Summary Of A Cold Welcome By Sam White

In Sam White’s A Cold Welcome, many attempts of colonizing various regions in North America whether a success or a failure has led America to become the way it is today, two specific colonies exemplify—in depth— the ideologies of how hard surviving was during the time of colonization in the new world. The Jamestown settlement, although faced extreme hardships at first become one of the first successful colonies settled by the English in the new world. Another colony that exemplifies the idea of failure is the fabled tale of the Roanoke colony, better known as the ‘lost colony.’ []These settlements both had successes and failures which eventually become the blueprint for other settlements to colonize and to learn how to survive in the new world.

Although considered the first successful colony, it’s rough beginning is far from successful. [] Starting off in December 1606 three ships: Godspeed, Discovery and Susan Constant set out from London to find a settlement that would meet the qualifications of the Virginia Company. Once they reached Jamestown, it was established as a good location due to the fact that it was on a peninsula trading routes were made easier and it was set inland so that settlers had the ability to defend themselves against attacks from the Natives and the Spanish. When the settlers first arrived, they were greeted by friendly Native Indians who offered them copious amounts of food and drink. Since the English did not know how to properly cultivate the land, they relied heavily on the native’s gifts of food and supplies during their first years of its establishment. After a while, the English grew relentless towards the natives because they kept demanding mass amounts of food. During an extreme drought in 1609 a majority of the settlement population died, due to starvation. [] Famine was just one of their worries in this newly established settlement, Malaria and other diseases ravished most of the English

Roanoke was English’s first attempt of colonization in the new world. Starting in 1585, three separate attempts to colonize the area located just off the shore of North Carolina in what is now Dare county, all of which failed. Roanoke like Jamestown struggled with the cultivation of the land for food, they ate anything they could find. They had immense issues with the natives and never knew if they were going to be ambushed by the them. When the land was first established, the English sent ships from England full of supplies, however, those supplies would never reach the colonists. After waiting many years, the colonists who were waiting for supplies, returned to England, abandoning the colony. When the ship finally made it to Roanoke, the crew found an empty colony, so they left fifteen men there to wait for the other colonists to return. After years of waiting the shipsmen returned to England abandoning the colony once more. It was not until 1586 that the third and final attempt was made at colonizing the Roanoke area. They had improved relations with the natives, this time seemed like they were going to be successful. The First ‘American’ Virginia Dare, was born. Leader John White returned to England