Jamestown, Virginia 1607

1. Jamestown, Virginia 1607

2. Key Questions • How were the colonists in the New World financed. What were the reasons for colonization? • How did the American Indians and the colonists relate to each other? • What democratic traditions started in the colonies?

3. Key Terms John Rolfe Tobacco Cash Crop Headright Indentured Servants Slavery\House of Burgesses Protests Royal Colony • Charter • Joint Stock Company • Investors • The Virginia Company • John Smith • Lord De la Warr • Powhatans • Pocahontas

4. The Virginia Company • Joint Stock Company • Investors put own money up for the trip and hope to gain profits • Gain permission from King James I to colonize • Granted a charter, a written contract, giving them the right to establish a colony

5. Jamestown is Established • 1607 Jamestown is established • Jamestown will become the first permanent English settlement in the Americas • Many struggles will face the settlers of the New World

6. Struggles • Relations with the American Indians • Some searching for gold & riches, rather than helping the colony survive-Some believed they were above the hard labor • Poor water supply • Lack of food • Harsh weather • Diseases

7. John Smith • Soldier and Adventurer • Takes control • Establishes a “Work or Starve” Policy • Colony begins to thrive\ • Injured, Smith returns to England • Colony falls on tough times again, lack of discipline • “Starving Time” (see rdg.)

8. “Starving Time” • Hundreds die • Cannibalism • Afraid to search for food • Disease spreads

9. George Percy, youngest son of the eighth Earl of Northumberland and prominent member of the original Jamestown settlers, wrote about the Starving Time of the winter of 1609-1610 when disease and death swept through Jamestown, reducing its population about 80 percent. • “A world of miseries ensued…in so much that some to satisfy their hunger have robbed the store for …which I caused them to be executed. Then having fed upon our horses and other beasts as long as they lasted, we were glad to make shift with vermin as dogs, cats, rats, and mice; all was fish that came to net to satisfy cruel hunger, as to eat boots, shoes, or any other leather some could come by. And those being spent and devoured some were enforced to search the woods and to feed upon serpents and snakes and to dig the earth for wild and unknown roots, where many of our men were cut of and slain by the savages. And now famine… beginning to look ghastly and pale in every face that (and) nothing was spared to maintain life and to do those things which seem incredible, as to dig up dead corpses out of graves and to eat them. And some have licked up the blood which has fallen from their weak fellows.”

10. “If we truly consider the diversity of miseries, mutinies, and famishments which have attended upon discoveries and plantations in this our modern times, we shall not find our plantation in Virginia to have suffered alone… The Spaniards plantation in the River of Plate and the Straits of Magellan suffered also in so much that having eaten up all their horses to sustain themselves …mutinies did arise and grow among them, for which the general Diego Mendosa caused some of them to be executed, extremity of hunger forcing others to secretly in the night to cut down their dead fellows from …the gallows and to bury them in their hungry bowels.”

11. Sir Thomas Dale, Deputy Governor in 1611, showed no patience for the idle or deserters. Percy recorded the consequences of recaptured deserters: • “Some he appointed to be hanged some burned to be broken upon wheels others to be staked and some to be shot to death, all this extreme and cruel tortures he used and inflicted upon them to terrify the rest for attempting the like. And some which robbed the store he caused … to be bound fast unto trees and so starved them to death.”

12. Percy recounts an Indian “queen” and her children, taken prisoner in a military operation. “…the children are thrown into the water and shot while swimming, and the woman is led off and “put to the sword” in the woods.

13. De La Warr • Following the “Staving time,” colonists sail down the James river to leave • De La Warr, the new governor, arrives with supply ships and orders them back!

14. Pocahontas

15. Pocahontas • “Saved” John Smith from death as a child • Kidnapped by the English • Hoped to force cooperation from the Powhatan Indians • Eventually married John Rolfe, establishing a period of peace between the colonists and Powhatans • Died after being brought to England to advertise the colony

16. Tobacco Introduced by John Rolfe • Transforms the colony • Cash Crop: crop raised and sold for money • Brought wealth to the colony & ensured success • Very popular in England • Colonists demanded a share of the profits • Virginia Company allowed them to own land • Colonists worked harder!

18. Headright • Trying to encourage settlement, The Virginia company offered 50 acres to anyone who could pay their own way to the colony

19. Indentured Servants • Some could not afford to pay their own way to the colonies • Contracts were signed and colonists agreed to pay the voyage for someone to the new land. In turn, they would have to work for them for usually 4-6 years (time varied) and then they were released to start their own lives • Cheap labor source

20. Africans Arrive • 1619 the first Africans arrive on a Dutch ship as a labor supply • Believed to have been indentured servants, will turn to slavery as a cheap source of labor • Becomes widespread in the late 1600s

21. Virginia House of Burgesses • Lawmaking body • Had elected representatives • Met once a year • Passed local laws • Could raise taxes • The first representative assembly in the colonies!

22. Powhatan Uprising • As settlers spread further into Indian territory and their population grew, American Indians felt threatened • Powhatans lead an uprising along the James river in 1622, ¼ of the English population was killed • King James I takes away the assembly & makes it a royal colony (governor appointed by the crown) • Charles I restores the assembly after his father’s death