When the fleet left, it took a little over one month to leave spain, and actually set out to go to America. When they got there, they realized how hard it was going to be to survive, as the Indians started attacking. Eventually, they built a wall around their little settlement so that the indians couldn’t attack them. John Smith became the leader of the colony, and took a big gamble. He invited the Indians to trade with them. This ended up working, and helped the colony get food, as they were starving, and started to resort to eating each other. Also, a disease was quickly killing them off. People today think that it was salt water poisoning, as that was all that they had to drink. Eventually, when John was in the woods alone, somebody made an attempt on his life, which nearly blew his leg off. They had to keep getting more people to come from Spain, as they kept losing far too many men. After what was known as the starving period, the colonists found a new crop. Tobacco.