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Early Jamestown Dbq Essay

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Early Jamestown
By 1611, four years after it started, more than 500 Englishmen had arrived in the colony of Jamestown in total, but eighty percent of them had died. This started in 1607, when roughly 104 Englishmen came to what is now the modern day state of Virginia to found the first settlement in the new world. The 104 or so Englishmen sailed up Chesapeake bay and found an island to create a settlement known as Jamestown. The colony built a large fort with three walls, and they quickly figured out that they were not the only ones here. The group of indians the English knew as the Powhatans were there too already with many settlements around the area. You may think the colony was thriving but at the end of the year 1607, there would only …show more content…

The Powhatans had many small attacks on the englishmen. When they first landed in Chesapeake bay the indians shot and killed two of them. But by the end of may 1610 the indians had killed about 281 of the colonists (Doc E). This shows that the indians were killing a lot of them by the end of the time frame of early Jamestown and that the indians were a major cause of death. I think the number of deaths by indian ambushes went up over time because the English were increasing strains whether it be killing the Powhatans (Doc D) having little to no water to share with them (Doc B) or just because the English stole their land when they got there. The second evidence that the powhatans were a major cause of death is because the English settled five to ten miles away from five principal Powhatan settlements (Hook Exercise). The Powhatans were there first and with the English increasing strains to much the Powhatans could form an attack from five directions and seize the English colony. These examples of the indians killing them helps answer the question, why did a lot of colonists die in early …show more content…

One reason why it was partially there own fault is because they sent the wrong group of people to the colony. In the first settlers from 1607, there were forty seven gentlemen. The definition for a gentleman is “A person of wealth who was not used to working with his hands.” (Doc C) This means that nearly half of the people they sent were not going to be any help for building, trading, and other essential things the colonists did to survive. Another example of them having the fault to blame on themselves is when Francis west and his thirty six man crew sailed up the Chesapeake Bay in order to trade with the Powhatans to get grain. During the “trade” with the Powhatans Francis west ended up chopping off the heads of two of the Powhatans they were trading with to enforce the trade. Not only did they kill two Powhatans making strains with that camp, they also didn’t even return with the grain. The ship's crew committed mutiny and they ended up returning to England with all the grain (Doc D). There are many ways why this made them dying their own fault even more starting with the colonists that were there weren’t even reliable to trade and return with the cargo that would’ve saved lives. Another way that this was unhelpful was now even Indians a while away from their settlement had strains with them. The final way is the most obvious because it just means less hands they can actually work with

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