History of Jamestown, Virginia (1607–1699)

[1][2] By April 6, 1607, Godspeed, Susan Constant, and Discovery arrived at the Spanish colony of Puerto Rico, where they stopped for provisions before continuing their journey.

On May 14, the colonists chose Jamestown Island for their settlement largely because the Virginia Company advised them to select a location that could be easily defended from attacks by other European states that were also establishing New World colonies and were periodically at war with England, notably the Dutch Republic, France, and Spain.

The island fit the criteria as it had excellent visibility up and down the James River, and it was far enough inland to minimize the potential of contact and conflict with enemy ships.

[7] Also notable among the first settlers was Robert Hunt, chaplain who gave the first Christian prayer at Cape Henry on April 26, 1607, and held open-air services at Jamestown until a church was built there.

A week later, Newport sailed back for London on Susan Constant with a load of pyrite ("fools' gold") and other supposedly precious minerals, leaving behind 104 colonists and Discovery.

[21] However, despite all these efforts, profits from exports were not sufficient to meet the expenses and expectations of the investors back in England, and no silver or gold had been discovered, as earlier hoped.

However, while leading one food-gathering expedition in December 1607 (before his term as colony president), this time up the Chickahominy River west of Jamestown, his men were set upon by the Powhatan.

As his party was being slaughtered around him, Smith strapped his Native guide in front of him as a shield and escaped with his life but was captured by Opechancanough, the Powhatan chief's half-brother.

These books, whose accuracy has been questioned by some historians due to some extent by Smith's boastful prose, were to generate public interest and new investment for the colony.

[6]Smith did begin his letter with something of an apology, saying "I humbly intreat your Pardons if I offend you with my rude Answer...",[22] although at the time, the word 'rude' was acknowledged to mean 'unfinished' or 'rural', in the same way modern English uses 'rustic'.

She was abducted by Englishmen whose leader was Samuel Argall and transported about 90 miles (140 km) south to the English settlement at Henricus on the James River.

This period of extreme hardship for the colonists began in 1609 with a drought which caused their already limited farming activities to produce even fewer crops than usual.

Aboard the flagship Sea Venture was the Admiral of the company, George Somers, Lieutenant-General Thomas Gates, William Strachey and other notable personages in the early history of English colonization in North America.

On June 7, having abandoned the fort and many of their possessions, both groups of survivors (from Jamestown and Bermuda) boarded ships, and they all set sail down the James River toward the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean.

This helped lead to the dispatch in early 1610 of additional colonists, more supplies, and a new governor, Thomas West, Baron De La Warr.

Intercepting them about 10 miles (16 km) downstream from Jamestown near Mulberry Island (adjacent to present-day Fort Eustis in Newport News), the new governor forced the remaining 90 settlers to return.

In 1610, John Rolfe, whose wife and a child had died in Bermuda during passage in the third supply to Virginia, was just one of the settlers who had arrived in Jamestown following the shipwreck of Sea Venture.

[30] In August 1619, "20 and odd Negroes" arrived on a Dutch man-of-war ship at Point Comfort, several miles south of the Jamestown colony.

Chief Opechancanough organized and led a well-coordinated series of surprise attacks on multiple English settlements along both sides of a 50-mile (80 km) long stretch of the James River which took place early on the morning of March 22, 1622.

The massacre caught most of the Virginia Colony by surprise and virtually wiped out several entire communities, including Henricus and Wolstenholme Towne at Martin's Hundred.

"[49] However, Jamestown was spared from destruction because an Indian boy named Chanco, after learning of the planned attacks from his brother, gave warning to colonist Richard Pace, with whom he lived.

Some historians have noted that, as the settlers of the Virginia Colony were allowed some representative government, and they prospered, King James I was reluctant to lose either power or future financial potential.

Bacon disregarded a direct order and captured some Appomattoc Indians who were located many miles south of the site of the initial incident and almost certainly not involved.

However, upon learning of his actions, King Charles II was reportedly displeased at the degree of retaliation and number of executions, and he recalled Berkeley to England.

Despite the periodic need to relocate the legislature from Jamestown due to contingencies such as fires, (usually to Middle Plantation), throughout the 17th century, Virginians had been reluctant to permanently move the capital from its "ancient and accustomed place."

It had a state house (except when it periodically burned) and a church, and it offered easy access to ships that came up the James River bringing goods from England and taking on tobacco bound for market.

While meeting there, a group of five students from the college submitted a well-presented and logical proposal to the legislators outlining a plan and good reasons to move the capital permanently to Middle Plantation.

The students argued that the change to the high ground at Middle Plantation would escape the dreaded malaria and mosquitoes that had always plagued the swampy, low-lying Jamestown site.

The proposal to move the capital of Virginia to higher ground (about 12 miles (20 km) away) at Middle Plantation was received favorably by the House of Burgesses.

During the American Civil War the island was occupied by Confederate soldiers who built an earth fort near the church as part of the defense system to block the Union advance up the river to Richmond.