Jamestown

The mystery of Roanoke

Before the English founded Jamestown, they started the colony of Roanoke in 1585. But within five years, everyone in the Roanoke Colony had mysteriously disappeared. All of the houses and tools were gone too!

The only clues about what happened were the word "CROATOAN" carved into a fence post and the letters "CRO" carved into a tree. Croatoan was the name of a nearby island. Today, historians still don't agree on what happened to the people of the Roanoke Colony.

By 1607, the English were ready to try to start a colony again. They sent a group of people to found Jamestown in 1607. They called the area around Jamestown the Virginia Colony.

In 1606, King James I of England gave a charter to the Virginia Company. The Virginia Company's charter said the company had the right to start a colony in the Americas. The colony would be called the Virginia Colony.

How did a charter give people rights?

By 1600, England had claimed most of the land on the Atlantic coast of North America. In other words, the king or queen of England believed he or she could decide who had a right to settle in North America. So, even though Native Americans were already living in Virginia, King James I claimed all the rights over the land.

Most English settlers did not question whether it was fair to move onto lands that native people had already settled.

The Virginia Company had many reasons for wanting to start a colony in North America. Look at the underlined parts of the list.

• to make money by finding gold, copper, and silver in North America

• to claim land and resources

• to teach Native Americans about Christianity for England

According to the list, the Virginia Company wanted to make money off of the natural resources in North America.

A natural resource is something found in nature that people can use.

The Virginia company also wanted to change the religion of Native Americans to Christianity. The company wanted to teach the Native Americans about Christianity so that they would become Christians, too.

The Virginia Company was not interested in escaping the Church of England. Most of the Virginia Company members were part of the Church of England.

The Virginia Company brought together over 100 men to help start Jamestown. The men had many reasons to want to go. Some of the reasons were push factors, or bad things pushing them away from England. Some of the reasons were pull factors, or good things pulling them toward Jamestown.

What sort of work goes into building a colony?

The colonists who started Jamestown had to make almost everything they needed to survive. These were some of the jobs that needed to be done:

• building houses

• planting crops

• finding water

• making clothes

But half of the first settlers were gentlemen. Gentlemen were used to comfortable lives in England. They didn't know how to make the things they needed to survive. They were not prepared for the hard work of starting a whole new colony! Most of them just wanted to increase their wealth and find adventure in North America.

John Smith was a famous Jamestown settler and explorer. John Smith wrote many passages describing the life of Native Americans in the Powhatan Chiefdom. The women made tools, planted crops, and prepared the food. The men hunted, fished, and fought in wars. The text suggests that Native American men and women had different but important roles in their tribes.

Life in the Powhatan Chiefdom

The Powhatan tribes ate many foods, including corn, cherries, squash, salmon, beavers, and otters. The people of the tribes lived in houses made of reeds and trees. The villages were surrounded by high wooden fences.

The Native American tribes in the Powhatan Chiefdom were friendly to the people of Jamestown. The Powhatan tribes gave them food and had ceremonies or special parties, for them.

Powhatan ceremonies

Here is John Smith's description of one of the ceremonies:

After they had feasted us, they showed us . . . their manner of dancing, which was in this fashion:

one of the [Native Americans] standing in the [middle] singing, beating one hand against another, all the rest dancing about him, shouting, howling, and stamping against the ground.

John Smith was curious about the Powhatan ceremony. He had never seen that kind of dancing before.

Why did the settlers keep looking for gold?

The Virginia Company wanted the Jamestown settlement to make money. The settlers also hoped to find gold to make themselves rich, too. So, the settlers kept searching for gold.

John Smith saw that focusing only on looking for gold was a problem. He angrily wrote, "there was no talk, no hope, no work, but dig gold, wash gold, refine gold, load gold."

The Virginia Company wanted the Jamestown settlement to make money. So, the settlers were told to search for gold. The settlers were too busy searching for gold to plant crops for food. They quickly ran out of food to eat. They also never found any real gold!

By the summer of 1607, only 38 Jamestown settlers were left. These are some of the reasons why the settlers died:

• • The settlers got sick from drinking dirty river water. The water was dirty with salt, mud, and human waste.

  • The settlers didn't have enough food to eat. The settlers didn't have food because they hadn't planted enough crops. They had been too busy searching for gold.

The Powhatan tribes save the day

The settlers of Jamestown didn't have enough food to survive the summer. Many of the settlers died of starvation. The Powhatan tribes decided to help the settlers. They brought them corn, bread, and fish to eat. Everyone in Jamestown might have starved if the Powhatan tribes hadn't shared their food!

John Smith's rule

In 1608, John Smith became the leader of Jamestown. He knew that if the settlers of Jamestown didn't start growing food for themselves, they would starve. In 1608, he made a new rule:

He that will not work shall not eat (except by sickness he be disabled).

John Smith's rule made sure that all Jamestown settlers, even the gentlemen, would have to work. He made them plant crops and build better homes. Many historians believe that John Smith's rule helped the colony survive.

Why did Chief Powhatan move to Orapax?

By 1609, the settlers of Jamestown had a new charter from England. The new charter said the settlers could take more land in North America than before. The settlers started demanding more land and food from Chief Powhatan.

Chief Powhatan moved his main tribe to Orapax to protect his people from the Jamestown settlers.

In the winter of 1609, over 400 people in Jamestown died. They died from starvation, or not having enough food. The winter between 1609 and 1610 became known as the Starving Time.

Why didn't the settlers have food to eat?

Chief Powhatan was no longer giving food to the Jamestown settlers. John Smith tried to make the settlers plant their own food in the spring of 1609. But the crops didn't grow fast enough to feed the settlers that winter.

The Starving Time was difficult for the Jamestown settlers. George Percy's writings say that the settlers ate shoes, snakes, and any animals they could find. But there still wasn't enough food for them to survive.

In June 1610, a ship arrived from England. It was carrying food and supplies for Jamestown. It also brought around 150 new settlers and a new leader for Jamestown. The new leader was Lord Delaware.

Lord Delaware's rule

Lord Delaware arrived in Jamestown with more settlers and weapons. The settlers used the new weapons to attack the nearby Kecoughtan tribe. The settlers forced the Kecoughtan people to leave their land. The settlers used the new land to start planting food.

After the Starving Time

Hundreds of Jamestown settlers died during the Starving Time. But that didn't stop the Virginia Company from still trying to build a colony. So, after the Starving Time, the company encouraged even more settlers to travel to Jamestown. New laws and good harvests kept an event like the Starving Time from happening again.

Why did the groups stop getting along?

When the Jamestown settlers first arrived in North America, the Powhatan tribes gave them food. But over time, the settlers kept demanding more food and land from the tribes. Finally, during the Starving Time, the Powhatan tribes stopped giving food to the Jamestown settlers.

The settlers were angry that the Native Americans had stopped giving them food. They decided to take Powhatan land and kill Powhatan tribe members.

Who was Pocahontas?

Pocahontas was one of Chief Powhatan's daughters. She was only around 12 years old when the Jamestown settlers first arrived. The settlers knew her because she often visited the town. She liked to play in the streets and bring food to the settlers.

Pocahontas's real name was Matoaka. Pocahontas was a nickname that meant "naughty and playful."

Pocahontas in legend

The settler and explorer John Smith wrote about Pocahontas in his famous book. In his book, he wrote that Pocahontas once saved his life. Historians aren't sure if John Smith was telling the truth, but the legend is still popular today!

For over a year, Pocahontas was kept as a prisoner near Jamestown. While she was a prisoner, she learned English and converted to Christianity. She also met a man named John Rolfe. He was a tobacco farmer from England.

A time of peace

When John Rolfe and Pocahontas married, the fighting between the Jamestown settlers and the Powhatan tribes stopped. The two groups became friendly again and traded with each other.

In 1616, Pocahontas traveled with John Rolfe to England. There she met the king and queen of England. But Pocahontas never made it back home to her tribe. She became sick while in England and died there.

Did the peace end?

Yes, but not until five years after Pocahontas's death. In 1618, her father, Chief Powhatan, died. His brother, Opechancanough (oh-petsh-uhn-KAH-noh), became the next chief.

Chief Opechcanough did not like the Jamestown settlers. He was angry that the settlers were taking his people's land. So, in 1622, he ordered an attack on the Jamestown settlers. Over 300 settlers were killed. These were some of the reasons that the peace from Pocahontas's marriage ended

The Virginia Company started Jamestown to search for gold. But the settlers couldn't find any! Pocahontas's husband, John Rolfe, came up with another way to make money instead. He started growing tobacco.

Tobacco became Virginia's most important cash crop.

John Rolfe's tobacco became Virginia's main cash crop. It helped the Virginia Company make money off of the Virginia Colony.

"Harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs"

Today, we know that tobacco can cause cancer. But in the past, only some people knew that it was not a healthy crop. King James I was one of those people. Here is how he described tobacco:

[Tobacco is] loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs.

loathsome: disgusting

Although King James I didn't like tobacco, he still allowed the Virginia Company to sell it. Tobacco sales helped make money for England.

In the early 1600s, Virginia tobacco sales rose quickly. Growing tobacco took a lot of workers. So as the demand for tobacco grew, so did the demand for workers. People were encouraged to travel to Jamestown to help plant tobacco.

The Virginia Company tried to encourage more people to grow tobacco in the Virginia Colony. These are some of the changes it made:

• It gave 50 acres of land to people who paid to travel to the colony. By giving people land, the Virginia Company hoped to encourage them to start planting tobacco.

• It made a new Virginia government that gave people a voice in making the rules. The Virginia Company made a new government for the people of the Virginia Colony. The new government allowed some people in the Virginia Colony to vote on laws.

Indentured servant

Indentured servants had hard lives. Below is a letter from an indentured servant in Virginia.

The letter suggests that indentured servants' lives were difficult. They often didn't have enough money for clothes or extra food. But the promise of freedom in the future made indentured servants different from enslaved people. They had to work for 5 to 7 years and were promised land after their time was complete.

In August 1619, a ship with around 20 African indentured servants arrived in Jamestown. They were from an area of Africa known today as Angola. The Angolans were taken by force to the Virginia Colony and sold as indentured servants.

The beginning of slavery

At first, African indentured servants were treated like other indentured servants. They worked for many years and then were set free. But over time, new laws made it illegal for any African indentured servants to become free. These new laws are often seen as the beginning of slavery in America. Slavery was a big part of life in Virginia all the way until the Civil War.

The Virginia Company created a new government for Jamestown and the rest of the Virginia Colony in 1618. They got rid of the laws from 1612.

Many people believed the laws from 1612 were too harsh. The Virginia Company decided to create a new government. It hoped the new government would create fairer laws for the people of the colony. The Virginia Company hoped nicer laws would make more people want to go to Jamestown.

Who wrote the old laws?

Jamestown's first set of harsh laws were started by Governor Delaware. The governors after him, such as Sir Thomas Gates and Sir Thomas Dale, continued to add more severe laws. The laws were all put together into a book called Laws Divine, Moral and Martial.

The Virginia General Assembly was the first representative government in the colonies. In a representative government, people vote to choose the people who make the laws.

The people who make the laws are supposed to represent the people who voted for them. In other words, they are supposed to make decisions that the voters would want.

For the Virginia General Assembly, the settlers of Virginia chose 22 representatives to help make the laws. Their representatives were called burgesses.

Who could become a burgess?

Not everyone could become a burgess. Only white men who owned land could be elected. Women, people with dark skin, and indentured servants could not be elected. Below are two famous burgesses:

• Thomas Jefferson

• George Washington

Why did the king take control of Virginia?

King James I was disappointed with the way the Virginia Company ran its colonies. For example, in 1622 a fight between Virginia settlers and Native Americans led to many deaths. King James I felt that these deaths were the Virginia Company's fault.

Even though the king had control, the Virginia General Assembly was still able to make the colony's laws.

When King James I died, King Charles I took control of the colonies. The king of England controlled the British colonies in America until the American Revolution.