Jametowns

Oscar Guzman 11/5/12
8O2 S.SJamestown’s
Disease, long droughts, tainted water, and 13,000 Native Americans trying to drive these people out. Jamestown being the first English settlement in America, it had its share ofkinks. Having only 104 men to start out with in the Chesapeake Bay and half those people being “gentlemen” who don’t work, it was going to be a rough time. What makes a colony successful? Survival,economic success, quality of life, able to grow and flourish, and be able to defend itself against enemies. Jamestown was a failure in the sense that so many people died so quickly. True it was the firstpermanent settlement in America but they did not find the gold they were looking for and lost many people in the process.
What lack of skills did these people need to have survived? If they had oneor two more doctors would have they survived? 58 gentlemen that didn’t work, couldn’t work, and didn’t know how to work didn’t exactly help the settlers. If these 58 gentlemen had been hardworkingpeople who were apothecaries or carpenters or soldiers, they just might have outlasted the Indians attacks.
The colony was surrounded on all sides by 13,000 Powhatan Indians. This wasn’t very comforting.The fact that the chief’s shaman said that a new “tribe” would come to their land and overrun his empire did not make them any more hospitable to the settlers. This tribe was the only way thesettlers even had a chance at surviving. The Indians killed over 130 people at James town. Had the colonists had a better relationship with the Indians, then they probably would have survived the dangerousenvironment.
Every day you hear “save the environment!” Yes, it is true we need to take care of our environment but the environment hurts us too. The Jamestown settlers got epically pawned by the...