Jamestown, Virginia
First landing
In December 1606,
the Virginia Company of London sent an expedition to found the colony
which became Jamestown. After an unusually lengthy trip sailing across
the Atlantic Ocean from England, the three ships, Susan Constant (sometimes
known as the Sarah Constant), Godspeed, and Discovery with their crews
of 101 men and 4 boys led by Susan Constant Captain Christopher Newport
made landfall at Cape Henry on April 26, 1607. The party explored the
area, named the cape and set up a cross near the site of the current
Cape Henry Memorial. These activities have come to be known as the "first
landing."
Exploration, seeking
a site
As soon as land
was in sight, sealed orders from the Virginia Company were opened which
named Captain John Smith as one of the "counselors". Smith
had been arrested for mutiny on the voyage over by Christopher Newport
and was incarcerated aboard one of the ships and had been scheduled
to be hanged upon arrival, but was freed after the opening of the orders.
The group then proceeded
in their ships into the Chesapeake Bay to Hampton Roads then up the
James River where they explored upriver at least as far as present-day
Hopewell, before arriving back downriver at the site of Jamestown on
May 14.
Selecting Jamestown
The colonists chose
Jamestown Island for their settlement largely because the Virginia Company
advised them to select a location that could be easily defended from
ocean-going navies of the other European states that were also establishing
New World colonies and were periodically at war with England, notably
the Dutch Republic, France and especially Spain. The island fit the
bill as it had excellent visibility up and down what is today called
the James River and it was far enough inland to avoid contact and conflict
with the Spanish fleet, while the river was 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 was that the land was
not occupied by Native Americans, most of whom in the area were affiliated
with the Powhatan Confederacy.
Explanation: Island
vs peninsula
Jamestown is often
referred to as an island. During periods of the past 400 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. Functionally, in many ways, Jamestown was an island, largely
cutoff from the mainland's typical game and wildlife by natural forces.
The shallow harbor afforded the earliest settlers which allowed docking
of their ships was its great attraction, one which came at the price
of other far less favorable conditions.
Challenges of the location
It soon became
apparent why the Native Americans did not occupy the site, and the inhospitable
conditions severely challenged the settlers. Jamestown Island is a swampy
area isolated from most hunting game such as deer and bears which like
to forage over much larger areas. The settlers quickly killed off all
the large and smaller game that was to be found on the tiny peninsula.
The low, marshy area was infested with mosquitoes and other airborne
pests and the brackish water of the tidal James River was not a good
source of drinking water. The settlers consisted mainly of English farmers
and Polish woodcutters hired in Royal Prussia. The settlers who came
over on the initial three ships were not well-equipped for the life
they found in Jamestown and many suffered from saltwater poisoning which
led to infection, fevers and dysentery. As a result of these conditions,
most of the early settlers died of disease and starvation.
Despite the area being uninhabited,
the settlers were attacked less than a fortnight after their arrival
on May 14 by Paspahegh Indians who succeeded in killing one of the settlers
and wounding eleven more. By June 15, the settlers finished the initial
triangle fort at Jamestown and a week later Newport sailed back for
London on the Susan Constant with a load of pyrite ("fools' gold")
and other supposedly precious minerals.
Early leaders:Wingfield,
Ratcliffe, Smith
Edward Maria Wingfield
was named the first president of the colony and would remain in that
position until September 1607. At that time, he was found guilty of
libel and was deposed. John Ratcliffe was elected to take his place
until John Smith was elected to replace Ratcliffe a year later.
While president of the colony,
Smith led a food-gathering expedition up the Chickahominy River where
his men were set upon by Powhatan Indians. As his party was being slaughtered
around him, Smith strapped his Indian guide in front of him as a shield
and escaped with his life but was captured by Opchanacanough, the Powhatan
chief's half-brother. Smith gave him a compass which appeased the warrior
and made him decide to let Smith live. However, when Smith was brought
before Chief Powhatan, the chief decided to execute him, a course of
action which was (as related by Smith) stopped by the pleas of Powhatan's
young daughter, Pocahontas, who was originally named Matoaka but whose
nickname meant "Playful one." After returning to his duties
in Jamestown, Smith was wounded in an accident. He was walking with
his gun in the river, and the powder was in a pouch on his belt. His
powder bag exploded and in the fall of 1609, was sent back to England
for medical treatment.
While back in England, Smith
wrote 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, were to generate public interest and new investment for the colony.
Almost abandoned: the starving time
After Smith returned
to England, Ratcliffe became colony president again and tried to improve
the colony's situation by trading with the natives. While on a trade
mission shortly after being elected, he was captured by Chief Powhatan
and tortured to death by women of the Powhatan tribe leaving the colony
without strong leadership. Without Smith's skills at obtaining food
from the Native Americans, the winter of 1609-1610 at Jamestown became
known as the "starving time" as the settlers faced starvation,
and scheduled supply ships were delayed by weather.
Fateful voyage of the
Sea Venture
Leaving England
in 1609, the Sea Venture was the new flagship of the Virginia Company
which carried the Admiral of the Company, Sir George Somers, Lieutenant-General
Sir Thomas Gates, William Strachey and other notable personages in the
early history of English colonisation in North America. She had been
separated from the seven other vessels of her fleet by a strong storm
which lasted for three days. Deliberately driven onto the reefs of Bermuda
to prevent her sinking, the 150 passengers and crew members were all
landed safely but the ship was now permanently damaged.
The Sea Venture's longboat
was fitted with a mast and sent to find Virginia but it and its crew
were never seen again. The remaining brave survivors spent nine months
on Bermuda building two smaller ships, the Deliverance and Patience
from Bermuda cedar and materials salvaged from the Sea Venture. Leaving
two men to maintain England's claim to the archipelago, the remainder
sailed to Jamestown, finally arriving on May 23, 1610. They found the
colony in ruins and practically abandoned. Of 500 settlers who had preceded
them to Jamestown, they found only 60 survivors with many of those sick
or dying. It was decided to abandon the colony and everyone was placed
aboard the two ships to return to England. The colonists buried a cannon
and some other supplies and left the colony only to return when the
supply ships came.
Renewed interest, Lord
De La Warre and more supplies
During the same
period that the Sea Venture suffered its misfortune, and its survivors
were struggling in Bermuda to continue on to Virginia, back in England,
the publication of Captain John Smith's books of his adventures in Virginia
sparked a resurgence in interest in the colony. This helped lead to
the dispatch in 1610 of additional colonists, a doctor, supplies, and
a new governor, Thomas West, 3rd Baron De La Warr.
Lord De La Warr and his party
arrived on the James River just as the Deliverance and Patience were
preparing to leave Virginia. The new governor forced the remaining 90
settlers to stay, thwarting their plans to abandon the colony. Instead,
the Deliverance and Patience turned back and all the settlers were landed
again at Jamestown.
Then, Sir George Somers returned
to Bermuda with the Patience to obtain more food supplies but he died
on the island that summer. His nephew, Matthew Somers, Captain of the
Patience, took the ship back to Lyme Regis, England instead of Virginia
(leaving a third man behind). The Third Charter of the Virginia Company
was then extended far enough across the Atlantic to include Bermuda
in 1612. (The first two successful English colonies would retain close
ties for many more generations, as can be seen when Virginian general
George Washington called upon the people of Bermuda for aid during the
American War of Independence in a letter).
Growth and development
By 1611, a majority
of the colonists who had arrived at the Jamestown settlement had died
and its economic value was negligible with no active exports to England
and very little internal economic activity. Only financial incentives
including a promise of more land to the west from King James I to investors
financing the new colony kept the project afloat. Those incentives finally
paid off by 1617, as tobacco exports were beginning to generate enough
profit to ensure the economic survival of the colony. This is largely
credited to colonist John Rolfe.
Pocahontas
Although Pocahontas's
life would be tied to the English after saving Smith's life around 1607-8,
her contacts with Smith himself were minimal. However, she became something
of an emissary. During the winter of 1608 following an almost complete
destruction of the colony by flames, Pocahontas brought food and clothing
to the colonists. She later negotiated with Smith for the release of
Native Americans who had been captured by the colonists during a raid
to gain English weaponry.
After Smith had departed,
she was kidnapped by another leader of the Colony. During this time,
Pocahontas converted to Christianity and took the name "Rebecca"
in 1613 under the tutelage of Reverend Alexander Whitaker who had arrived
in Jamestown in 1611 to found the first Presbyterian Church in Virginia.
Pocahontas later married John Rolfe on April 24, 1614. In 1615, their
only son, Thomas Rolfe was born.
An export cash crop:
tobacco
In 1612, John Rolfe,
whose wife had died during passage to Virginia, was just one of the
settlers who had arrived in Jamestown following the shipwreck of the
Sea Venture. However, his major contribution is that he was the first
man to successfully raise export tobacco in the Colony (although the
colonists had begun to make glass artifacts to export immediately after
their arrival). The tobacco raised in Virginia prior to that time, Nicotiana
rustica, was not to the liking of the Europeans but Rolfe had brought
some seed for Nicotiana tabacum with him from Bermuda. Although most
people "wouldn't touch" the crop, Rolfe was able to make his
fortune farming it. Now a wealthy and prominent man, he married Pocahontas
and lived at his Varina Farms where their son Thomas was born in 1615.
By 1617, the colonists were exporting 50,000 pounds of tobacco annually
to England.
An investor relations
trip to England
In 1616, Rolfe
and Pocahontas and their young son Thomas left their Varina Farms plantation
for a public relations mission to England, where Pocahontas was received
and treated as a form of visiting royalty. This stimulated more interest
in investments in the Virginia Company, the desired affect. However,
as the couple prepared to return to Virginia, Pocahontas died of sickness
at Gravesend on March 17, 1617, where she was buried. The now wealthy
Rolfe returned to Virginia, leaving their son Thomas, then a small child,
in England to obtain an education.
Once back in Virginia, Rolfe
married Jane Pierce and continued to improve the quality of his tobacco
with the result that by the time of his death in 1622, The Colony was
thriving as a producer of tobacco. Orphaned by the age of 8, young Thomas
later returned to Virginia, and settled across the James River not far
from his parents' farm at Varina, where he married and bore children.
Many of the First Families of Virginia trace their lineage through Thomas
Rolfe to both Pocahontas and John Rolfe, joining English and Native
American heritage.
First non-English settlers
In 1608, roughly
one year after the first English settled Jamestown a company of roughly
seventy German and Polish settlers arrived aboard the English vessel
Mary and Margaret. The journey took roughly three months. William Volday,
a Swiss-German was among those who arrived in 1608. He was sent in the
name of the Virginia Stock Company of London seeking a silver reservoir
that was believed to be within the proximity of Jamestown. At the time,
Jamestown was nothing more than a mere fort and conditions were harsh,
causing more than half of the pilgrims to die by fall of 1609.[1] By
1620, German settlers from Hamburg who were also procured by the Virginia
Stock Company operated one of the first sawmills in the region.[2] Among
these were several other skilled craftsmen such as glass makers, carpenters
as well as pitch/tar/soap-ash makers, who produced some of the colonies
first exports of the early 17th century.[3]
1619: First single women,
first blacks, and first democratic assembly
Wheat was also
grown in Virginia starting in 1618. The labor intensive tobacco plantations
led to the importation of the colony's first black "indentured
servants" as well as single women from England in 1619. That same
year, the House of Burgesses, the first legislature of elected representatives
in America, met in the Jamestown Church. Their first law was to set
a minimum price for the sale of tobacco and set forth plans for the
creation of the first ironworks of the colony.
The Inside of the First Church in Jamestown, where the first law in
America was made
1622: Native Americans
attack the colonists
The Indian Massacre
of 1622, an uprising led by Opechancanough, led to the deaths of nearly
400 settlers, wiping out several entire communities, including Henricus
and Wolstenholme Towne. However, Jamestown was spared from destruction
due to the warnings of a Native American boy named Chanco who gave warning
to colonist Richard Pace. Pace, after securing himself and his neighbors
on the south side of the James River, took a canoe across river to warn
Jamestown which narrowly escaped destruction. A year later, Captain
William Tucker and Dr. John Potts worked out a truce with the Powhatan
Native Americans and proposed a toast using liquor laced with poison.
200 Native Americans were killed by the poison and 50 more were slaughtered
by the colonists. In 1624, the Virginia Company lost its charter and
Virginia became a crown colony.
Indian massacre of 1622, depicted in a woodcut by Theodore de Bry
Bacon's Rebellion
In 1634, the English
Crown created eight shires (i.e. counties) in the colony of Virginia
which had a total population of approximately 5,000 inhabitants. James
City Shire was established and included Jamestown. Around 1642-43, the
name of the James City Shire was changed to James City County.
In the 1670s, the governor
of Virginia was Sir William Berkeley, a scholar and playwright, serving
his second term in that office. Berkeley, now in his seventies, had
previously been governor in the 1640s and had experimented with new
export crops at his Green Spring Plantation near Jamestown. In the mid
1670s, a young cousin through marriage, Nathaniel Bacon, Jr., arrived
in Virginia sent by his father in the hope that he would "mature"
under the tutelage of the governor. Although lazy, Bacon was intelligent
and Berkeley provided him with a land grant and a seat on the Virginia
Colony council. However, the two became at odds over relationships with
the Native Americans, which were most strained at the outer frontier
points of the colony.
In July 1675, Doeg Indians
raided the plantation of Thomas Mathews in the northern portion of the
colony along what became the Potomac River in order to gain payment
for several items Mathews had obtained from the tribe. Several Doegs
were killed in the raid and the colonists then raided the Susquehanaugs
(a different tribe) in "retaliation" which led to large-scale
Indian raids. Governor Berkeley tried to calm the situation but many
of the colonists, particularly the frontiersmen, refused to listen to
him and Bacon disregarded a direct order and captured some Appomattox
Indians, who were located many miles south of the site of the initial
incident, and almost certainly not involved.
Following the establishment
of the Long Assembly in 1676, war was declared on "all hostile
Indians" and trade with Indian tribes became regulated, often seen
by the colonists to favor those friends of Berkeley. Bacon opposed Berkeley
and led a group in opposition to the governor. Bacon and his troops
set themselves up at Henrico until Berkeley arrived which sent Bacon
and his men fleeing upon which Berkeley declared them in rebellion and
offered a pardon to any who returned to Jamestown peaceably.
Bacon led numerous raids
on Indians friendly to the colonists in an attempt to bring down Berkeley.
The governor offered him amnesty but the House of Burgesses refused;
insisting that Bacon must acknowledge his mistakes. At about the same
time, Bacon was actually elected to the House of Burgesses and attended
the June 1676 assembly where he was captured, forced to apologize and
was then pardoned by Berkeley.
Bacon then demanded
a military commission but Berkeley refused. Bacon and his supporters
surrounded the statehouse and threatened to start shooting the Burgesses
if Berkeley did not acknowledge Bacon as "General of all forces
against the Indians". Berkeley eventually acceded, and then left
Jamestown. He attempted a coup a month later but was unsuccessful. In
September, however, Berkeley was successful and Bacon dug in for a siege
which resulted in his burning Jamestown to the ground on September 19,
1676. Bacon died of the flux and lice on October 26, 1676 and his body
is believed to have been burned. Berkeley hanged the major leaders of
the rebellion (22 in total?) and was then relieved of his governorship
and returned to London where he died in July, 1677.
Governor Berkeley confronts Bacon
The capitol moves from
Jamestown to high ground
The first phase
of Jamestown's history ended in 1699 when a decision was made not to
rebuild the statehouse which had burned down in 1698 but instead to
accept a proposal by students of the College of William and Mary to
move the capital of Virginia to higher ground to about 12 miles (20
km) away where their school was located at Middle Plantation which would
soon be renamed Williamsburg.
18th century
Due to the movement
of the capital to Williamsburg, the old town of Jamestown began to slowly
disappear from view. By the 1750s, the land was heavily cultivated,
primarily by the Travis and Ambler families.
19th century
During the American
Civil War, in 1861, Confederate William Allen, who owned the Jamestown
Island, occupied Jamestown with troops he raised at his own expense
with the intention of blockading the James River and Richmond from the
Union Navy. He was soon joined by Lieutenant Catesby ap Roger Jones
who directed the building of batteries and conducted ordinance and armor
tests for the first Confederate ironclad warship CSS Virginia (1861).
Jamestown had a force of 1200 men which was augmented in early 1862
by an artillery battalion. When Union forces landed at Yorktown under
General George B. McClellan in April 1862, the peninsula was however
abandoned by the Confederates.
Once in Federal
hands, Jamestown became a meeting place for runaway slaves who burned
the Ambler house, an eighteenth century plantation which along with
the old church were the few remaining signs of Jamestown. When Allen
sent men to assess damage in late 1862, they were killed by the former
slaves. For the most part, Jamestown did not have an active role in
the Civil War although both sides Following the surrender at Appomattox
Courthouse, the oath of allegiance was administered to former Confederate
soldiers at Jamestown.
Remains of the tower of the old church
20th century
Jamestown Exposition of
1907
The Jamestown Exposition
of 1907 was one of the many world's fairs and expositions that were
popular in the early part of the 20th century. Early in the 20th century,
as the tercentennial of the 1607 Founding of the Jamestown neared, leaders
in Norfolk, Virginia began a campaign to have a celebration held there.
The Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities had started
the movement in 1900 by calling for a celebration honoring the establishment
of the first permanent English colony in the New World at Jamestown
to be held on the 300th anniversary.
No one thought that the actual
isolated and long-abandoned original site would be suitable because
Jamestown Island had no facilities for large crowds and the fort housing
the Jamestown Settlement was believed to have been long-ago swallowed
by the James River.
The decision was
made to locate the international exposition on a mile-long frontage
at Sewell's Point near the mouth of Hampton Roads. The Jamestown Exposition
was held there from April 26, 1907 to December 1, 1907.
Exposition Seal
Jamestown Festival
Park
Jamestown Festival
Park was established at Jamestown Island in 1957 to mark the 350th anniversary
of the founding of the Jamestown Settlement. At the National Park Service
site, the reconstructed Jamestown Glasshouse, the Memorial Cross and
the visitors center were completed and dedicated. Full-sized replicas
of the three ships that brought the colonists, the Susan Constant, Godspeed,
and Discovery were constructed at a shipyard in Portsmouth, Virginia
and docked at Jamestown. Other events included army and navy reviews,
air force fly-overs, ship and aircraft christenings and even an outdoor
drama at Cape Henry, site of the first landing of the settlers. This
celebration continued from April 1 to November 30 with over a million
participants, including dignitaries and politicians such as the British
Ambassador and U.S. Vice President Richard Nixon. The highlight for
many of the nearly 25,000 at the Festival Park on October 16 was the
visit and speech of Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom and her
consort, Prince Philip. Queen Elizabeth II loaned a copy of the Magna
Carta for the exhibition.
Jamestown Rediscovery
Starting in 1994,
a major archaeological campaign at Jamestown known as the Jamestown
Rediscovery project has been conducted by the Association for the Preservation
of Virginia Antiquities (now APVA Preservation Virginia) in preparation
for the quadricentennial of Jamestown's founding. The original goal
of the archaeological campaign was to locate archaeological remains
of "the first years of settlement at Jamestown, especially of the
earliest fortified town; [and the] the subsequent growth and development
of the town". [1]
Early on, the project discovered
early colonial artifacts. This was something of a surprise to some historians
as it had been widely thought that the original site had been entirely
lost due to erosion by the James River. Many others suspected that at
least portions of the fort site remained and subsequent excavations
have shown that only one corner of the first triangular fort (which
contained the original settlement) turned out to have been destroyed.
The extended archaeological
campaign has made many discoveries including retrieving hundreds of
thousands of artifacts, a large fraction of them from the first few
years of the settlement's history. In addition, it has uncovered much
of the fort, the remains of several houses and wells, a palisade wall
line attached to the fort and the graves of several of the early settlers.
Among the discoveries, a
gravesite with indications of an important figure was located. Some
theorizes the remains to be that of Captain Bartholomew Gosnold [2]
though others have claimed it to be the remains of Thomas West, 3rd
Baron De La Warr. It had long been thought that Baron De La Warr, who
died en route back to the colony from England on his second trip, had
been buried elsewhere but some recent research concluded that his body
was in fact brought to Jamestown for burial. [3]. The studies are ongoing
as of 2006.
Archaeological work at the
site continues and is greatly expanding knowledge of what happened at
Jamestown in its earliest days. Many of the hundreds of thousands of
artifacts found by Jamestown Rediscovery archaeologists are now on display
in the Archaearium at Historic Jamestowne.
21st century
Historic Jamestowne
Historic Jamestowne,
located at the original site of the Jamestown colony, is jointly administered
by APVA Preservation Virginia and the National Park Service. The central
22 1/2 acres of land were donated to the Association for the Preservation
of Virginia Antiquities (now APVA Preservation Virginia) in 1893 and
the remaining 1500 acres were acquired by the National Park Service
in 1934 and are now part of the Colonial National Historic Park. The
two organizations have worked together since 1941 to preserve the site
of the first permanent English settlement in North America and to interpret
its history for visitors. Today visitors can view the site of the original
1607 James Fort, the 17th century church tower and the site of the 17th
century town as well as tour an archaeological museum called the Archaearium
and participate in living history and ranger tours. They can also often
observe archaeologists from the Jamestown Rediscovery project at work.
Jamestown Settlement
Although the 1957
celebration is long past, many of the attractions adjacent to the APVA-NPS
site were created as part of the what was known as Jamestown Festival
Park, largely sponsored by the Commonwealth of Virginia. Many of these
attractions remained and some have been enhanced in the years since.
Now known as Jamestown Settlement, the former Jamestown Festival Park
features a new indoor museum as well as reconstructions of the 1607
James Fort and a Powhatan Indian village. The original replicas of the
three ships that brought the colonists, the Susan Constant, Godspeed,
and Discovery which had been constructed at a shipyard in Portsmouth,
Virginia have been rebuilt, and are still very popular with tourists,
especially school groups. The museum is operated by the Commonwealth
of Virginia state government.
Jamestown 2007
2007 will mark
the 400th anniversary of the settlement of Jamestown. Preparations are
underway for a variety of events being promoted under the banner of
America's 400th Anniversary and promoted by the Jamestown 2007 Commission.
America's 400th Anniversary will commemorate the quadricentennial of
the founding of the Jamestown Settlement with 18 months of statewide,
national and international festivities and events.
A feature length film, The
New World, covers the story of Jamestown's colonization. Although historically
accurate in many ways, the plot focuses on a dramatized relationship
between John Smith, played by Colin Farrell, and Pocahontas. A limited
release of the film took place in December 2005, with the full release
in January 2006. Many scenes were filmed on-location nearby along the
James and Chickahominy Rivers and at Henricus Historical Park in Henrico
County, Virginia.
Trivia
Jimsonweed is a
corruption of "Jamestown weed," named for the village after
some British soldiers sent to quell Bacon's Rebellion in 1676 failed
in their mission after being fed leaves of the plant which grew wild
in great quantity there. They were "intoxicated" for about
a week and claimed afterward to have no memory of that period.
The NPS and the
Commonwealth of Virginia, respectively the principal operators of the
Historic Jamestowne and Jamestown Settlement attractions at Jamestown,
each also operates a separate, but nearby and complimentary attraction
at Yorktown, near the opposite end of the Colonial Parkway.
Further reading
William M. Kelso,
Jamestown Rediscovery II (APVA, 1996)
William M. Kelso, Nicholas M. Luccketti, Beverly A. Straube, Jamestown
Rediscovery III (APVA, 1997)
William M. Kelso, Nicholas M. Luccketti, Beverly A. Straube, Jamestown
Rediscovery IV (APVA, 1998)
William M. Kelso, Nicholas M. Luccketti, Beverly A. Straube, Jamestown
Rediscovery V (APVA, 1999)
William Kelso, Beverly Straube, Jamestown Rediscovery VI (APVA, 2000)
David A. Price, Love and Hate in Jamestown (Alfred A. Knopf, 2003)
Ernie Gross, "The American Years" (Charles Scribner's Sons,
1999)
James Horn, "A Land as God Made It" (Perseus Books, 2005)
Chesapeake, a novel (1978) by author James A. Michener
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