On the 405th Anniversary of the Founding of Jamestown

After six months of sailing, with stops in the Canary Islands and the Caribbean, the Jamestown settlers were quite relieved when they made their first landing in North America on April 26, 1607. But their voyage was not over, and those who had the distinct privilege of dispatching ashore first were quickly returned to their ships after an ambush. Cargo space was at a premium, and the living spaces for most of the passengers was its own sort of hell–cramped, stagnant air, malodorous. Passengers were rarely let onto the decks; easy access to fresh air was a luxury for the crew.

It would be another two weeks of sailing within the Powhatan Flu, soon renamed the James River in hopes of gaining favor with the sitting monarch, going ashore periodically to search for a place to establish a profitable business. They discovered suitable locations for plantation–what is now Cape Charles, Point Comfort, and Archer’s Hope–with fresh water, loamy soil, wild game, and friendly natives, but these places could not provide both a defense against invasion and an easy access to harbored ships–a lesson learned from Ralph Lane’s expedition to Roanoke Island two decades prior. Nascent civilizations must provide a fort before they can erect a market

They continued up the broad and brackish waters of the James, until about 60 miles upstream they found a location that was geographically more suited to their needs for security, and which was in keeping with the London Company’s desires. This pear-shaped “island,” with a narrow isthmus connecting it to the main, would provide the settlers a vantage point that would allow them to spot first any menacing Spanish ships looking to secure their northern portion of their New World. It also allowed a near enough anchoring to land, eliminating the timely and costly need for cabarrs or lighters (boats to load or unload goods or passengers from ship to shore). They anchored at night, and began unloading their cargoes on the morning of May 14^th, 1607.*

Despite the natural military defenses of their chosen plantation, which made easier the repellant of unwanted humans, this marshy islet was teeming with mosquitoes and other infestive insects; its water was neither fresh nor potable; and the colonists found they were as imprisoned as they were secure. The first night of their plantation, “there came some savages sailing close to our quarter; presently there was an alarum given; upon that the savages ran away.”[1]

Distrustful of natives approaching under a cover of darkness–whether because of an English custom of nocturnal apprehensiveness, the ambush they sustained upon their landing at Cape Henry, or some intelligence received by a feuding tribe on the Eastern Shore or up the James–the English were skeptical of friendly interaction with this tribe. They quickly thought it prudent to erect defenses not only from the Spanish Navy, but from the native armies. The president of the council, Edward Maria Wingfield, initially objected, because he believed a defensive posture would contradict the Company’s instructions not to “offend the naturals.”[2]

Nevertheless, they received ambassadors from the Paspahegh werowance shortly thereafter, who informed them that their leader would be joining them to welcome them in feast. At the chieftain’s arrival, the English inferred from the Paspahegh that the Indians would relinquish their claims to surrounding lands. It was a treaty made within distrust and without translation. At this same party, says Percy, a native “stole a hatchet,”[3] and upon being caught was disarmed by force and fight. The native’s friend came to his defense and attacked an Englishman with a wooden sword. The English rallied to arms, and the Paspahegh left in anger and fear. Such were the beginning relations between the kingdom of England and the Powhatan Confederacy. Within two years, twenty percent of the Virginia settlers would be killed by natives; within the century, the natives would be, as Robert Beverley described, “almost wasted” by Virginia settlers.[4]

Often we are told the white man invaded a peaceful and, perhaps, naïve people with no concept of personal property; that it was the Europeans who were barbaric, not the noble savage. This is a fascinating and, more importantly, marketable narrative, but it belies a complex web of preconceptions on both the foreign Englishman and native American’s part, and a relative ignorance on our part of pre-Columbian Americans. Even before Roanoke, Europeans had sailed up and down the coast of North America, navigated its rivers, and interacted with the indigenes. Tales of these foreigners would be passed orally from tribe to tribe; tales of the natives would be transmitted by written pamphlet throughout Europe; neither was more or less reliable than the other, and each subsequent interaction was doubtless influenced by the natural preconceptions, propagandae, and nationalisms that make each tribe–whether American or European–feel superior to any potential competitor.

Fun Fact: The name “James Fort” (later Jamestowne) was not just a name to honor King James I, it was preferred above other names because it sounded like an existing English town. Dudley Carleton wrote in 1607 to John Chamberlain, “Mr. George Percie … names theyr towne, James-Forte, ‘which we like best of all the rest, because it comes neere to Chemes-ford [Chelmsford, Essex, England].”[5] Another name considered (and used by a Dutchman in 1607) was “Jacobopolis”.