Brief History of the Jamestown colony

As most children learn in school, America was discovered by Christopher Columbus in 1492, accidentally while seeking the Spice Islands of the West Indies. For the next hundred years many Spanish colonies sprung up in South America, the West Indies and also in the region of modern day Florida. For a century, the Spanish had a stranglehold on the region and the Spanish royal treasury was overflowing with gold from the profits of its American empire. Eventually, England decided for economic and political reasons it should have a go at colonising too. In 1584 Sir Walter Raleigh was given an exclusive licence to colonize North America by Queen Elizabeth I. A few years later a colony was founded at Roanoke, but in 1590 it was found abandoned with only the word ‘Croatoan’ carved into a tree was left of the colony. No one knows what happened to them to this day. Anyway in 1603 the Queen died and Sir Walter Raleigh was thrown in jail.
Despite the failure of the Roanoke colony, there was still a keen appetite in Britain for another attempt to be made, and various plans were put forward for the setting up of a Public company to colonize America (following on from the success of the East India Company in Asia). However in 1606, a Royal Charter was granted giving a private enterprise (The Virginia Company) the right to form a colony.
A group of mostly young, and exclusively male, ‘adventurers’ were chosen to go on the expedition – for the most part these were the younger sons of gentlemen and the friends or relatives of investors. Practicality and a broad range of skills were not high on the selection criteria. The man chosen to lead the expedition was Christopher Newport, an experienced one armed soldier. Three ships were chosen to travel to Virginia: Susan Constant, Godspeed and Discovery and the ships left England on Saturday 20th December 1606. The journey was expected to take a couple of months, however due to bad weather the ships had to wait in the English channel for six weeks before departing for the New World. This serious delay ate into their supplies – later the shortage of food would cause extreme hardship. On board the ship, lots of arguments and infighting broke out; one man, Captain John Smith, was deemed to be the leader of a potential mutiny and thrown in the brig.
After stopping at several islands en-route, the ships eventually reached America on 26 April 1607. A sealed, secret list which had been brought across from England was opened, its contents detailing the men who were to form the new settlement’s ruling council. One of the names on the list was Captain John Smith, however Christopher Newport (who was also named as a member of the ruling council) decided not to release him from the brig straight away. This was just one of the factors that ultimately caused significant infighting and friction in the settlement for years to come – an unfortunate circumstance which was not going to help efforts to found a lasting colony.

One of the first jobs of the ruling council was to find a suitable site to start building the settlement on. There was no ideal place, and eventually a small promontory jutting out from the mainland into the James River was chosen. The reasons were that it was quite a defensible location, by the sea and the water all around it was deep enough so ships could dock right by the land (so close as to be able to tie them to trees growing on the land). It was decided to name the settlement ‘Jamestown’ after King James I.

Initial contact with the Native Americans was relatively peaceful – they were if anything curious about the newcomers, and enjoyed trading with them (the settlers traded pots, pans and trinkets for food). Agreements were made but soon broken, the natives became aggressive and fighting frequently broke out. Whose fault this was can never really now be known but let’s not forget that, speaking very little of each other’s languages, there was bound to be misunderstandings with grave consequences. That and the Native Americans were there first and so arguably were justified in defending their homeland.

In one, now famous story, Captain John Smith was captured by the natives and according to him was about to be killed by the chief, Powhatan, when the chief’s daughter Pocohontas saved him by throwing herself on top of him to stop her father’s men from killing Smith. Other encounters did not end so well. To protect themselves, the settlers fortified Jamestown against future attacks. Having relied somewhat on trade with native tribes for food, the eruption of conflict caused a distinct shortage of food to eat.
One of the primary motivations for founding a settlement was the hope of finding and mining gold and other precious metals. Samples of soil and rock were taken back to England, whereupon analysis found no trace of precious metals or anything remotely useful. This would be the first of many disappointments for the investors, as they started to wonder if they would ever see their money again. Nevertheless, in October 1607, two further ships were sent to Jamestown (albeit with far less supplies than the fledgling colony needed). They struggled through the winter, with many people dying before the coming of Spring.
The following the year, the colony started to get a bad reputation back in England. It was losing money, there was no sign of any precious metals, the colonists relied on constant supplies from England, and settlers sent over there were dying at an alarming rate.
Help for the Virginia colony eventually came from a most unlikely source. Prince Henry, son of King James I, saw the attempt to found an English colony in Virginia as a bold adventure. In 1609, despite being only 13 years old he was wielding considerable influence and considered by some (including the Spanish ambassador in a report to his masters) as the Protector of Virginia. Prince Henry’s interest in the colony caused what previously had been a secret affair to become a lot more public. Firstly it was the talk of the taverns and alehouses, then the subject of church sermons (possibly started by Prince Henry’s own chaplain) and then finally pamphlets and books started to appear about the venture. Faced with public and parliamentary pressure (and a lot of political wheeler-dealering!), Robert Cecil (Secretary of State) agreed to a new, second charter for Virginia. This allowed anyone to invest in the venture and many people did, including a large number of MPs and also the various Merchant’s Guilds in London.
It was agreed that the new wave of colonists to Virginia would comprise 600 men in 8 ships, led by veteran solider Sir Thomas Gates (who had been a patentee of the first charter). They struggled to reach their quota of colonists, and ended up paying for petty criminals’ food and passage to the colony to fill up all the ships. By the end of May 1609, the fleet was ready, all they were waiting for was Thomas Gates to arrive after being delayed in London. On 1 June, the rest of the fleet set off, leaving the flagship ‘Sea Venture’ awaiting the arrival of the governor. He duly arrived shortly afterwards, carrying a sealed casket with detailed instructions as to who would take over running the colony should anything happen to him. There was no opportunity for Gates or the casket to be transferred to another ship, which resulted in the precarious situation where the colony’s new governor, the admiral of the fleet Sir George Somers, and the sealed caskets were all on the same ship – hardly ideal.
A few weeks later on 24 July, severe Atlantic storms hit the ships, lasting for upwards of two days. The ships became separated, and had to head for Virginia on their own. Eventually all of the ships made it to their destination, all but the Sea Venture. There were many arguments over who should be president of the colony, with no governor and no instructions. Captain John Smith argued he should remain as governor, and did so for a time, but then the presidency was passed to one George Percy.
The Sea Venture was presumed lost, but it in fact crashed and sank just off the coast of Bermuda (known as the Devil Islands because of the frequency of storms and the fact that most of the area was surrounded by dangerous rocks that would cause a ship to run aground). This is another story for another time, but suffice to say that in time, the survivors of the Sea Venture built two new ships, christened ‘Deliverance’ and ‘Patience’ and made their way over several hundred miles of ocean to Virginia. They found the colony in a worse state than it had been in before. Three new settlements had been set up the previous year, but two had to be abandoned and the third, Algernon Fort, had a few starving, emaciated people left. Jamestown was hardly any better. The winter of 1609 was unusually severe (in London there were ‘frost fairs’ on the Thames where street merchants set up stalls and sold their wares). In Jamestown, that winter was known as the ‘Starving Time’ when a large number of the colonists died, either from starvation, disease or being killed by the natives.

Sir Thomas Gates took over from Percy as the colony’s President, but couldn’t do anything about the food situation – everyone was slowly starving and there wasn’t enough food to go around. After discussing the situation with Sir George Somers and Christopher Newport, it was decided to pack up the colony and head home. They didn’t have enough supplies to the last the long journey, but hoped to sail via Newfoundland and catch enough fish to see them back to England. It being duly decided, they packed up, crammed into the three available ships and started to sail down the James River towards the sea. It was at this point that what must have seemed like a miracle happened. The departing colonists spotted a longboat coming towards them, and soon an English voice could be heard. He informed them that Lord Delaware, the new royal governor had arrived with three ships, three hundred men and a vast hoard of supplies. He ordered them to return to Jamestown, which they did – a vital turning point in the history of America.

Following the arrival of Lord Delaware, things started looking up for the colony. There was still the on-off conflicts with Native Americans, but they generally had enough to eat and could start developing the colony. Back in England though things weren’t going quite as well for the Virginia Company. Debts were mounting up, the company was on the verge of bankruptcy and the threat of Spanish invastion of Virginia was hanging over the whole affair. The company needed a way to pay off debts and finance new supply missions. The solution they came up with was to hold a public lottery. That way even commoners could have a stake in the Virginia Company, though not a share. Various prizes, big and small, were on offer and the lottery proved a popular idea, however it only managed to pay off old debts - the company still wasn’t on a very sound financial footing. What they needed was a way for the colony to make money itself, in effect to become self-funding. One of the colonists, John Rolfe had just such an idea.

Rolfe came over with the fleet in 1609, bringing with him some Spanish tobacco seeds to have a go at planting. The experiment was successful, and before long, Virginia had its first cash crop. Demand for tobacco was extremely high, especially as there was a ban on buying tobacco from the Spanish at the time. Soon, many plantations started to spring up and the colony took the first steps to funding itself.

Tobacco wasn’t the only thing Rolfe was famous for however. Some time earlier in a conflict with the natives, Pocohontas, daughter of the local chieftain, was captured. Raised and educated as a Christian in the colony, she took the name Rebecca. Rolfe and Rebecca/Pocohontas fell in love and ultimately got married. In time they had a son, Thomas Rolfe, and together they visited England and the King. Unfortunately Rebecca never saw her homeland again as she fell ill and died on the way home. Thomas Rolfe grew up in England, and his descendants number many of America’s ‘First Families’.

In 1619, a new ‘Great Charter’ for Virginia was drawn up. In it, land was given to settlers, 100 acres to the original settlers, 50 acres to new settlers. Combined with the explosion in demand for Virginia tobacco this proved a catalyst for the rapid expansion of the colony. The Great Charter also set up a ‘Great Assembly’ where the colonists, through elected burgesses, got a say in how the colony was run. For a time Virginia was probably the most democratic place in the world.

The colony proceeded along nicely until 1622, when the Native Americans launched a concerted campaign to wipe out the English settlers in Virginia. If it wasn’t for early warnings from ‘friendly’ natives (probably those that had been converted to Christianity), the campaign might have succeeded. As it was, hundreds of settlers were killed, and some of the settlements were almost wiped out. This was quite a big setback, and once again for a time there was a shortage of food and supplies as much had been destroyed. Unhelpfully, rather than sending over more supplies that the colonists desparately sought, England sent over several hundred men to replace those that had been lost. Over the next few months the settlers launched their own campaign to drive the natives out of the land surrounding the colony, and also expand outwards. There was much bloodshed but eventually they succeeded and while there were many skirmishes for decades to come, the Native Americans in the area were no longer a serious threat to the colony. The settlements were rebuilt, and in the years that followed the population of Virginia increased all the time. The English colonists were there to stay.