The expedition was led by Captain Christopher Newport. On May 13, after two weeks of exploration, the ships arrived at a site on the James River selected for its deep water anchorage and good defensive position. The passengers came ashore the next day, and work began on the settlement. Initially, the colony was governed by a council of seven, with one member serving as president.
Serious problems soon emerged in the small English outpost, which was located in the midst of a chiefdom of about 14, Algonquian-speaking Indians ruled by the powerful leader Powhatan. Relations with the Powhatan Indians were tenuous, although trading opportunities were established.
An unfamiliar climate, as well as brackish water supply and lack of food, conditions possibly aggravated by a prolonged drought, led to disease and death. Many of the original colonists were upper-class Englishmen, and the colony lacked sufficient laborers and skilled farmers.
The first two English women arrived at Jamestown in , and more came in subsequent years. Another legacy of Jamestown is the right of individuals to own property. In , the Virginia Company gave colonists the right to own land.
Until then, the company had owned all land in Virginia. This right to acquire land offered opportunities for upward economic and social mobility. Free Africans were also allowed to possess their own land. In , another modest beginning gave birth to what would become the political character of the colony and an enduring American tradition. On an unbearably hot day in July, two burgesses selected from each of the seven plantations and four boroughs traveled to Jamestown to represent the interests of the colonists in the General Assembly.
Prior to this time, the Virginia Company had appointed the governor and his council of advisors as the governing body for the colony. Even though the governor and his council would continue to be present at all meetings, thereby stifling some freedom of debate, this meeting in the church at Jamestown in was the first step toward representative government in America, which in time would grow to inspire people and nations all over the world.
This was also the year in which a large number of women left England for Virginia signaling that the English were here ready to raise families and stay in Virginia.
The interaction of the Powhatan, English and Africans at Jamestown laid the foundation for an American society built by people of diverse cultures, traditions and beliefs.
Wet springs led to flooding, hot summers brought on droughts, and frigid winters covered the landscape in blankets of thick frost. The colonists arrived in Jamestown during one of the driest seven-year periods in years. The 17th century was also one of the coldest on record. The dramatic weather patterns in the Virginia colony brought on a cycle of conflict, scarcity and death, with climate change threatening its survival.
The first assembly of the House of Burgesses, the first elected legislative assembly in America, in Jamestown. By the time the Declaration of Independence was signed in and the first peaceful transfer of U.
The roots can be traced to Jamestown. With the establishment of the House of Burgesses, America's first democratically elected legislative body, a precedent had been set. Thereafter, each new English colony sought its own legislature. Although there were challenges and power struggles, the concept of elections, creation of laws and power through and by the people, began in America's first English settlement. Settlers roll barrels of tobacco up a ramp and onto a ship in preparation for export.
King James I had a strong, and well-known, distaste for tobacco. The settlement had struggled to find a marketable commodity that it could trade and ship back to England for profit. The colonists dabbled in forestry, silk making and glassmaking, with little financial return. Then, in , John Rolfe arrived in Jamestown with a convoy of new settlers. He brought with him a sweet, and quite possibly illegal, strain of South American tobacco seeds.
After some initial trial and error, Rolfe cultivated them into a major cash crop—one surprisingly granted a monopoly from King James I—making Jamestown economically stable for the first time. The death tolls were high. They were dying from swellings, fluxes, fevers, by famine, and sometimes by wars. Food was running low, though then Chief Powhatan starting to send gifts of food to help the English. If not for the Powhatan Indians help in the early years, the settlement would most likely have failed, as the English would have died from the various diseases or simply starved.
By late , the relationship between the Powhatan Indians and the English had soured as the English were demanding too much food during a drought. That winter of is known as the "Starving Time. As a result they ate anything they could: various animals, leather from their shoes and belts, and sometimes fellow settlers who had already died.
In May , shipwrecked settlers who had been stranded in Bermuda finally arrived at Jamestown. Part of a fleet sent the previous fall, the survivors used two boats built on Bermuda to get to Jamestown. Sir Thomas Gates, the newly named governor, found Jamestown in shambles with the palisades of the fort torn down, gates off their hinges, and food stores running low. The decision was made to abandon the settlement. Less than a day after leaving, however, Gates and those with him, including the survivors of the "Starving Time," were met by news of an incoming fleet.
The fleet was bringing the new governor for life, Lord Delaware. Gates and his party returned to Jamestown. In , John Rolfe, one of many shipwrecked on Bermuda, helped turn the settlement into a profitable venture. He introduced a new strain of tobacco from seeds he brought from elsewhere. Tobacco became the long awaited cash crop for the Virginia Company, who wanted to make money off their investment in Jamestown.
On July 30, , newly appointed Governor Yeardley called for the first representative legislative assembly. This was the beginning of representative government in what is now the United States of America.
In that same year, the first documented Africans were brought to Virginia. They added needed human resources for the labor-intensive tobacco. Also in , the Virginia Company recruited and shipped over about 90 women to become wives and start families in Virginia, something needed to establish a permanent colony. Over one hundred women, who brought or started families, had arrived in prior years, but was when establishing families became a primary focus.
Peace between the Powhatan Indians and the English, brought about by the conversion and marriage of Pocahontas kidnapped by the English in and John Rolfe in , ended in
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