A visit to Jamestown Colony brought it all home to us: the quest for wealth, the discovery of an apparent paradise, the hardships of survival, starvation, adaptation, exploitation, and slavery.
History is a complicated subject, where no single event can be understood without taking into account the intertwining stories of the period. Because Europeans came to value the spices and artifacts that came through trade with the east, merchants found a way to ship material around the horn of Africa and explorers seeking a shorter route discovered America, “the West Indies.” English speculators decided to finance colonies in the New World with the hope of creating an alternative source of merchandise so they would not be as dependent on the east. The prospect of finding gold and other valuable commodities helped to persuade people to invest in those operations.
Wealthy Englishmen financed the party that established a colony on the James River with the expectation of greater wealth once Jamestown was settled. Those arriving in Virginia found a veritable paradise with an abundance of birds, deer, and other animals as well as spectacular flora. Although surrounded by wetlands, the site of the colony adjacent to the shore seemed to offer everything they would need to set up a thriving village, including fresh water. The indigenous inhabitants seemed friendly, teaching the settlers to grow corn and cultivate tobacco.
It turned out that the water which seemed suitable for drinking was due to the previous winter’s runoff, and as time passed, it became more salty and the nearby wetlands leached arsenic into the water table. A drought followed, and the colonists traded copper and other items that the Native Americans valued for the food the settlers needed. Eventually, there was not enough food for any of them, creating conflicts between them. When supplies from England were delayed, the settlers had to resort to eating rats and other vermin before resorting to killing their horses for food. Some even became so desperate that they became cannibals, eating their own dead; one man later pleaded guilty to killing and eating his pregnant wife.
The speculators back home in England began regretting their investments and withdrawing support when the colony did not produce the wealth they were expecting. Instead, they began backing privateers who would steal the wealth from the Spanish, who had stolen gold from the indigenous people they exploited. Two pirate ships overtook a Portuguese ship that was carrying slaves from Africa, as well as other goods, in the Gulf of Mexico. Although damaged in the encounter, the ships made their way to Jamestown with the plunder. The Africans who were captured became the first slaves in what would become the United States. (The Portuguese had already been bringing slaves to the Americas for 100 years.) American colonists had previously depended upon indentured servants to provide labor, but they increasingly turned to captured Africans, and slavery became a integral part of the economy.
Meanwhile, relations with the Native Americans had quickly soured, and the colonists built a stockade around the settlement to defend themselves from Indian attacks. When the settlers ventured from the fort to seek food, the natives shot them with arrows, so between the lack of food, unsanitary conditions, and conflicts with the Native Americans, the population of Jamestown was decimated.
I have not touched upon the story of Pocahontas, the “Indian princess” who married John Rolfe and eventually made her way to England, serving as an advertisement for the colony in its earlier days. John Smith, the other big name in Jamestown lore, also made a 3,000-mile exploration of the Chesapeake Bay, providing the first maps of the area. Those are stories for another time.
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