by Ray Fauteux

Created on: May 26, 2007   Last Updated: July 27, 2009

Jamestown was the brain child of King James of England. He wanted a colony and after giving a charter for the land he sent Captain Newport to set up the colony in the Spring of 1607. The captain took one hundred men with him to get things started.

By 1609 the colony had mushroomed to 700 people but for some reason they never bothered to plant crops and the had no cattle. It seems they just lived on provisions brought over by ship and when they were gone they were out of luck. In the Winter months many of the colonists starved to death and by the following Spring, only 400 remained.

The only way the settlers could be convinced to stay in Jamestown was if someone brought out more provisions and if the day to day living standards were somehow improved. Finally Governor De La Ware agreed to meet the demands of the colonists and they remained in Jamestown and became the first permanent English colony.

That same year the settlers discovered that their land was great for growing tobacco and finally they knew they had something the could grow and sell. John Rolfe planted the first tobacco seeds in 1611 and it was the beginning of something special and the tobacco farms were soon creating a great source of income for the colonists.

Despite the agricultural successes enjoyed by the colonists, the first Jamestown government, called The House of Burgess wasn't formed until 1619. It seems that everything in the history of Jamestown happened at a snail's pace. Pretty well their first task was to start sending shiploads of slaves over to work in the tobacco fields because the colonists loved the profit generated from the tobacco fields, but there were not eager to be doing all the farm work by themselves.

It was about then that Pocahontas became a familiar face in Jamestown. Her father was chief of the Powhaten Confederacy which was an Indian tribe in Jamestown. There were some Indian attacks with the worst one happening in 1622 when 347 were massacred by one of the 30 tribes of the Powhaten Confederacy. This really got under the Royal's skin so they took away the land charter, sent De La Ware home, and Jamestown and the entire colony of Virginia came under Royal control in 1624.

Jamestown was eventually burned to the ground on September 19, 1667

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