Jamestown settlement - A brief account

A brief account of England's first permanent settlement in the new world follows below. This is based on my reading of 'Savage Kingdom' by Benjamin Woolley. I've been reading a few other books and other sources on the Jamestown settlement, and may write an article on it at some point.

Jamestown – 1607

As most children learn in school, America was discovered by Christopher Columbus in 1492, accidentally while seeking the Spice Islands of the West Indies. For the next hundred years many Spanish colonies sprung up in South America, the West Indies and also in the region of modern day Florida. For a century, Spanish had a stranglehold on the region and the Spanish royal treasury was overflowing with gold from the profits of its American empire. Eventually, England decided for economic and political reasons it should have a go at colonising too. In 1584 Sir Walter Raleigh was given an exclusive licence to colonize North America by Queen Elizabeth I. A few years later a colony was founded at Roanoke, but in 1590 it was found abandoned with only the word ‘Croatoan’ carved into a tree was left of the colony. No one knows what happened to them to this day. Anyway in 1603 the Queen died and Sir Walter Raleigh was thrown in jail.
Despite the failure of the Roanoke colony, there was still a keen appetite in Britain for another attempt to be made, and various plans were put forward for the setting up of a Public company to colonize America (following on from the success of the East India Company in Asia). However in 1606, a Royal Charter was granted giving a private enterprise (The Virginia Company).
A group of mostly young, and exclusively male, ‘adventurers’ were chosen to go on the expedition – for the most part these were the younger sons of gentlemen and the friends or relatives of investors. Practicality and a broad range of skills were not high on the selection criteria. The man chosen to lead the expedition was Christopher Newport, an experienced one armed soldier. Three ships were chosen to travel to Virginia: Susan Constant, Godspeed and Discovery. The ships left England on Saturday 20th December 1606. The journey was expected to take a couple of months, however due to bad weather the ships had to wait in the English channel for six weeks before departing for the New World. This serious delay ate into their supplies – later the shortage of food would cause extreme hardship. On board the ship, lots of arguments and infighting broke out. One man, Captain John Smith, was deemed to be the leader of a potential mutiny and thrown in the brig.
After stopping at several islands en-route, the ships eventually reached America on 26 April 1607. A sealed, secret list which had been brought across from England was opened, its contents dealing the men who were to form the new settlement’s ruling council. One of the names on the list was Captain John Smith, however Christopher Newport (who was also named as a member of the ruling council) decided not to release him straight away. This was just one of the factors that ultimately caused significant infighting and friction in the settlement for years to come – an unfortunate circumstance which was not going to help efforts to found a lasting colony. One of the first jobs of the ruling council was to find a suitable site to start building the settlement on. There was no ideal place, and eventually a small promontory jutting out from the mainland into the James River was chosen. The reasons were that it was quite a defensible location, by the sea and the water all around it was deep enough so ships could dock right by the land (so close as to be able to tie them to trees growing on the land). It was decided to name the settlement ‘Jamestown’ after King James I.
Initial contact with the Native Americans was relatively peaceful – they were if anything curious about the newcomers, and enjoyed trading with them (the settlers traded pots, pans and trinkets for food). Agreements were made but soon broken, the natives became aggressive and fighting frequently broke out. Whose fault this was can never really now be known but let’s not forget that, speaking very little of each other’s languages, there was bound to be misunderstandings with grave consequences. That and the Native Americans were there first and so arguably were justified in defending their homeland. In one, now famous story, Captain John Smith was captured by the natives and according to him was about to be killed by the chief, Powhatan, when the chief’s daughter Pocohontas saved him by throwing herself on top of him to stop her father’s men from killing Smith. Other encounters did not end so well. To protect themselves, the settlers fortified Jamestown against future attacks. Having relied somewhat on trade with native tribes for food, the eruption of conflict caused a distinct shortage of food to eat.
One of the primary motivations for founding a settlement was the hope of finding and mining gold and other precious metals. Samples of soil and rock were taken back to England, whereupon analysis found no trace of precious metals or anything remotely useful. This would be the first of many disappointments for the investors, as they started to wonder if they would ever see their money again. Nevertheless, in October 1607, two further ships were sent to Jamestown (albeit with far less supplies than the fledgling colony needed). They struggled through the winter, with many people dying before the coming of Spring.
The following the year, the colony started to get a bad reputation back in England. It was losing money, there was no sign of any precious metals, the colonists relied on constant supplies from England, and settlers sent over there were dying at an alarming rate.
Help for the Virginia colony eventually came from a most unlikely source. Prince Henry, son of King James I, saw the attempt to found an English colony in Virginia as a bold adventure. In 1609, despite being only 13 years old he was wielding considerable influence and considered by some (including the Spanish ambassador in a report to his masters) as the Protector of Virginia. Prince Henry’s interest in the colony caused what previously had been a secret affair to become a lot more public. Firstly it was the talk of the taverns and alehouses, then the subject of church sermons (possibly started by Prince Henry’s own chaplain) and then finally pamphlets and books started to appear about the venture. Faced with public and parliamentary pressure (and a lot of political-wheeler dealering!), Robert Cecil (Secretary of State) agreed to a new, second charter for Virginia. This allowed anyone to invest in the venture and many people did, including a large number of MPs and also the various Merchant’s Guilds in London.
It was agreed that the new wave of colonists to Virginia would comprise 600 men in 8 ships, led by veteran solider Sir Thomas Gates (who had been a patentee of the first charter). They struggled to reach their quota of colonists, and ended up paying for petty criminals’ food and passage to the colony to fill up all the ships. By the end of May 1609, the fleet was ready, all they were waiting for was Thomas Gates to arrive after being delayed in London. On 1 June, the rest of the fleet set off, leaving the flagship ‘Sea Venture’ awaiting the arrival of the governor. He duly arrived shortly afterwards, carrying a sealed casket with detailed instructions as to who would take over running the colony should anything happen to him. There was no opportunity for Gates or the casket to be transferred to another ship, which resulted in the precarious situation where the colony’s new governor, the admiral of the fleet Sir George Somers, and the sealed caskets all on the same ship – hardly ideal.
A few weeks later on 24 July, severe Atlantic storms hit the ships, lasting for upwards of two days. The ships became separated, and had to head for Virginia on their own. Eventually all of the ships made it to their destination (or did one never show up?), all but the Sea Venture. There were many arguments over who should be president of the colony, with no governor and no instructions. Captain John Smith argued he should remain as governor, and did so for a time, but then the presidency was passed to one George Percy.
The Sea Venture was presumed lost, but it in fact crashed and sank just off the coast of Bermuda (known as the Devil Islands because of the frequency of storms and the fact that most of the area was surrounded by dangerous rocks that would cause a ship to run aground). This is another story for another time, but suffice to say that in time, the survivors of the Sea Venture built two new ships, christened ‘Deliverance’ and ‘Patience’ and made their way over several hundred miles of ocean to Virginia. They found the colony in a worse state than it had been in before. Three new settlements had been set up the previous year, but two had to be abandoned and the third, Algernon Fort, had a few starving, emaciated people left. Jamestown was hardly any better. The winter of 1609 was unusually severe (in London there were ‘frost fairs’ on the Thames where street merchants set up stalls and sold their wares). In Jamestown, that winter was known as the ‘Starving Time’ when a large number of the colonists died, either from starvation, disease or being killed by the natives.

Sir Thomas Gates took over from Percy as the colony’s President, but couldn’t do anything about the food situation – everyone was slowly starving and there wasn’t enough food to go around. After discussing the situation with Sir George Somers and Christopher Newport, it was decided to pack up the colony and head home. They didn’t have enough supplies to the last the long journey, but hoped to sail via Newfoundland and catch enough fish to see them back to England. It being duly decided, they packed up, crammed into the three available ships and started to sail down the James River towards the sea. It was at this point that what must have seemed like a miracle happened. The departing colonists spotted a longboat coming towards them, and soon an English voice could be heard. He informed them that Lord Delaware, the new royal governor had arrived with three ships, three hundred men and a vast hoard of supplies. He ordered them to return to Jamestown, which they did – a vital turning point in the history of America.

Following the arrival of Lord Delaware, things started looking up for the colony. There was still the on-off conflicts with Native Americans, but they generally had enough to eat and could start developing the colony. Back in England though things weren’t going quite as well for the Virginia Company. Debts were mounting up, the company was on the verge of bankruptcy and the threat of Spanish invastion of Virginia was hanging over the whole affair. The company needed a way to pay off debts and finance new supply missions. The solution they came up with was to hold a public lottery. That way even commoners could have a stake in the Virginia Company (if not a share). Various prizes, big and small, were on offer and the lottery proved a popular idea, however it only managed to pay off old debts. The company still wasn’t on a very sound financial footing. What they needed was a way for the colony to make money itself, in effect to become self-funding. One of the colonists, John Rolfe had just such an idea.

Rolfe came over with the fleet in 1609, bringing with him some Spanish tobacco seeds to have a go at planting. The experiment was successful, and before long, Virginia had its first cash crop. Demand for tobacco was extremely high, especially as there was a ban on buying tobacco from the Spanish at the time. Soon, many plantations started to spring up and the colony took the first steps to funding itself.

Tobacco wasn’t the only thing Rolfe was famous for however. Some time earlier in a conflict with the natives, Pocohontas, daughter of the local chieftain, was captured. Raised and educated as a Christian in the colony, she took the name Rebecca. Rolfe and Rebecca/Pocohontas fell in love and ultimately got married. In time they had a son, Thomas Rolfe, and together they visited England and the King. Unfortunately Rebecca never saw her homeland again as she fell ill and died on the way home. Thomas Rolfe grew up in England, and his descendants number many of America’s ‘First Families’.

In 1619, a new ‘Great Charter’ for Virginia was drawn up. In it, land was given to settlers, 100 acres to the original settlers, 50 acres to new settlers. Combined with the explosion in demand for Virginia tobacco this proved a catalyst for the rapid expansion of the colony. The Great Charter also set up a ‘Great Assembly’ where the colonists, through elected burgesses, got a say in how the colony was run. For a time Virginia was probably the most democratic place in the world.

The colony proceeded along nicely until 1622, when the Native Americans launched a concerted campaign to wipe out the English settlers in Virginia. If it wasn’t for early warnings from ‘friendly’ natives (probably those that had been converted to Christianity), the campaign might have succeeded. As it was, hundreds of settlers were killed, and some of the settlements were almost wiped out. This was quite a big setback, and once again for a time there was a shortage of food and supplies as much had been destroyed. Helpfully, rather than sending over more supplies that the colonists desparately sought, England sent over several hundred men to replace those that had been lost. Over the next few months the settlers launched their own campaign to drive the natives out of the land surrounding the colony, and also expand outwards. There was much bloodshed but eventually they succeeded and while there were many skirmishes for decades to come, the Native Americans in the area were no longer a serious threat to the colony. The settlements were rebuilt, and in the years that followed the population of Virginia increased all the time.

Coast - North West England

I've just watched episode 5 of season 1 of 'Coast'. It covered north-west England, my home, and as such was especially interesting to me. Some of it I already knew, a lot I didn't.

Liverpool - I already knew it was England's most important port in the triangular slave trade, and that much of it's wealth and the large, grand buildings came about because of the slave trade. What I didn't realise, despite living there for 2 years, and working in the city centre for 4 years, was that evidence of the slave trade was all around. Many of the buildings had motifs and pictures carved into the stone depicting the slave trade. On one building there was a slave ship carved into the stone above the entrance. St Martin's Bank (think it's now Barclays, and the branch I used to use!) has a carving of a man stood above two African children, the children with chains around their ankles and wrists. The chains look like bracelets, but don't be deceived. Next time in Liverpool I will have to look out for these signs.

The programme also mentioned that Liverpool was a major port for people emigrating from Britain to the New World, i.e. America, Canada, Australia etc. This is something that particularly interests me, given my interest in early American history, exploration and colonies etc.

Formby - Also used to live in Formby! There were 5000 year old footprints in the clay. These are uncovered all the time by the erosion of the sand, but once uncovered only survive a couple of days before themselves being eroded. Showed someone who has spent years cataloging the footprints and learning from them about the people who they belonged to. Belonged to people living after the last ice age, Britain covered in primeval forest, so large proportion of people living by the coast. Around the time of the end of hunter gatherers, when farming was just about to begin. Discovered particles of carbon in the footprints, indicative of either bonfires, or early smelting of iron.

Southport - Holiday destination. Also lived here. Also had lifeboat station. In Dec 1886, major lifeboat disaster when a German sailing ship, Mexico, was sinking 4 miles out to sea. Lifeboats from Southport, Lytham and St Annes all independant of one another set off to try and rescue the people from it. Very rough seas, bad weather. Lytham lifeboat rescued the people after 4 hours of rowing across stormy seas. Lifeboats from St Annes and Southport lost (though 2 people from Southport lifeboat survived). 29 people died. British public and Queen Victoria donated £30,000 for the families of the lifeboat men, thus started the RNLI (Royal National Lifeboat Institution). Today it is one of Britain's best supported charities. Staffed by volunteers and raises £90m a year through donations.

Blackpool - again somewhere I used to live. Holiday destination from 1880's people from the mills of Lancashire coming for holidays and days out. Now seedy, lots of stag nights, binge drinking, one of the highest rates of teenage pregnancy in the country. The images of the sea along the front reminded me of going with my dad to see the rough seas and giant waves crashing against the sea wall, lots of mist and spray blowing in our faces.

Morecambe Bay - I now live in Lancaster, just near Morecambe Bay (3 miles away). Largest tidal estuary in Britain. Treacherous for people walking across them that don't know what they are doing, many people have lost their lives, most recently Chinese cockle pickers. In 1530's due to huge number of deaths on the sands, a Royal Sands Guide was appointed to safely guide people along the sands and across them. There has been a Sands Guide ever since, current guide is the 25th in a long line of guides (not related).

Ravenglass/Sellafield - nuclear power plant, controvertial. Used to pump out very toxic nuclear waste into the sea in the 70's. Today still pumping out waste, but much less toxic/nuclear.

Workington - Big steel industry, boom town in industrial revolution. Used to provide all steel for Britain's railways, but now hardly any steel industry left.

Also nearby, the Workington coal mines. Women used to be employed sorting the coal above ground after it had been mined. Hard work, coal dust in eyes, mouth etc. Interviewed 2 old women who used to do this job. They described then as the 'good old days' and enjoyed their jobs, and wished they could still do it (if they were younger). If you worked in service in those days you only got about 7 shillings a week, working sorting the coal you got £7 a week!

Maryport - evidence of a Roman fort, and other buildings, granary, forge etc. 1000 soldiers probably would have been stationed here. From Maryport to edge of Scotland, coastal defences running up to Hadrian's wall. Mile-fortlets every mile with 8-12 men in, with two watchtowers between each of them. Only needed for 20 years or so around 80-120AD before no longer needed as threat had been vanquished.

A very interesting episde.

A few facts...

I haven't done what I said I was going to do. I'm very fickle. I have written my synopsis of the Jamestown colony, England's first colony in America, based on Benjamin Woolley's book. I'll put it on here soon - it's just on the other computer at the moment. I can only blame time for not posting more on here, and the fact I've been busy learning lots of new things! Anyway, a few facts I've found after reading about the handover of power from Blair to Brown...

• Gordon Brown is blind in his left eye, ever since a rugby injury at university (from a Washington Post article)
• In 1997, the year Tony Blair became prime minister, a new website called Google was launched, and an unknown author published 'Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone'. Was it really that long ago?
• Gordon Brown is the longest serving British Chancellor in more than 200 years.
• In May 1997, the average house price in Britain was £68,085. Now it is £196,745.
• In 1997 Tesco had 568 stores, now it has 1,780.

What to learn next?

Since setting up this blog I've been a bit haphazard about what I post on here, mostly depending on how much time I manage to find. In an attempt to start posting more regularly, every now and then I'm going to post details of some of the things I'm hoping to learn and write about over the next couple of weeks. So here goes.

Jamestown - I've just finished a book ('Savage Kingdom' by Benjamin Woolley) on the founding and early years of Jamestown, the first English settlement in America (the first one to last more than a few months anyway). I'm hoping to write my own brief re-telling of this landmark history story.

Rivers - It always seems to come up on Eggheads (tv quiz show) so I'm going to read up on rivers, what are the world's longest, biggest, most diverse etc. A geography lesson I should enjoy I think.

Trees - It's dawned on me recently just how few trees I can successfully identify (about 3 or 4 is all). So I'm going to invest in a book on tree species in Britain, see how many I can identify out and about in the next week or so and maybe even take a few photos to post on here.

I'm sure there'll be more (I'm starting an evening course on history of the Tudors next week so I should learn some things there), but at least this gives me a starting point for the next week or two. See you soon!

In the news - a new earth and and an old book?

In my ongoing quest for knowledge, I often overlook the news as being full of celebrity gossip, political rumourmongering and bad news about killings, wars etc. From time to time there are some real gems. There were two that stood out this week.

The first concerned the news that scientists may have discovered a new earthlike planet. It orbits a star called Gliese 581 (they've got to come up with a better name, surely) and its radius is 1.5 times bigger than Earth. According to scientists models, it is likely to have an average temperature of between 0 and 40 degrees celsius, so assuming there is water it would be in liquid form, and they think the planet is either going to be rocky or full of oceans. It's 20.5 light years away so we are not likely to be able to visit anytime soon alas. It fills me with such a sense of awe to think that there might be life out there, so close (cosmically speak) and yet so out of reach. One day, it is highly likely that our descendants will visit this earth-like world... Of course there's no pictures yet - we don't have telescopes big enough to see it, but we can detect indirect signs of a planets existence such as the gravitational 'wobble'. In the next couple of decades however, scientists are hoping to have telescopes that can identify other clues as to what a plent is like such as the gases in its atmosphere. Exciting times could be ahead...

The other piece of news was about an old book. It was actually prayer book written in the 13th century by a scribe called John Myronas. Instead of using new parchment, the scribe used pages from 5 existing books and scrubs the writing from it before writing on the newly blank parchment. This is what is known as palimpsest. Anyway it was discovered in 2002 that one of the books that had been wiped clean was a unique work by Archimedes. Modern imaging techniques allow people to read the text underneath that had been wiped all those centuries ago. More recently, another of the books was identified as the only known manuscript by Hyperides, a Green politician of the 4th century BC. Now, a third book has been identified: an early commentary on Aristotle. What is so amazing is that if 3 works of such importance can be found in the same prayer book, what other texts lie hidden, waiting to be discovered?

Read more about the Archimedes Palimpsest here.

Roman Numerals

After a quiz question (while playing Perplex City board game) in which I needed to know, I decided to learn my Roman Numerals once again (having forgotten them long since). They are:

I - One
V - Five
X - Ten
L - Fifty
C - One hundred
D - Five hundred
M - One thousand

If there is a bar (line) above the letter, multiply it by a thousand. Not sure how to type this on here, but I imagine you get the idea. Note the lack of zero, as the Romans didn't have the concept of zero as a number.

As well as helping with quiz questions, it may come in useful for dating plaques, inscriptions, tombstones etc. as I investigate the local history of Lancaster (my abode).

As to how to learn them, I think I, V and X are fairly commonly known. I remember some of the others by using the following mnemonic (sp?):

M - Short for millenium which is 1000 years, hence the one thousand.
C - Short for century = 100 years therefore one hundred.

L and D are the hardest. The only things I can think of are that D is after C in the alphabet, hence 500. L is lower, hence 50. Not great I know. If anyone can think of a better way of remembering them, please let me know!

Irish History: Brendan the Navigator & Newgrange

I'm reading a book called 'Ireland' by Frank Delaney. It's a novel, made up of lots of stories about the history and legends of Ireland. I'm only about a quarter of the way through the book, and there has been several stories so far including:

Brendan the Navigator - the story of an Irish monk who was also a sailor. He sailed around various the coast of Ireland, Scotland, England and to France. Then one day he set off with a group of monks to sail across the Atlantic. He visited several islands, spent 7 years travelling around the islands. He eventually visited the 'promised land', which the story names as America, where he meets natives with feather head-dresses. I've looked up Brendan on Wikipedia. He became a Saint, and the legend is based on several historic sources. One theory is that the promised land he visited was America, though this has never been proved. I found it fascinating though, particularly with my interest in early American history. Visit the wikipedia article for Brendan the Navigator

The building of Newgrange. This is a prehistoric temple, a sort of Irish stonehenge. I'd never heard of it before, but it sounds like it is quite famous. It is a 'passage tomb' and is older than both Stonehenge and the Grea Pyramid at Giza in Egypt! It was buried for over 4,000 years but uncovered in the 17th century by some men digging for Stone. Every year at the winter solstice, the sun shines for 17 minutes into a central chamber - this was obviously designed to be so.
Wikipedia article for Newgrange.