Jamestown was the first permanent English settlement in North America. It was founded in 1607 and served as the capital of the Virginia colony for over 80 years. Remake of the Susan Constant.
In 1607 the London Company sent 104 men in three ships to VA toestablish a colony. They built a fort on swampy land and within 6months most of the 104 were dead or sick. Most of the men who camewere there to look for riches and gold. They didn't plant crops orprepare to survive the cold winters of VA.
The men were acombination of military, outlaws, and gentlemen. Part of theproblem was that no one did any jobs like planting crops or doingwhat they needed to live. Jamestown wasn't meant to be a colonyestablished as a settlement in a new world, but make men rich. Itwasn't until Rolfe introduced tobacco that the colony took off andgrew.
Jamestown, founded in 1607, was the first successful permanent English settlement in what would become the United States. The settlement thrived for nearly 100 years as the capital of the Virginia colony; it was abandoned after the capital moved to Williamsburg in 1699. A preservationist group took over the site in the late 1800s, and today, it is part of a national historic park with tours, museums and ongoing archaeological digs that continue to reveal new findings. Colonization of the AmericasJamestown was not the first successful permanent European settlement in what would become the United States; that distinction belongs to St. Augustine, in Florida, which was founded by the Spanish in 1565.At the beginning of the 17th century, England was lagging behind other nations when it came to colonization in the Americas. Spain controlled a vast empire in the New World that included much of South and Central America, Mexico, part of the Caribbean and a settlement in Florida. The Spanish were also moving into what is considered the American Southwest.Also by this time, the French were exploring Canada's northeast and, in time, would establish a highly profitable fur trade in the region.In the 16th century, the English did attempt to found Roanoke colony, a venture that ended in disaster; the colonists disappeared and were never heard from again, Karen Ordahl Kupperman, a professor of history at New York University, said in her book 'The Jamestown Project' (The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2007).
They were lost in what is now the Outer Banks area of North Carolina, and may have left their colony to live with the native people.In addition to the Roanoke colonists, other European adventurers had sailed along the eastern coast of North America, some of whom ended up living with the native people they encountered, Kupperman wrote.' It does not seem too fanciful to assume that some colonists in Jamestown, founded twenty years after the last Roanoke colony, might have encountered descendants of earlier transatlantic migrants without knowing it,' she wrote.
Disastrous early yearsThe founding of Jamestown had the blessing of England's King James I, and the settlement and James River were named in his honor. However, the settlement was financed and run by the Virginia Company.