Remembering the Jamestown Colony After 400 Years

▪ 2008

Introduction

by David A. Price In 2007 the first permanent English settlement in North America, the Jamestown Colony, had its 400th anniversary. On May 14, 1607, three ships landed at this spot on the James River, not far from present-day Williamsburg, Va. The founding of the colony gave England its first firm foothold in the European competition for the New World, which had been dominated by the Spanish since the voyages of Christopher Columbus in the late 15th century.

      Much had changed in Virginia and Great Britain since the celebration of the 350th anniversary in 1957. For this anniversary, the once-downplayed roles of the Native Americans and African Americans were acknowledged, and their descendants were involved in the planning. In recognition of the perspective of the Native American representatives, the organizers in 2007 eschewed the word celebration, calling the anniversary event a commemoration instead.

 An estimated 63,000 people attended parts of the three-day event marking the 2007 anniversary. Among the festivities were costumed reeanactments, living history exhibits, varied musical events, fireworks, storytelling, and visits by U.S. Pres. George W. Bush and Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom. (The queen had also attended the Jamestown anniversary festivities in 1957.) In broader gestures, the state of Virginia issued special license plates, the U.S. government printed distinctive postage stamps, and an artifact was taken on a space shuttle trip (in symbolic recognition of the common spirit of exploration). In many forms, Americans were given the opportunity to deepen their understanding of a crucial chapter in history.

Origins (1606–07).

      The colony was a private venture, financed and organized by the Virginia Company of London. King James I granted a charter to a group of investors for the establishment of the company on April 10, 1606. During this era, “Virginia” was the English name for the entire East Coast of North America north of Florida. The charter gave the company the right to settle anywhere from roughly present-day North Carolina to New York state. The company's plan was to reward investors by locating gold and silver deposits and by finding a river route to the Pacific Ocean for trade with the Orient.

      A contingent of approximately 105 colonists departed England in late December 1606 in three ships—the Susan Constant, the Godspeed, and the Discovery—under the command of Christopher Newport. They reached Chesapeake Bay on April 26, 1607. Soon afterward the captains of the three ships met to open a box containing the names of members of the colony's governing council: Newport; Bartholomew Gosnold, one of the behind-the-scenes initiators of the Virginia Company; Edward-Maria Wingfield, a major investor; John Ratcliffe; George Kendall; John Martin; and Captain John Smith, a former mercenary who had fought in the Netherlands and Hungary. Wingfield became the colony's first president. Smith had been accused of plotting a mutiny during the ocean voyage and was not admitted to the council until weeks later, on June 10.

      After a period of searching for a settlement site, the colonists moored the ships off a peninsula (now an island) in the James River on the night of May 13 and began to unload them on May 14. The site's marshy setting and humidity would prove to be unhealthful, but the site had several apparent advantages at the time the colony's leaders chose it: ships could pull up close to it in deep water for easy loading and unloading; it was unoccupied; and it was joined to the mainland only by a narrow neck of land, which made it simpler to defend. The settlement, named for James I, was known variously during its existence as James Forte, James Towne, and James Cittie.

First Years (1607–09).

      Most Indian tribes of the region were part of the Powhatan empire, with Chief Powhatan as its head. The colonists' relations with the local tribes were mixed from the beginning. The two sides conducted business with each other, the English trading their metal tools and other goods for the Native Americans' food supplies. At times the Indians showed generosity in providing gifts of food to the colony. On other occasions, encounters between the colonists and the tribes turned violent, and the Native Americans occasionally killed colonists who strayed alone outside the fort.

      On May 21, 1607, a week after the colonists began occupying Jamestown, Newport took five colonists (including Smith) and 18 sailors with him on an expedition to explore the rivers flowing into the Chesapeake and to search for a way to the Pacific Ocean. On returning, they found that the colony had endured a surprise attack and had managed to drive the attackers away only with cannon fire from the ships. However, when Newport left for England on June 22 with the Susan Constant and the Godspeed—leaving the smaller Discovery behind for the colonists—he took with him a positive report from the council in Jamestown to the Virginia Company. The colony's leaders wrote, and probably believed, that the colony was in good condition and on track for success.

      The report proved too optimistic. The colonists had not carried out the work in the springtime needed for the long haul, such as building up the food stores and digging a freshwater well. The first mass casualties of the colony took place in August 1607, when a combination of bad water from the river, disease-bearing mosquitoes, and limited food rations created a wave of dysentery, severe fevers, and other serious health problems. Numerous colonists died, and at times as few as five able-bodied settlers were left to bury the dead. In the aftermath, three members of the council—John Smith, John Martin, and John Ratcliffe—acted to eject Edward-Maria Wingfield from his presidency on September 10. Ratcliffe took Wingfield's place. It was apparently a lawful transfer of power, authorized by the company's rules that allowed the council to remove the president for just cause.

 Shortly after Newport returned in early January 1608, bringing new colonists and supplies, one of the new colonists accidentally started a fire that leveled all of the colony's living quarters. The fire further deepened the colony's dependence on the Indians for food. In accord with the Virginia Company's objectives, many of the colony's efforts in 1608 were devoted to searching for gold. Newport had brought with him two experts in gold refining (to determine whether ore samples contained genuine gold), as well as two goldsmiths. With the support of most of the colony's leadership, the colonists embarked on a lengthy effort to dig around the riverbanks of the area. Councillor John Smith objected, believing that the quest for gold was a diversion from needed practical work. “There was no talke, no hope, no worke, but dig gold, refine gold, load gold,” one colonist remembered.

      During the colony's second summer, President Ratcliffe ordered the construction of an overelaborate capitol building. This structure came to symbolize the colony's mismanagement in the minds of some settlers. With growing discontent over his leadership, Ratcliffe left office; whether he resigned or was overthrown is unclear. John Smith took his place on Sept. 10, 1608. To impose discipline on malingering colonists, Smith announced a new rule: “He that will not worke shall not eate (except by sicknesse he be disabled).” Even so, the colony continued to depend on trade with the Indians for much of its food supply. During Smith's administration, no settlers died of starvation, and the colony survived the winter with minimal losses. In late September 1608, a ship brought a new group of colonists that included Jamestown's first women: Mistress Forrest and her maid, Anne Burras.

 In London, meanwhile, the company received a new royal charter on May 23, 1609, which gave the colony a new form of management, replacing its president and council with a governor. The company determined that Sir Thomas Gates would hold that position for the first year of the new charter. He sailed for Virginia in June with a fleet of nine ships and hundreds of new colonists. The fleet was caught in a hurricane en route, however, and Gates's ship was wrecked off Bermuda. Other ships of the fleet did arrive in Virginia that August, and the new arrivals demanded that Smith step down. Smith resisted, and finally it was agreed that he would remain in office until the expiration of his term the following month. His presidency ended early nonetheless. While still in command, Smith was seriously injured when his gunpowder bag caught fire from mysterious causes. He sailed back to England in early September. A nobleman named George Percy, the eighth son of an earl, took his place as the colony's leader.

The Starving Time and Near Abandonment (1609–11).

      In the autumn of 1609, after Smith left, Chief Powhatan began a campaign to starve the English out of Virginia. The tribes under his rule stopped bartering for food and carried out attacks on English parties that went in search of trade. Hunting became highly dangerous, as the Powhatan Indians also killed Englishmen they found outside the fort. Long reliant on the Indians, the colony found itself with far too little food for the winter.

      As the food stocks ran out, the settlers ate the colony's animals—horses, dogs, and cats—and then turned to eating rats, mice, and shoe leather. In their desperation, some practiced cannibalism. The winter of 1609–10, commonly known as the Starving Time, took a heavy toll. Of the 500 colonists living in Jamestown in the autumn, fewer than one-fifth were still alive by March 1610. Sixty were still in Jamestown; another 37, more fortunate, had escaped by ship.

      On May 24, 1610, two ships, the Deliverance and the Patience, unexpectedly arrived. The colonists who had wrecked on the Bermuda Islands all had survived and managed to rebuild the two ships to carry them onward. Those colonists, led by Gates (the new governor) and George Somers, assumed that they would find a thriving colony. Instead they found near-skeletal survivors. Gates and Somers had brought only a small food supply, so Gates decided to abandon the colony. On June 7 all the colonists boarded four small ships to head home. On their way out of Chesapeake Bay, however, they encountered an incoming fleet of three ships under Thomas West, 12th baron de la Warr, who ordered them to turn around. West had with him 150 new settlers, ample provisions for the colony, and orders from the company naming him governor and captain-general of Virginia.

      In his initial message to Chief Powhatan, West demanded that he return some stolen English tools and weapons and also turn over the perpetrator of the recent murder of an Englishman. Powhatan replied with “proud and disdainful answers” (as one colonist put it), telling West to either keep the colonists within the Jamestown peninsula or leave the country. The exchange brought about a state of war. West left Virginia in March 1611, after struggling with a series of diseases, but the hostilities between the Indians and the English continued.

Peace and the Onset of the Tobacco Economy (1613–14).

      Sir Samuel Argall, a mariner who had taken West back to England, returned to the colony and became acquainted with Japazeus, the chief of the Patawomeck tribe. The Patawomeck were located along the Potomac River, beyond Chief Powhatan's empire. In March 1613 Argall chanced to learn that Powhatan's daughter Pocahontas was staying with Japazeus. Argall resolved to kidnap her and ransom her for English prisoners held by the Powhatan Indians and for English weapons and tools the Powhatan had taken.

      After persuading Japazeus to cooperate, Argall seized Pocahontas and took her to Jamestown. He sent a messenger to Chief Powhatan with his demands. Powhatan freed the seven Englishmen he had held captive, but an impasse resulted when he did not return the weapons and tools and refused to negotiate further. Negotiations finally broke down altogether. Pocahontas was taken to an English outpost called Henricus, near present-day Richmond, Va. Over the following year, she converted to Christianity and became close to an Englishman named John Rolfe, a pioneering planter of tobacco. Rolfe asked for and received permission from the colony's leaders to marry Pocahontas; the wedding took place in April 1614. As the colony's leaders had anticipated, the marriage of Rolfe and Pocahontas brought about peaceful relations between the Powhatan Indians and the English, which lasted almost eight years.

      Rolfe's experiments with tobacco quickly transformed the settlement. By replacing native Virginia tobacco with more-palatable plants from the West Indies, he was able to raise a product that could compete with Spanish tobacco in the British market. After Rolfe sent his first barrels to England in 1614, other colonists observed his lucrative results and imitated him. By the end of the decade, the colony had virtually a one-crop economy.

Representative Democracy and Slavery (1619).

      In the summer of 1619, two significant changes occurred in the colony that would have lasting influence. One was the company's introduction of representative government to English America, which began on July 30 with the opening of the General Assembly. Voters in each of the colony's four cities, or boroughs, elected two burgesses to represent them, as did residents of each of the seven plantations. There were limitations to the democratic aspects of the General Assembly, however. In addition to the 22 elected burgesses, the General Assembly included six men chosen by the company. Consistent with the British practice of the time, the right to vote was most likely available only to male property owners. The colony's governor had power to veto the assembly's enactments, as did the company itself in London. Nonetheless, the body served as a precedent for self-governance in later British colonies in North America.

      The second far-reaching development was the arrival in the colony (in August) of the first Africans in English America. They had been carried on a Portuguese slave ship sailing from Angola to Veracruz, Mex. While the Portuguese ship was sailing through the West Indies, it was attacked by a Dutch man-of-war and an English ship out of Jamestown. The two attacking ships captured about 50 slaves—men, women, and children—and took them to outposts of Jamestown. More than 20 of the African captives were purchased there.

      Records concerning the lives and status of these first African Americans are very limited. It can be assumed that they were put to work on the tobacco harvest, an arduous undertaking. English law at this time did not recognize hereditary slavery, and it is possible that they were treated at first as indentured servants (obligated to serve for a specified period of time) rather than as slaves. Clear evidence of slavery in English America does not appear until the 1640s.

Dissolution of the Virginia Company (1622–24).

      Chief Powhatan's successor, Opechancanough, carried out a surprise attack on the colony on the morning of March 22, 1622. The attack was strongest at the plantations and other English outposts that now lined the James River. The main settlement at Jamestown received a warning of the attack at the last minute and was able to mount a defense. Some 347 to 400 colonists died; reports of the death toll vary. The deaths that day represented between one-fourth and one-third of the colony's population of 1,240.

      The outcry in London over the attack, combined with political disagreements between James I and the company's leaders, led the king to appoint a commission in April 1623 to investigate the company's condition. Predictably, the commission returned a negative report. The king's advisers, the Privy Council, urged the company to accept a new charter that gave the king greater control over its operations. The company refused. On May 24, 1624, motivated in part by domestic political differences with the company's leadership, the king dissolved the company outright and made Virginia a royal colony, an arm of his government. Jamestown remained the colonial capital until Williamsburg became the capital in 1699.

Modern Developments.

      The site of the Jamestown Colony is now administered by the U.S. National Park Service (as the Colonial National Historical Park) and the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities. Since 1994 archaeological excavations have uncovered the location of the colony's original fort and thousands of artifacts. Nearby is a historical park, Jamestown Settlement, founded in 1957 and operated by the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation. Jamestown Settlement includes reproductions of the colonists' fort and buildings and a Powhatan village, as well as full-size replicas of the ships that made the first Jamestown voyage. In 2003 archaeologists with the Werowocomoco Research Group reported that they had identified the probable site of Chief Powhatan's capital village, Werowocomoco, on the York River. The Jamestown Colony, especially the characters of John Smith and Pocahontas, has been the subject of numerous novels, dramas, and motion pictures, many of them highly fanciful.

David A. Price is the author of Love and Hate in Jamestown: John Smith, Pocahontas, and the Start of a New Nation.

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