Jamestown 1607

The Age of Exploration The Age of Exploration or Age of Discovery officially began in the early 15th century (1400s) and lasted until the 17th century (1600s). Age of Exploration is characterized as a time when Europeans began exploring the world by sea in search of trading partners, new goods, and new trade routes.

Early Exploration Many nations were looking for goods such as silver and gold but one of the biggest reasons for exploration was the desire to find a new route to trade spices, tea and silk which could be found in Asia. (The Northwest Passage.)

England Must Compete Once the New World was discovered Spain and France began to claim as much land as they could, and England knew it also had to compete.

We must compete with Spain and France!!!! We have to claim land in the New World for England

Collection of Data Early on, European countries (usually the king or queen) paid for expeditions and sent out explorers simply to have them return to Europe with details of the New World and possibly new findings. The explorers were not suppose to stay.

Colonization However, as time went on European countries saw the importance of creating towns that could be used as a way to protect their claim to the land and as a trading post to send things back and forth to Europe.

Colonization Soon, many European countries started sending people to the New World with the intent to have them stay there and begin to build towns called colonies. These colonies would be under the control of the king or queen.

By the early 1600s, England began to create (establish) colonies along the Atlantic Ocean

The Lost Colony of Roanoke England tried many times to set up colonies. However, the colonies seemed to fail over and over again. One of the most famous failed colony is the Lost Colony of Roanoke.

Roanoke “The Lost Colony” In 1587, a man by the name of Sir Walter Raleigh tried to start a colony on Roanoke Island off the coast of present-day North Carolina. After a few months the colonists ran low on supplies so they sent a handful of people back to England to get more. However, it took more than 3 years for the group to return to Roanoke from England and when they did it was too late.

CROATOAN When the group finally returned to Roanoke, they found no one. Every colonists had disappeared and everything was destroyed. The only thing they found was the word “CROATOAN” carved into one of the only doorposts still standing. To this day, no one knows what happened or the meaning of the word “croatoan”

Jamestown 1607 After the failure of Roanoke, more than twenty years passed by before England was able to try again. In June of 1606, King James I granted a charter for the Virginia Company of London to try and establish a English settlement in the Chesapeake region of North America.

Where do the English Land? So, in May 1607, 104 Englishmen working for the Virginia Company, dropped anchor and in Jamestown, Virginia. There the colonists built a triangle-shaped log fort on a swampy peninsula in the James River, 60 miles from the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay.

Problems in Jamestown Almost immediately Jamestown faced many challenges. The first of which was its location.

Swampy Land When they reached Virginia they decided to settle on a swampy peninsula for safety. However, during the summer the area began to swarm with mosquitoes that carried diseases like malaria which leaves people extremely weak and with achy muscles and headaches. Even today malaria often leads to death if untreated.

Location of Jamestown

The Lazy Crew The problems were made even worse because the men who came over were lazy businessmen hoping to get rich quickly by finding gold. Most of them knew nothing about farming and were not willing to work very hard.

I’m too good to do hard work…Let the servants do it.

Time are Hard in Jamestown As the food they brought with them started to run out they began trying to trade with the Native Americas for corn and meat but the Indians in the area would sooner see the English starve to death than trade. Hunger and disease took control and every day another body was carried to the graveyard.

I don’t trust these men…Let them starve…

John Smith Takes Over In 1608, a young man by the name of John Smith took control of Jamestown. He told the lazy men “If any would not work neither should he eat”. The men were hungry, so they worked.

Smith goes to look for food for the men of Jamestown

John Smith and Pocahontas While looking for food the new Capitan John Smith was captured by the Powhatan tribe of Native Americans. Smith was about to be clubbed to death when a young girl leapt out and saved him. This young girl was named Pocahontas. Smith wrote about Pocahontas in his journal saying, “She, next under God was the instrument to preserve the colony from death, famine and confusion.”

Pocahontas Overtime, with the help of Pocahontas, the daughter of the powerful Indian leader, John Smith was able to trade for food. This trade would helped Jamestown survive.

The Starving Time Jamestown’s troubles, however were far from over. In the fall of 1609, John Smith was forced to go home to England after being injured by a gunpowder explosion. Without Smith and Pocahontas things began to quickly fall apart.

Things in Jamestown begin to fall apart

Winter hits

We didn’t prepare well enough for the winter.. I miss Smith

The Starving Time By the fall of 1609 the remaining settlers failed to plant crops early enough to harvest for the winter and trading had stopped. Many people in Jamestown were starving to death. The years have become known as the “Starving Time”.

The Starving Time Food was in such short supply that graves were robbed and the bodies eaten. One colonists even murdered his wife to feast on her flesh. Stories of eating dogs, rats and even human corpses to survive express the difficulties of life in Jamestown. By spring only 60 people in Jamestown were still alive.

Jamestown Survives Learning of the hard times in Jamestown, three ships full of supplies, 150 new colonists and 100 soldiers arrived in Jamestown. Furthermore, one of the colonists, John Rolfe soon figured out they could plant tobacco and sell to it back in England at great prices.

Tobacco= A major Cash Crop Tobacco quickly became what everyone in Jamestown grew. By 1630 more than 15 million pounds of tobacco was sent back to England every year. John Rolfe had grown a major cash crop (a plant grown to make money not to eat) and this crop would eventually save the economy of Jamestown.

The 1 st Permanent Colony Over time the colony of Jamestown grew stronger and stronger making it the first permanent and successful colony in what would later become the United States of America

1607