1. Starving time
House of Burgesses
Tobacco
John Smith
Farming
1609
1619
John Rolfe
Pocahantas
Powhatan
Indian Massacre
Sir Thomas Gates

2. John Smith Member of Virginia Company’s Governing Council
Traded with Indians and drew a map of Virginia
Captured by Powhatan’s Indians
Claims that his life was spared by Pocahontas, Powhatan’s daughter, age 10 or 11.
Smith became president of the Jamestown Colony on September 10, 1608
Colony was disciplined under his rule.
He expected everyone to work or they would not eat.

3. John Smith

4. Powhatan Secoton, A Powhatan Village
A confederacy of at least 30 Algonquian-speaking North American Indian tribes.
once occupied most of what is now tidewater Virginia,.
The confederacy was formed by Powhatan, a powerful chief shortly before the settlement of Jamestown in 1607.
Tribes of the confederacy supported each other militarily and paid taxes to Powhatan with food, pelts, copper, and pearls.
Secoton, A Powhatan Village

5. Starving Time Winter of 1609--1610
GEORGE PERCY: GOVENOR OF JAMESTOWN DURING THE STARVING TIME

6. Starving Time
In 1609, Smith left and Chief Powhatan tried to starve the English out of Virginia. They stopped trading and carried out attacks. Hunting was dangerous, since Powhatan Indians killed Englishmen outside the fort. Without the Indians help, the colony didn’t have enough food for the winter.

7. Starving Time
As food ran out, the settlers ate the colony's animals—horses, dogs, and cats—and later ate rats, mice, and shoe leather. Some even resorted to cannibalism.
Of the 500 colonists living in Jamestown in the autumn, fewer than one-fifth were still alive by March 1610.
Sixty were still in Jamestown; another 37, more fortunate, had escaped by ship.