In May of , a hearty group of Englishmen arrived on the muddy shores of modern-day Virginia under orders from King James I to establish an English colony. But despite their efforts, the Jamestown Colony was immediately plagued by disease, famine, and violent encounters with Many of the details of the Popham colony have been lost to history, but in its heyday the tiny settlement in Maine was considered a direct rival of Jamestown.
Both colonies got their start in , when the British King James I granted the Virginia Company a charter to establish Jamestown had once been the bustling capital of the Colony of Virginia. Now it was a smoldering ruin, and Nathaniel Bacon was on the run. Charismatic and courageous, he had spent the last several months leading a growing group of rebels in a bloody battle against William English soldier and explorer Captain John Smith played a key role in the founding of Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in North America, in Live TV.
This Day In History. History Vault. English Settlement in the New World. Recommended for you. Jamestown Colony. Did Jamestown Drink Itself to Death? The 13 Colonies. The Virginia Company of London was a joint stock company. It was one of many formed in England around Funding for the company was provided by adventurers — shareholders of varying financial capacity who expected a return on their investment.
The adventurers supported the establishment of a commercially viable colony in America. A local council in Virginia was to make decisions for the day to day operations of the colony. The charter provided liberal rights to the company while providing the crown a percentage of any gold and copper discovered in the new colony. The three ships are re-creations of those that brought the first colonists to Jamestown, Virginia, in May , establishing the first permanent English settlement in America.
The James River is more than miles long. At Jamestown Island, the James River has a breadth of more than two miles. It is no wonder that the English colonists hoped this mighty river might lead across the continent. For if you sit down near the entrance, except it be 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 within the land in boats, you shall from both sides of your river where it is narrowest so beat them with your muskets as they shall never be able to prevail against you. The English were genuinely concerned about the defense of their fledgling settlement.
In , the French had established a colony on the banks of the St. Johns River in what is today Florida. The James River channel was deep enough at the north end of the island for ocean-going ships to dock at the riverbank, eliminating any need to ferry goods from ship to shore on smaller boats.
The fort built in was not located exactly at the deep-water site, however; it was built slightly downstream. The colonists may have grumbled about carrying everything that distance, but the military advantages of the fort's location were obvious to people of that time. Most ships that arrived at Jamestown during the first three years, outside of local trips by the colony's Discovery , came with the First Supply and Second Supply in and the Third Supply in Carrying substantial amounts of cargo from ship to fort was a rare event.
As arriving enemy ships tacked back and forth to sail up the narrow river, the English would have time to prepare for defense and use gunfire effectively from the shoreline to attack the enemy ships " beat them with your muskets " as they tacked back and forth in the narrow portion of the river.
There were clear alternatives to Jamestown. The Elizabeth River offered an excellent harbor it is currently home to the US Atlantic Fleet at Naval Station Norfolk , but that site was too close to the Atlantic Ocean and at risk of enemy attack with minimal warning.
The English colonists could have settled further upstream than Jamestown. Their ships in were shallow draft. They would float in just a few feet of water, and the James River was easily navigated upstream to the Fall Line. The ships used by the English to sail across the Atlantic Ocean appear ridiculously small to modern viewers. Visitors to the Jamestown Settlement re-creation discover that the Discovery was the size of a modern school bus, and 21 people lived together in that small space for four months while crossing the Atlantic Ocean from London to Virginia.
On that first visit in , Christopher Newport did sail up the river until the Appomattox River. He stopped, and the location of the settlement was determined, before Newport discovered the falls on the James River at the current location of Richmond. There were no obvious, special locations for settlement that far upstream, and transatlantic shipping would be the lifeline for the new colony to receive supplies and reinforcements. The English in were far better prepared for a long-term occupation than Father Segura and the Spanish missionaries when they landed nearby in , but the Jamestown settlement depended upon resupply from England.
Jamestown was located as close to the Atlantic Ocean as the initial colonial leaders thought was safe, rather than as far inland as ships could go, in order to balance military security with the logistics of getting back and forth to England. Just as Goldilocks in "The Story of the Three Bears" preferred porridge that was not too hot and not too cold, Jamestown Island was not too close to the ocean and not too far from the ocean.
It was a just-right compromise location. Jamestown was an international shipping point from the beginning in , but the delivery of supplies from England was not always synchronized with colonial needs. The Virginia Company thought the colonists could trade with the Native Americans to meet basic needs, and the company lacked the capital to send multiple expeditions each year across the ocean just to ensure the colonists had enough food. The initial years at Jamestown were rough.
With hindsight, we know that the English needed more farmers willing to labor in growing food, and fewer gentlemen interested in adventure and treasure hunting without having to get their hands dirty in Virginia soil.
Also, the island lacked fresh water springs, one reason the Pasapahegh chose to live elsewhere. In April, the runoff from upstream is powerful enough to push fresh water on the surface of the James River from the Fall Line all the way downstream to Jamestown Island. The first colonists may have been sickened by drinking brackish water and suffered chronic salt poisoning until John Smith ordered a well to be dug in Trade with the Algonquian tribes provided an intermittent but unreliable source of corn and deer meat.
Colonists started to die from disease during the first summer. In , he launched a surprise attack in an attempt to wipe out the colony. The company claimed the attack killed people, Kupperman wrote, although the actual death toll was likely higher. The English were forced to abandon some plantations and cluster closer together.
Although the attack succeeded in killing many English, it failed in its aim of dislodging their presence. More settlers, spurred by poor economic conditions in England, arrived to work on the plantations, hoping, in time, to obtain land of their own. The attack gave the English the excuse they needed to wage war against Opechancanough's people, sparing only the children so that they could be converted to Christianity and forced to work on the English plantations, according to Kupperman.
This war was a take-no-prisoners' affair, Kupperman wrote. As the Virginia colony grew, Jamestown developed into a thriving port town.
Thousands of colonists either passed through to start tobacco plantations farther inland, or they settled in Jamestown, which expanded to a suburb of sorts called New Towne, situated east of the original fort. Representative government took hold in the s, and legislative business called for inns and taverns.
The tobacco trade required warehouses and piers along the shore. Jamestown's well-to-do residents built English-style cottages and houses along New Towne's main road. In time, with new settlers flowing in, the English would gain control of the Chesapeake Bay area and launch new colonies including Plymouth in along the Eastern Seaboard of the future United States.
In May , the Virginia Company was formally dissolved and Jamestown became a crown colony with a governor appointed by the king. With the growth of new settlements in Virginia, and the improving military situation of the English, the original fort site became redundant. As "Jamestown grew into a 'New Town' to the east, written reference[s] to the original fort disappear. Jamestown remained the capital of Virginia until its major statehouse, located on the western end of Preservation Virginia property, burned in ," researchers with the Jamestown Rediscovery Project wrote in an article on their website.
It was widely believed at the time that the fort had been washed away into the James River. Excavations revealed holes where the triangular palisade had once stood, along with remains of three bulwarks used to strengthen its defenses. The archaeologists also found the remains of five churches one built on top of the remains of the preceding church ; row houses, including a structure that appears to be the governor's house; a blacksmith shop, and barracks, among other features.
To this day, Jamestown is an active dig site. In , the team uncovered the burial sites of four Jamestown leaders who had been buried in the church. In , archaeologists digging in a church in Jamestown found a headless body that might be that of Yeardley. In recent years, replicas of the triangular fort, a barracks and the original church have been built on their original plots. Foundations of some New Towne houses have been uncovered, but because they would erode quickly if exposed to the elements, they were reburied, according to signs at Historic Jamestowne.
Some reproductions have been built using similar bricks. In his book, Kelso recalled some British tourists who came to talk with him while he was excavating the remains of a wall that consisted of a black stain in the clay the wall was made of perishable material that had decayed, leaving the stain. The British tourists were startled to find that the first English settlement, which paved the way to modern America, was so simply made.
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