Why Jamestown Died The People Of Jamestown

Back in Jamestown in the year of 1609 the settlers arrived at Jamestown. Jamestown was located in Virginia in the years of 1609 to 1611. The English settlers went to Jamestown because they wanted to find other land (new land) to stay on. The Settlers that went to Jamestown are English settlers that came from England back in the 1600’s. Why did so many Colonists die in Jamestown during the years 1609 to 1611.

Second mistake was the need for the food. The settlers’ priority was to find gold. They did not have any knowledge about what were the resource of the land. They should have a plan to invest in agriculture in order to survive, but they did not. They relayed on Indians to provide them with food. That is why in the winter of 1609-1610 many suffered and died because

In the early years of Jamestown there was lots of death. In 1607 the first permanent English colony had arrived at James river. By 1611 roughly 400 Jamestown colonists were wounded up dead. The reasoning for many colonists dieing is because of lack of skills, bad environment, then bad relationship with natives.

There was so much drought that personally I'm surprised that they survived on such little water. They would go without water for more then 10 days. That’s a long time! This means that the Jamestown Colonists were dying off. There dying off, so what about the other animals? These animals were dying too. This means that the Jamestown Colonists were losing food. This follows the old saying "Desperate times call for desperate measures." So with that being said. They would eat there horses, dogs, cats.... And even. Each other! That’s right, cannibalism.

Environmental Problems, including illness, caused the majority of colonists’ deaths in early Jamestown. The rivers and creeks where Jamestown was located were often brackish, meaning that they were too salty for use. This happened as water levels rose with the tide. Any waste introduced into the water by the settlers tended to “fester” and not get flushed away (Doc A). Drinking salty water causes severe dehydration, so colonists had to find another source for fresh water.

The third and final reason of why Jamestown failed so horribly was because of disease. They had 1 surgeon and no apothecary. Also, the triangle shaped fort they made didn't have any plumping, so... where did they put their human waste? They dumped it in the river. But, the area was notorious for having high and low tides. And they and to drink something, but the water was easier to reach at high tides do to their position on the beach. So the high tides brought in whatever they dumped out and they basically consumed their own waste which definitely got them sick. Smart people right?

In Jamestown why did so many colonists die? I believe that so many colonists died from certain areas that happened in Jamestown such as the salt water intrusion, the ships that carried disease back into the town, the Indians that would go on and of with trading to fighting, and the Jamestown drought. All of these events that occurred in Jamestown were in the time frame of 1607-1610 with 500 colonists that went to Jamestown only 20% came out of Jamestown but changed.

One of the reasons I think why the colonists died was that lack of rainfall. Doc B stated, “ “0” on the chart means average tree ring size and therefore average rainfall “ (Doc B line 4). This matters because most of jamestown's rainfall was below zero. I feel that this might have killed the colonists because they were technically in a drought and they didn’t have any water to drink.

He who does not work shall not eat,”-Captain John Smith, . The main reason why the colonists of Jamestown died was the lack of people willing to work. Due to the lack of workers, most of the colony’s people died because they were unprepared when winter came around the corner. Many gentlemen came on the first ship in 1607, approximately 50, the gentlemen were wealthy men, (Document C). They were the ones that either did not want to help, and/or were inexperienced, as stated in Document C. So the people that did work and knew what they were doing had to carry the gentlemen’s weight and their own. Another portion of people that came over on the first boat were jewelers and gold prospectors, or goldsmiths, (Document C). They did not find

The settlement was located near a swamp where the land was not good for farming, and there was little to no edible creatures living in it. That caused severe starvation because there was no food. They couldn’t grow crops in the wet, marshy land. As a result, The colonists in Jamestown solely relied on the trade with Native Americans to provide them with enough food to survive. English explorer, George Percy, said, “Our

In the document titled “Jamestown’s Environment”, it says that the tides caused saltwater to overflow into their drinking water, turning it into brackish water, deeming it undrinkable. Also, in the document “Rainfall in Jamestown”, you can see that in there was a large drought during the first 5 years that Jamestown was established, which didn’t really help crop growth. Finally, in “Chronology of English Mortality”, it talks about how the area bred disease that constantly sickened many of the settlers and even killed them. So, all of that can connect back to the thesis since the diseases and lack of water ended killing so many of the

After their third year in Jamestown, they began running out of wheat and barley, which was predominantly their food at the time, so they began eating dogs, cats, snakes, and humans. After searching Jamestown, they were let down by not having found silver and gold, they found tobacco. After the new shipments came for food it seemed to be infected with rats which created the bubonic plague. This killed many people.

Jamestown is now known as the very first permanent English settlement in the New World. However, from 1607-1610, early Jamestown constantly hovered right above the line of failure from reasons both outside the settlement and within its borders. Three main reasons the Jamestown colonists died were because of their lack of preparation, poor relations with the Native Americans, and the location of their settlement.

Diseases played a big role in Jamestown’s life throughout their history. Causing “neere halfe” (Document E) of the deaths in Jamestown, there had to be a reason. That reason is “brackish water” (Document A) or unclean water caused by the lack of strong currents in the river all of the disease origins such as feces of animals and humans settles and does not wash away. Since they had the disease in their only freshwater source, the lacked a major resource.

* Many were gentlemen who felt it below their stations to clear fields or build stockades (barriers)