The United States of America is known for being one of the most advanced and successful countries in the world. Even though it is known for this, it hasn’t always been that way. In fact, the United States of America had a hard time even being developed. It all goes back to 1607 when the first permanent English colony was established in Jamestown, Virginia. The purpose of the settlement was to acquire natural resources for profit and to spread Christianity. Even though it was a very immense plan, 80% of the settlers died within the first four years. The question is what are the reasons so many colonist die in Jamestown between 1607 and 1611? So many colonists died because of their terrible relations with Powhatan Indians, lack of clean water, …show more content…
This played a key part in the reasons for colonist dying. The drinking water was brackish which means it was very salty so people got sick as they drank it. On top of that, the river was also dirty. This is because the tides from the Chesapeake Bay backed up the water, causing the garbage that was dumped in the river to do nothing but float back to the settlement. Another problem was drought. From 1607 to 1611 there was period in Jamestown that rainfall was less than normal. Because of the lack of rainfall, crops were not able to grow which caused starvation. Water was just one of the problems for the colonists. Slave masters would have been nothing without the slaves because only slaves know how to do the work. Same thing with the colonists. When the English settlers came to Jamestown, they didn’t have a useful amount of colonists. They needed farmers, doctors, surgeons and other colonists that were able to produce food and keep people alive. They had a high amount of gentlemen. Gentlemen were settlers who had little to no experience in doing any type of hard work. With all these combinations of people, there was low amount of skilled settlers, which led to may deaths. That’s the second problem for the