Jamestown Pres PDF

8/2/2019 Jamestown Pres PDF

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Expedition nanced by The Virginia Company,created by Bartholomew Gosnold in 1606

Believed precious metals were to be foundhere, also hoped to nd new passage to Orient

3 ships (Susan Constant, Discovery, andGodspeed) set sail from London in December,1606.


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Takes about 5 months to arrive due to a lack ofwind, a stop in Puerto Rico.

Late April, Early May 1607: Arrival, CaptainEdward Wingeld appointed president ofgoverning council, named James Fort in honorof King James I.

Location seemed ideal... thought to be securefrom Spanish invasion (a persistent concern) yetclose to water.


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Current trends in popular history have begunto insist that the colony was the singular seedof all good things American. One writer evenclaims that "the American Dream was born onthe banks of the James River."

In fact, early Jamestown looks more like anightmare of folly, hunger, disease, andviolence.


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Of the initial 104 settlers who arrived in April1607, just thirty-eight were still living ninemonths later.

Swamp lead to serious health issues.

Awful conditions for agriculture

Survivors were often too weak and apathetic towork. Some had no desire to work to beginwith.


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Soldier of fortune, travelled across Europe briey

Appointed to expedition by Gosnold, a friend

Longed for power, celebrity

Despised social inferiors and resented politicalsuperiors


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Abandons Jamestown

Explores local waterways

Maps Chesapeake Bay

Extorts food at gunpoint from Native villages

Retained power only until October 1609, whenhe was crippled by an accidental gunpowderex losion.


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George Percy takes over

Colonists are unable to cultivate enough corn in

summer, starve during the winter and spring.In the spring of 1609 there were 220 colonists, but only sixty of them survived the winter.

In June 1610, the desperate survivors abandoned Jamestown and set off down the river towardEngland


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King keeps pouring money into colony

1613: The Governor (Dale) assigns 3-acre plotsto its "ancient planters" and smaller plots to thesettlement's later arrivals.

The following year, 1614, John Rolfe began tosuccessfully harvest tobacco.

Marries Pocahontas, brief period of peace


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1619: Individual land ownership instituted atrst Virginia General Assembly (House ofBurgesses)

Surprise attack from Powahatan Confederacyon March 22, 1622.

1624: King James revokes charter, Virginia becomes royal colony, tobacco ourishes.


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Colony expands, divided into counties

Attacked again by Powahatan in 1644

1646: Opchanacanough captured and killed,successor signs treaty with the Powahatan,conning them to reservations.


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Burned during Bacon's Rebellion in 1676

VA legislature moves to Middle PlantationBy 1699, Middle Plantation renamed toWilliamsburg, Jamestown begins to disappear.

Now being excavated on Island of Jamestowne,lead by the Jamestown RediscoveryArchaeological Project

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