A Popular History of Unpopular Things
A podcast that makes history more fun and accessible - we love all things gory, gross, mysterious, and weird!
A Popular History of Unpopular Things
The Jamestown Colony
Join Kelli as she goes over the difficulties of the early years of the first successful English settlement in North America - Jamestown. From the bloody flux to survival cannibalism, brutal executions to starvation and madness, the foundation of what would later become the United States was built on all the gross, nasty stuff we love here on the APHOUT podcast.
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Sources referenced:
Savage Kingdom: The True Story of Jamestown, 1607, and the Settlement of America by Benjamin Woolley
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The Jamestown Colony
Intro
Welcome to A Popular History of Unpopular Things, a mostly scripted podcast that makes history more fun and accessible. My kind of history is the unpopular stuff - disease, death, and destruction. I like learning about all things bloody, gross, mysterious, and weird.
Just a quick reminder that you can support me and the show on Patreon, just look up either A Popular History of Unpopular Things or APHOUT: A-P-H-O-U-T. And you can also now watch episodes on YouTube - so go subscribe to my channel there! Links for both the Patreon and YouTube are in the description.
So back in late 2022, I did an episode on the Lost Roanoke Colony, the first attempt at a permanent English settlement. But it failed miserably. And in doing that episode, I made a mental note to one day do an episode on the Jamestown Colony, the first permanent English settlement in North America. And here we are, 31 episodes later, revisiting early American history!
There’s a lot of information about Jamestown, and I’m not going over every minute detail that surrounds this topic. There’s no possible way to accurately capture the social tension between men of different classes, all the economic factors at play, the intense politics between different indigenous groups and how the English arrival changed that balance… instead, I’m going to give a narrative on the overall history and of course the gross stuff, or things I otherwise find interesting. I’ll also do my best to string it all together into a compelling (and historically accurate) narrative. For any new listeners out there, that’s what I always try to do with my episodes!
But just because Jamestown is the first permanent, or some would say successful, settlement, that doesn’t mean it didn’t have its share of misery, struggles, blood, guts, horrifying executions - no seriously, I’ve got one example that will probably make you cringe - disease, and, of course, because this is APHOUT, cannibalism.
So today, we’re going to dive into the Jamestown Colony in all its gruesome glory to get an idea of how hard it was for English settlers coming to North America. Forget the sugar-coated stuff from elementary school about settlers and Native Americans getting along. Forget basically the entirety of the film “Pocahontas.”
Benjamin Woolley puts it well in his book “Savage Kingdom: The True Story of Jamestown, 1607, and the Settlement of America.” Quote:
“The story of England’s attempt to colonize America… is about flawed, dispossessed, desperate people trying to reinvent themselves. It is about being caught in a dirty struggle to survive, haunted by failure, hungering for escape, dreaming of riches, and hoping for redemption.” End quote.
So as always, we’ll start with some historical context to get a good idea of why settlers were heading to North America, and then we’ll break down how difficult it was to survive in a harsh, new world.
Let’s get started!
Historical Context
There’s a lot to talk about today, so I’m going to keep my historical context… somewhat brief. As brief as I can. I’m also going to take a step back and look at it from a big picture perspective. Essentially, why were the English trying to found settlements in North America?
To answer that, I want to go back to the Fall of Constantinople, 1453.
Constantinople was an Orthodox Christian city, the last big city that survived from the Roman Empire. Some actually consider the fall of Constantinople to be the fall of Rome, if you consider the Byzantine Empire as the Eastern half of the Roman Empire. It depends on which historian you ask. Otherwise, the traditional answer for the fall of Rome is 476 CE. But anyway.
In 1453, Constantinople fell to Mehmed II, also known as Mehmed the Conqueror. He besieged the city for 55 days straight until his constant cannon barrage broke through the walls. In its place, he established Istanbul, an Islamic city which still exists today in modern-day Turkey.
The reason this is part of our story is because it put pressure on Europe. Constantinople was not just an Eastern Christian city, but also a huge trading point on the Silk Roads. When Europe lost that big, Christian, trade city, they felt both religiously and economically threatened. It’s part of the reason the Portuguese, then the Spanish, and later the French, British, and Dutch started exploring alternative routes to Asia by sea. The Portuguese were the first Europeans to sail around the southern tip of Africa and start trading in the Indian Ocean, and the Spanish later set off West across the Atlantic looking for a route to Asia. Cue Christopher Columbus and all that nonsense. So the Fall of Constantinople is one of those big turning points that led to the European Age of Exploration, which eventually gets the British to land on the shores of North America.
But not only did Catholic Europeans feel threatened by the growing power and might of Islam, which was encroaching more and more into Eastern Europe, but also by the Protestant Reformation - a split in the Catholic Church. Now, there were Protestants and other denominations of Christians. Literacy rates were improving. People were reading the Bible and making up their own interpretations of how to get into heaven and how to lead a good, Christian, moral life.
Many Christians in England were unhappy with how religion was going down, and some sought new lands to practice their religion in peace. Jamestown wasn’t really… about that; the Northern settlements that came later, like Salem and the Massachusetts Bay Colony, where the Puritans went, ended up being those religious havens. Other New World settlers migrated because they were unhappy with England’s very rigid social class system, punishments, and restrictions. But regardless, there was a push to spread Christianity to these new lands - to “civilize” the indigenous peoples who lived there. Was it about saving those they deemed to be heathens? Or was it more about spreading Christianity to try and outpace Islam? Well, both. Depends on who you ask.
But as if that wasn’t enough reason, we also have to factor in the Spanish. Spain had laid claim to pretty much all lands in the Western Hemisphere, what we call the “New World;” they signed a treaty with the Portuguese called the Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494 to help decide who would control newly “discovered” lands. Spain, a Catholic country, was a huge English rival; in fact, if you listened to my Roanoke episode or already know enough about it, part of the reason those earliest colonization efforts happened was to harass the Spanish and try to damage Spanish economic power in the Americas. And the English war against Spain in the late 16th century prevented supply ships from going to Roanoke to support those first settlers.
Well, Jamestown wasn’t too much longer after all this. There was still a desire to
A) outpace the Spanish,
B) take some lands away from the Spanish, and
C) profit off of New World riches the way the Spanish were.
By this point in time, Spain was making a ton of money off gold and silver mines in the Mexican Sierra Madres Mountains and the South American Andes Mountains. And England wanted to compete with them, so they were interested in finding value in North American lands. They also wanted to find the Northwest Passage to the Pacific, and thought maybe all those massive river systems could hold the key to that route.
So after that particular conflict with Spain ended in 1604, there were some who wanted to try settling in North America again, for all the aforementioned reasons. And that’s why, in 1607, three ships - the Susan Constant, the Godspeed, and the Discovery - crossed the Atlantic to find the perfect place for settling somewhere up in the Chesapeake Bay in Virginia.
Setting up the Fort, 1607
Though all three ships made the trip without too many major issues, they did get stuck waiting for weather in the English Channel, making the voyage five months instead of what they estimated would only be two months. And since the men were stuck on board for longer than anticipated, they dipped into their supplies meant for the first few months at Jamestown. This will of course come into play later, when the settlers are starving and don’t have any extra supplies.
By the time they found the land they were looking for, it was May 1607. They specifically chose this part of North America, Virginia, for a few reasons.
First, the water in and around the Chesapeake, at least close to the mouth of the River, was deeper than the waters around England’s previous attempt at settlement - Roanoke. One of the big problems with Roanoke was that the waters around it were so shallow that ships couldn’t navigate the waters easily or get right up in there. Which is good for preventing a Spanish invasion, I guess, but not good for English ships who wanted to bring new supplies, right?
Second, they felt that Virginia was far enough away from Spanish settlements in Florida. They didn’t want more war with the Spanish.
Third, some of the Roanoke settlers had explored parts of the Chesapeake, and they had noted that the indigenous groups there were generally open to trade and had access to things like copper mines, maybe even gold mines, inland.
So three pretty good reasons for choosing the land they called “Virginia,” named after Elizabeth I, the Virgin Queen. They sailed west into a river they called the James River, named after their current King, King James I, and settled Jamestown on a swampy peninsula.
Did they build a strong, fortified settlement right away? Well actually, no. They were initially told during planning that, quote, “You must have great care not to offend the [natives] if you can [avoid] it and employ some few of your company to trade with them for corn and all other lasting victuals.” End quote.
That reads, because they chose this area with the hopes of trading with the locals. They were told to trade with the locals. They brought fewer supplies because they assumed they could get help from the locals. So therefore, they did what they could to not offend them - which means they didn’t initially build defensive structures. That would be a bad look. And right away, this caused dissension between the men. To be fair, there was evidence of political factions forming while still on board the ships on the way over, but I want to focus on this part.
The leader at this point didn’t want to offend the locals. The most outspoken critic was a man whose name you might recognize - Captain John Smith. Smith would later engage in behaviors that were less focused on making friends with the indigenous and more focused on making them bend to his will. We’ll get there.
The Jamestown settlers do eventually realize that they need to build defensive structures, as some indigenous groups started harassing them and attacking them. On one occasion, some of the Jamestown settlers went on a short expedition to meet and learn from some friendly locals. While they were gone, a warrior named Opechancanough of the Powhatan [POW-A-TAN] took it upon himself to eliminate the English so their settlement wouldn’t be permanent. Opechancanough was the younger brother of the Powhatan Chief, who we just call Powhatan, though his actual name was Wahunsunacock. I’ll continue to call him Powhatan though as it’s more recognizable to a wider audience. So Opechancanough and 200 warriors attacked the not-fortified Jamestown while the settlers were trying to plant corn before the season ended. Most of their weapons were still packed away, so they only had a handful of pistols and swords with which to defend themselves. 1 boy was killed, another dozen or so injured, and they were forced to run away. It wasn’t enough to deter the settlers, but it did convince their leader to build walls.
Generally speaking, a five-sided pentagon was considered to be the best defensive structure at the time. The longer walls wouldn't be too long, so they could be more easily monitored. However, given the shape of the swampy peninsula they inhabited, they went with a triangular shape - a longer, 140-yard side running parallel with the James River, and two 100 yard sides jutting inward. The enclosed space ended up being about an acre of land, and the plan was to have barracks, the church, a storehouse, an open-air market, and important residences inside the walls. Outside would be other dwellings, corn fields, stuff like that.
And it’s a good thing they got the fortifications set up, because the attacks didn’t stop - men found outside the walls were at risk of being shot with an arrow and killed. This was a problem, because remember, the men of Jamestown assumed they’d be able to trade with the local populations for food. And since they risked their life going outside the walls, they also had a hard time planting enough corn in the fields. So we’re looking at a situation here where they are quickly running low on supplies - and also remember that they arrived with fewer food supplies than intended because they had to dip into them on the voyage across.
Once the fort was set up, two of the ships headed back to England under Captain Christopher Newport, who ended up making several trips back and forth. It was especially important to bring more food and supplies, including ammo and guns for protection, seeing as how the settlement was not going according to plan. The third boat was left behind for the settlers.
A month after arrival, in June 1607, Newport returned to England. He brought with him a sample of soil, too - he hoped that there was copper and gold in it, which would encourage English investors that this was, in fact, a good idea, and this was not going to be another Roanoke.
The settlers who stayed behind were… not in a great place. As Benjamin Woolley puts it, quote,
“Their ‘houses’ were for the most part fragile tents, devoid of home comforts. The weather, Indians, and supplies were erratic, preventing all attempts to find a settled or familiar routine. Worse yet, the councilors [in charge of Jamestown and] in whose hands their fate now rested seemed to be infected with the scheming and plots, petty rules, and brutal punishments they had hoped to leave behind in England.” End quote.
Newport didn't return until early January, 1608, and in that 6-7 month period, the Jamestown settlers found themselves in a desperate battle for survival against death and disease. And by the end of 1607, the number of surviving settlers dropped to 38. From 104. So let’s take a closer look at what happened to them in the six or so months before Newport returned with help.
Trying to Survive
Almost immediately after Newport and some others left Jamestown, there was a big decline in health. Part of it was a lack of supplies - there wasn’t enough food, so people were suffering from malnutrition. There also wasn’t enough clean water to drink, so they took to drinking water from the James River. They didn’t really have much of a choice, but in general, it’s not a good idea to drink river water like this. Not only was it kind of salty because of its proximity to the Atlantic, but the whole area was a swamp, so add in slime, muck, and dirt to the mix. It gave them all kinds of diseases, including one noted as “bloody flux.” And if you’re not familiar with the term flux, in this context, it means diarrhea. You’re welcome.
The original plan was to plant crops, build the fort, and trade with the Indians they encountered, at least the friendly ones, right? Well they arrived too late in the planting season, with fewer supplies than anticipated, and they weren’t doing so well on the trade front, either. Food rations were cut down to only a half pint of wheat and barley, boiled in water, daily. All of this was only making factionalism and conflict between the settlers worse.
So perhaps they could rely on natural resources to survive, right? What was the situation with plants, nuts, berries, and animals? Well… there just weren’t enough to sustain the population there. And when looking at the established indigenous towns in the area, only one-third of their food came from fishing, hunting, or gathering - it was all about agriculture. Which Jamestown was having trouble with. In mid-August, several men were dying per day.
So something needed to happen. Enter - Captain John Smith, a bold and brash settler who decided to travel upriver, and later up the Chesapeake, in search of food. Whether that be by trading or taking. When he did trade for corn, he made sure not to trade for too much in any one settlement - he didn’t want to make it look like the people at Jamestown were desperate and starving, because that might invite more raids and attacks. He did get some food, but it wasn’t really enough.
On this expedition, Smith was captured. But before I talk about that, because it will be the introduction of Pocahontas into our story, first I want to talk about what happened to another man: George Casson.
When Smith and a few others got off the boat to go entreat with some locals, George was left on board to guard it. He was lured off the ship by a few women, and it’s not clear what he did, but it’s implied by some historians that he either attacked or otherwise assaulted the women. He was captured and brought in for interrogation at the hands of Opechancanough, who you might remember as the warrior who raided Jamestown earlier on - Powhatan’s younger brother. After a while, George is executed, but in the most brutal way imaginable. Warning - this is super super gross. The information comes from the published account of one of the men who was there, William White.
George’s captors used mussel shells, which by the way are really sharp, to cut through his skin and muscles like a knife, removing his limbs from his body. Each limb was thrown onto a fire when removed. This process continued until he was only a head and a torso. Then, his executioners flipped him over onto his front, or what remained of it at this point, and made a cut around the back of his neck. The sharp mussel shells were slid up under his skin and used to separate his scalp from his skull. Then, they flipped him back over and removed his face. They split his abdomen open, removed his stomach and bowels, and was then thrown on the fire.
There are only two recorded instances of this particular form of execution on record in Virginia. But it’s also worth noting that many of our sources about the peoples who inhabited Virginia, or what they called Tsenacomoco, come from the settlers, so there could have been more that we just don’t have records about. They might also be exaggerated to make the Native Americans look bad. Woolley speculates that this form of execution was meant for particular crimes, or perhaps for foreigners - they called us “Otasantasuwak,” which means wearer of leg coverings.
So that was gross.
The others who witnessed it, including our source reference here, returned to Jamestown freshly scarred from the experience. And perhaps, as Opechancanough intended, a little bit more afraid of the indigenous around them. Back at camp, they found disease rampant. And John Smith was still missing.
He didn’t suffer the same fate as George Casson. Smith was also taken captive by Opechancanough. Though everyone else captured with John Smith was killed, Opechancanough recognized that Smith had more power in the community, so they offered him “life, liberty, land, and women” if he gave up Jamestown’s defenses and weak points, so that Opechancanough and his Powhatan warriors could attack.
On January 2, 1609, John Smith wandered back into the Jamestown Fort with some Indian escorts. He sends the escorts back with cannons and a grindstone, then tells a remarkable story about how he got away. It’s probably mostly fictional anyway, but the gist of it is that he was brought to Powhatan, the leader of the whole area, an emperor of sorts who controlled a bunch of different Native American groups. Powhatan was apparently about to cut his head off, when his 12 year old daughter - Matoaka, who has the more recognizable nickname of Pocahontas - jumped in to save him at the last minute. After that, Powhatan decided to keep John Smith on to build things for them, like ammo and weapons. But he was then apparently released two days later so long as he sent back the cannons and grindstone.
Like I said, this was likely exaggerated, but regardless, relations between the Jamestown settlers and Powhatan were improving at this point. Pocahontas was sent as an envoy every four or five days to bring fresh supplies to the Jamestown settlers, and also presumably so Powhatan could keep an eye on them. Also, for those of you who have seen the Disney animation, Pocahontas did not have any kind of relationship with John Smith whatsoever. She was twelve at the time. She did later end up marrying John Rolfe, but we’ll get there.
The man in charge at Jamestown, who at this point was a guy named John Ratcliffe - he’ll pop up again later - blames John Smith for the deaths of the others. After all, it was his expedition and brash actions that got the men killed. He was also a vocal opponent and challenger to the other men running Jamestown, so he was a political threat. Smith was sentenced to hang for his crimes - but on the day he was supposed to die, with the world’s best timing, Captain Newport returns! His arrival spared John Smith’s life. Newport also brought with him 100 more settlers, some food, and some supplies.
It’s worth noting, though, that Newport only really came back because he argued that there was still value to the land here. At first, when he arrived back in England, Newport had no intention of returning to Virginia because the sample of dirt he brought back had no important minerals or metals in it. This tells us, as historians, that the settlement and men weren’t the most important part of this venture - it was the perceived value of the land. They’d be willing to leave the men and the settlement to die off if the land wasn’t valuable enough to warrant a return trip. And this is also made clear by the professions of some of the 100 new settlers he brought with him, including but not limited to tailors looking for new garment materials, apothecaries looking for new medicinal ingredients, goldsmiths, and ore refiners. Newport was determined to find value here - namely, the copper and gold they had heard existed somewhere inland.
The First and Second Supplies
Now that Newport was back, he and Smith continued working on their growing relationship with Powhatan, and a profitable trade relationship grew. There was more corn for the settlers, now. Which is great.
But on the economic side of things, the ore refiners and goldsmiths brought over were not finding gold or copper. Which is not great for Newport, because he had promised the higher-ups back home that he could find some and make Jamestown profitable for England. You know, worth the effort, time, and expense. Especially since being in North America threatened more conflict with Spain.
The Jamestown settlers were so focused on finding gold that they neglected their fields and did fewer expeditions upriver. I’m not saying they didn’t plant anything, but they didn’t plant enough. Supplies were wasted on ventures looking for ores instead of setting up the settlement. And a fire broke out in early 1608, which destroyed most of the existing buildings in the fort, including a large supply of ammunition.
In April 1608, around three months after he arrived, Newport returned to England… empty handed. He doesn’t come back until September.
In the interim period, Smith continued his expeditions throughout Virginia’s river systems, making some pretty awesome maps of Virginia while he was at it - very accurate, very informative. He had the same basic ideas as before about how to treat the people he encountered. He had assumed that English military technology was way stronger than what they had, so he would use it to take land and food by force, not through trade. He would even employ torture to get information out of the indigenous he encountered. Through this, he was able to find out that two groups, the Paspahegh and the Chickahominy, were planning a surprise attack on Jamestown while the settlers were out planting corn. Many disagreed with Smith’s tactics, but Smith argued that since Pocahontas kept showing up weekly to bring supplies, then Powhatan must not be too mad about it.
Upon his return to Jamestown, he found that the leader, Ratcliffe, had expended too many materials and supplies building himself a fancy, private house. And considering how poorly everyone was doing, this was a bad move. Disease was still rampant, people were starving to death, and here’s the leader building himself a fancy new palace in the woods outside the fort. Come on, man. Not cool.
John Smith, ever the adventurer, set out again to find what was rumored to be a “Great Salt Lake” - no, not the one in Utah - one fabled to be somewhere “up north.” Smith hoped to find it, hoping it could also be the northwest passage that might lead them to the Pacific Ocean. Remember that these were the pretty early days of discovery, so they didn’t have a clear idea of what the “west” looked like or how much North American land separated the Atlantic and Pacific. Smith explored enough to find out that the “Great Salt Lake” was somewhere up north in what were French settlements - we can guess they were probably all talking about one of the Great Lakes that separate the US and Canada.
When Smith returned to Jamestown to find it in even worse condition than when he left, he had enough of Ratcliffe and his fancy little palace. So Smith took over and started trying to improve the settlement. They fixed up the church, rebuilt the storehouse, engaged in trade for more corn, got to work training in case of an attack, and even extended the fortifications so that it was more of a five-sided structure instead of just a triangle. All good stuff.
When Newport returned in September, he brought with him even more settlers, around 70 of them, including two women! One was Mrs. Thomas Forrest, wife of gentleman Mr. Forrest. The other was her maid, Anne Burras. But Mrs. Forrest isn’t mentioned again in historical records, so she probably died soon after arrival. He brought livestock as well, though livestock didn’t work out well for the early Jamestown colony - cows and chickens need land to graze. Land outside the fort was unprotected. So livestock were usually stolen or killed.
Newport was here to do two main things. One, to explore the James River to the Appalachian Mountain in search of gold and copper. And two, to enhance diplomacy with Powhatan. To do this, he brought a crown and a red cloak - red was the royal color in England at the time - to coronate Powhatan as ruler, but also, in a way, make him a vassal to King James, who claimed ownership of Virginian lands.
So Newport went the diplomatic route, trying to encourage trade, while John Smith wanted to subjugate by force.
The thing is, though, Newport was under orders to make Jamestown profitable. He was given an ultimatum from those running the expedition back in England - either provide £2000 of goods (and I mean English currency pounds, not pounds as in weight), or support would be withdrawn, leaving the Jamestown settlers to fend for themselves - no more Newport supply runs. This tells us that, essentially, they no longer cared for Jamestown as a settlement or colonization enterprise. It was to be considered a trading post.
Newport did what he set out to do, both in coronating Powhatan and exploring the James River. He thought he found some silver, so he brought it back to test properly. And as you can guess… it wasn’t silver. Newport headed back to England in December 1608, but not with the £2000 of goods expected of him. Newport just hoped he brought enough to prove that there was still potential in North American land.
Jamestown Spiraling
It’s now 1609, and the settlement is only getting more dire. The English were having a hard time trading for corn, even from the indigenous groups they were on good terms with. 1608 by the way was a huge drought year - the worst in 700 years in North America according to tree ring analysis. So even if the indigenous normally had no problem trading corn, they didn’t really have spare food to share. So going into 1609, things were tough.
Relations with Powhatan were also getting worse over time, as John Smith’s way of doing things was upsetting the newly crowned leader of the area. War between the English and the Powhatan Indians - dubbed the First Anglo-Powhatan War - broke out in 1609 and carried on until 1614.
Now despite the fact that Newport hadn’t brought back riches yet, he still managed to convince King James of Jamestown’s importance. Or at least the general potential of North American lands. So King James issues a second charter, instating a governor to rule over Virginian lands. A renewed interest broke out in England, and around 500-600 settlers signed up to cross the Atlantic in 9 different ships. So that’s great! …Hopefully there’s still a settlement there to come back to.
This is now the third supply to come to Jamestown after the initial one - so the fourth group of people, if you will. But a hurricane hits the fleet on the way over. One ship is lost, and another is damaged, forcing them to make for Bermuda in the middle of the Atlantic. This ship, unfortunately, had the intended new governor on board - Sir Thomas Gates.
Those that did arrive in Jamestown in August 1609… well, I like how Woolley puts it. Quote:
“Having endured a two-month crossing… hundreds of battered, weak, and hungry men, women, ‘unruly youths,’ children, and livestock… might have been hoping to find themselves requited in the bosom of a Promised Land. Instead, they found themselves descending into an inferno of starvation and sedition.” End quote.”
Things in Jamestown were bad. And they’ll get worse.
John Smith had been in control for the last 8 months since Newport left at the end of 1608, and Jamestown was riddled with famine, disease, and increasingly strained relations with Powhatan. And then, in a horrible accident, John Smith manages to burn himself pretty badly when his ammo pouch magically caught fire while sleeping! It might have been done on purpose from Jamestown settlers who didn’t like him, but we don’t know for sure. The explosion tore the skin from his body and thighs, since the ammo pouch was around the waist. And it also, um, tore off the skin off his, um, manly parts. Sorry to the men out there listening to this.
John Smith steps down as leader and a gentleman named George Percy, one of the original settlers, becomes the new president. This is all interim stuff, anyway - the second charter established a new governor for the region, right? He… just… hadn’t arrived yet.
Some ships headed back to England in October 1609. John Smith, who was badly injured and needed proper medical help, went with them. So John Smith is now removed from the equation.
And then things get worse.
A month later, in November, Powhatan attacks Jamestown Fort, trapping around 300 people inside with limited provisions. Their options? Fight, negotiate, or wait out. Fighting is not likely to happen as they are vastly outnumbered, so they have to try and survive.
Some time in December, Ratcliffe goes out to Powhatan to try and trade for some corn. He had actually left Jamestown a few months prior to establish a new fort, Fort Algernon, to the East, closer to the mouth of the James River. But anyway, Ratcliffe is trying to get some corn off of Powhatan, their one-time friend and now enemy. Long story short and simplified, Powhatan plays a trick on them, ambushes them in the woods, and captures Ratcliffe. His execution is… as bad as George Casson’s.
Ratcliffe was tied to a tree, and then his skin removed - so he was flayed - with sharp mussel shells. Then they cut his limbs off one by one and burned them in a fire, removed his organs, and cut off his face. Then, when Ratcliffe died, what little remained of him was tossed on the fire. What a way to go.
It was now the winter of 1609 and 1610, and it would be arguably the hardest period in Jamestown’s history. Back in England, investor confidence in the Jamestown experiment was at an all-time low, though they are encouraged by the potential for growing a recently repopularized cash crop there - tobacco. And we know that it ends up taking off in a big way, making a lot of money. It helped fuel the entire Atlantic Slave Trade, right? So more ships were sent out to Jamestown. But they wouldn’t arrive until halfway through 1610. And there wouldn’t be much of Jamestown left by then.
Starving Time, Winter 1609-1610
Remember that ship with the new governor that got lost in Bermuda? Well, they managed to finally fix their ship and set sail again, and arrived in Jamestown in May 1610. New Governor Gates is late, but that’s fine. He’s here to assert his power as their new leader. But when they arrive, they find a virtually abandoned Jamestown.
Remember that Powhatan sieged Jamestown, forcing the colonists to stay locked up inside, right? Well… things progressed from bad to worse.
Those stuck inside found themselves running out of food. So, they first turned to the horses. When the horses were done, then it was pigs. Then chickens. Dogs. Cats. Rats. Mice. Snakes. Mushrooms and other fungi they picked from the swamps. The leather from their shoes. The, and I’m quoting here, “flesh and excrements of man.” And once all of that was gone, the famine turned people to madness, and it was time for survival cannibalism.
First, they dug up the corpse of a recently deceased indigenous man who was living with them at Jamestown. They boiled him up and ate him. Others drank blood from the sick and dying - you know, the ones powerless to fend off the hungry. All this information comes directly from George Percy, by the way, the man running Jamestown at this point.
One man, Henry Collins, killed his pregnant wife. He ripped the fetus from the womb and threw it in the river, then he cut up her limbs, salted them for preservation, and hid his wife’s salted meat around the house. She was reported missing by some who knew her, so George Percy - the one left in charge after John Smith left - investigated the house. Percy found the body parts, and Collins was burned to death for his crimes. I wonder if anyone was thinking about eating him. At least he was cooked!
No word on whether or not Collins ate some of his wife before dying. But hey, it gives a new meaning to the phrase “salt wife!”
Historians and archaeologists have also found evidence of a 14-year-old girl who was the victim of cannibalism - they can tell from the cut marks left in her bones. Was she already dead? Was she killed for food? That’s all unknown. But her remains make it clear that she was eaten by other Jamestown settlers.
The winter of 1609-1610 was known as the Starving Time. Historians estimate that around 270 people at Jamestown died during this period.
When Gates arrived, he instituted martial law and tried to make things work as the new governor, but after a month, they realized it was a failed venture. Jamestown was gone. There was no coming back from years of starvation, famine, skirmishes with the locals that had now turned into a war… so they all got on board Gates’ ship and set sail for England in June 1610. They were ready to let Jamestown die along with the promise of English settlement in North America.
But then, in another example of, just, the best timing, the ships from England arrived as Gates and the Jamestown survivors were about to enter the Chesapeake. A newly minted Lord Governor of Virginia, Thomas West, the Lord Delaware as he was known, arrived. He gave Gates orders to return to Jamestown. And luckily for those who had just endured the Starving Time, Delaware brought with him 300 more people, food, and lots of provisions.
Turning Things Around
At this point, things actually started turning around for Jamestown. Delaware whipped Jamestown and its people back into shape. He also knew that things needed to change with Powhatan, and playing nice didn’t work. So, Delaware got rough. He authorized raids on local Indian towns, killing a bunch of people and stealing their food. He wanted to provoke Powhatan into combat so he could get a sense of his forces and strength.
Delaware sent terms to Powhatan to return any English captives and stop raiding, which Powhatan refused. So Delaware captured some of his men, cut off their hands, and sent them back with an ultimatum: If all English men and weapons were not returned, the other Indian captives would die, and his soldiers would raid more Indian towns. Unfortunately, this didn’t stop Powhatan’s attacks on Jamestown.
But despite this, things are looking up for Jamestown. Finally.
A new governor arrived in May 1611 with 300 more people, weapons, food, and provisions.
Another 280-odd settlers and provisions arrive in August.
In September, a new settlement is established called Henrico, near the James River falls, which is today’s Richmond Virginia - it was much less swampy and dangerous, and grew to be a pretty decent settlement over time.
And, from the time Gates arrived back in May 1610, a man named John Rolfe had been experimenting with tobacco crops. And they were taking off in a big way.
His initial experiments weren’t great - the taste was bitter and the English didn’t like it. But after tweaking with it a bit, he improved it enough to where it rivaled South American tobacco. It would soon become the major cash crop in Virginia and the Southern colonies.
But there was still Powhatan to deal with. If Jamestown, and now Henrico, were going to survive, the war with the Native Americans had to be settled.
In April 1613, Pocahontas was kidnapped and held for ransom. The English wanted corn, weapons, and any captured English prisoners in exchange for her safety and return. But Powhatan… didn’t actually respond for a few months. When he did, he didn’t offer enough, so the English kept Pocahontas as a prisoner.
She was taken from Jamestown to Henrico where she would be educated, taught to read and write. And in an attempt to start working on one of the goals from the initial expedition in 1607 - they started convert the Native Americans to Protestantism. Pocahontas studied the King James Bible and eventually grew to love the English and her new life. Not just the settlement, but one man in particular - John Rolfe, the tobacco guy. They ended up getting married and having children, and Pocahontas converted. Her baptized name was Rebecca, so do with that information what you will.
But the bigger implications of this was that Powhatan was softening. He was no longer the feared man who ruled over his land with an iron fist - he ended up agreeing to this marriage, and with their union, the First Anglo-Powhatan War ended in 1614. He was no longer strong enough to stop the English from encroaching on his lands, so English settlements spread.
They started popping up along the James River - nice ones, with brick churches, fortified farmhouses, fences to protect against intruders. Not just quickly erected settlements, but proper towns now. Plots of land were given out to men from earlier expeditions, and others in England who wanted to better themselves. Tobacco plantations grew and were successful. It was proof that now, finally, hardworking English men, fed up with their way of life in England, could better themselves by moving to North America and working their owned plots of land. It was one of the original plans for the Jamestown settlers, and 7 years later, it was finally coming to fruition.
But let’s not forget all the hardships, crises, and cannibalism that founded our country.
Outro
Thanks for joining me for this episode of A Popular History of Unpopular Things. My name is Kelli Beard, and I hope you’ve enjoyed the story of The Jamestown Colony. Thank you for supporting my podcast, and if you haven’t already checked out my other episodes, go have a listen!
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