Nevis, despite the Spanish claim on the island, continues to be a popular stopover point for English and Dutch ships on their way to the North American continent.

Captain Bartholomew Gilbert of Plymouth had visited the island in 1603, spending two weeks to cut twenty tons of lignum vitae wood, then sailing on to Virginia to seek out survivors of the Roanoke settlement in what is now North Carolina.

Captain John Smith visits Nevis also on his way to Virginia in 1607.

This is the voyage that founds the Jamestown Settlement, the first permanent English settlement in the New World.

The expedition of the London Company branch of the proprietary Virginia Company, headed by Christopher Newport, has endured an unusually long voyage of one hundred and forty-fourd ays, making landfall on April 26, 1607, at the southern edge of the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay, in present day Virginia Beach.

They name the place Cape Henry in honor of Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales, the eldest son of King James I of England.

Sealed Orders from the Virginia Company are opened, which name Captain John Smith as a member of the governing Council.

Smith had been arrested for mutiny on the voyage over by Captain Newport, and is incarcerated aboard one of the ships.

He has been scheduled to be hanged upon arrival, but is freed by Newport after the opening of the orders.

The same orders also direct them to seek an inland site for their settlement, which would afford protection from enemy ships.

A party of the men explores the area and has a minor conflict with some Virginia natives.

The English colonists re-board their three ships—Susan Constant, the Godspeed, and the Discovery—and proceed into the Chesapeake Bay, landing again at what is now called Old Point Comfort in the City of Hampton.

In the following days, the ships venture inland upstream along the James River seeking a suitable location for their settlement as defined in their orders.

The James River and the initial settlement they seek to establish, Jamestown (originally called "James His Towne") are named in honor of King James I.

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.

The Susquehannock people have occupied areas adjacent to the Susquehanna River and its tributaries, likely for several hundred years, from the southern part of what is now New York, through Pennsylvania, to the mouth of the Susquehanna in Maryland at the north end of the Chesapeake Bay.

Called Andastes by the French (from their Huron name Andastoerrhonon), Minquas by the Dutch and Swedes (their Lenape (Delaware) name meaning "treacherous"), Susquehannocks by the English of Maryland and Virginia (an Algonquin name meaning "people of the muddy river", and Conestogas by the English of Pennsylvania (from Kanastoge, meaning "place of the immersed pole", the name of their village in Pennsylvania), it is unknown what the Susquehannocks call themselves.

The Susquehannocks are Iroquoian-speaking people who, having rejected invitations to join the Five Nations Iroquois League to the north, have thus become a typical enemy of the Five Nations.

The true nature of their society, whether comprised of a single tribe in a single village, or a confederacy of smaller tribes occupying scattered villages, will probably never be known, since Europeans seldom visited this inland region during the early colonial period.

They have a formidable village in the lower river valley near present-day Lancaster, Pennsylvania, when Captain John Smith of Jamestown meets them in 1608.

He estimates the population of their village to be two thousand, although he never visits it. (Modern estimates of their population, including the whole territory in 1600, range as high as seven thousand.)

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.