John Smith

Powhatan

Farming

Starving time

John Rolfe

Indian Massacre

Tobacco

Sir Thomas Gates

Pocahantas

House of Burgesses

1609 1619

John Smith

•Member of Virginia Company’s Governing Council•Traded with Indians and drew a map of Virginia•Captured by Powhatan’s Indians•Claims that his life was spared by Pocahontas, Powhatan’s daughter, age 10 or 11.•Smith became president of the Jamestown Colony on September 10, 1608•Colony was disciplined under his rule.•He expected everyone to work or they would not eat.

John Smith

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Powhatan•A confederacy of at least 30 Algonquian-speaking North American Indian tribes. •once occupied most of what is now tidewater Virginia,. •The confederacy was formed by Powhatan, a powerful chief shortly before the settlement of Jamestown in 1607. •Tribes of the confederacy supported each other militarily and paid taxes to Powhatan with food, pelts, copper, and pearls.

Secoton, A Powhatan Village

Starving Time

GEORGE PERCY: GOVENOR OF JAMESTOWN DURING THE STARVING TIME

Winter of 1609--1610

Starving Time

• In 1609, Smith left and Chief Powhatan tried to starve the English out of Virginia. They stopped trading and carried out attacks. Hunting was dangerous, since Powhatan Indians killed Englishmen outside the fort. Without the Indians help, the colony didn’t have enough food for the winter.

Starving Time

• As food ran out, the settlers ate the colony's animals—horses, dogs, and cats—and later ate rats, mice, and shoe leather. Some even resorted to cannibalism.

• Of the 500 colonists living in Jamestown in the autumn, fewer than one-fifth were still alive by March 1610.

• Sixty were still in Jamestown; another 37, more fortunate, had escaped by ship.