Jamestown: The Start Of The American Colonies

The Starving Time document was an excerpt from John Smith’s book The Generall Historie of Virginia. The starving time took place in a colony named Jamestown. The Jamestown colony was located in modern day Jamestown, Virginia and named after King James I. The purpose of its founding was to find gold and wealth, like the Spaniards did in South America. But to no avail, most of the people died after several months. In Jamestown, there were many major issues that prevented them from reaching their goal, and they include hostilities with the native people and the lack of supplies.

Jamestown; the birthplace of America. A Land As God Made It: Jamestown and the Birth of America was written on July 31st, 2008, by James Horn and published by Basic Books. While reading this book, the many Native groups that were in the Americas far before Europeans navigated there will be brought up many times. Many people just believe that the Europeans traveled to the “New World”, claimed it, and that was it. But in reality, there is so much more to the story than just claiming Jamestown. The Europeans had to go through many trials just to get to the Americas, and when they reached their destination, it was not all fine and dandy. Fights with the Natives broke out multiple times, and many of the Europeans died due to different diseases and starvation. In A Land As God Made It: Jamestown and the Birth of America, discoveries of the many people that were involved in the process of turning the ‘New World’ into what we know today as America are explained.

Prior to the founding of the Massachusetts Bay colony in 1630 religion had not played a large part in the politics and development of the British North American colonies. The first settlers who established Jamestown in 1607 were looking for riches similar to those found by the Spanish in Central America. After finding no treasure and on the brink of collapse they developed a cash crop economy and by doing so created the first stable British colony. The success of Jamestown combined with religious tensions between Anglicans and Protestants in England, caused the Puritans to form the

The founding of Jamestown was brought about in June of 1606 when King James I, granted a charter to the Virginia Company of London. The Virginia Company of London was a joint stock company established during this time with the purpose of growing settlements in North America. This group of London entrepreneurs had hopes of profit in building a secure settlement on Jamestown Island, and with the help of three ships and 100 colonists, The London Company became the first English Settlers in North America.

In spite of the many Indian massacres, Jamestown still grew to be a successful colony. The London Company was the main founder of Jamestown. The London Company's founders believed that there were precious metals in America so they sent a group of settlers to Jamestown. The trip to the Americas was not a very easy one for these settlers. They had to overcome many obstacles just to get to the Americas. In 1619 the House of Burgesses was formed which marked the first legislative body in America. Jamestown was plagued by many disasters. They were faced with one continuous disaster, Indian wars. They fought over land with Indians for many years. The London Company, creation of the colony, and

Jamestown land was desirable because of the many trees for building houses and ships,growing crops, and good hunting ground.

Throughout the 17th century, the English faced many hardships. The settlers of Jamestown had faced misfortune of the new land such as disease and malnutrition, and failure of crops. Over time the English built their economic and social structure with perfecting crops, indentured slaves and building a new society that would spark others to explore.

Since the first civilization Jamestown, the colonists slowly adapted and improved the environment of the land and gained more and more people due to the rapid overpopulation in England. But as the more advanced and smarter the people got. They began to import and export goods to other countries as a growing country, the British began to levy all kinds of trade regulation and taxes, all to stop the aid it was giving to other world power country that British was enemy and the selfish greed British had to only be the one gaining from the colonist. Therefore causing unsettling feelings of the colonies towards them, as they felt they are been treated unfairly and taking away what they felt is their own right and own money.

The more southern colonies were under very different circumstances than their religious neighbors up north. Document five does show the thirsty and greedy psyche’s of the colonists on their way to the Virginia colony. This greed was fueled by the south’s land was more fertile and arable and allowed for larger amounts of cash crops and increased profits and much more monetary incentive to become a colonist rather religious incentive. After the initial crisis of the Jamestown colony, Jamestown’s population grew exponentially after large amounts of people, as seen in document four, crossed the ocean not for God but for gold. Soon the colony grew at such a rate the governor Berkeley was forced to beseech the king and parliament for more soldiers

Jamestown was a very interesting settlement. It was full of death, mosquitoes, and tobacco. With this you will find a lot out about Jamestown.

Scientists have found the bones of four members of Virginia’s Jamestown colony. All had died more than 400 years ago. Their graves also held artifacts that showed us the lives and deaths of these early American leaders.

Both small and big things the early americans did affected the growth and ways of their colony of Jamestown by a lot. For instance, when they first began there journey to find a new colony, they sent 144 men aboard, some being the spoiled, greedy gentlemen and some being the poor, hard working commoners. Since each group of people were very different compared to the other, it created fights and bickering among the men, dividing them on the ships. They may have not even found land yet, but already trouble was brewing.

The first of the thirteen colonies was Jamestown, Virginia. Virginia was was the first successful British settlement in the Americas, colonized in 1607. (Before Jamestown, there was a colony named ‘Roanoke’, in what is now North Carolina. This colony, settled in 1587, was abandoned by 1590, all the colonists having disappeared without a trace) England crossed the Atlantic to establish a permanent colony, as well as to search for riches. Though Jamestown did eventually get their wealth, it was not for the reasons that they originally anticipated. Jamestown was the first colony to start growing tobacco, which they gained a grand profit from. Jamestown, Virginia was also the first colony to start using slaves, beginning in 1619. The settlement of Virginia also had another negative impact besides slavery. When the English first came over from Europe, they brought diseases that the Native Americans’ immune systems were not equipped to deal with. This resulted in a large majority of Native Americans dying off.

During that time there were many settlers in James town.They were good farmer ,good builders ,good businessmen. First ,they grew tobacco,potato,corn.And settlers also farmed chicken ,goat,and cow .Then the settlers were good builders ,because the can use many simple things to built house ,they built house of wattle and -sticks and clay.They finished just in time to stave their off their first Indians attack on May 26,1607.Their house were very useful ,so they were very good builders.Moreover settlers were good business men,because they came to Jamestown and by their working they got their own land ,their slaves ,and then they grew lot of tobacco ,dried it and sled it to other businessmen .Finally they got rich .so I think

The English settlement of Jamestown, Virginia, was founded on May 14, 1607 by Captain Christopher Newport and his fleet of a hundred or so Englishmen. During the next nine decades, this settlement would begin as "a verie fit place for the erecting of a great cittie(Tyler, 33)", and develop into "nothing but Abundance of Brick Rubbish, and three or four good inhabited houses(Miers, 107)." Two major factors led to the gradual decay and destruction of Jamestown: (1) The profit-before-survival attitude of the English settlers, and (2) the persistence of the Indians of the area to drive the English from their native lands.