How old is jamestown virginia

King James I would give the Virginia Company a monopoly on tobacco, making the trade even more profitable. He even allowed the company to set up a lottery to provide additional funds for the Jamestown venture, according to Historic Jamestowne.

In April , Pocahontas was captured and brought to Jamestown. Although she was supposed to be used as barter for English prisoners, she turned into a catalyst for peace. She married Rolfe in , in the Jamestown church, converted to Christianity and took the name Rebecca Rolfe.

Her father, Powhatan, reached a peace agreement with the English that allowed the colony to expand its cultivated territory, setting up new settlements, including Henrico and Bermuda Hundred. Now "after five years' intestine war with the revengeful, implacable Indians, a firm peace not again easily to be broken hath been lately concluded," wrote Gov. Thomas Dale in Pocahontas, Rolfe and their infant son, Thomas, would go to London, where she would become something of a celebrity.

Tragically, she died in while the three of them were preparing to return to Virginia. Rolfe returned to Virginia alone, leaving their son in the care of an English family. In , the colony's new governor, Sir George Yeardley, returned to Jamestown with instructions from the Virginia Company, which controlled the colony, to create "a laudable form of government In June of that year, 30 men met for the first time in Jamestown to discuss issues facing the growing colony.

That same year, the company allowed single women to travel to Jamestown, which in its early years had been a largely male-only settlement. The company hoped that women would encourage the Jamestown men to settle down, rather than return to England after making some money. Also in , a Dutch ship arrived at Jamestown and traded food supplies for the ship's cargo of "20 and odd negroes," originally from Angola.

They worked as indentured servants as many English newcomers did , but were forced to labor for longer terms. After the death of the peacemaker Powhatan in , war seemed inevitable, according to Kupperman.

With the colony growing, and the English settlers using more land and making more aggressive attempts to convert the Powhatan to Christianity, the stage was set for a showdown. Opechancanough, Powhatan's successor, felt threatened by the growing English presence, now consisting of more than 1, people in several plantations. In , he launched a surprise attack in an attempt to wipe out the colony. The company claimed the attack killed people, Kupperman wrote, although the actual death toll was likely higher.

The English were forced to abandon some plantations and cluster closer together. Although the attack succeeded in killing many English, it failed in its aim of dislodging their presence.

More settlers, spurred by poor economic conditions in England, arrived to work on the plantations, hoping, in time, to obtain land of their own. The attack gave the English the excuse they needed to wage war against Opechancanough's people, sparing only the children so that they could be converted to Christianity and forced to work on the English plantations, according to Kupperman.

This war was a take-no-prisoners' affair, Kupperman wrote. As the Virginia colony grew, Jamestown developed into a thriving port town. The settlement became the first permanent English settlement in North America.

The site for Jamestown was picked for several reasons, all of which met criteria the Virginia Company, who funded the settlement, said to follow in picking a spot for the settlement.

The site was surrounded by water on three sides it was not fully an island yet and was far inland; both meant it was easily defensible against possible Spanish attacks. The water was also deep enough that the English could tie their ships at the shoreline - good parking!

The site was also not inhabited by the Native population. Once the spot was chosen the instructions sent by the Virginia Company, with the list of the council members chosen by officials in England , was read. The names were kept in a sealed box on the ship each ship had a sealed copy. By June 15, the fort was completed. It was triangle shaped with a bulwark at each corner, holding four or five pieces of artillery. The settlers were now protected against any attacks that might occur from the local Powhatan Indians, whose hunting land they were living on.

Relations had already been mixed between the newcomers and the Powhatan Indians. On June 22, Captain Newport left for England to get more supplies for the new settlement. Not long after Captain Newport left, the settlers began to succumb to a variety of diseases. They were drinking water from the salty or slimy river, which was one of several things that caused the death of many.

The death tolls were high. They were dying from swellings, fluxes, fevers, by famine, and sometimes by wars. Food was running low, though then Chief Powhatan starting to send gifts of food to help the English. If not for the Powhatan Indians help in the early years, the settlement would most likely have failed, as the English would have died from the various diseases or simply starved. By late , the relationship between the Powhatan Indians and the English had soured as the English were demanding too much food during a drought.

That winter of is known as the "Starving Time. As a result they ate anything they could: various animals, leather from their shoes and belts, and sometimes fellow settlers who had already died. In May , shipwrecked settlers who had been stranded in Bermuda finally arrived at Jamestown. Part of a fleet sent the previous fall, the survivors used two boats built on Bermuda to get to Jamestown. Sir Thomas Gates, the newly named governor, found Jamestown in shambles with the palisades of the fort torn down, gates off their hinges, and food stores running low.

In order to make a profit for the Virginia Company, settlers tried a number of small industries, including glassmaking, wood production, and pitch and tar and potash manufacture. Tobacco cultivation required large amounts of land and labor and stimulated the rapid growth of the Virginia colony. Settlers moved onto the lands occupied by the Powhatan Indians, and increased numbers of indentured servants came to Virginia.

The first documented Africans in Virginia arrived in They were from the kingdom of Ndongo in Angola, west central Africa, and had been captured during war with the Portuguese. While these first Africans may have been treated as indentured servants, the customary practice of owning Africans as slaves for life appeared by mid-century.

The number of African slaves increased significantly in the second half of the 17th century, replacing indentured servants as the primary source of labor. The first representative government in British America began at Jamestown in with the convening of a general assembly, at the request of settlers who wanted input in the laws governing them. After a series of events, including a war with the Powhatan Indians and misconduct among some of the Virginia Company leaders in England, the Virginia Company was dissolved by the king in , and Virginia became a royal colony.

Their instructions were to settle Virginia, find gold and a water route to the Orient. The mission of Historic Jamestowne is to preserve, protect and promote the original site of the first permanent English settlement in North America and to tell the story of the role of the three cultures - European, North American and African - that came together to lay the foundation for a uniquely American form of democratic government, language, free enterprise and society.