What was the original intention of the virginia company in founding the colony of jamestown in 1607?

Contrary to popular belief, it was the year 2007 that marked the 400th anniversary of the founding of the first permanent British settlement in the New World, or what is now called the United States, and not 2020.

It appears that many people on both sides of the Atlantic seem happier with the association between the Pilgrim Fathers arrival in 1620 aboard their ship the Mayflower, rather than the band of entrepreneurial adventurers that arrived some thirteen years earlier and included one serial adventurer, Captain John Smith.

In was however, in June 1606 that King James I of England (VI of Scotland) granted a charter to a group of London gentlemen and merchants known as the Virginia Company, to establish a British settlement in the Chesapeake area of North America. They had been issued with three clear objectives; to discover gold, a water route to the South Seas and to find the Lost Colony of Roanoke.

Adverse weather conditions initially affected their departure, however the expedition finally set sail in three small ships, the Discovery, Susan Constant and Godspeed in December 1606, with around 140 colonists bound for Virginia.

Apparently John Smith and Christopher Newport, the captain in charge of the three ships, clashed during the voyage and Smith only escaped being hanged for mutiny when sealed orders were opened that named him one of the leaders of the new colony.

The search for a suitable site for the new colony ended on May 14th 1607, when the Virginia Company explorers landed on a small peninsular of land on the banks of a river some 45 miles from the Atlantic Ocean and entrance to the Chesapeake Bay. They quickly constructed defences for themselves in the form of a triangular fort and named their new settlement Jamestown, after their king.

Soon after landing, the colonists discovered that perhaps they had been a little hasty in selecting Jamestown as their new home. The swampy, confined site was plagued by mosquitoes, the tidal river water proved unsuitable for drinking and space for farming was limited. Extreme weather conditions and the unwelcome attention of the local Native American tribes compounded to further test their endurance.

Disease, famine and continued attacks by the neighbouring Algonquian tribe took a heavy toll on the population and it appears that only the strong and inspired leadership of Captain John Smith kept the colony from dissolving during its early months and years.

In December 1607, while on an expedition to gather food for the colony, Smith and his men were attacked by Indians; his men were killed but he was captured and taken before the chief of the local Powhatan Confederacy. Although he feared for his life, Smith was eventually released without harm. Smith attributed his narrow escape in part to the chief’s daughter Pochahontas whom he claimed had shielded and protected his body with her own.

In 1609, all appeared more positive when the Third Supply Relief Fleet of 9 ships set off from England loaded with fresh supplies and colonists with which to reinforce Jamestown. Optimism was short lived however, when the fleet encountered a massive hurricane on the way, and after being tossed in a storm for four days, the flagship Sea Venture was eventually driven onto a reef off the coast of Bermuda. All 150 on board were landed safely on the then uninhabited island of Bermuda, effectively castaways.

The remaining ships of the fleet limped into Jamestown in August 1609, with many of the passengers suffering injuries and sickness from their journey, thus adding a further 400 hungry mouths to feed.

Just a few weeks later the emerging colony was struck a further devastating blow when John Smith suffered serious injury in a gunpowder explosion. The decision was made to transport him back to England to better treat his wounds. Without his inspirational leadership, the colony quickly fell into chaos.

The freezing winter that followed Smith’s departure was particularly harsh and the colony entered what was later termed the Starving Time. Trapped within Jamestown by hostile Indians, the settlers first ate their way through their livestock; their pets were next on the menu, shortly followed by the resident rats and mice and then apparently the residents themselves!

Meanwhile in the paradise that proved to be Bermuda, the castaways from the Sea Venture led by the likes of Admiral Sir George Somers, Sir Thomas Gates and John Rolfe, had not only established a thriving community, they had managed to keep themselves busy as well. During their ten months on the island they had found food to be plentiful and they were able to build a church and houses. From the wreckage of the Sea Venture they built two further ships, the Deliverance and the Patience, aboard which they set sail set for Jamestown in May 1610.

What greeted them when they arrived at the Virginia Colony however, was not a pretty sight. Almost destroyed by famine and disease, only 60 settlers had survived that Starving Time winter.

Fortunes however started to change quite dramatically in 1612, when John Rolfe, who had introduced a new strain of tobacco into the colony, started to export it. The taste of Virginia tobacco proved very much the flavour of the day throughout the taverns and streets of London and the demand for the new cash crop rose exponentially.

Two years later the tobacco farmer Rolfe married the Powhatan chief’s youngest daughter Pocahontas, and a period of relative peace with the Indians followed. During a period of captivity with the colonists, Pocahontas had previously converted to Christianity and changed her name to Rebecca.

In 1616, the Rolfes made a public relations trip to England, where Pocahontas’ exotic looks and regal bearing brought her instant adoration; she was presented at the court of Queen Anne as a visiting princess.

“Rebecca” would never return to America. Shortly after the ship that she had boarded for her journey home had slipped its moorings, it was realised that Pocahontas was seriously unwell and after sailing just a few miles down the Thames it docked again at Gravesend. It was here that she died in 1617, aged just 22, possibly of influenza, pneumonia or smallpox. She was buried in the nave of the nearby St.George’s Church. John Rolfe returned to Virginia later that year.

Tobacco quickly became the rage throughout Europe and by 1619 Jamestown was a boom town, exporting more that 10 tons of the precious leaves. More workers were urgently needed to help bring in the tobacco crop. Later that year a solution presented itself when a passing Dutch slave trader willingly exchanged his cargo of 20 Africans for food. These Africans became indentured servants, similar in position to many poor Englishmen who traded several years of labour in exchange for passage to America. The race-based slave trade as we now know it would not start until the 1680’s.

It appears that the Jamestown colonists had failed in their original mission to find a route South Seas, and failed to locate the Lost Colony of Roanoke Island, but they had at least found gold. Well gold of a type …Golden Virginia Tobacco!

Pitch and Tar Swamp at Jamestown

reconstructed palisade at James Fort

modern seawall at Jamestown

monument for 350th anniversary in 1957

International rivalries with Spain and France shaped the location of Jamestown and the settlement of Virginia. The shape of the channel in the James River was also a factor.

The English were not the first people to arrive in Virginia, just as Columbus was not the first person to realize the earth was round. Asian hunter-gatherers got here first, about 15,000 years earlier. The Spanish explored the Chesapeake Bay before the English. In 1570, the Spanish even sent Catholic missionaries to convert the natives in Virginia and to expand the power of Spain north from Cuba.

In 1565 the Spanish established the first permanent European settlement in North America, St. Augustine in Florida. That settlement never developed beyond its role as a fort (presidio). Its primary role was to prevent pirates or other nations from establishing a base for capturing Spanish ships carrying gold and silver home from the New World. St. Augustine also protected Catholic missionaries - but the Spanish never tried to "plant" a large number of permanent settlers there.

Jamestown was intended to become the core of a long-term settlement effort, creating new wealth for the London investors and recreating English society in North America. The colonists arrived at Jamestown after a 4-month journey from London.

The three ships, the Susan Constant, Godspeed, and Discovery, left on December 16, 1606 from the docks at Blackwall on the Thames River, stopped at the Canary Islands for water, reached Martinique in the West Indies on March 23, sailed north from the Caribbean on April 10, reached Cape Henry on April 26 - and then spent over two weeks exploring places along the James River before settling at Jamestown on May 14, 1607.1

Source: ESRI, ArcGIS Online

One basic geography question is "Why did the English settle Virginia - and why did they start at Jamestown?" Factors to consider include:

• why Europeans had the resources/interest to colonize a new world, while the Algonquians lacked draft animals, the wheel, metals, and writing
• why the English, rather than some other culture, populated Virginia
• why the English created a successful colony in Virginia rather than abandoned it in failure
• and what adaptations the settlers had to make in order to succeed
• what happened to the First Families of Virginia - the Native Americans
• how the physical geography affected the settlement of Virginia by the English, and how the English changed the physical geography
• how the original culture of the English affected the settlement of Virginia

Source: ESRI, ArcGIS Online

The English spent over two weeks exploring the James River before choosing the site of their first settlement. Jamestown was placed on a peninsula with just a narrow link to the mainland, located 50 miles upstream from the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. The original 1606 instructions to the colony, written by investors in London before anyone understood the local geography, prioritized safety over convenience for travel between England-Virginia.

The focus on safety was based on the French experience at Fort Caroline over 50 years earlier. The French settled in 1564 near the coastline in what today is Jacksonville, Florida. Within a year, the Spanish in nearby St. Augustine destroyed the fort and killed the French colonists attempting to flee. Jamestown was located far north of the Spanish base at St. Augustine and, in recognition of that threat, placed further inland:2

Source: Library of Congress, Virginia / discovered and discribed by Captayn John Smith, 1606

Source: ESRI, ArcGIS Online

The English colonists who arrived in 1607 picked that site far upstream from the coast to avoid the Spanish. To a lesser extent, the English also feared the French and the Dutch. The constant international conflicts between European nations were a key factor in determining the location and the defenses of the new English colony halfway across the world.

Map Source: US Fish and Wildlife Service Wetlands Mapper

The Susan Constant, Godspeed, and Discovery sailed past the later sites of Norfolk, Suffolk, Hampton, and Newport News. Those locations were clearly convenient places to settle and offered plenty of fresh water from inland streams and wells. Point Comfort would have been far more convenient. As economic historian Philip Alexander Bruce later noted:3

Source: ESRI, ArcGIS Online

However, all the future ports in Hampton Roads (and of course the Eastern Shore) were too exposed to attack by one or more enemy ships. The fears were realistic; at various times, pirates, Dutch, British, and Yankee attacks showed that settlements in Hampton Roads were vulnerable to enemy raids.

In 1607 the English sailed "so far up as a bark of fifty tuns will float" and chose to settle on a peninsula that was almost an island. A slender neck of land on the northwest corner allowed access to the mainland, but could be defended easily against the Native Americans.

Width of the peninsula, or at least descriptions of it, changed over time. In 1676 the peninsula was calculated to be 50 feet wide. In 1688, estimates were 60-90 feet, but in 1694 the "slender neck" had grow to be nearly 200 feet wide. By 1748 erosion had washed away the link, but a human-built causeway allowed regular access to Jamestown.

Source: US War Department, Atlas to accompany the official records of the Union and Confederate armies, Southeastern Virginia and Fort Monroe Showing the Approaches to Richmond and Petersburg (1862)

Jamestown was an island at high tide during the American Revolution. By 1844 the isthmus had washed away completely, and a bridge over "Back River" connected the mainland to Jamestown Island.4

Source: ESRI, ArcGIS Online

In 1607 there were no permanent Native American villages on the peninsula. The Pasapaheghs hunted and fished there, but lived upstream closer to the Chickahominy River. Captain Gabriel Archer advocated for Archer's Hope because that site offered better onshore conditions, but the river channel was not deep enough there. Today, the Kingsmill Resort has covered Archer's Hope with houses and golf courses.

Source: ESRI, ArcGIS Online

Edward Maria Wingfield chose the specific location, and the election that made him President of the Council occurred a day later. Wingfield probably asserted authority as the only investor in the Virginia Company of London to travel to Virginia, and as the recruiter of 40% of the colonists who arrived in 1607. Wingfield believed that his rejection of Gabriel Archer's preferred location for the town was a key reason the Council removed Wingfield from his office as President and imprisoned him for four months, starting in September 1607.

Another factor would have been the imminent collapse of the colony. By September 10, 1607, 46 of the 104 colonists were dead due to disease and Native American attacks, and fod supplies were low. The Virginia Company had relied upon the experience of Spanish colonies and the Roanoke settlements in the 1580's, and had planned to acquire food from the "naurals" in exchange for copper, glass beads, and other trade items. By September 1607, it was becoming clear that Wahunsenacawh/Powhatan was a skilled diplomat as well as the leader of powerful military forces. He limited access to food, and the Council finally decided that new leadership was needed in Jamestown to counter him and perpetuate the colony.5

The James River channel was deep enough at the north end of the island for ocean-going ships to dock at the riverbank, eliminating any need to ferry goods from ship to shore on smaller boats. The fort built in 1607 was not located exactly at the deep-water site, however; it was built slightly downstream.

The colonists may have grumbled about carrying everything that distance, but the military advantages of the fort's location were obvious to people of that time. The fort was built at a site where Spanish/French/Dutch warships would have to sail further away from the riverbank; enemies would not be able to sail close to shore and bombard the English at point-blank range.

Most ships that arrived at Jamestown during the first three years, outside of local trips by the colony's Discovery, came with the First Supply and Second Supply in 1608 and the Third Supply in 1609. Carrying substantial amounts of cargo from ship to fort was a rare event.6

Source: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Office of Coast Survey, Chart 12248

Most importantly, however, the island was far enough inland that any Spanish/French/Dutch ships would be spotted before they could reach Jamestown. As arriving enemy ships tacked back and forth to sail up the narrow river, the English would have time to prepare for defense and use gunfire effectively from the shoreline to attack the enemy ships ("beat them with your muskets") as they tacked back and forth in the narrow portion of the river.

There were clear alternatives to Jamestown. The Elizabeth River offered an excellent harbor (it is currently home to the US Atlantic Fleet at Naval Station Norfolk), but that site was too close to the Atlantic Ocean and at risk of enemy attack with minimal warning.

The English colonists could have settled further upstream than Jamestown. Their ships in 1607 were shallow draft. They would float in just a few feet of water, and the James River was easily navigated upstream to the Fall Line. The ships used by the English to sail across the Atlantic Ocean appear ridiculously small to modern viewers. Visitors to the Jamestown Settlement re-creation discover that the Discovery was the size of a modern school bus, and 21 people lived together in that small space for four months while crossing the Atlantic Ocean from London to Virginia.7

Map Source: National Park Service, What Happened to the Three Ships?

On that first visit in 1607, Christopher Newport did sail up the river until the Appomattox River. He stopped, and the location of the settlement was determined, before Newport discovered the falls on the James River at the current location of Richmond. There were no obvious, special locations for settlement that far upstream, and transatlantic shipping would be the lifeline for the new colony to receive supplies and reinforcements.

The English in 1607 were far better prepared for a long-term occupation than Father Segura and the Spanish missionaries when they landed nearby in 1570, but the Jamestown settlement depended upon resupply from England. Jamestown was located as close to the Atlantic Ocean as the initial colonial leaders thought was safe, rather than as far inland as ships could go, in order to balance military security with the logistics of getting back and forth to England.

Just as Goldilocks in "The Story of the Three Bears" preferred porridge that was not too hot and not too cold, Jamestown Island was not too close to the ocean and not too far from the ocean. It was a just-right compromise location.

Map Source: ESRI, GIS Online

Jamestown was an international shipping point from the beginning in 1607, but the delivery of supplies from England was not always synchronized with colonial needs. The Virginia Company thought the colonists could trade with the Native Americans to meet basic needs, and the company lacked the capital to send multiple expeditions each year across the ocean just to ensure the colonists had enough food.

The initial years at Jamestown were rough. With 20-20 hindsight, we know that the English needed more farmers willing to labor in growing food, and fewer gentlemen interested in adventure and treasure hunting without having to get their hands dirty in Virginia soil. Also, the island lacked fresh water springs, one reason the Pasapahegh chose to live elsewhere.

In April, the runoff from upstream is powerful enough to push fresh water on the surface of the James River from the Fall Line all the way downstream to Jamestown Island. In the summer, and especially during the severe drought that affected the area during the early 1600's, the flow of fresh water slacks off and the boundary line in the James River between fresh/brackish water moves upstream past the island. The first colonists may have been sickened by drinking brackish water and suffered chronic salt poisoning until John Smith ordered a well to be dug in 1608.8

Trade with the Algonquian-speaking tribes provided an intermittent but unreliable source of corn and deer meat. Colonists started to die from disease during the first summer. Right after the First Supply ships arrived in January 1608, Jamestown was destroyed by fire. It was rebuilt, but conflicts within the colony's leadership and with the local Native Americans prevented acquisition of a reliable food supply.

New leadership was sent with additional supplies and colonists in the 1609 Third Supply. Most of the eight ships in that convoy arrived in August, 1609, but the 300 new settlers arrived after the planting season, and the colonists in Virginia did not have adequate supplies to feed the additional mouths.

The Sea Venture did not manage to complete the journey across the Atlantic Ocean. That ship, with the new governor Sir Thomas Gates, was wrecked at Bermuda.

The Third Supply ships that did arrive did not carry enough food to feed those additional colonists through the winter until new crops would ripen in 1610, and that was of greater significance than the absence of Sir Thomas Gates. The winter of 1609-10 ended up being the "Starving Time," when the majority of the colonists at Jamestown died. Contemporary records report that one person even killed and ate his wife, after "powdering" the meat with salty-tasting gunpowder. Cannibalism is also documented by the bones of a 14-year old girl, excavated in 2012. Analysis at the Smithsonian Institution showed that her body was carved up by someone wielding a knife with their right hand.9

The 1606 instructions directed that the first English town be located where ships could arrive easily, but at a site that could be defended against attack. The Virginia Company in London knew that at the beginning, Jamestown would not be a self-sufficient community. It would be an isolated seaport at the end of the line for international trade, an outpost that required regular replenishment from Europe in its early years.

Resupply trips from Europe required 12-18 weeks, until the Virginia Company in London hired Samuel Argall. In 1609 he identified a route along the 30th parallel that required only nine weeks at sea and reduced the risk of landing on Spanish-controlled islands in the Caribbean.

The shorter route turned out to be key to the survival of Jamestown. Lord De La Warr used it when traveling to the colony in 1610, and arrived just in time to intercept the ships that were abandoning Jamestown completely after the "starving time" winter of 1609-1610. Had Lord De La Warr followed the traditional route used since Columbus in 1492, he would have found just an empty fort.10

Source: ESRI, GIS Online

Had Sir Thomas Gates arrived with the rest of the Third Supply in 1609, Lord De La Warr may have found the colony already dispersing from Jamestown. The Virginia Company in London concluded within a year that the location chosen by Edward Maria Wingfield in 1607 that was not defensible against an attach by Spanish, French, or Dutch ships that might maneuver upstream.

The instructions given to Gates in 1609 included directions to maintain Jamestown as a port of entry, but to shift most of the colonists to other locations that were more healthy - and more isolated, so attacking European forces would end up starving before the fortified English settlements would have to surrender:11

Source: Library of Congress, Virginia / discovered and discribed by Captayn John Smith, 1606

In 1611, Sir Thomas Dale started the new settlement at Henricus. It was more-defensible than Jamestown, located on a high bluff, but not isolated in the backcountry. Dale ignored the 1609 instructions to find an isolated location far from the water. He chose a peninsula along the river that could be easily fortified with a palisade, recognizing that the Native Americans posed a greater threat than any European country.

The danger was demonstrated clearly in 1622, when Henricus was destroyed in the uprising led by Powhatan's successor Opechancanough.

Today, the closest equivalent to Jamestown is Antarctica. Scientific facilities there are cut off from the rest of the world for several months a year. When humans colonize the moon and planets, or the seafloor, those new colonists will face a resupply a challenge not unlike what the English faced with Jamestown.

Jamestown - The First English Capital

Is Jamestown the Oldest European Capital in North America?

Spanish Exploration and Settlement in the Southeast

The Spanish at Ajacan

Spain and Jamestown

Was Virginia Destined To Be English?

The English in North America Before Jamestown

John Smith and Virginia

Historic Preservation and Tourism at Jamestown

Powerlines vs. the Scenic Vista at Jamestown

Links

• A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia by Thomas Hariot (From Documenting the American South, University of North Carolina)
• Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities
• Avalon Project at the Yale Law School: Documents in Law, History and Diplomacy
• Bermuda Online - Royal Charters between England and Virginia including Bermuda (the island was once the eastern edge of Virginia...)
• Colony of Avalon (where Lord Baltimore tried to establish a colony prior to Maryland)
• Conquest of America (from The History Channel)
• Council for Northeast Historical Archaeology
• English Population in Jamestown
• Google StreetView
• Historic Jamestown
• Hypertext on American History
• Jamestown 2007 (Jamestown's 400th anniversary)
• The Jamestown Records of the Virginia Company of London: A Conservator's Perspective (from the Thomas Jefferson Papers)
• Jamestown Settlement and Yorktown Victory Center
• Jamestown Virtual Colony
• Jamestowne Society
• Library of Congress
• Library of Virginia, "Commemorating Jamestown: A Clash of Race and Memory" presentation on January 25, 2007 by W. Fitzhugh Brundage on white and black historical memory in the South since the Civil War, using examples from the Jamestown Ter-Centennial Exposition of 1907
• National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
• The Lost Colony and Jamestown Droughts
• National Park Service
• National Public Radio
• Bill Kelso: Digging Up the Truth About Jamestown (January 20, 2007)
• North Carolina Office of State Archeology
• NOVA
• Plymouth Colony Archive Project at the University of Virginia: Archives and Analysis of Plymouth Colony, 1620-1691
• Secrets of the Dead: Death at Jamestown (a PBS broadcast)
• St. Mary's City (the Maryland equivalent to Jamestown...)
• Historic St. Mary's City
• St. Clements Island State Park
• Theodore De Bry Copper Plate Engravings
• U-S-History.com
• Virginia Company Archives (subscription required)
• Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation
• Jamestown 2007 400th Anniversary Commemoration
• Virginia, Ships & Passengers, 1600-1609
• Virtual Jamestown

Source: National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Earth Observatory, Four Centuries at Jamestown, Virginia

References

Virginia Cities and Towns
Virginia Places