50 Fun Facts About Jamestown

In what year was Jamestown established?

It followed failed English attempts such as the 1585 Roanoke Colony, which vanished around 1590.

What distinction does Jamestown hold?

Spain, Portugal and France had all moved faster; the English did not try until decades after John Cabot.

Who established Jamestown?

Its investors expected returns and sent written demands for gold, a route to the South Sea and a lost Roanoke colonist.

Which three ships carried the first Jamestown colonists?

All sailed under Captain Christopher Newport on a four-month voyage via the Canaries and Puerto Rico.

Who captained the 1607 fleet to Virginia?

Newport later commanded the ill-fated Sea Venture on the third supply mission.

What did the colonists name their first landfall on April 26, 1607?

From there they explored Hampton Roads and named the river after King James I.

The colony's river was named in honour of which monarch?

The settlement itself was first called James Fort.

Who was elected first president of the Jamestown governing council?

He chose the peninsula site on May 14, about 40 miles inland from the Atlantic.

Why was the island site chosen despite its swamps and mosquitoes?

The river bend made it defensible, and local nations thought the land too poor to bother with.

What did tree-ring studies reveal about Virginia from 1606 to 1612?

Borings from 800-year-old bald cypresses along the Nottoway and Blackwater rivers told the story.

Who celebrated the first known Anglican Eucharist in the future United States, in June 1607?

He was a former vicar of Reculver in Kent.

Craftsmen from which two countries arrived in 1608 and set up the colony's first manufactories?

Their glassware became the foremost American export to Europe at the time.

What became the leading American product exported to Europe from early Jamestown?

Clapboard had gone back on the very first returning ship; tobacco's boom came after 1612.

Which captain's arrival in July 1609 drove off a Spanish reconnaissance ship?

His ship Mary and John outmatched La Asunción de Cristo and kept Spain from learning how weak the colony was.

Which colony president told London investors to send labourers and craftsmen instead of gentlemen?

Smith, the council's third president, was later forced home by a gunpowder burn.

Why was the colony's third council president forced to sail home in 1609?

George Percy took over and proved a poor negotiator with the native tribes.

What is the winter of 1609–1610 at Jamestown called?

Only 60 of 214 settlers survived; some ate snakes and boiled shoe leather.

How many of the 214 settlers survived the winter of 1609–10?

Archaeological and historical evidence shows some colonists resorted to cannibalism.

Where was the relief flagship Sea Venture wrecked in 1609?

Admiral George Somers drove her onto the reefs on purpose to keep her from sinking, and everyone survived.

What were the two ships the Sea Venture survivors built during their nine months stranded?

They planned one vessel but needed a second to carry all the settlers and the salted pork.

Which Sea Venture castaway later sailed on the Mayflower?

He spent nine months on Bermuda in 1609–10 before his second Atlantic adventure in 1620.

Whose relief fleet met the departing colonists on June 10, 1610, and turned them back?

The colonists called it The Day of Providence; the governor later gave his name to Delaware.

What did the colonists call the day the relief fleet arrived in 1610?

Everyone had already boarded Deliverance and Patience to abandon the colony for England.

Who captured Pocahontas, ending the first Anglo-Powhatan War?

Her father Wahunsenacawh accepted a peace treaty after the capture.

What was Pocahontas's actual name?

Pocahontas was a nickname; she later took the English name Rebecca on marrying John Rolfe.

Where did John Rolfe's tobacco seeds come from?

The plants had grown wild there after shipwrecked Spaniards planted them years earlier.

In which year did John Rolfe first successfully harvest tobacco?

He grew rich, married Pocahontas and bought the colony several years of peace.

Where did Pocahontas die in March 1617?

She fell ill at the end of a public relations trip; her father died the following year.

Which governor assigned 3-acre plots to the "ancient planters" in 1613?

Private plots, and the end of the drought, finally produced measurable economic progress.

For how long did indentured servants typically agree to work for their passage?

Germans who came as redemptioners bought part of their passage on credit and worked off the rest.

Where did America's first representative assembly meet in 1619?

Its aim was "one equal and uniform government over all Virginia"; at first only Englishmen could vote.

Which group staged the first recorded strike in Colonial America, in 1619?

They refused to work until granted the vote, which the court gave them on July 21.

On which ship did the first documented enslaved Africans reach English North America in 1619?

Among them were Antoney and Isabella, whose son William Tucker was the first documented African child baptised in British North America.

Who led the Powhatan Confederacy's attack on the colony in March 1622?

He was Powhatan's brother; the strike killed more than 300 settlers, about a third of the English population.

How was Jamestown itself spared in the 1622 attack?

Outposts such as Henricus and Wolstenholme Towne were essentially wiped out.

Of the 6,000 people who came to Jamestown between 1608 and 1624, how many survived?

Disease, hunger and conflict took the rest.

What happened to the Virginia Company's charter in 1624?

Virginia became a crown colony and was divided into eight shires ten years later.

How did the Powhatan leader captured in 1646 die?

The settler assigned to guard him fired against orders; the Powhatan Confederacy declined afterwards.

During which 1676 uprising was Jamestown deliberately burned?

The legislature met at Governor Berkeley's Green Spring Plantation while the town was rebuilt.

In what year was Virginia's capital moved from Jamestown to Williamsburg?

Middle Plantation was renamed for King William III after the statehouse burned again in 1698.

What was Williamsburg called before it became the capital?

It had begun in 1632 as a fortified inland community and was home to the new College of William & Mary.

Which county, home to Jamestown, is described as the nation's oldest?

It began as James City Shire, one of the eight shires created by Charles I in 1634.

What did escaped slaves burn at Jamestown once it was in Union hands?

The 18th-century plantation house was one of the few remaining signs of old Jamestown.

In which year were the remains of the original 1607 fort finally discovered?

For a century visitors had assumed the fort lay underwater; a 1900 sea wall had in fact protected it.

Which Norfolk site hosted the 1907 Jamestown Exposition?

The grounds later became the first portion of Naval Station Norfolk in 1918.

Which monarch visited the 350th anniversary festival in 1957?

It was her first visit to the United States as queen, and she lent a copy of Magna Carta for the exhibition.

Which former US president gave a two-and-a-half-hour speech at the 1857 anniversary?

He lived at nearby Sherwood Forest Plantation; 16 steamships anchored offshore for the party.

What is the archaeological museum at Historic Jamestowne called?

Jamestown Rediscovery has turned up close to two million artefacts since 1996.

Jamestown forms the Historic Triangle with Williamsburg and which other site?

The Colonial Parkway links all three.

What did the Virginia Company's investors demand in writing with the second supply?

They also wanted proof the colonists had found the South Sea and goods enough to pay for the voyage.