Jamestown Colony Failure

After countless attempts by the English to create a settlement in North America, the explorers of 1606 finally succeeded. The Virginia Company was hoped that setting up Jamestown would pave the way for the English to set up future settlements up and down the East Coast and eventually the United States itself. “The Jamestown colony was an entrepreneurial effort, organized and financed by the Virginia Company of London, a start-up venture chartered eight months earlier; its business model was to extract profits from the gold, silver, and other riches supposedly to be found in that region of North America.” (Price, 19) Since no one knew how big the North American continent was, the Virginia Company believed to find a trade route by river from

Virginia to the Pacific. The business was a stockholding company, and its equity was held by a limited number of investors. In about two years, the Virginia Company would have public stock offering at twelve pounds and ten shillings a share.
English America became a country after it became a corporation.

Luckily for a few investors, they were actually on the three ships. “The colony’s ultimate success would come at a fearsome price; disease, hunger, and hostile natives left behind a toll of misery and death. Most of the 105 or so adventurers who went on the ships would be dead within months, and that was only the first wave of mortality to hit the colony.” (Price, 19) It’s impressive that the Jamestown settlement managed to survive at all.

The foreign territory of Virginia would have been a challenge to even the best explorers. The 1606 expedition didn’t have the best or brightest explorers. Half of the colonists on the three ships were upper class lazy people who refused to work to save their lives. “Worse, the “gentlemen” of Jamestown comprised most of the colony’s leaders, who came to revile and plot against one another as the sick and the starving were dropping dead around them.” (Price, 19) The survival of the small English outpost was thanks mostly to two extraordinary people, one a commoner named John Smith and a princess named

Pocahontas.
“The leadership of the Virginia Company probably saw him as a hired military hand in case of an attack from the Spanish or trouble with the natives.” (Price, 20) If that’s the case, then he was proven to be bigger in that role. No matter how John Smith got the job, it was obvious that he was unusually prepared to become Jamestown’s leader. Adventuring in Hungary gave him experience with handling foreigners both as comrades and as enemies. Those years in Hungary shaped his view on the world, on in which ignorance was treated as a dangerous enemy, and in which people who were judged by their effectiveness instead of bloodlines.
When Smith was surrounded by the natives, he threw his pistol to the side and surrender.

“Several of the warriors pulled him out and presented him to the leader of the attack: a Powhatan chief named Opechancanough, one of the three younger brothers of Powhatan himself.” (Price, 23) Around the age of sixty at the time, Opechancanough was a man with a “large stature, noble presence, and extraordinary parts.” He was third in line to succeed Chief Powahatan, and it was his decision on what to do with Smith, the captive, who faced an army without flinching. “Smith was aware that natives shared his own countrymen’s awe of rank and status.” (Price,

23)
If Smith wanted to stay alive, he would have to convince Chief Opechancanough that he was someone important. The big question was how could Smith convince Opechancanough. Thinking fast, Smith showed the natives his compass dial. “He had observed that the natives (and not only the natives) tended to regard anything they could not understand as supernatural.” (Price, 23) Smith asked Opechancanough to look at the moving needles, which Chief Opechancanough could see, but could not touch through the glass. “As Smith turned the compass, the needles kept pointing in the same direction.” (Price, 23)
Despite his efforts, Smith found himself bound to a tree and surrounded by warriors who were prepared to shoot in case he managed to set himself free. It seemed like Smith was about to suffer the same fate like Cassen. Chief Opechancanough suddenly ordered the troops to put down their weapons and raised the compass over Smith’s head. “Smith was untied, and taken by the chief to a hunting camp some miles away.” (Price, 23) At first, the chief was planning to torture John Smith for information before finally killing him, but Opechancanough wondered if Smith was really an English leader, there would be lots of things for him to reveal: Why was he there? Would they return? How long did they plan to stay?