“Why did so many colonists die in early Jamestown?” It isn’t an easy question to answer. In fact, scientists have been trying to figure out the answer for hundreds of years. Nobody knew that when the first British colony was established in 1607, that by 1612 over 400 people would be dead. The three most probable causes are the environment of the colony, the skills of the settlers, and their relationships with the nearby Native Americans. Who knew that these simple factors would play such a role in the course of American History. Water and food. Necessary for human survival, and something that we often take for granted. It is always there in the fridge or the cabinet whenever we want it. Right? Well, not in Jamestown. When they first arrived in 1607, they were in the midst of a five-year drought. (Document B) Water would be scarce and this would cause so many colonists to end up dying of thirst, and what little water they did have became salty with the tides or was used to dump human waste in. As for food, fishing was only good in spring and early summer. (Document A) The lack of rain water made it even worse for the crops. Most of them died because there wasn’t enough water to keep them hydrated. This led to death by starvation. …show more content…
Nowadays, we know exactly who and what we are going to bring on a trip, but this was another problem for the colony.
In fact, on the first ship 47 out of 110 passengers were ‘gentlemen’, or people of wealth who were not used to working with their hands. (Document C) People in the young colony were often dying of illness, but there were only two doctors and four carpenters out of the first two ships to build houses for and care for over two hundred people. (Document C) Remember what I said about the food problem? Well, there were no farmers or fishermen on either one of the ships! Nobody had any experience that could help to get food for the colonists. (Document C) This lead to many more deaths by illness and
starvation. The last of the possible explanations was the colonist’s relationship with the Native Americans, but mostly the Powhatans. Today, if you went to a new place trying to find a better life that you would try to befriend the people who lived there. The settlers didn’t. Instead, they built several military forts in and around Native American territory. The Native American’s (of course) didn’t like this at all so they followed with several brutal attacks, killing seven colonists. (Document E) To make matters worse, a man named Captain Francis West went to trade for grain with the Native Americans. They refused, so West beheaded two Native Americans to force the others to trade. They were terrified, so they did. (Document D) That isn’t the worst part. The worst part is that after West had the grain he thought that why should he return to Jamestown, a starving community that was bound to fall anyway, if he had enough grain to get himself and his crew back to England? Well, that is exactly what he did. (Document D) He left his fellow colonists to die of starvation and the wrath of the Native Americans. Nice guy, huh? All of these factors led to the fall of Jamestown. The colonists wouldn’t help each other. It was really an ‘every man for himself’ kind of situation. The colonists became so desperate that they began eating one another to stay alive. Mutiny was another problem, and one man was executed for it. While this will probably never happen again in our lifetimes, it was a horrifying event that shaped America’s history.
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.
Pocahontas Powhatan Opechancanough, tells the story of the interactions between the Jamestown settlers and the Powhatan Indians, and how the European arrival changed the lives of the natives. the book focuses on the three Indians it is titled for and tries to explain the story of Jamestown through a less Anglo-biased view. At many times the book contradicts the story most people know of the Jamestown settlement and the major players involved. Throughout the book, author Helen Rountree goes to great lengths to tell the whole story truthfully, and when she can't give the whole story she makes it clear as to what is accepted to be true.
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.
For example, in Document A, it states “Fish are present in local streams, but only in the spring and early summer are they there in impressive abundance”. This means that there was only lots of food limited times per year and there would not have been much food in fall and winter time. Also, they had just experienced failure of a colony nearby who all of the colonists of Roanoke Island mysteriously disappeared. This could have had an affect on the number of people who died because they might not have been ready to build another colony and might have benefited from waiting a few more years to build a new colony. Disease would spread quickly among all of the colonists. This is because Jamestown was not huge meaning that if one person or a few people had a disease of illness, it would spread around quickly.
In the first shipload of people they had about 104 people on board that ship. Many of those people died from diseases they picked up from exploring. In the summer of 1607 a sickness kills half the people that settled there. (Document E) This was a major downfall for the colonies because most of those people were Probably gentlemen and labourers (Document C). Also in the summer of 1609 and 1610 60 settlers died from a disease. Many of these people who died were laborers and gentlemen. Many of these people speaded these diseases to other people and food they shared (Nightmare in Jamestown.). I think some of these diseases could be the Bubonic plague or the black death. These diseases returned in Nov.-May 1610 when 110 colonist die from famine and diseases.
In document F, you can see that there is such a shortage of food that people resort to stealing their fellow colonists' clothes to pay for things like “butter and beef out of a ship”. You can also use the example of a resource shortage in document B, which shows a graph of the average rainfall during the first few years that the colonists lived there. From 1605-1612, Jamestown went through it’s longest, harshest drought. This meant there was very little food and water during that time. When you remember that the time period we are looking at is only from 1607 to 1610, it seems like that drought could have been a major factor in why a lot of the colonists died. Lastly, document D shows us that it was not just the colonists struggling. Native people also were having trouble finding food. An expedition of colonists was sent out to try to trade with some of the natives, but they had to force them to give anything. All the colonists got was a small shipload of grain and some very angry natives. The crew of that ship determined that the amount of grain they had would not do anything substantial for the colony, so they headed back to England, eating the grain along the way. So the colony never even got the grain, but they did have to deal with some very angry natives, which on its own is another reason that a lot of them didn’t
In Document C, there is a chart that lists all the jobs that the settlers had. They appeared to be prepared, they had every job needed, except for farmers, doctors, and soldiers of course. These 3 jobs could have saved so many lives, such how the farmers that knew how to grow food, unlike gentlemen who had no experience with crops. Another important job that they forgot about was doctors, doctors could have saved lives by treating sick people, but the colonists did not bring a doctor(s), they brought one surgeon, just one. Surgeons are not used to treating diseases, they cut people open, and they treat conditions related to that. Soldiers might also not have been needed, if they had good relations with the Natives, but soldiers could have helped defend the colonists, not gentlemen.
The first reason Jamestown colonist died is because of the environmental issues. The colonist first arrived in the area at the start of a long drought. The drought lasted six years, from 1607-1613. (Doc. B). This was about the third longest drought Jamestown has had in about a century. When there is not enough water for crops, people starve because there is no longer any food (Doc B). Therefore, water was a major issue in the Jamestown colony. Not only di...
Throughout history, humankind has done just about everything wrong; from slavery to bowl cuts. We are creatures of habit, greed, and want. We all believe in hope that eventually history won’t repeat, but we creatures of habit are doing very little to stop it. Our habitual patterns cause chaos and disrupt in war most of the time, so the fact that the colonies usually failed and died isn’t surprising. Jamestown was the first “successful” colony but all the people in the colony mainly died. We love to look the other way and say that they died because they didn’t know the land or because the natives were evil but the truth is; the Jamestown colonists died because of their stupidity, mistrust, and greed (a.k.a human nature).
In Jamestown, while at sea they were stranded for weeks off the British coast, and they had dwindled food supply. Several of them died because of the poor food supply. Also, as soon as the settlers of Jamestown were spotted, they were immediately surrounded by attacks from Algonquian natives, uncontrolled diseases, and internal political strife. More than half of the colonists that were on the ship died from famine and illness in their first winter. Their Captain, John Smith tried making peace with the natives before returning to England, however the following winter, another disaster struck Jamestown and it was the period of the “starving time.” Unfortunately, only 60 out of 500 colonists survived. They were not only in need of food supply, but they had been in drought for a very long time. They tried hard to survive everything they went through, but many of them couldn’t survive. Like Jamestown, Plymouth also went through so much to survive. Plymouth had a very important event happen while on their journey. The Mayflower Compact occurred at the same time. During the Mayflower Compact, women had by far the hardest time out of all groups of passengers. Of eighteen women that went with their husbands, no single woman came on the Mayflower. Sadly, all but 5 of them died. Their death rate was 72%, which was above the 58% for men. 25% for boys, and 18% for girls. Plymouth colonists struggled from a lot of the same things the Jamestown colonists did. In Plymouth, their voyage over sea was too long with no proper food supply, except on good weather days, which were hardly ever. They also, experienced internal political struggles, and sickness. Something new they experienced was weather problems. On the Mayflower, death usually came at a young age. All their horrible experiences also caused many deaths, but they never gave up on trying everything and anything
The harsh conditions of the Chesapeake colonies indiscriminately killed anyone who lived there. According to Taylor, “Despite the importation of fifteen thousand indentured servants between 1625 and 1640, Virginias population increased by only seven thousand…the extremes of the Chesapeake environment shocked English bodies...”
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.
Since it was easier to grow grain and livestock in the Mid-Atlantic region, there was a diverse group of farmers, fishermen, and merchants who worked in those colonies. The environmental conditions were ideal for farms of various sizes and the Middle colonists could trade in market areas where the colonial regions met. Although a lot of money could be made by growing tobacco (in Maryland especially) and other cash crops, they were bad for the soil and people needed more land. However, this resulted in a newfound lack of labor, which was an issue. For instance, families procreated too slowly, there was a high infant mortality rate, African slaves cost too much, and, according to the colonists, Native Americans didn’t make good slaves. Eventually white indentured servants from Europe were recruited to work on plantations, but it was a difficult life for them- even after they were freed they continued to earn low wages. This high demand of cash crops in Maryland and other Middle colonies led to an overall decline in the wellness of the
Colonial living in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in the New World was both diverse and, in many cases, proved deadly through such avenues as disease, Native American attacks, a lack of proper medical treatment, and disastrous weather conditions. Even through all of these hardships, the first colonists persevered, doing their best to see the blessings in their lives and create a better life for their children through all of the uncertainties. Nothing, it seems, in the original colonies was set in stone except for the fact that they never knew what the next day would hold in store. Everything, even small mishaps, had dramatic impacts on the social, economic, and political aspects of their lives. These circumstances, however, were more strongly influenced by geography than class position, unlike what many were used to in England. How population, economics, disease, and climate played into the social conditions of early colonists is truly a story for the ages. Whether people were seeking land, religious freedom, or money and profits, everyone worked to a certain extent just to survive, let alone thrive, in the wilderness that was North America at that time.
They were unprepared for life in the wilderness. Most had the impression that everything would be easy in the new world. The men and boys who first settled in Jamestown were townsmen and gentlemen. “They had come expecting to find gold, friendly Indians, and easy living.” (America: A Narrative History, 57) This information was given to them before making the journey to the new world. The settles were also told they would be provided with everything they would need, but supplies from England were undependable. When they arrived there was no town or any shelter waiting for them. They had to learn how to hunt and grow their own food, which they were not use to or even knew how to do in this untamed world. Captain John Smith took charge of the colony ensuring that of the 38 original survivors had to pull their own weight. He used various means to archive his goals and through his efforts Jamestown pulled through. After a period called the “Starving Time,” (America: A Narrative History, 60), where most of the colonist died, a man named John Rolfe provided a way for the colony to survive. He was able to acquire tobacco seeds from the Spanish and with it he made the colony a source of trade (America: A Narrative History, 61). Tobacco and other grown good where used to improve the lives of the colonies, but their daily lives were still very harsh as they were