months before any women arrived at the fledgling colony.
While the terrain might have appeared ideal from the deck of a ship—unoccupied and ripe with natural resources—the Virginia Company established its settlement on a swath of swampy land with no source of fresh water. Soon after, the men began to perish. Only 38 of the original settlers were still alive by January As documented in colonial records, many died from disease and famine. Others met their fate in skirmishes with the Powhatans and their tribal allies.
Experts also believe that some may have succumbed to an invisible threat: toxic water. Modern-day samples taken from some of the wells used by Jamestown colonists have revealed high levels of salt and varying degrees of arsenic and fecal contamination—a foul, and potentially lethal, cocktail. Before more colonists arrived from England, the population of Jamestown dwindled. The Virginia Company had predicted that disease would manifest, and lives would be lost. Concerned about prying eyes and an ambush on a weakened colony, they had stressed "above all things" that the colonists hide the sick and bury the dead in unmarked graves.
The men followed orders, burying their deceased out of sight behind the fort wall. When the death toll spiked between May and September of , they also made use of double burials with two men laid to rest in the same shaft.
Between January and August , new settlers arrived at Jamestown. Although their circumstances looked promising, the tide soon turned against them. Captain John Smith , who had negotiated favorable relations with the Powhatans and whose leadership bolstered the strength of the settlement, suffered gunpowder injuries and had to return to England in the fall of Back in England, women had heard horror stories about the conditions at Jamestown.
He even allowed the company to set up a lottery to provide additional funds for the Jamestown venture, according to Historic Jamestowne. In April , Pocahontas was captured and brought to Jamestown.
Although she was supposed to be used as barter for English prisoners, she turned into a catalyst for peace. She married Rolfe in , in the Jamestown church, converted to Christianity and took the name Rebecca Rolfe. Her father, Powhatan, reached a peace agreement with the English that allowed the colony to expand its cultivated territory, setting up new settlements, including Henrico and Bermuda Hundred. Now "after five years' intestine war with the revengeful, implacable Indians, a firm peace not again easily to be broken hath been lately concluded," wrote Gov.
Thomas Dale in Pocahontas, Rolfe and their infant son, Thomas, would go to London, where she would become something of a celebrity. Tragically, she died in while the three of them were preparing to return to Virginia. Rolfe returned to Virginia alone, leaving their son in the care of an English family. In , the colony's new governor, Sir George Yeardley, returned to Jamestown with instructions from the Virginia Company, which controlled the colony, to create "a laudable form of government In June of that year, 30 men met for the first time in Jamestown to discuss issues facing the growing colony.
That same year, the company allowed single women to travel to Jamestown, which in its early years had been a largely male-only settlement.
The company hoped that women would encourage the Jamestown men to settle down, rather than return to England after making some money. Also in , a Dutch ship arrived at Jamestown and traded food supplies for the ship's cargo of "20 and odd negroes," originally from Angola. They worked as indentured servants as many English newcomers did , but were forced to labor for longer terms.
After the death of the peacemaker Powhatan in , war seemed inevitable, according to Kupperman. With the colony growing, and the English settlers using more land and making more aggressive attempts to convert the Powhatan to Christianity, the stage was set for a showdown. Opechancanough, Powhatan's successor, felt threatened by the growing English presence, now consisting of more than 1, people in several plantations.
In , he launched a surprise attack in an attempt to wipe out the colony. The company claimed the attack killed people, Kupperman wrote, although the actual death toll was likely higher.
The English were forced to abandon some plantations and cluster closer together. Although the attack succeeded in killing many English, it failed in its aim of dislodging their presence. More settlers, spurred by poor economic conditions in England, arrived to work on the plantations, hoping, in time, to obtain land of their own.
The attack gave the English the excuse they needed to wage war against Opechancanough's people, sparing only the children so that they could be converted to Christianity and forced to work on the English plantations, according to Kupperman. This war was a take-no-prisoners' affair, Kupperman wrote. As the Virginia colony grew, Jamestown developed into a thriving port town. Thousands of colonists either passed through to start tobacco plantations farther inland, or they settled in Jamestown, which expanded to a suburb of sorts called New Towne, situated east of the original fort.
Representative government took hold in the s, and legislative business called for inns and taverns. The tobacco trade required warehouses and piers along the shore. Jamestown's well-to-do residents built English-style cottages and houses along New Towne's main road. In time, with new settlers flowing in, the English would gain control of the Chesapeake Bay area and launch new colonies including Plymouth in along the Eastern Seaboard of the future United States.
In May , the Virginia Company was formally dissolved and Jamestown became a crown colony with a governor appointed by the king. With the growth of new settlements in Virginia, and the improving military situation of the English, the original fort site became redundant.
As "Jamestown grew into a 'New Town' to the east, written reference[s] to the original fort disappear. Jamestown remained the capital of Virginia until its major statehouse, located on the western end of Preservation Virginia property, burned in ," researchers with the Jamestown Rediscovery Project wrote in an article on their website. It was widely believed at the time that the fort had been washed away into the James River. Excavations revealed holes where the triangular palisade had once stood, along with remains of three bulwarks used to strengthen its defenses.
Chartered in by King James I, the company also supported English national goals of counterbalancing the expansion of other European nations abroad, seeking a northwest passage to the Orient, and converting the Virginia Indians to the Anglican religion.
The Susan Constant , Godspeed and Discovery , carrying passengers, one of whom died during the voyage, departed from England in December and reached the Virginia coast in late April The expedition was led by Captain Christopher Newport.
On May 13, after two weeks of exploration, the ships arrived at a site on the James River selected for its deep water anchorage and good defensive position. The passengers came ashore the next day, and work began on the settlement. Initially, the colony was governed by a council of seven, with one member serving as president.
Serious problems soon emerged in the small English outpost, which was located in the midst of a chiefdom of about 14, Algonquian-speaking Indians ruled by the powerful leader Powhatan. Relations with the Powhatan Indians were tenuous, although trading opportunities were established. An unfamiliar climate, as well as brackish water supply and lack of food, conditions possibly aggravated by a prolonged drought, led to disease and death.
Many of the original colonists were upper-class Englishmen, and the colony lacked sufficient laborers and skilled farmers. The first two English women arrived at Jamestown in , and more came in subsequent years.
Men outnumbered women, however, for most of the 17th century.
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