Why You Wouldn't Want to be a Settler in Jamestown

HELLO WONDERFUL HUMANS and welcome back to Hysterical Histories! Today we’re talking about why you wouldn’t want to be a settler in Jamestown, and no, it’s not just because there’d be no internet. This is way worse than losing track of your server in Pokemon Go. This is life and death and even some cannibalism. Let’s go!

Okay so the settlement in Jamestown was the third attempt to colonize Virginia. The two past attempts had failed, the more commonly known one being the one at Roanoake, in which all the settlers mysteriously disappeared. However, England still wanted to colonize there because they were late to the party and wanted some gold. Enter the Virginia Company!

The Virginia Company was a group of entrepreneurs. They’d heard about the Maya and Aztec gold that the Spanish had found in South and Central America and they were eager to get their  hands on something similar. They got willing volunteers, but they may not have been the best ones for colonizing an area. It was gold they were interested in, so mostly noblemen who’d never touched tools in their lives went, along with some commoner types who were looking for a big break. But these commoners weren’t farmers. They were jewelers and the like. They were set up for disaster from the get-go.

Even on the ship ride over, the commoners and lords were arguing. The lords refused to do work and found the commoners to be rabble-rousers. This continued once they were on land -- the commoners did all the work while the lords sat by and waited for gold that would never come.

Lack of gold was to be the least of their problems, though. Powhatan, the chief of the nearby Native American tribe, had just heard a prophecy that a tribe would come from the bay and wipe his out. When he saw the English coming… it started to be a bad time for the Jamestown settlers. Native Americans showed no mercy. They were lethal archers from ridiculous distances and with panning being such a stationary activity, settlers were easy pickings for the Native Americans.

Over time, lots of people were buried, but only some were due to the Native Americans. Remember how there weren’t any farmers? Well the Virginia Company still refused to send any over, so many died of starvation. Another thing they lacked was decent drinking water. The only thing close was the James River, which was salt-water. Many died of sodium poisoning, which was a long, painful death that drove many insane. These problems are where we see that some of the settlers turned to cannibalism, digging up dead bodies and cooking them. It was a gruesome time. One particular winter cut down the colony by a HUGE amount. This was called the Starving Time.

After the Starving Time, the Virginia Company sent over some actually useful settlers and food, and
Jamestown was able to thrive. If they hadn’t done that, America might be a very different place today. For example, English might not have been the primary language. Alexander Hamilton would have no shots to even think about throwing away. It’s interesting to think that a colony of stuck-up noblemen cannibals were the lichpin of our country.

That's all I have for you this time! Thanks for reading!