Some English colonists arrive along the east bank of the James River in Virginia to found Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in North America.
Upon landing at Jamestown, the first colonial council was held by seven settlers whose names had been chosen and placed in a sealed box by King James I. The council, which included Captain John Smith , an English adventurer, chose Edward Wingfield as its first president.
After only two weeks, Jamestown came under attack from warriors from the local Algonquian confederacy, but the Native Americans were repulsed by the armed settlers. In December of the same year, John Smith and two other colonists were captured by Algonquians while searching for provisions in the Virginia wilderness. During the next two years, disease, starvation, and more Native American attacks wiped out most of the colony, but the London Company continually sent more settlers and supplies.
However, on June 10, Thomas West De La Warr, the newly appointed governor of Virginia, arrived with supplies and convinced the settlers to remain at Jamestown. The colony was sponsored by the Virginia Company of London, a group of investors who hoped to profit from the venture.
Chartered in by King James I, the company also supported English national goals of counterbalancing the expansion of other European nations abroad, seeking a northwest passage to the Orient, and converting the Virginia Indians to the Anglican religion.
The Susan Constant , Godspeed and Discovery , carrying passengers, one of whom died during the voyage, departed from England in December and reached the Virginia coast in late April The expedition was led by Captain Christopher Newport.
On May 13, after two weeks of exploration, the ships arrived at a site on the James River selected for its deep water anchorage and good defensive position.
The passengers came ashore the next day, and work began on the settlement. Initially, the colony was governed by a council of seven, with one member serving as president.
Serious problems soon emerged in the small English outpost, which was located in the midst of a chiefdom of about 14, Algonquian-speaking Indians ruled by the powerful leader Powhatan. Relations with the Powhatan Indians were tenuous, although trading opportunities were established. In April , Opechancanough planned another coordinated attack, which resulted in the deaths of another of the 8, settlers.
The attack ended when Opechancanough was captured in , taken to Jamestown, and shot in the back by a guard - against orders - and killed. His death brought an eventual death to the Powhatan Chiefdom; it was reduced to tributary status. His successor signed the first treaties with the English, which made the Powhatan Indians subjects of the English.
Bacon's Rebellion, in , saw more struggles in Jamestown. The settlers were unhappy about their tobacco being sold only to English merchants due to the Navigation Acts, high taxes, and attacks on outlying plantations by American Indians on the frontiers. Nathaniel Bacon got about 1, settlers to join him and take care of the "Indian Problem. Bacon and his followers, however, did not differentiate between those tribes responsible for the attacks and those who were loyal to the English.
Governor Berkeley declared Bacon a rebel and civil war erupted in the colony. In September, Bacon and his followers set fire to Jamestown, destroying 16 to 18 houses, the church and the statehouse. Not long after, in October, the Rebellion began its end with the death of Nathaniel Bacon of the "bloody flux.
As a result of Bacon's Rebellion, another treaty was signed between the English and the Virginia Indians. More tribes were part of this treaty than the one of The treaty set up more reservation lands and reinforced a yearly tribute payment of fish and game that the tribes had to make to the English. In , fire struck Jamestown again. The fire was evidently started by a prisoner awaiting execution in the nearby prison.
The fire destroyed the prison and the statehouse, though many of the public records were saved. In , the government and capital were moved from Jamestown to Middle Plantation, renamed Williamsburg. People continued to live on Jamestown Island and owned farm lands, but it ceased to be a town. Today, Jamestown Island is a historic site, though there is still a private residence on the island. It is preserved by the National Park Service and Preservation Virginia for visitors to learn about the importance of Jamestown and what was born out of its being the first permanent English settlement in North America.
Egloff, Keith and Deborah Woodward. Charlottesville: The University Press of Virginia, Haile, Edward Wright editor. 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. Right after the First Supply ships arrived in January , Jamestown was destroyed by fire.
It was rebuilt, but conflicts within the colony's leadership and with the local Native Americans prevented acquisition of a reliable food supply. New leadership was sent with additional supplies and colonists in the Third Supply. Most of the eight ships in that convoy arrived in August, , but the new settlers arrived after the planting season, and the colonists in Virginia did not have adequate supplies to feed the additional mouths.
The Sea Venture did not manage to complete the journey across the Atlantic Ocean. That ship, with the new governor Sir Thomas Gates, was wrecked at Bermuda.
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