Jamestown James City Virginia United States

The English colonists, arriving on May 14, 1607, choose Jamestown Island for their settlement largely because the Virginia Company has advised them to select a location that could be easily defended from ocean-going navies of the other European states that are also establishing New World colonies and are periodically at war with England, notably the Dutch Republic, France, and especially Spain.

The island fits the criteria, as it has excellent visibility up and down what is today called the James River, and it is far enough inland to minimize the potential of contact and conflict with enemy ships.

The water immediately adjacent to the land is deep enough to permit the colonists to anchor their ships yet have an easy and quick departure if necessary.

An additional benefit of the site is that the land is not occupied by the Virginia natives, most of whom in the area are affiliated with the Powhatan Confederacy.

The settlers come ashore, and quickly set about constructing their initial fort.

The settlers, despite the immediate area of Jamestown being uninhabited, are attacked on May 14, less than a fortnight after their arrival, by Paspahegh people, who succeed in killing one of the settlers and wounding eleven more.

Jamestown is often referred to as an island.

During periods of the past four hundred years, it has been joined by a narrow land bridge (or "isthmus") to the mainland; at other times, the flow and fluctuations of the James River severed and recreated the connection, thus perhaps the confusion in definition.

Although it is technically a peninsula when thus connected, functionally, in many ways, Jamestown throughout the past four centuries has been an island.

Largely cut off from the mainland's typical game and wildlife by natural forces, the shallow harbor affords the earliest settlers docking of their ships.

This is its great attraction, one which comes at the price of other far less favorable conditions.

The colonists soon discover that the swampy and isolated site is plagued by mosquitoes and tidal river water unsuitable for drinking, and offers limited opportunities for hunting, as most potential game such as deer and bears like to forage over much larger areas, and little space for farming.

The settlers had finished the initial triangle James Fort by June 15.

Newport sails a week later back for London on the Susan Constant with a load of pyrite ("fools' gold") and other supposedly precious minerals, leaving the tiny Discovery behind for the use of the colonists.

Newport is to return twice from England with additional supplies in the following eighteen months, leading what are termed the First and Second Supply missions.

Within a month, James Fort covers an acre on Jamestown Island, although it will burn down the following year.

The wooden palisaded walls form a triangle around a storehouse, church, and a number of houses.

The settlers are not well-equipped for the life they find in Jamestown.

In addition to the "gentlemen", who are not accustomed to manual or skilled labor, they consist mainly of English farmers and "Eight Dutchmen and Poles" hired in Royal Prussia.

Many suffer from saltwater poisoning which leads to infection, fevers and dysentery.

As a result of these conditions, most of the early settlers will die of disease and starvation.

Captain John Smith is constantly seeking a supply of food for the colonists, and, using the Discovery, the smallest of the three ships which had been left behind for their use, he successfully trades for food with the Nansemonds, who are located along the Nansemond River in the modern-day City of Suffolk, and several other groups.

With the coming arrival of the new supply fleet, Captain Smith feels the colony is sufficiently reinforced to engage the Powhatan directly with a diplomatic initiative aimed at securing at least a temporary respite from native sniping, kidnapping, and assaulting.

Taking a small escort, they make their way through a attacks to the capital of the Powhatan Confederacy.

While leading the expedition in December 1607 up the Chickahominy River west of Jamestown, his men are set upon by Powhatans.

As his party is being slaughtered around him, Smith straps his native guide in front of him as a shield and escapes with his life but is captured by Opechancanough, the Powhatan chief's half-brother.

Smith gives him a compass which pleases the warrior and makes him decide to let Smith live.

Smith is taken before Wahunsunacock, who is commonly referred to as Chief Powhatan, at the Powhatan Confederacy's seat of government at Werowocomoco on the York River.

However, seventeen years later, in 1624, Smith will first relate that when the chief decided to execute him, this course of action had been stopped by the pleas of Chief Powhatan's young daughter, Pocahontas, who was originally named Matoaka but whose nickname meant "Playful One."

Many historians today find this account dubious, especially as it was omitted in all his previous versions.

Smith returns to Jamestown just in time for the arrival of the "First Supply" on January 2, 1608.

Again, it contains insufficient provisions and seventy new colonists.

Likewise, Newport's "Second Supply" brings seventy more settlers, including some craftsmen, but adds little to the welfare of the colony.

Shortly after Newport’s return, one of the new colonists accidentally starts a fire that levels all of the colony's living quarters.

The fire further deepens the colony's dependence on the natives for food.

Despite original intentions to grow food and trade with the Virginia natives, the colonists, barely surviving, have become dependent upon the supply missions.

The life of Chief Powhatan's young daughter, Pocahontas, will be largely tied to the English after legend credits her with saving John Smith's life after his capture by Opechancanough, but her contacts with Smith himself are minimal.

Records indicate that she has become something of an emissary to the colonists at Jamestown Island.

During their first winter, Pocahontas brings food and clothing to the colonists.

She later negotiates with Smith for the release of Virginia natives who had been captured by the colonists during a raid to gain English weaponry.

The trade soon proves to Chief Powhatan the weakness of the English colony.

A company of settlers arrives to Jamestown on October 1, 1608, aboard the English Mary and Margaret with the Second Supply.

The journey had taken roughly three months.

Included in the Second Supply are the first two women to come to the Jamestown Colony, Margaret Forrest and Anne Burras.

Thomas Forrest, Esq. (born May 1572 in Morborne, Huntingdonshire, England) is believed to have brought his son Peter (born 1601 in Morborne of Thomas's first marriage to Elizabeth Dancastle), and his second wife, referred to as Mistress Forrest (recently identified from her grave-site as Ann Margaret Fox (or Foxe), who has brought her maid, Anne Burras.

Thomas and Margaret had married on August 16, 1605, in St. Giles in the Fields, London, England.

While identified as Mistress Forrest's maid, it is possible that Anne Burras has accompanied the couple as a nanny to Peter (who is not Margaret's son), who would have been age six on arrival in the new colony.

The abridged compendium of American Genealogy - First Families of America states that Mistress Forrest was said to have been the first gentlewoman in Virginia.

Also included on the Second Supply are the first non-English settlers.

The company has recruited these as skilled craftsmen and industry specialists: soap-ash, glass, lumber milling (wainscot, clapboard, and ‘deal’—planks, especially soft wood planks) and naval stores (pitch, turpentine, and tar).

Among these additional settlers are eight "Dutch-men" (consisting of unnamed craftsmen and three who are probably the wood-mill-men—Adam, Franz and Samuel) "Dutch-men" (probably meaning German or German-speakers) and Polish craftsmen, who had been hired by the Virginia Company of London's leaders to help develop manufacture profitable export products.

There has been debate about the nationality of the specific craftsmen, and both the Germans and Poles claim the glassmaker for one of their own, but the evidence is insufficient.

Ethnicity is further complicated by the fact that the German minority in Royal Prussia lives under Polish control during this period.

William Volday/Wilhelm Waldi, a Swiss German mineral prospector, is also among those who arrivein 1608.

His mission is to seek a silver reservoir that is believed to be within the proximity of Jamestown.

Some of the settlers are artisans who will build a glass furnace which is to become the first factory in America.

Additional craftsmen are to produce soap, pitch, and wood building supplies.

Among all of these are the first made-in-America products to be exported to Europe.

However, despite all these efforts, profits from exports will prove insufficient to meet the expenses and expectations of the investors back in England, and no silver or gold will be discovered, as earlier hoped.

One ship had returned to England in the aftermath of the great storm.

The other seven ships had arrived safely at Jamestown, delivering two hundred to three hundred men, women, and children, but relatively few supplies, since most had been aboard the large flagship.

In the Colony, there is no word of the fate of the Sea Venture, its supplies, passengers, or the leaders who had been aboard her.

Captain Samuel Argall, piloting one of the ships of the Third Supply which made it to Jamestown, is among those who hurry back to England to advise of Jamestown's plight.

No further supply ships from England will arrive that year, however, nor the following spring.

John Smith in the previous month had been walking with his gun in the river, and the powder was in a pouch on his belt when his powder bag exploded.

He is sent back to England for medical treatment on October 4.

While back in England, Smith will write A True Relation and The Proceedings of the English Colony of Virginia about his experiences in Jamestown.

These books, whose accuracy has been questioned by some historians due to some extent by Smith's boastful prose, are to generate public interest and new investment for the colony.

Jamestown's colonists had never planned to grow all of their own food.

Instead, their plans depend upon trade with the Powhatan Confederacy to supply them with food between the arrival of periodic supply ships from England.

The efforts by anti-English leaders among the Powhatan Confederacy have however succeeded in isolating the tenuous English colony.

Additionally, lack of access to water and a relatively dry rain season has crippled the agricultural production of the colonists.

A drought earlier in 1609 during the normal growing season has left the fields of the colonists of Virginia barren.

With Smith gone, Chief Powhatan feels clear to end the truce and he begins a campaign to starve the English out of Virginia.

The Powhatans stop trading with the colonists for food.

John Ratcliffe, captain of the Discovery, has became colony president and tries to improve the colony's situation by obtaining food.

Hoping to emulate Captain Smith, John Ratcliffe attempts a trade mission shortly after being elected, but is captured by Chief Powhatan and tortured to death, along with fourteen of his men, leaving the colony without strong leadership.

The Powhatans carry out additional attacks on other colonists who come in search of trade.

Hunting also becomes very dangerous, as they kill any Englishmen they find outside the fort.

The Powhatans place the colony completely under siege and attempt to end the English settlement through starvation.

Between the lack of trade with the natives, and the failure of the Third Supply to arrive with expected supplies, the colony finds itself with far too little food for the winter.

With the new arrivals, there are many more mouths to feed.