Jamestown – Surviving Americas first settlement

On December 6, 1606, an expedition of three ships left port in England and began the 12-week voyage to the east coast of America, looking to find riches in the north half of the continent that could equal the success of the Spanish in the south. After reaching the coast of North America, they spent a few days sailing along it looking for the best place to establish their settlement, and on May 13 they chose a stretch of land surrounded by the sea on one side and rivers on two others.

(This location was in modern-day Virginia and the 104 men and boys that built the original settlement named it after their King, calling the very first English settlement in North America “Jamestown”.)

The voyage and the initial building went well, with the sea providing fish for easy food, and the land rich in trees and fresh water, but this ease of their beginning wasn’t to last. The land they had claimed wasn’t as empty as they had hoped and it wasn’t long until they were approached by the Native population.

Initially, the various Indian tribes they encountered were friendly, seeing the settlers as nothing more than a small group of civilians they could easily deal with if necessary, and actually helped them during the early years. It was this early establishment in North America that introduced corn and potatoes into England, but in the first years, the settlers did very little farming.

(The first thing to be built was a small triangle-shaped fort with a palisade wall to protect the tents and wooden huts)

They expected the land to be rich with animals to hunt and were relying heavily on the sea to provide fish, but as more ships turned up with more people this means of providing food became much harder to sustain. If it wasn’t for the Native Americans, the settlers would have starved to death in the early years and ships from England would have found nothing but bones.

As more and more people arrived from England and with the realization that tobacco was a very profitable cash crop, huge amounts of land would be needed for everyone and this both worried and angered the Natives. They believed that if England was a place that could send endless people to their shores who all wanted land, it wouldn’t be long until they tried to take it by force.

It only took two years before the settlers annoyed the natives badly enough for them to cut off all support, a move intended to avoid a war but was also done knowing it would doom the settlers. In the winter of 1609 – 1610, Jamestown experienced its first catastrophe in the form of mass starvation.

The Jamestown winter of 1609

The natives knew the importance of preparing for the winter and grew corn that could be dried to last for years, and knew how to make meat dishes that would be safe to eat for a long time, like pemmican. The settlers on the other hand had no idea how to do these things and found themselves in a very difficult situation when the cold weather came. Apart from a few small vegetable gardens, the settlers weren’t mass-producing any kind of preservable crops because up until now they were relying on support from the Natives and were able to hunt game during the summer.

At the start of winter in 1609, there were around 500 residents of Jamestown, and all they had to do was wait until the spring when new supply ships would arrive from England. With no grain in their stores and the last of the summer crops quickly disappearing, people realized there was not enough food to properly feed 50 people, never mind 500.

(It was too great a risk to go outside the walls to look for food during the winter because running into a group of Indians who could easily make you disappear was a real threat)

Hunting was a waste of time as most of the animals were either in hibernation or had already been claimed by the Natives whose territory completely surrounded Jamestown. Risking a war when the population was starving and heavily outnumbered was out of the question, so fishing was the only thing they had to rely on.

All the town’s animals were eaten, along with anything left over from the summer and when things got worse, people began to boil any leather they had to make soup. There were no crops they could grow in the winter and even if it was possible, it would take too long, leaving hundreds of people to rely on what little the fishermen were able to catch.

At the start of the Jamestown winter of 1609, there were around 500 people in the settlement, but when the first English ship arrived in spring, only 60 people remained, all of which were severely malnourished and close to death. Because the natives had left the settlers to starve, tensions with the English didn’t get any better and a series of minor wars would break out over the next few years with the surrounding tribes, all of which would eventually be won in some way or another by the English.

How did Jamestown survive

The simple answer would be a superior supply base. England saw the potential and profits this new land could provide and wasn’t prepared to admit defeat to people they considered primitive. When the natives killed someone or destroyed a crop, the English could just replace it from their much larger population or plant more food, even if the whole settlement was destroyed it would back up again as soon as the next ships landed. This situation was not shared by the natives who could not replace the land they lost or send for more warriors from a distant land.

(It could take up to 3 months for a ship to sail from England to the east coast of America, but their huge resources allowed them to send as many as needed to stake their claim to the land)

One of the other factors that cost the natives greatly was their lack of union between the tribes. They were often at war with each other and usually fought against the English independently, leaving relatively small tribes to face off against the English empire alone. This led to a rapid expansion of land claimed by the English which in turn led to more and more people moving over to come and farm it. All these extra people began to provide the supplies they needed at the places they lived and would no longer have to rely on England for supplies.