Personal Experience: The First English Colony Of Jamestown

Jamestown was founded in the spring of 1607. It was to be the first permanent English settlement in the “New World” - where it was commonly thought that this new land would contain riches, a myriad of hidden trade routes to China, and more! However, Jamestown wasn’t without it’s dangers - they didn’t have the best environment, most settlers had little to no survival skills, and their relationships with the Indians were strained.

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

The Indians knew how to live off the land and were expert hunters and gatherers their main food they grew was corn and traded with the colonist by giving them corn and gathering up food for them. Back in England people who were wealthy had no clue how to survive on the plains and take care of a farm and plow fields and hunt for meat. Since they came from the city of England the Englishmen were people who did not know that kind of life. They were wealthy Englishmen; most of these men were lazy and didn’t know what manual labor was. In addition, there were Englishmen of trade who were carpenters, blacksmiths, shoemakers who settled down in Jamestown. It was known that one of the main reasons why the Englishmen settled in Jamestown in hope to find gold, rubies, pearls, and silver and to be able to sell it in England for a profit. Devastation struck instead, within a few months less than hundred died. These deaths were excruciating deaths, and the horror of deaths continued from 1607 to 1610. Some men would find themselves going out of their mind, while others had a blistering burning fever, and some men’s skin would just peel off like peeling off a boiled potato and sudden deaths rapidly appeared, some licked up the blood from their falling comrades as some swelled up so fast less than a hundred from five hundred survived. Many of the colonists were very weak and could not do hardly anything. Some figured the cause of the deaths was from

To avoid upsetting the Powhatan and his people the englishmen decided to pick a site for Jamestown away from the villages of Powhatan people. The native american indians had many powerful enemies when at times they were friendly with the colonist they would at times attack this made living in Jamestown difficult and they grew accustomed to keeping an eye out for they might attack any second. The englishmen would trade with Native Americans that lived around their region. They learned from each other the indians saw how the colonist made their houses while the colonist saw that the Native Americans and their

In Document D by Ivor Noel Hume we learn that Francis West and his crew sailed up the chesapeake bay and raided a native village stealing all the grain and killing some of their people. If the people of Jamestown had been on good terms with the people than they could probably learn how to grow and save food from dying in the winter. Document C adapted from john smith's journal

Jamestown faced many challenges along the way and even from the start. Spain had taken control of the seas and the new world. England knew they needed a chunk of this new world. To accomplish this objective, King James I sent Bartholomew Gosnold to establish the Virginia company and to colonize new land in North America. When the 3 ships arrived off the coast of Virginia, a terrible storm made the sailors lost in the Chesapeake bay. This lead them to find the a peninsula on the James river where they decided to build their settlement - Jamestown.

Before the colony of Jamestown first rooted its foundations in the swampy, disease-ridden James riverbanks of Virginia in 1607, the Pamunkey tribe of Native Americans had already gathered a century of knowledge and expectations of the would-be English conquerors that settled Jamestown. However, the Jamestown settlers proved an unexpected rival for the Pamunkeys and their powerful emperor Powhatan, and a force he could not have reckoned with based on his early information. Both the English and Native leaders met on the James with somewhat condescending assumptions about each other that led to a long history of wary truce and mutual prosperity as well as vengeful rivalry and all-out war.

Traveling aboard the Godspeed, Susan Constant, and Discovery, were 104 men that landed in Virginia in 1607. They called this new place Jamestown and it was the first permanent English settlement in the New World. Jamestown had a great defensive position incase of any attacks. It also provided the new settlers a warm climate with fertile soil, which allowed large plantations. Unfortunately they used almost all the land to grow tobacco and not food, and this led to them having a food shortage. The real reason to grow tobacco was for them to make money, they traded the tobacco for goods or for amounts of money. Jamestown, lead by Captain John Smith, was soon turned into a normal successful colony.

The first business that the settlers got to after they shortly arrived in Jamestown was establishing who would be making decisions. They chose seven men to be a part of a council. Captain John Smith was included in this council. After getting settled in to Jamestown, a report was made to the King. This was done by two ships traveling all the way back to England. On the way back to Jamestown from England, more supplies were brought back and more people to become settlers of Jamestown. But in the time that the people were back in England giving a report to the King, most of the settlers back in Jamestown had become very sick and many had starved to death due to the lack of supplies and food. The indigenous people of the land where Jamestown was located tried many times to attack the settlers who were left behind.

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

It was not an easy beginning. In Jamestown, the first colony, new settlers had a rough start. It is a miracle that they pulled through. It was spring of 1607 was 3 ship sailed into Chesapeake Bay, located in Virginia. The ships carried more than 100 passengers. Colonist sent by the Virginia Company hoped to work off debt, own their own piece of land or later in Jamestowns history, grow tobacco as a cash crop. By the end of 1607, ,40 out of the 110 colonists were dead. Another winter and two thirds of Jamestowns population had perished. The biggest devastaion was in 1611. In that year, 80% of the colony had passed away. Why d9id Jamestown go thruogh such a harsh start? So much of the distress was caused by the type of people Jamestown's sponsers,

The colony of Jamestown had a rough beginning. The location was very poor; men had to dig wells for water, but the drinking water was horrible. The land was also wet and swampy making a great home for disease carrying mosquitoes. After a year, almost half of the settlers died of disease and starvation. The men being ignorant had not bothered to farm or gather food for the winter because they had been too distracted by looking for gold in hopes of becoming rich. They also struggled with the Indians in the beginning, but John Smith eventually saved the colony by not allowing anyone who did not work eat. This made the settlers plant food and build their shelters. He also maintained peace with the tribe of Powhatan, and the tribe agreed to trade

Imagine going to a new land and settling there not knowing what to do. Well English colonist experience this but didn’t go well for them. In 1607 - 1611 English settlers sailed up to the coast of Virginia to find a new trade route. They ended up in a land that they named Jamestown but out of a sudden they started to die. Many colonist died for three main problems. Theses problems were issues with water, colonist lacked in survival skills, and poor relationship with Native American.

Jamestown still there  stress out Powhatan’s tribe: got English disease & gave up lots of their corn & had to work harder to grow corn

Jamestown, the birthplace of America was the first permanent english settlement in North America. In April 1606, King James I established Jamestown and on May 13, 1607, colonists began to arrive at Jamestown. When establishing Jamestown as a colony, the Virginia Company was in search of economic opportunities. The citizens wanted to escape poverty and prosecution. They wanted to be able to believe in what they wanted. The first month in Jamestown was a struggle for all passengers. The moment the passengers came ashore, they immediately began on settlement. Serious problems soon emerged when about 15,000-25,000 Indians were already living in the Chesapeake Bay when the colony was founded. The Indians were part of the Powhatan Confederacy which was ruled by Powhatan, a powerful leader. At this time, the English settlers were looking for gold that no one was farming. In this situation, Captain John Smith became the colony’s leader and established a “no work, no food” policy. Smith had been instrumental in trading with the Powhatan Indians for food but their relationship was tense in all aspects. After he was injured by a burning gunpowder in 1608 and left for England, the “starving time” began. This was a period of warfare between the colonists and Indians and the depth of many English men