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Explain Why Early Jamestown Why Did So Many Colonists Die

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Early Jamestown: Why Did Some Many Colonist Die? In the year of 1607, three ships sailed to a newly discovered land with over one hundred British colonists, but they had no idea what was in store(B.E.). Within a year of their journey, half the men died, but why? The three primary reasons why the early colonists in Jamestown died was due to environmental problems, war and continuous droughts.
Many colonists died because of the environment. The main reason the enviroment killed them was because of the contamination of the water, and tides. The contamination of the water happened when they dumped their waste into the river. The colonist thought the waste would wash up but instead it “tended to fester rather than flush away” according to document A written by Denni Blanton of William and Mary College. They would later drink the water and they would get ill and eventually die from diseases. The tides also caused the colonists to die because when it is a high tide, the salt water would come into …show more content…

According to Document D, there was mistrust between the British colonists and the Native Americans. There was mistrust between the two because the colonist forced the Native Americans to trade goods, which was unfair to the Natives because it was not their fault they were unprepared. Native Americans and the English settlers couldn’t get along, and because this happened, this led to war, which led to death. Also those who were wounded or injured did not have enough doctors or surgeons to help( Doc.C). Also, according to document E, 144 colonists died by the attack of the Native Americans in the years of 1607 to 1610. This again shows the tension between the two groups. Although it is the Native Americans that did the attacking, it may have been because of the settler’s treatment in document D, when the colonists threatened to kill the Native

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Book Response Essay # 2 of America: Jamestown and Plymouth “Early America was littered with European failures- the Spanish in the Florida,the French at Fort Caroline, and the English at Baffin Island, Roanoke, and Sagadahoc”(Horn, 290). Yet, despite all the pervious disasters, two colonies would begin to find apermanent place on the soil of this New World. James Horn painstakingly chronicled thetribulations

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Well many colonists died because of their water supply, their relationship with the natives, and because of their knowledge of survival. These factor lead to early death for most of the colonist. The water supply for Jamestown was brackish, or filthy, and lead to disease.

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After researching the documents I have compiled several pieces of evidence. I read data set 3 and found interesting evidence, it says “English settlers first came to Roanoke Island in 1585. Their colony failed, however. They fought with American Indians and they didn’t bring enough supplies.” This supports my theory that the colonists ran out of supplies.

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The colonists were taking the Native American's property and taking advantage of the native Americans in the trade by getting them drunk so they could get more land. King Philip, the religious leader the Native Americans.

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They had very bad water in Jamestown their water was very murky the water did not get flushed it fested in the water that they swam and drank in. A lot of the Colonists died from that because it was not healthy for them because the water also had human waste in it. There were many other reason why so many Colonists died in Jamestown another reason why Colonists died was because they barely

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[The colony] had been deprived of its leader for three years. The ‘Indians’ had a sufficient amount of time to tear down the buildings too” (JG). With the Native Americans was able to cover all evidence of this massacre. On one hand of this also, there had only been fifteen men to defend a colony against a group of fifty, one hundred Native Americans. Where this colony was located, in the newly discovered world, may also be a factor in this theory.

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The colonists were also uneducated in the matters of survival in the wilderness so when winter came many died of starvation. Another mistake to add, would be the endless shipment of recruits, many of which also died because of the incompetence of the Virginia

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Only sixty of the colonist had survived the harsh winter that will forever be known as the starving times. Sir Thomas Gates and Sir George Summers arrived in May 1610 with 150 people and some supplies from the Bermudas only to find the walking anomalies of Jamestown. Sir Thomas Gates took over as the new governor and order the immediate abandonment of Jamestown. They labored into June to build 4 ships to carry them all back to England. Once all were boarded and sailing down the James river, they spotted another ship headed their way.

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319 Words | 2 Pages

In Jamestown, Virginia 110 people came from England in the spring of 1607 looking to make money off of gold that was rumored to be there. On their way settlers drifted North leading to a colder winter than expected which gave them a very hard time. By the time it was December there were only 40 people left. Many of the Colonists died because of the diseases caused by pollution in their water, unreliable food sources, and a bad drought that got explorers off on the wrong foot. The year of 1607 was not a good year for colonists to start fresh in Jamestown, Virginia.

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At least a half-dozen accounts, by people who lived through the period or spoke to colonists who did, describe occasional acts of cannibalism that winter. They include reports of corpses being exhumed and eaten, a husband killing his wife and salting her flesh (for which he was executed), and the mysterious disappearance of foraging colonists. The Starving Time at Jamestown in the Colony of Virginia was a period of starvation during the winter of 1609–1610 in which all but 60 of 214 colonists died. The colonists, the first group of whom had originally arrived at Jamestown on May 14, 1607, had never planned to grow all of their own food.

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320 Words | 2 Pages

There are a lot of stories about the lost colony of Roanoke and how the colonists that lived there disappeared. Some say they starved to death and some say the indians might have come and attacked them. Personally I think that the colonists left due to their lack of resources. There is some evidence supporting my hypothesis but also there is a lot that contradicts it.

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It still does not explain exactly where the colonists went, but it could be the reason the colonists were driven out of Roanoke in the first place (Kripke,

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The lack of food is the reason so many colonists died of hunger. The second reason to why so many colonists died was because of occupations. There were too many gentleman in May 1607 and January 1608 that did not want to do any work at all. One surgeon in 1607 and 1608 was not good.

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Some of the deaths of these colonists were caused by freezing to death, some of the deaths were caused by starvation because the animals that they ate where scarce and hibernating and some of the nuts and berries that they gathered were covered in snow. Also many colonists died because of diseases from europe and diseases from the lack of sanitation in the New World. One substantially important difference between Plymouth

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Like Jamestown, Plymouth provided a good port and an excellent harbor but was very cold compared to the southern colonies. The cold weather prevented the spread of life threatening diseases, but it unfortunately still killed many people. The hilly, rocky soil limited the amount of farming that the New England colonists could do. With such short growing seasons, the northerners weren’t able to export agricultural products like the southern colonies were able to do. They instead imported their agricultural products and focused their skills on lumbering, shipbuilding, fishing, and trade.

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