Augustine in Florida. That settlement never developed beyond its role as a fort presidio. Its primary role was to prevent pirates or other nations from establishing a base for capturing Spanish ships carrying gold and silver home from the New World.
Augustine also protected Catholic missionaries - but the Spanish never tried to "plant" a large number of permanent settlers there. Jamestown was intended to become the core of a long-term settlement effort, creating new wealth for the London investors and recreating English society in North America.
The colonists arrived at Jamestown after a 4-month journey from London. The three ships, the Susan Constant , Godspeed , and Discovery , left on December 16, from the docks at Blackwall on the Thames River, stopped at the Canary Islands for water, reached Martinique in the West Indies on March 23, sailed north from the Caribbean on April 10, reached Cape Henry on April 26 - and then spent over two weeks exploring places along the James River before settling at Jamestown on May 14, One basic geography question is "Why did the English settle Virginia - and why did they start at Jamestown?
The English spent over two weeks exploring the James River before choosing the site of their first settlement. Jamestown was placed on a peninsula with just a narrow link to the mainland, located 50 miles upstream from the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. The original instructions to the colony, written by investors in London before anyone understood the local geography, prioritized safety over convenience for travel between England-Virginia.
The focus on safety was based on the French experience at Fort Caroline over 50 years earlier. The French settled in near the coastline in what today is Jacksonville, Florida. Within a year, the Spanish in nearby St. Augustine destroyed the fort and killed the French colonists attempting to flee. Jamestown was located far north of the Spanish base at St. Augustine and, in recognition of that threat, placed further inland: 2. But if you choose your place so far up as a bark of fifty tuns will float, then you may lay all your provisions ashore with ease, and the better receive the trade of all the countries about you in the land; and such a place you may perchance find a hundred miles from the river's mouth, and the further up the better.
For if you sit down near the entrance, except it be in some island that is strong by nature, an enemy that may approach you on even ground, may easily pull you out; and if he be driven to seek you a hundred miles [in] the land in boats, you shall from both sides of the river where it is narrowest, so beat them with your muskets as they shall never be able to prevail against you. The English colonists who arrived in picked that site far upstream from the coast to avoid the Spanish. To a lesser extent, the English also feared the French and the Dutch.
The constant international conflicts between European nations were a key factor in determining the location and the defenses of the new English colony halfway across the world.
Those locations were clearly convenient places to settle and offered plenty of fresh water from inland streams and wells. Point Comfort would have been far more convenient. As economic historian Philip Alexander Bruce later noted: 3. However, all the future ports in Hampton Roads and of course the Eastern Shore were too exposed to attack by one or more enemy ships. The fears were realistic; at various times, pirates, Dutch, British, and Yankee attacks showed that settlements in Hampton Roads were vulnerable to enemy raids.
In the English sailed "so far up as a bark of fifty tuns will float" and chose to settle on a peninsula that was almost an island. A slender neck of land on the northwest corner allowed access to the mainland, but could be defended easily against the Native Americans. Width of the peninsula, or at least descriptions of it, changed over time. In the peninsula was calculated to be 50 feet wide. In , estimates were feet, but in the "slender neck" had grow to be nearly feet wide.
By erosion had washed away the link, but a human-built causeway allowed regular access to Jamestown. Jamestown was an island at high tide during the American Revolution. By the isthmus had washed away completely, and a bridge over "Back River" connected the mainland to Jamestown Island. In there were no permanent Native American villages on the peninsula. The Pasapaheghs hunted and fished there, but lived upstream closer to the Chickahominy River.
Captain Gabriel Archer advocated for Archer's Hope because that site offered better onshore conditions, but the river channel was not deep enough there. Today, the Kingsmill Resort has covered Archer's Hope with houses and golf courses. 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. Smith had been instrumental in trading with the Powhatan Indians for food.
However, in the fall of he was injured by burning gunpowder and left for England. Smith never returned to Virginia, but promoted colonization of North America until his death in and published numerous accounts of the Virginia colony, providing invaluable material for historians. Just when the colonists decided to abandon Jamestown in Spring , settlers with supplies arrived from England, eager to find wealth in Virginia.
Twenty individuals died in August alone, and multiple burials saved energy and time. In the other excavated shaft lay a boy about 14 years old, according to Historic Jamestowne. A small arrowhead was found next to the boy's right leg, which suggests he had been shot shortly before he was buried.
This may be the young boy who was recorded by Percy as being slain during combat with Powhatan Indians during the first month of the settlement. William Kelso, who directs excavations at Jamestown, told Live Science that the archaeology team hopes to excavate the rest of the graves and identify the bodies.
The well-known story of how Pocahontas, daughter of Chief Powhatan, saved Captain John Smith's life very likely did not happen, at least not the way most people have heard it and most certainly not the way the Disney animated movie told it , said Bridges. Smith, who was elected president of the colony's council after most of the councilors died or became incapacitated, wrote that the colony depended on trade with friendly Powhatan in order to survive. Indeed, according to park ranger Bridges, when they weren't fighting each other, Powhatan's people often visited the settlers.
The chief's daughter, about 10 years old at the time, was a frequent visitor to Jamestown, delivering messages from her father and bringing food and furs to trade for hatchets and trinkets, Bridges said. She also liked to play, and would spend time turning cartwheels with the boys of the colony. Her name was actually Matoaka, and Pocahontas was a nickname meaning "Little Wanton," according to Historic Jamestowne. Smith later wrote that at one point during an expedition in December , he was captured and brought to Powhatan.
He was first welcomed and offered a feast. Then he was grabbed and forced to stretch out on two large, flat stones. Indians stood over him with clubs as though ready to beat him to death if ordered. Suddenly, Pocahontas rushed in and took Smith's "head in her arms and laid her owne upon his to save him from death," wrote Smith.
The girl then pulled him to his feet. Powhatan said that they were now friends, and he adopted Smith as his son, or a subordinate chief. Smith's tale has become legend, and he romanticized it in later writings, according to Historic Jamestowne.
Smith told the story only after Pocahontas converted to Christianity , and he didn't mention it in an earlier account of his adventures in Virginia. And if Smith's story is true, this mock "execution and salvation" ceremony was traditional with the Powhatan, and Pocahontas' actions were probably one part of a ritual.
Although the colony had been resupplied, along with new settlers, in January , the settlers hit another low in the winter of , a period that became known as the "starving time," according to Historic Jamestowne.
By this time, Smith had been forced to leave due to gunpowder injuries, and the colony's new governor, Thomas Gates, had been shipwrecked on the island of Bermuda along with essential supplies. By this point, relations with the Powhatan had deteriorated to the point where trade was impossible and the Jamestown fort was under siege. When the colonists ran out of food, they "fed upon horses and other beasts as long as they lasted, we were glad to make shift with vermin, as dogs, cats, rats and mice," wrote Percy in an account of what happened.
Boots, shoes and leather were also consumed and, as recent archaeological evidence confirms , some colonists resorted to cannibalism to survive. In May , Gates made his way from Bermuda to the colony on makeshift ships made partly from wood found on Bermuda.
Finding only 60 survivors at Jamestown, he gave the order to abandon the settlement but not to burn it. As the group set out to sea, however, they encountered a fleet led by Lord De La Warr, with fresh supplies and new colonists, and they returned to Jamestown and repaired the fort.
In the decade to come, Jamestown's situation would improve. Martial law was imposed, solving, however harshly, some of the discipline problems experienced in the first three years of the colony, according to Historic Jamestowne. King James I would give the Virginia Company a monopoly on tobacco, making the trade even more profitable. 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.
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