Kirkpatrick Sale: From Jamestown to us
[KIRKPATRICK SALE is the author of 12 books, including "After Eden: The Evolution of Human Domination."]
AS WILLIAM STRACHEY, later secretary to the little colony of Jamestown, put it in his account of the settlement, "Captain [Christopher] Newport … had sight of an extended plaine & spot of earth, which thrust out into the depth, & middle of the channel…. The Trumpets sounding the admiral stoke saile, and … the Colony disembarked, and every man brought his particular store and furniture, together with the generall provision ashoare…. That little halfe Stand of ground, was measured, which they began to fortifie, and thereon in the name of God, to raise a Fortresse."
Thus, on May 14, 1607, 400 years ago Monday, the second successful invasion of America began, on a low-lying peninsula on the north bank of what they were to call the James River. It was a moment of great significance for both the Old World and the New, for not only did it lead to the first effective implantation of the British nation overseas but, almost as if it had parted the waters, it began a period of colonial activity that in just three decades brought 60,000 settlers from half a dozen nations of Europe to what would become the United States, Canada and the Caribbean islands.
Jamestown was meant to be a populous colony eventually, not just a trading post, with permanent settlement from the mother country, agricultural exploitation, political hegemony and military control over, or protection from, the native people. Indeed, in the eyes of John Smith, the adventurer who was on that first voyage and stayed for two years in the colony, the peninsula was "a verie fit place for the erecting of a great citie." But this first settlement was men only, no families, and it took a long time for anything even resembling a village to be established there — and that only after years of disease, starvation and war after war with the Indians.
The most compelling fact of life there for many decades was death. The great majority of those sent to Jamestown between 1607 and 1625 by the Virginia Co. lost their lives — "neere eight thousand," according to Smith, and "not one of Five scaped the first yeare," according to a later governor.
The colonists, mostly military men, knew very little about agriculture and, for reasons never fully explained ("the extreme beastly idleness of our nation," suggested Smith), were never successful in feeding themselves. Instead, they tried to live on food bartered or stolen from the Indians.
Another problem was what Strachey called "cruell diseases," most likely from the mosquitoes and typhoid bacteria in the swampy water of the marshland where the colonists, in their hygienic ignorance, chose to settle.
But perhaps the main reason the colonists died in droves was that for the first few years, their chief occupation was, astonishingly enough, looking for nonexistent gold. As Smith later said, "There was no talke, no hope, no worke, but dig gold … all necessarie business neglected." ..
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AS WILLIAM STRACHEY, later secretary to the little colony of Jamestown, put it in his account of the settlement, "Captain [Christopher] Newport … had sight of an extended plaine & spot of earth, which thrust out into the depth, & middle of the channel…. The Trumpets sounding the admiral stoke saile, and … the Colony disembarked, and every man brought his particular store and furniture, together with the generall provision ashoare…. That little halfe Stand of ground, was measured, which they began to fortifie, and thereon in the name of God, to raise a Fortresse."
Thus, on May 14, 1607, 400 years ago Monday, the second successful invasion of America began, on a low-lying peninsula on the north bank of what they were to call the James River. It was a moment of great significance for both the Old World and the New, for not only did it lead to the first effective implantation of the British nation overseas but, almost as if it had parted the waters, it began a period of colonial activity that in just three decades brought 60,000 settlers from half a dozen nations of Europe to what would become the United States, Canada and the Caribbean islands.
Jamestown was meant to be a populous colony eventually, not just a trading post, with permanent settlement from the mother country, agricultural exploitation, political hegemony and military control over, or protection from, the native people. Indeed, in the eyes of John Smith, the adventurer who was on that first voyage and stayed for two years in the colony, the peninsula was "a verie fit place for the erecting of a great citie." But this first settlement was men only, no families, and it took a long time for anything even resembling a village to be established there — and that only after years of disease, starvation and war after war with the Indians.
The most compelling fact of life there for many decades was death. The great majority of those sent to Jamestown between 1607 and 1625 by the Virginia Co. lost their lives — "neere eight thousand," according to Smith, and "not one of Five scaped the first yeare," according to a later governor.
The colonists, mostly military men, knew very little about agriculture and, for reasons never fully explained ("the extreme beastly idleness of our nation," suggested Smith), were never successful in feeding themselves. Instead, they tried to live on food bartered or stolen from the Indians.
Another problem was what Strachey called "cruell diseases," most likely from the mosquitoes and typhoid bacteria in the swampy water of the marshland where the colonists, in their hygienic ignorance, chose to settle.
But perhaps the main reason the colonists died in droves was that for the first few years, their chief occupation was, astonishingly enough, looking for nonexistent gold. As Smith later said, "There was no talke, no hope, no worke, but dig gold … all necessarie business neglected." ..