In the next few weeks, the settlers focused their work on building a fort, which was a triangular palisade with three bulwarks, or raised platforms, for cannons. Before long, the colonists started dying.
Of the men and boys who landed, only 38 were still alive by January , according to Historic Jamestowne. Research by geology student Doug Rowland at the College of William and Mary and colleagues revealed that the colonists' drinking water was salty and contained arsenic.
Additionally, food ran out, famine set in, and a particularly harsh winter along with drought compounded the misery of the colonists.
In that first year, the bodies were buried in unmarked graves to prevent the natives from finding out that so many of the settlers had died, according to Bridges. Recent excavations by a team led by William Kelso, director of archaeology for Jamestown Rediscovery at Historic Jamestowne, have revealed 29 burial shafts close to the west palisade wall inside the fort. The team thinks these graves likely hold many of the colonists who died in Two of the excavated grave shafts contain two bodies.
According to the Historic Jamestowne website, the colonists likely resorted to double burials because so many men were dying in a short amount of time. Twenty individuals died in August alone, and multiple burials saved energy and time. In the other excavated shaft lay a boy about 14 years old, according to Historic Jamestowne. A small arrowhead was found next to the boy's right leg, which suggests he had been shot shortly before he was buried.
This may be the young boy who was recorded by Percy as being slain during combat with Powhatan Indians during the first month of the settlement. William Kelso, who directs excavations at Jamestown, told Live Science that the archaeology team hopes to excavate the rest of the graves and identify the bodies. The well-known story of how Pocahontas, daughter of Chief Powhatan, saved Captain John Smith's life very likely did not happen, at least not the way most people have heard it and most certainly not the way the Disney animated movie told it , said Bridges.
Smith, who was elected president of the colony's council after most of the councilors died or became incapacitated, wrote that the colony depended on trade with friendly Powhatan in order to survive. Indeed, according to park ranger Bridges, when they weren't fighting each other, Powhatan's people often visited the settlers. The chief's daughter, about 10 years old at the time, was a frequent visitor to Jamestown, delivering messages from her father and bringing food and furs to trade for hatchets and trinkets, Bridges said.
She also liked to play, and would spend time turning cartwheels with the boys of the colony. Her name was actually Matoaka, and Pocahontas was a nickname meaning "Little Wanton," according to Historic Jamestowne. Smith later wrote that at one point during an expedition in December , he was captured and brought to Powhatan. He was first welcomed and offered a feast. Then he was grabbed and forced to stretch out on two large, flat stones.
Indians stood over him with clubs as though ready to beat him to death if ordered. Suddenly, Pocahontas rushed in and took Smith's "head in her arms and laid her owne upon his to save him from death," wrote Smith. The girl then pulled him to his feet. Powhatan said that they were now friends, and he adopted Smith as his son, or a subordinate chief.
Smith's tale has become legend, and he romanticized it in later writings, according to Historic Jamestowne. Smith told the story only after Pocahontas converted to Christianity , and he didn't mention it in an earlier account of his adventures in Virginia. And if Smith's story is true, this mock "execution and salvation" ceremony was traditional with the Powhatan, and Pocahontas' actions were probably one part of a ritual.
Although the colony had been resupplied, along with new settlers, in January , the settlers hit another low in the winter of , a period that became known as the "starving time," according to Historic Jamestowne.
By this time, Smith had been forced to leave due to gunpowder injuries, and the colony's new governor, Thomas Gates, had been shipwrecked on the island of Bermuda along with essential supplies. By this point, relations with the Powhatan had deteriorated to the point where trade was impossible and the Jamestown fort was under siege.
When the colonists ran out of food, they "fed upon horses and other beasts as long as they lasted, we were glad to make shift with vermin, as dogs, cats, rats and mice," wrote Percy in an account of what happened.
Boots, shoes and leather were also consumed and, as recent archaeological evidence confirms , some colonists resorted to cannibalism to survive. In May , Gates made his way from Bermuda to the colony on makeshift ships made partly from wood found on Bermuda.
Finding only 60 survivors at Jamestown, he gave the order to abandon the settlement but not to burn it. 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. The decision was made to abandon the settlement. Less than a day after leaving, however, Gates and those with him, including the survivors of the "Starving Time," were met by news of an incoming fleet. The fleet was bringing the new governor for life, Lord Delaware. Gates and his party returned to Jamestown.
In , John Rolfe, one of many shipwrecked on Bermuda, helped turn the settlement into a profitable venture. He introduced a new strain of tobacco from seeds he brought from elsewhere. Tobacco became the long awaited cash crop for the Virginia Company, who wanted to make money off their investment in Jamestown. On July 30, , newly appointed Governor Yeardley called for the first representative legislative assembly. This was the beginning of representative government in what is now the United States of America.
Hostilities between the English and Powhatan Indians kick-started a destructive cycle of violence, plunder, and exploitation that would spread across the continent over the next three centuries, depriving native peoples of their lives, culture, and lands. The arrival of some two-dozen Angolan slaves at Jamestown in August presaged a system of exploitation and oppression that would destroy and blight the lives of countless Africans over many generations. At its creation, the new American nation would confront its greatest paradox: how could slavery persist in the midst of freedom?
Few other places in America so richly symbolize both the good and bad of our shared past. Jamestown matters because it is about coming to terms with that past; a past at times painful and conflicted but which eventually laid the foundations of modern America. At Jamestown, Indians, the English, and Africans first encountered one another, lived and worked alongside one another, survived and persisted, and in so doing began the long drawn out process—often contentious, sometimes tragic, but ultimately successful—by which together they shaped a new world and forged a new people.
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