Jamestown 1607

The Age of Exploration

The Age of Exploration or Age of Discovery
officially began in the early 15th century (1400s)
and lasted until the 17th century (1600s).

Age of Exploration is characterized as a time

when Europeans began exploring the world by
sea in search of trading partners, new goods,
and new trade routes.
 Early Exploration

Many nations were looking for goods such as silver

and gold but one of the biggest reasons for
exploration was the desire to find a new route to
trade spices, tea and silk which could be found in
Asia. (The Northwest Passage.)
 England Must Compete
Once the New World was discovered Spain and
France began to claim as much land as they
could, and England knew it also had to compete.
 We must compete with
Spain and France!!!! We
have to claim land in the
New World for England
 Collection of Data
• Early on, European countries (usually the king or
queen) paid for expeditions and sent out
explorers simply to have them return to Europe
with details of the New World and possibly new
findings. The explorers were not suppose to
stay.
 Colonization
However, as time went on European countries
saw the importance of creating towns that could
be used as a way to protect their claim to the land
and as a trading post to send things back and
forth to Europe.
 Colonization
Soon, many European countries started sending
people to the New World with the intent to have
them stay there and begin to build towns called
colonies. These colonies would be under the
control of the king or queen.
By the early 1600s, England
began to create (establish)
colonies along the Atlantic
Ocean
 The Lost Colony of Roanoke
England tried many times to set up colonies.
However, the colonies seemed to fail over and
over again. One of the most famous failed
colony is the Lost Colony of Roanoke.
 Roanoke
“The Lost Colony”
In 1587, a man by the name of Sir Walter
Raleigh tried to start a colony on Roanoke
Island off the coast of present-day North
Carolina.

After a few months the colonists ran low on

supplies so they sent a handful of people back
to England to get more. However, it took more
than 3 years for the group to return to
Roanoke from England and when they did it was
 CROATOAN
When the group finally returned to Roanoke,
they found no one. Every colonists had
disappeared and everything was destroyed.
The only thing they found was the word
“CROATOAN” carved into one of the only
doorposts still standing. To this day, no one
knows what happened or the meaning of the
word “croatoan”
 Jamestown 1607
After the failure of Roanoke, more than
twenty years passed by before England was
able to try again. In June of 1606, King James
I granted a charter for the Virginia Company
of London to try and establish a English
settlement in the Chesapeake region of North
America.
 Where do the English Land?
So, in May 1607, 104 Englishmen working for
the Virginia Company, dropped anchor and in
Jamestown, Virginia. There the colonists built a
triangle-shaped log fort on a swampy peninsula
in the James River, 60 miles from the mouth of
the Chesapeake Bay.
 Problems in Jamestown
• Almost immediately Jamestown faced many
challenges. The first of which was its location.
 Swampy Land
When they reached Virginia they decided to settle
on a swampy peninsula for safety. However,
during the summer the area began to swarm with
mosquitoes that carried diseases like malaria
which leaves people extremely weak and with
achy muscles and headaches. Even today
malaria often leads to death if untreated.
Location of Jamestown
 The Lazy Crew
The problems were made even worse because
the men who came over were lazy businessmen
hoping to get rich quickly by finding gold. Most of
them knew nothing about farming and were not
willing to work very hard.
I’m too good to do
hard work…Let the
servants do it.
 Time are Hard in Jamestown
As the food they brought with them started to run
out they began trying to trade with the Native
Americas for corn and meat but the Indians in the
area would sooner see the English starve to
death than trade. Hunger and disease took
control and every day another body was carried
to the graveyard.
I don’t trust these men…
Let them starve…
 John Smith Takes Over
• In 1608, a young man by the name of John
Smith took control of Jamestown. He told the
lazy men “If any would not work neither should
he eat”. The men were hungry, so they worked.
Smith goes to look for
food for the men of
Jamestown
 John Smith and Pocahontas
While looking for food the new Capitan John Smith
was captured by the Powhatan tribe of Native
Americans. Smith was about to be clubbed to death
when a young girl leapt out and saved him. This young
girl was named Pocahontas.

Smith wrote about Pocahontas in his journal saying,

“She, next under God was the instrument to preserve
the colony from death, famine and confusion.”
 Pocahontas
Overtime, with the help of Pocahontas, the
daughter of the powerful Indian leader, John
Smith was able to trade for food. This trade
would helped Jamestown survive.
 The Starving Time
• Jamestown’s troubles, however were far from
over. In the fall of 1609, John Smith was forced
to go home to England after being injured by a
gunpowder explosion. Without Smith and
Pocahontas things began to quickly fall apart.
Things in Jamestown begin to
fall apart
Winter hits
 We didn’t prepare
well enough for the
winter..
I miss Smith
 The Starving Time
• By the fall of 1609 the remaining settlers failed
to plant crops early enough to harvest for the
winter and trading had stopped. Many people in
Jamestown were starving to death. The years
1609-1610 have become known as the
“Starving Time”.
 The Starving Time
• Food was in such short supply that graves were
robbed and the bodies eaten. One colonists
even murdered his wife to feast on her flesh.
Stories of eating dogs, rats and even human
corpses to survive express the difficulties of life
in Jamestown. By spring only 60 people in
Jamestown were still alive.
 Jamestown Survives
• Learning of the hard times in Jamestown, three
ships full of supplies, 150 new colonists and
100 soldiers arrived in Jamestown.
Furthermore, one of the colonists, John Rolfe
soon figured out they could plant tobacco and
sell to it back in England at great prices.
 Tobacco= A major Cash Crop
Tobacco quickly became what everyone in
Jamestown grew. By 1630 more than 15 million
pounds of tobacco was sent back to England
every year. John Rolfe had grown a major cash
crop (a plant grown to make money not to eat)
and this crop would eventually save the
economy of Jamestown.
 The 1 Permanent Colony
st

• Over time the colony of Jamestown grew

stronger and stronger making it the first
permanent and successful colony in what would
later become the United States of America
1607