Jamestown settlement title picture

Jamestown Virginia

By MeganC4575

  • Jamestown was founded

    Jamestown was founded
    Jamestown was founded in 1607. English men and boys, known as the Virginia COmpany, sailed to North America to create a settlement. They chose Jamestown, Virginia on May 13 1607.

  • Jhon Smith Became Leader

    Jhon Smith Became Leader
    Captain John Smith became the colony’s leader in September 1608 – the fourth in a succession of council presidents – and established a “no work, no food” policy. Smith had been instrumental in trading with the Powhatan Indians for food.

  • Jamestown "Starving Time"

    Jamestown "Starving Time"
    Jamestown’s darkest hour, the “starving time” winter of 1609-10. About 300 settlers crowded into James Fort when the Indians set up a siege, and only 60 settlers survived to the next spring. The survivors decided to bury the fort’s ordinance and abandon the town. It was only the arrival of the new governor, Lord De La Ware, and his supply ships that brought the colonists back to the fort and set the colony back on its feet.

  • Jhon Smith Goes back to England

    Jhon Smith Goes back to England
    John Smith's strict leadership made enemies within and without the fort, and a mysterious gunpowder explosion badly injured him and sent him back to England in October 1609. What followed was a period called the "Starving Time".

  • The first documented Africans in Virginia arrived in 1619.

    The first documented Africans in Virginia arrived in 1619.
    They were from the kingdom of Ndongo in Angola, West Central Africa, and had been captured during war with the Portuguese. They were treated as slaves until the mid 1700's.

  • First Representative Assembly in North America

    First Representative Assembly in North America
    The first representative assembly in English North America convened in the Jamestown church on July 30, 1619. The General Assembly met because of orders from the Virginia Company “to establish one equal and uniform government over all Virginia” and provide “just laws for the happy guiding and governing of the people there inhabiting.”
    This information was found in: Historic Jamestown Website

  • War WIth the Powhatan Indians

    War WIth the Powhatan Indians
    The war of the Jamestown colinists and the Indians began in 1622. The Powhatan grabbed any tools or weapons available and killed all English settlers they found, including men, women and children of all ages. This was a surprise attack and caused a war between the two groups.

  • Jhon Smith Dies

    Jhon Smith Dies
    Jhon Smith promoted colonization of North America until his death in 1631 and published numerous accounts of the Virginia colony, providing invaluable material for historians.