The Travails of Founding Jamestown

The first settlers in Virginia struggled mightily to found Jamestown.  Soon after arriving, they encountered Native Americans from the Powhatan Confederacy.  The English thought they could easily dominate the inhabitants of this new land.  They soon realized they needed the Indians to survive.  For their part, the Powhatan could have annihilated Jamestown or simply allowed the colonists to starve to death.  However, these European strangers possessed wondrous weapons and metal tools and might be a potent ally against indigenous rivals.  The parties developed what was at best a testy relationship where each tried to dominate the other through intermittent cooperation, intimidation and violent conflict.  Ultimately, several truces gave the English enough time to build up enough population and infrastructure to ensure survival in the competition for survival.

The first colonists arrived in the Chesapeake Bay on April 10, 1607 as part of a venture initiated by a group of English investors called the Virginia Company.  The Company charged the first settlers with finding a sea passage to the Far East and discovering gold and silver as the Spanish had done in Central and South America.  The colonists surveyed the coast and settled on an island in a river they named the James after English King James I.  The location was defensible, provided easy access to the sea and seemed to have a good water supply.  Problems soon developed though.  By summer, Jamestown revealed itself as swampy while the water supply turned brackish.  Spending most of their time prospecting for gold instead of planting crops and/or making other long-term preparations, the Europeans began running low on food.

The local Native Americans made matters worse.  In the first two months, the colonists endured frequent attacks.  These Indians were part of the Powhatan Confederacy, a union of 30 Algonquin speaking tribes led by the ambitious and capable Chief Wahunsonacock.  He was not pleased to see the arrival of a new potential rival and likely allowed or ordered the raids.

After a month of small ambushes, a force of 200 Indian warriors assailed the still incomplete fort.  The colonists held off the attackers with muskets and cannon fire from ships anchored in the James River.  Wahunsonacock learned respect for English guns that day and afterwards only harassed the English with volleys of arrows from the woods.  The colonists had constructed just enough of a fort to stave off disaster which proved significant.  Never again would Wahunsonacock directly attack the fort which gave the English at least one safe haven where they could not be massacred.  On at least three occasions, the Powhatans forced the colonists to abandon extended settlements but never could oust the English from Jamestown.

On June 15^th, the English completed the triangular fort with cannon on each angle and it became apparent they were not leaving.  Unable to overwhelm the palisade, Wahunsonacock settled on a new strategy.

On June 26^th, an Indian envoy approached Jamestown with a peace offering.  Wahunsonacock offered to trade with the colonists and allow them to live in peace.  The new stratagem likely reflected several considerations.  First, the colonists settled on poor land and then did not plant crops or hunt and gather food.  They seemed to be a primitive group who could be manipulated.  Second, in spite of their perceived backwardness, the new arrivals had guns.  Obtaining the unique metal weapons and tools could be useful.  Wahunsonacock had faced rival groups before.  He sought to make the English an ally which had worked well in building his confederacy.  The Powhatan faced a hostile Siouan tribe, the Monacans, from the west and encroachments from the north by the Susquehannock and Massawomack.  Perhaps the English could be enlisted to defend Powhatan borders.*

Wahunsonacock sent corn, fish, meat and other vegetables that fall.  Without these supplies, the colony probably would not have lasted.  The gift was not without strings.  Wahunsonacock expected the settlers to supply arms and warriors for raids on his Native American rivals.  The English were oblivious to the notion that they were now considered vassals.  They viewed this truce as first step to converting the Indians to Christianity and becoming subjects of King James.

Even with Wahunsonacock’s gift of food, only 34 of the 104 colonists survived to December.  That same month, Powhatan warriors captured Smith while on a trading mission.  His captors took Smith to Wahunsonacock’s home village.  In the now famous incident, Smith was forced to lay prostrate with an executioner, club in hand, standing over him.  At the last minute, Wahunsonacock’s daughter, Pocahontas, intervened placing her body over Smith’s head.

Smith wrote extensively about his adventures and had a penchant for exaggeration.  Some historians discount the story as fabricated, but others believe the account to be true.  David Price wrote that the event probably happened though Smith misunderstood the execution as a ceremony.  Wahunsonacock may have actually been symbolically initiating Smith and the English as an ally.  Whether the story is true or not, Wahunsonacock and Smith seemed to have developed something of a mutual respect which preserved the colony for another year.  Further, Wahunsonacock sent more food and the colony endured their first winter.

Smith made his own efforts to force Wahunsonacock into English subservience.  He tried negotiation, then threats and occasional force to supplement the food supply.  Smith’s tactics should sound familiar, he employed the same tactics Powhatan used to build his confederacy.  After months of ineffective leadership, Smith took charge and made immediate changes.  He decreed the first European law in America, “He that will not work, shall not eat.”  Under Smith’s direction and with the arrival of more Englishmen, the colonists began farming and building a church, supply warehouse and houses.  The acquisition of more food and motivated colonists temporarily stabilized the colony.

The truce lasted until Smith left Virginia on October 4, 1609.  His loss was significant for the English.  During his year long term as president only 18 colonists died and he left the colony with a food surplus and better facilities.  Smith’s tenure was the only stretch in the first 20 years where the attrition rate was low.

The reasons for the breaking of the truce cannot be exactly determined but several causes likely contributed.  In late 1609, a new batch of settlers arrived and for the first time included 20 women and children.  An all-male outpost was one thing.  One that included families was another.  Families equated to permanence, growth and independence all of which were threats to the Powhatan.

Further, the English expanded beyond Jamestown creating new settlements on the Nansemond River and further down the James River.  The new English leaders lacked Smith’s ability to balance cooperation with intimidation.  They eschewed negotiation resorting to burning down villages.  By this time, Wahunsonacock had acquired muskets, 50 swords, and over 300 metal hatchets.  With better weapons, Wahunsonacock was less willing to succumb to intimidation.  The Nansemonds and Powhatans besieged and destroyed English camps forcing all colonists back to Jamestown.  Not willing to risk a second direct assault on the fort, Wahunsonacock’s warriors surrounded Jamestown killing anyone who ventured outside.

Besieged for six months, the English soon ran thorough the provisions amassed by Smith.  As virtual prisoners, colonists began eating their domesticated animals, then horses and dogs.  With conventional food sources used up, they turned to rats, vermin and even shoe leather and bark.  The situation became so desperate, colonists resorted to cannibalism.  In a period now known as the “Starving Time,” the colony population dropped from 500 to 60.  By May of 1610, the depleted Englishmen voted to abandon Jamestown and boarded ships to sail for England.  In a moment of incredible timing, relief ships arrived with a new military governor Lord De La Warr and 150 soldiers and fresh supplies arrived from England.  The English returned to Jamestown and began fighting back.

De La Warr brought the first professional soldiers to Jamestown.  He installed a virtual military dictatorship to force the colonists to become more productive.  Thomas Dale arrived in 1611 as Deputy Governor.  De La Warr and Dale led successful campaigns against proximate villages establishing forts and commandeering cornfields.  They also founded a second permanent settlement of 200-300 colonists at Henricus, probably in modern Chesterfield County near modern Richmond, Virginia.  After two years of raiding, the English were far better established.  They spent 1612-1613 consolidating gains and trying to make the colony profitable.  The Virginia Company investors had spent a fortune sending new colonists and soldiers and wanted a return on their investment.  John Rolfe, who arrived in the summer of 1610, began experimenting with a strain of tobacco from Trinidad which eventually produced a marketable product to send back to Europe.  Tobacco plants soon began appearing everywhere, even in the streets of Jamestown.

Dale replaced De La Warr in 1613.  He continued the strict military discipline and began a new series of raids.  He ordered Pocahontas captured in March of 1613 and then used her as a hostage to demand Wahunsonacock return all English prisoners, turnover all guns he had obtained in trade and deliver food supplies to the colonists.  When he got no reply, Dale marched inland in 1614 burning villages promising more widespread destruction if his demands were not met.

For Wahunsonacock to agree would have meant a humiliating loss of autonomy.  That same year, a solution presented itself.  Pocahontas had converted to Christianity and fallen in love with Rolfe who proposed marriage.  For Wahunsonacock, the marriage was a peace offering he could accept without having to acquiesce to Dale’s harsh terms.  Pocahontas’ marriage brought about a lasting truce.

For the first time Dale allowed private land ownership to promote greater tobacco production.  The truce and recent discovery of tobacco brought about expansion at Henricus and new settlements such as Shirley Hundred, Martin Hundred, and Bermuda Hundred along the James extending to the fall line near modern Richmond, Virginia.    The English population grew even with a continued high mortality rate and finally began to show a return for the Virginia Company investors.

The English had a key advantage, England was overcrowded with little opportunity for advancement.  The English had a large supply of colonists willing to accept the risks of the New World for the promise of land and a chance for more than they could achieve in England.  In spite of the high death rate, colonists continued to arrive and the colony grew.  The truce arranged through Pocahontas’ marriage allowed the English to expand and diversify the colony ensuring the colony’s survival.

Wahunsonacock passed in 1618 and his brother, Opechancanough, came to power.  The new Powhatan leader held a far more hostile opinion of the English.  He saw the growing number of towns and English settlers as a dire threat.  English planters were encroaching on Powhatan lands confiscating the best agricultural land along the James.  Now spread over 60 miles from Jamestown in less fortified towns, the colonists were vulnerable.

On March 22, 1622, Indian warriors approached English settlements feigning friendship.  Once within striking distance, the warriors attacked in coordinated effort at nearly every English settlement.  They nearly wiped out several settlements and killed more than half of the inhabitants of Henricus, Bermuda Hundred and Martin’s Hundred.  Fortunately for the inhabitants of Jamestown, a friendly Indian gave a timely warning.  When Opechancanough’s warriors arrived, they found Jamestown’s gates closed with musketeers on the wall.  Opechancanough succeeded in killing between a third and a half of the English colonists, but by then it was too late.  The English were too well entrenched.

Though some settlements were temporarily abandoned, the English initiated a 10 year war attacking Powhatan villages focusing on destroying food supplies.  Conditions improved for the English as well.  The English crown became aware of the scandalously high mortality rate.  The Virginia Company’s charter was revoked and the English government reformed colonial policies which eliminated the endemic food supply problems.  Under better management, the English population grew accordingly.  In 1632, the war ended with the English in full control.  Opechancanough renewed hostilities in 1644 but was quickly captured and executed.  By 1646, the Powhatans were largely wiped out.

For the first English colonists, the first years in Virginia were deadly.  Disease, malnutrition, and conflict with Native Americans nearly ended in disaster.  The complicated relationship with the Powhatan Confederacy both hindered the colonists and saved them.  The Powhatans and English vied for dominance and the latter prevailed largely because they held on long enough to build up their numbers.  The truce created in 1607 came at a timely moment when the English were totally unprepared to sustain themselves.  The 1614 truce allowed the unending flow of immigrants to establish diverse, economically sustainable settlements capable of surviving the trauma of the 1622 massacre.

For more on Jamestown history, specifically the first meeting of the House of Burgesses in 1619, please click on: The First Meeting of Virginia’s House of Burgesses, 1619: 400 Years of Democracy in America

*Note: It is important to note that all early sources on Wahunsonacock and other Native Americans comes from English accounts.  The summaries of Powhatan motivations is therefore based on speculation and analysis.

Sources:

Alfred Cave, Lethal Encounters: Englishmen and Indians in Colonial Virginia, Oxford: Praeger Publishing, 2011.

Karen Ordahl Kupperman, Apathy and Death in Early Jamestown, The Journal of American History, Vol. 66, No. 1 (Jun., 1979), pp. 24-40

Frederick Fausz, An “Abundance of Bloodshed on Both Sides:” England’s First Indian War, 1609-1614, The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. 98, No. 1 (Jan., 1990), pp. 3-56

William M. Kelso, Jamestown, the Buried Truth, Charlottesville, VA: The University of Virginia Press, 2006.

George Percy, Observations gathered out of a Discourse of the Plantation of the Southerne Colonie in Virginia, compiled by Samuel Purchas, London: H. Fetherston, 1625.

John Smith, The Generall Historie of Virginia, New-England, and the Summer Isles, London: Edward Blackmore, 1632.

David A. Price, Love & Hate in Jamestown: John Smith, Pocahontas and the Start of a New Nation, New York: First Vintage Books, 2005.

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Sidney King paintings courtesy of the National Park Service-Jamestown.

All other images courtesy of Wikipedia.

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