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Jamestown and Plymouth colonies
Jamestown rise and fall
Jamestown rise and fall
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A fleet of English ships arrived in the spring of 1607 at the Chesapeake Bay to start an English settlement in an effort to proselytize Christianity and find a trade route to China. These ships carried in excess of 100 passengers who had been granted King James I’s permission to go to the new world. This expedition was funded by a wealthy group of English Aristocrats hoping they could get a return on their investment. The men on the ships knew of the dangers they would experience whether it be the Spanish warships attacking or the Native Americans ambushing the colony. The colonists wanted to avoid a fate similar to that of Roanoke Island, the previous English settlement in the New World where all of the colonists mysterious disappeared. The Chesapeake area was heavily inhabited by over 15,000 Indians living near the James River. After their arrival the English settlers built a fort on an island they called James Island which would eventually become Jamestown. Originally, 110 settlers came to Jamestown but only 40 of them survived until the next year. A resupply ship arrived that prevented the colony from collapsing but hardship soon followed for the next two years when Captain John Smith, the leader of the colony was sent back to England. Following his departure, two-thirds of the colonist died during the winter. This did not hinder the rising popularity of Jamestown because an abundance of young English settlers kept coming. They were primarily poor and the new world was a way for them to work off their debt so they could begin a new life with their own piece of land. Those who did come with money hoped to become successful growing tobacco but the majority of those who came found no prosperity because around 80% of the people...
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...d in Jamestown kept them from reaching their goal of a better life. The environment was completely different from which they had come from in England. Jamestown’s environment was unexplored and unknown to the settlers. They did not know how to deal with such harsh conditions in the winter and that led to the deaths of many of the colonists. The amount of people who were designated to do physical work and provide for the colony was incredibly small so they could not provide for the colony. Not everyone was expected to work which meant some people were just a burden for others to look after; this lead to more deaths as well. The constant battles and ambushes by the Native Americans also led to the deaths of hundreds of colonists because the colonists had no way of defending themselves from the attacks or the various diseases they contracted from the contact with them.
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.
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.
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.
Looking at the early English colonies in the Chesapeake Bay region, it’s clear that the English had not learned any lessons from their experiences at Roanoke. Poor planning, a bad location, unrealistic expectations, flawed leadership, unsuccessful relations with the local Indians, and no hope of finding the mineral wealth the Spanish found in Mexico, all contributed to failure. The first colonists in the Chesapeake region were not only ignorant, lazy and unambitious, but their attempts were hampered before they had begun. However, a solution to these problems was found in a single plant: tobacco. Nevertheless, this cash crop ultimately created numerous problems for the colonists. The ignorance and indolent acts of the Chesapeake colonists to unsuccessfully restore the colony by themselves led to the demise of the colony as a whole especially regarding the planting of agricultural goods for food.
The Jamestown Project discusses the monumental landmark, the colony of Jamestown, was in Atlantic History. The story of Jamestown is told in a much more authentic, elaborate style than our textbooks has presented. As Kupperman points out, Jamestown was not only important to United State’s history but also to British history. From the motivations to the lasting effects, she gives an accurate account of all components involved in Jamestown. Also, there is a chapter devoted to the Native American experience, which shows a non-Western view of events. The book is written in a format that is easily read but also compacted with information. More importantly she puts Jamestown in its right place in United State’s and British history, as the foundation of colonial United States and the British Empire.
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.
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).
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.
It was a long journey, but the promise od succes drove them forward. English settlers have finally arrived in Chesapeake bay. They came to establish Britians first permanent settlement, in hopes of finding riches and establishing trade. They thought the new land had so much promise, but fortune they did not. The Natives were hostile, disease killed many, and the droughtmade getting food harder to do. It would be hartimes for Jamestown indeed.
How did so many Jamestown settlers die, this is the reson why. Over 100 English settlers arrived in May, 1607, on Jamestown Island in present day Virginia. Already ther were 15,000 natives called powatans, living in and around the Jamestown area, including the cheifs famous daughter, Pocahontes. Most new arrivals to Jamestown were young, poor, and in dept, and most were unskilled, and up to 80% died by 1611. Many early Jamestown colonists died from starvation due to the drought. The early Jamestown colonists had bad luck with the drought.
In 1607, three ships, the Susan Constant, the Godspeed, and the Discovery, set off for an extensive but meaningful journey across the Atlantic. On May 14, these ships, carrying approximately one hundred men sailing from England, landed on what is now present day Virginia in the Chesapeake Bay. This event marked the establishment of Jamestown, one of the most important establishments in early U.S history. For two lengthy years the Jamestown colony faced challenges including famine, disease, and continual conflict with the local Native Americans. These adversities caused Jamestown to decline, placing the colony on the brink of failure. The inhabitants of Jamestown as well as officials in England realized measures needed to be taken
It was a difficult life for the first colonists; they had limited labor and were constantly raided by Native Americans. Colonists tried to use the Native Americans as a source of slavery. Most of the colonist’s farms were in forest areas so Native Americans would just leave in to the woods. Colonists were afraid of pressuring them from the fear of getting ambushed by gangs of Native Americans. Another reason Native American men made bad slaves was because the women in the tribes did the agricultural work in the Native American villages.
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
In the late 1500’s through the early 1600’s was when the first settlers came to what we know now as the United States. The first voyage was written by a captain by the name of John Smith and his view of making Jamestown. The voyage after was written by William Bradford which writes about his experience while they were establishing the Plymouth Plantation. Both men have many problems to face for example,”Being thus left to our fortunes, it fortuned that within ten days, scarce ten amongst us could either go or well stand, such extreme weakness and sickness oppressed us”(Smith 72). John Smith was already experiencing problems within the first ten days which you could imagine can only get worse from there. William Bradford which wrote about the