John Smith example essay topic

In 1606, King James I set two companies, the London and the Plymouth, out with three instructions: find gold, find a route to the South Seas, and find the Lost Colony of Roanoke. Five months later, and forty-five men less, the London Company landed on a semi-island along the banks of a river the Indians knew as "Powhatan's River". On May 13, 1607, the first permanent British colony had been established in the form of a triangular fort. The men named their fort Jamestown, in honor of their King, and named their land Virginia, in honor or Queen Elizabeth I, the "Virgin Queen At first, the men believed they had found paradise.

The climate appeared mild, and the natives had reacted friendly. John Smith wrote, "Heaven and earth never agreed better to frame a place for man's habitations". (Colonial History) Then, the beautiful new world turned to blistering heat, swarms of insects, unfit water, starvation, fierce winters, Indian attacks, and shiploads of inappropriately-prepared colonists who never knew what a day's labor meant. These were men who were not known for their spirit of cooperation either among themselves, nor with the local Indians of the Powhatan confederacy. The only man who was able to somewhat keep peace, both in the colony and with the Indians, was John Smith. Despite the attempts of John Smith, the settlers still suffered one horror after another.

Then, to make things worse, Smith was injured in a gunpowder explosion, and had to be shipped back to England. The colony quickly succumbed to anarchy when Smith returned to England just two years after Jamestown was founded. Disease struck most of the first settlers within the years of 1609-1610. Only 60 of the original 300 settlers were still alive by May, 1610, according to historian Edward Dodson...

The one factor that revolutionized Jamestown and Virginia's economy, though, came in 1612. Native plants crossbred with West Indies's eed produced tobacco. Within a decade, it became Virginia's primary source of revenue. The area soon became controlled by a handful of large plantation landholders with indentured laborers. Since few British colonists could finance their cost of passage, colonizing agencies fronted transportation costs. In exchange, emigrants agreed to work for the agencies as contract laborers for usually between four and seven years.

Often, these contracts were sold to colonists with large estates. Though many indentured servants earned their freedom over time, more wealthy colonists were able to absorb New World land rapidly during early colonization. After indentured emigrants won their freedom, the situation also created a need for work force, which came in the form of a growing slave trade. A number of emigrants called Puritans, who had unsuccessfully sought to reform the established Church of England, arrived on the ship The Mayflower at Plymouth Rock in New England in 1620. Though nearly half of the colonists died of exposure and disease, native Wampanoag Indians provided vital information to the settlers on how to grow maize and survive. Crops flourished and colonists learned to support themselves through trade in furs and lumber.

Bibliography

web "Colonial History of Jamestown". Colonial History: 6-11-2001.
Accessed 9-23-2003.
Kennedy, David M. The American Pageant. Twelfth Edition. Boston: 2002, Houghton Mifflin Company.