Was Jamestown Heaven or Hell on Earth?
Jamestown was Heaven on Earth: The first successful permanent English settlement – instilled with beautiful rivers, allowing for the easy and speedy transportation of goods from one river to another. The site of Jamestown was specifically targeted for its military advantages; with deep-water mooring available for the ships, and the location being far out of sight of the Spanish, the peninsula was surrounded and thereby protected on three sides by the river and the marshes. The colonists arriving at Jamestown were met by thick forests. The river sides were covered with swamps, marsh and stagnant water. There were many different types of animals available for the settlers. Some of these animals included: deer, elk, lion, moose, wolf, bears, squirrels, rabbits, and a total of twenty-eight creatures roamed the forests. Great varieties of birds were in abundance, some eighty-six species. The streams overflowed with every kind of fish one could imagine and the woods contained chestnuts, walnuts, crab-apples, grapes, strawberries and numerous other kinds of food. Using crude instruments composed of wood and
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stone, the colonists were able to cultivate beans, onions, peas, potatoes and a host of other vegetables. soon shifted their focus to growing the colony in order to increase their wealth. Soon, the money hungry gentlemen, found a new love; the tobacco plant. Even lust for tobacco riches did not ignite the gentlemen's work ethic with respect to the hard labor required to hit the financial jackpot growing tobacco. This scenario sets up the makings for slave trading; forced labor in order to increase gentlemen profits. Their hatred for work and their love of money created a problem from the start, but as tobacco profits increase their spirits are lifted and their pockets grow larger. Tobacco profits made many a wealthy Jamestown gentleman even wealthier Jamestown was Hell on Earth: The one hundred and five men, who landed in Jamestown, faced a life and death struggle of drought, disease, famine and futile Indians. At first, the climate was mild, the food supply was abundant, and life seemed perfect; Virginia seemed to be a paradise. Blistering heat followed along with swarms of insects from the nearby wetlands, unsanitary water and shiploads of inapt colonists. The colony suffered one disaster after another. The colony seemed to have had a case of bad luck from the beginning. The site of Jamestown in which the settlers decided to build their colony was an inadequate choice. The area was not only a swampy; but, was also surrounded by futile Indian tribes, saturated with mosquitoes, and the drinking water was impure, Jamestown was an unhealthy and dangerous place to live in. The dominance of wealthy gentlemen and their lack of any survival skills or motivation to do the work took its toll rather quickly. By 1609, only two years after the crew's landing, food was scarce and the death toll was mounting during the harsh winter, known as the “Starving Time.” This severe, icy winter, began to knock men out one-by-one due to starvation, disease, and fruitless grounds. The colony turned towards the Indians to obtain the food and water, they so desperately needed, which led to the their retaliation against the colonists. Life in Jamestown includes the struggles of the English colonists as they encountered The Powhatan Indians, whose ancestors had lived on this land for centuries, as well as their internal struggles among themselves, as they tried to work and live with people of different backgrounds and social classes then themselves.
It includes the everyday life in an unfamiliar environment, filled with perilous times such as the “starving time”, and the expansion of the colony where more colonists, including women, came to fortify the settlement and make it more permanent. It includes the poorly run, miserable, yet evolving settlement of. Most important, life in Jamestown is the story of people – bravery, hardships, and a grim determination to survive, which ultimately laid the foundation for our country today – the United States of
America.
Against all Odds is a very interesting Documentary that follows the early settlement of Jamestown in the 17th century .With endless against the odds situations thrown out in from of the people of Jamestown left and right things seemed bleak. But a lot of perseverance from the early settlers including the Documentaries depiction of the original leader John Smith things seemed to resolve themselves. In Documentary there were several parts where it conceited with what is in chapter three of the Textbook the American Promise. For example, In the Documentary when the subject of the Tobacco business came up it was exampled in the same way as the first page of chapter three. With examples of how the product was grown and distributed out into the world. Making it a very valuable trade to be doing although very labor intensive, which is why it would soon lead into the slave trade. Something that was briefly shown in the documentary mainly to show what lengths the people of Jamestown were willing to go to make things work out in their new home.
...Indian Lives Changed by Jamestown Is a very well thought out and put together book. With the index of terms and bibliography it looks and feels like a text book, but it reads like a story book. It tells a very fascinating story in an effective yet entertaining way. Calling the English smelly people and olfactorily objectionable adds a light heartedness to a sad story. The book portrays both groups of people in a fair light and doesn't pull any punches for either side. There is so much information in the book that surely in one reading much is missed, overlooked, or forgotten. It is a highly enjoyable, and educational book well worth the time needed to decipher the complexities of the situations presented throughout the story. The only major downfall of the book is that it ends sadly with the death of Opechancanough while being held captive by the English.
Things in Jamestown were good. The people were fed, cared for, and happy. They created their own working government order, but, in a place where everything seems perfect, there is always one man to disagree. In this case, his name was Nathaniel Bacon.
In her work, Apathy and Death in Early Jamestown, Karen Ordahl Kupperman argues that the “high mortality rate” of Jamestown was caused by apathy, which formed from “a combination of psychological and physical factors” of disease, malnutrition, and despair. She supports her argument by making parallel connections between the source of death of those at Jamestown to the deaths of American prisoners of war in World War II and the Korean War. Although her claims are interesting to read due to the engaging comparisons she makes to the death rates in Jamestown, her analogy between prisoners of war and colonists is weak due to the two vastly different situation that the people of both times went through.
Jamestown was the first successful settlement established by England. It was first built in 1607 and lasted until about 1614. On the first ship, 100 male settlers set off for a new settlement in the New World. Life there at times was hard for various reasons. They did, however, become 7 7 trading partners with the Indians. 80% of Jamestown’s more than 500 settlers that had arrived had been dead by 1611. The reason for this is because of sickness and disease, lack of resources, and where they chose to build their settlement.
As a young child many of us are raised to be familiar with the Pocahontas and John Smith story. Whether it was in a Disney movie or at a school play that one first learned of Jamestown, students want to believe that this romantic relationship really did occur. As one ages, one becomes aware of the dichotomy between fact and fiction. This is brilliantly explained in David A. Price's, Love and Hate in Jamestown. Price describes a more robust account of events that really did take place in the poorly run, miserable, yet evolving settlement of Jamestown, Virginia; and engulfs and edifies the story marketed by Disney and others for young audiences. Price reveals countless facts from original documents about the history of Jamestown and other fledgling colonies, John Smith, and Smith's relationship with Pocahontas. He develops a more compelling read than does the typical high school text book and writes intriguingly which propels the reader, to continue on to the successive chapters in the early history of Virginia.
The Chesapeake region of the colonies included Virginia, Maryland, the New Jerseys (both East and West) and Pennsylvania. In 1607, Jamestown, the first English colony in the New World (that is, the first to thrive and prosper), was founded by a group of 104 settlers to a peninsula along the James River. These settlers hoped to find gold, silver, a northwest passage to Asia, a cure for syphilis, or any other valuables they might take back to Europe and make a profit. Lead by Captain John Smith, who "outmaneuvered other members of the colony's ruling and took ruthlessly took charge" (Liberty Equality Power, p. 57), a few lucky members of the original voyage survived. These survivors turned to the local Powhatan Indians, who taught them the process of corn- and tobacco-growing. These staple-crops flourished throughout all five of these colonies.
The English had two main colonies in the new world, Jamestown and Plymouth. The first colony was Jamestown, established in Virginia in 1607. Jamestown was settled by Captain John Smith, and was named after King James I. Tobacco was the main export of Jamestown, and became the basis of the Jamestown economy, sending more than 50,000 lbs of the plan back to Europe by 1618 (textbook 46). Jamestown had a very rocky start, many colonists dying in the first few years of the settlement, and the settlers had many problems with natives. Shortly after the arrival of English colonists the Natives attacked them, and were finally forced back by a canon from the English. A very uneasy truce was finally settled between the natives, called the Powhatans, and the English (textbook 44-5). Economic growth and expanding their territories were the main priorities of the English in the Jamestown colonies.
The characteristics that came to shape the life in New England were the rocky, barren soil, the extreme climate and the rich waters. Although there was farming in New England , colonists looked to other means of survival. They looked to the rich waters for fishing and trade. The coastline of New England was very fertile with sealife. So, fishing became a way of commerce and trade providing a steady economy to New England. Because of the rocky soil and extreme climate, the colonists were forced to plant many different crops on a small pa...
Of Plymouth Plantation by William Bradford gives us an insight into the endurance of the early settlers and the kind of pain they went through in order build the foundation of our great nation. They embarked on the new world and developed a colony from the ground up. However, there troubles started long before they even stepped foot on the land. With a strong hold on their religious beliefs, they continued their voyage to the new world even though there were questions about the safety of the vessel. They managed to work hard on the ship and make it to the new world, tired and hungry, only to learn that there was no rest to be found, but even more work.
The Colonial Period was partially a "golden age" for women, for, although it did possess some qualities of a golden age, it also had aspects that held it back from fully being a time of prosperity for women. As the Colonial period progress changes in population, lifestyles, and opportunities had effects that opened new doors for women as well as held them back from reaching their full potential.
In the book, he describes the history of the Colonial era and how slavery began. He shows us how the eighteenth century progressed and how American slavery developed. Then it moves onto the American Revolution, and how the American slaves were born into class. It was this time that the slave population was more than twice what it had been. The Revolutionary War had a major impact on slavery and on the slaves.
The book follows Dana who is thrown back in time to live in a plantation during the height of slavery. The story in part explores slavery through the eye of an observer. Dana and even Kevin may have been living in the past, but they were not active members. Initially, they were just strangers who seemed to have just landed in to an ongoing play. As Dana puts it, they "were observers watching a show. We were watching history happen around us. And we were actors." (Page 98). The author creates a scenario where a woman from modern times finds herself thrust into slavery by account of her being in a period where blacks could never be anything else but slaves. The author draws a picture of two parallel times. From this parallel setting based on what Dana goes through as a slave and her experiences in the present times, readers can be able to make comparison between the two times. The reader can be able to trace how far perceptions towards women, blacks and family relations have come. The book therefore shows that even as time goes by, mankind still faces the same challenges, but takes on a reflection based on the prevailing period.
I think that this narrative is important for us to read in order to understand the mind-sets of the colonists and the Indians at the time of King Philip’s War. I believe that it is an excellent source, and really allows the reader to get a peak at what life was like during the 17th century. I also think that it is amazing that she is the second “American” woman to write and publish a book, and it is interesting to see how strong she was to preserve her own life in such an unfamiliar and “uncivilized” situation.
Believed by the colonists, animals were a staple of their personal property and in essence, transformed people. In the Chesapeake region, the staple crop, tobacco, caused many unexpected problems for both sides. Due to minimal man-power, expense, and time, colonists in the region were unable to devote the necessary means of keeping track of their livestock. They accommodated this issue by relinquishing their fauna from an enclosed pen and allowed them to roam freely. With the newfound freedom, the animals would wander far from the plantations in which they originated, into native lands and often precious cornfields. When in contact with the cornfields, the instinctually wild animals would rampage the land, and cause havoc on Indian crops. This initiated justified retaliations from the Indians by killing the livestock; however, colonists deemed the backlash unjustified on the principality of the hierarchical status their animals still had. In the New England region, the nature of geography and closer sense of community due to lack of a vital crop allowed the colonists to keep better track of their valuable animals. However, with the influx of fresh immigrants and compounding livestock, the colonists scarcity and expense of labor due to long-fallow farming and free-range husbandry, drastically increased the unanticipated growing demand for land. In response to the rapidly expanding colonial boundaries, Indians “scrambled to mount a defense,” as Anderson writes (218). “Colonists coveted land around as well as within the boundaries of Indian settlements,” and were in essence unstoppable (219). During this time, Indians recognized that their bartering goods were becoming less and less valuable, essentially causing diplomatic relations with the colonists to deteriorate. Coinciding with the shift in diplomatic attention, colonists in both regions devoted less