Starving Time

The initial small group of 104 men and boys chose the location because it was favorable for defensive purposes, but it offered poor hunting prospects and a shortage of drinking water.

This forced the settlers into close quarters, behind fortified walls, severely limiting their ability to farm the area and trade with other Indian tribes.

After expanding fortifications, reinforcing shelters, and placing armed men to defend crops from native attacks, Newport felt he had secured the settlement by the end of winter.

[5] On board were the colony's first two women—Mistress Forrest and her maid Anne Burras—as well as more supplies and additional settlers, including craftsmen trained to make glass.

Over the first several months of settlement, the survivors (including Smith) had gained sufficient intelligence of the surrounding tribes to start more focused diplomatic initiatives with Powhatan's enemies.

With the coming arrival of the supply fleet, Smith felt the colony was sufficiently reinforced to engage the Powhatan directly with a diplomatic initiative aimed at securing at least a temporary respite from sniping, kidnapping, and assaulting.

The fire further deepened the settlement's dependence on the Native Americans for food and revealed to Chief Powhatan the weakness of the English colony.

In August 1609, Smith, who had gained the respect of the Powhatans, was injured in a gunpowder accident and had to return to England for medical treatment, leaving on October 4, 1609.

Hoping to emulate Smith, Ratcliffe attempted a trade mission; shortly after being elected, he was captured by Chief Powhatan and tortured to death, leaving the colony without strong leadership.

The Sea Venture was considerably larger than the other eight ships traveling, carrying a large portion of the supplies intended for the Virginia Colony.

While crossing the Atlantic Ocean, the convoy transporting 500 new colonists and supplies ran into a severe tropical storm, possibly a hurricane, which lasted for three days.

The other seven ships arrived safely at Jamestown, delivering 200–300 men, women, and children, but relatively few supplies (as most had been aboard the Sea Venture).

A diet of only maize (corn) results in vitamin deficiency (causing pellagra and scurvy, which likely worsened the reported apathy and despair).

[7][1] Cannibalism was confirmed in 2013 to have occurred in at least one case; the remains of a teenage girl of about fourteen years were forensically analyzed and shown to have telltale marks consistent with butchering meat.

Viewing the fort, we found the palisades torn down, the ports open, the gates from off the hinges, and the empty houses (which owners had taken from them) rent up and burnt, rather than the dwellers would step into the woods a stone's cast off from them to fetch other firewood.

Heading this group was the new governor, Thomas West, Baron De La Warr, better known in modern times as "Lord Delaware".

Governor West and his party arrived on the James River on June 9, just as the Deliverance and Patience were sailing downriver to leave Virginia.

Intercepting them about 10 miles downstream from Jamestown near Mulberry Island, West forced the Deliverance and Patience to return to the abandoned colony.

Among the survivors of the Sea Venture who arrived at Jamestown in May 1610, and were turned back by Lord Delaware, was a young Englishman named John Rolfe.

Rolfe is said to have founded Varina Farms near Sir Thomas Dale's progressive new city of Henricus, and in 1614 he married Chief Powhatan's daughter Pocahontas, who had converted to Christianity and taken the name Rebecca.

The arrival of Lord Delaware with a substantial armed force of pilgrims filled with patriotic fervor spreading Protestantism, resulted in a counter-offensive against the Powhatan Confederacy.

Although the truce was a short one, it allowed the English to fully secure the colony's fortifications and housing, expand its farming, develop a network of alliances with other Indian nations, and establish a series of outlying smaller settlements.

Through the descendants of Rolfe, many of the First Families of Virginia almost 400 years later trace their lineage to both the Native Americans of the Powhatan Confederacy and the English-born settlers of Jamestown.