We have now come to the region of earliest English settlement in
America, where Newport and Smith, in 1607, planted their colony of
Jamestown upon a low yellow bluff on the northern river bank. It is
thirty-two miles from the mouth of the James River, and the bluff, by
the action of the water, has been made an island. The location was
probably selected because this furnished protection from attacks. The
later encroachments of the river have swept away part of the site of
the early settlement, and a portion of the old church tower and some
tombstones are now the only relics of the ancient town. The ruins of
the tower can be seen on top of the bluff, almost overgrown with moss
and vines. Behind is the wall of the graveyard where the first
settlers were buried. A couple of little cabins are the only present
signs of settlement, the mansion of the Jamestown plantation being
some distance down the river.
When the English colony first came to Jamestown in 1607, they were
hunting for gold and for the "northwest passage" to the East Indies.
In fact, most of the American colonizing began with these objects.
They had an idea in Europe that America was profuse in gold and gems.
In 1605 a play of "Eastward, Ho" was performed in London, in which one
of the characters said: "I tell thee golde is more plentifull in
Virginia than copper is with us, and for as much redde copper as I can
bring, I will have thrice the weight in golde. All their pannes and
pottes are pure gould, and all the chaines with which they chaine up
their streetes are massie gould; all the prisoners they take are
fettered in golde; and for rubies and diamonds they goe forth in
holidays and gather them by the seashore to hang on their children's
coates and sticke in their children's caps as commonally as our
children wear saffron, gilt brooches, and groates with hoales in
them." The whole party, on landing at Jamestown, started to hunt for
gold. Smith wrote that among the English colonists there was "no talk,
no hope, no work, but dig gold, wash gold, refine gold, loade gold."
They found some shining pyrites that deceived them, and therefore the
first ship returning to England carried away a cargo of shining dirt,
found entirely worthless on arrival. The second ship, after a long
debate, they more wisely sent back with a cargo of cedar. They hunted
for the "northwest passage," first going up the James to the falls at
the site of Richmond, but returning disappointed. It was this same
hunt for a route to the Pacific which afterwards took Smith up the
Chickahominy, where he got among the swamps and was captured by the
Indians.
The Jamestown colonists met with great discouragements. Most of them
were unfitted for pioneers, and the neighboring swamps gave them
malaria in the hot summer, so that nearly half perished. Smith, by his
courage and enterprise, however, kept the colony alive and took
charge, being their leader until captured by the Indians, and also
afterwards, until his return to England. Among the first constructions
at Jamestown were a storehouse and a church. These, however, were soon
burnt, and a second church and storehouse were erected in September,
1608. This church was like a barn in appearance, the base being
supported by crotched stakes, and the walls and roof were made of
rafts, sedge and earth, which soon decayed. When Smith left Jamestown
for England in 1609 the place contained about sixty houses, and was
surrounded by a stockade. Smith early saw the necessity of raising
food, and determined to begin the growing of maize, or Indian corn.
Consequently, early in 1608 he prevailed upon two Indians he had
captured to teach the method of planting the corn. Under their
direction a tract of about forty acres was planted in squares, with
intervals of four feet between the holes which received the Indian
corn for seed. This crop grew and was partly harvested, a good deal of
it, however, being eaten green. Thus the Indian invented the method of
corn-planting universally observed in the United States, and this crop
of forty acres of 1608 was the first crop of the great American cereal
grown by white men. Wheat brought out from England was first planted
at Jamestown in 1618 on a field of about thirty acres, this being the
first wheat crop grown in the United States.
Captain John Smith, before he left Jamestown, estimated that there
were about fifty-five hundred Indians within a radius of sixty miles
around the colony, and in his works he enumerates the various tribes.
Describing their mode of life, he wrote that they grew fat or lean
according to the season. When food was abundant, he said, they stuffed
themselves night and day; and, unless unforeseen emergencies compelled
them to arouse, they dropped asleep as soon as their stomachs were
filled. So ravenous were their appetites that a colonist employing an
Indian was compelled to allow him a quantity of food double that given
an English laborer. In a period of want or hardship, when no food was
to be had, the warrior simply drew his belt more tightly about his
waist to try and appease the pangs of hunger. The Indians, when the
colonists arrived, were found to divide the year into five seasons,
according to its varying character. These were, first, Cattapeuk, the
season of blossoms; second, Cohattayough, the season when the sun rode
highest in the heavens; third, Nepenough, the season when the ears of
maize were large enough to be roasted; fourth, Taquetock, the season
of the falling leaves, when the maize was gathered; and fifth, Cohonk,
the season when long lines of wild geese appeared, flying from the
north, uttering the cry suggesting the name, thus heralding the
winter.
The colony was very unfortunate, and in 1617 was reduced to only five
or six buildings. The church had then decayed and fallen to the
ground, and a third church, fifty by twenty feet, was afterwards
built. Additional settlers were sent out from England in the next two
years, and the Virginians were granted a government of their own, the
new Governor, Sir George Yeardley, arriving in the spring of 1619. The
Company in London also sent them a communication "that those cruell
laws, by which the ancient planters had soe long been governed, were
now abrogated in favor of those free laws which his majesties subjects
lived under in Englande." It continued by stating "That the planters
might have a hande in the governing of themselves yt was granted that
a generall assemblie should be held yearly once, whereat to be present
the governor and counsell with two burgesses from each plantation,
freely to be elected by the inhabitants thereof, this assemblie to
have power to make and ordaine whatsoever laws and orders should by
them be thought good and profitable for their subsistence." The
Governor consequently summoned the first "House of Burgesses" in
Virginia, which met at Jamestown, July 30, 1619, the first legislative
body in America. Twenty-two members took their seats in the new church
at Jamestown. They are described as wearing bright-colored silk and
velvet coats, with starched ruffs, and as having kept their hats on as
in the English House of Commons. The Governor sat in the choir, and
with him were several leading men who had been appointed by the
Company on the Governor's Council. They passed various laws, chiefly
about tobacco and taxes, and sent them to England, where the Company
confirmed them, and afterwards, in 1621, granted the "Great Charter,"
which was the first Constitution of Virginia.
The colonists got into trouble with the Indians in 1622, and having
killed an Indian who murdered a white man, Jamestown was attacked and
the inhabitants massacred, three hundred and forty-five being killed.
Governor Butler, who visited the place not long after the massacre,
wrote that the houses were the "worst in the world," and that the
most wretched cottages in England were equal, if not superior, in
appearance and comfort to the finest dwellings in the colony. The
first houses were mostly of bark, imitating those of the Indian; and,
there being neither sawmills to prepare planks nor nails to fasten
them, the later constructions were usually of logs plastered with mud,
with thatched roofs. The more pretentious of these were built
double--"two pens and a passage," as they have been described. As late
as 1675 Jamestown had only a few families, with not more than
seventy-five population. Labor was always in demand there, and at
first the laborers were brought out from England. There was no money,
and having early learnt to raise tobacco from the Indians, this became
the chief crop, and, being sure of sale in England, became the
standard of value. Tobacco was the great export, twenty thousand
pounds being exported in 1619, forty thousand in 1620 and sixty
thousand in 1622. Everything was valued in tobacco, and this continued
the practical currency for the first century. They imported a lot of
copper, however, with which to make small coins for circulation. As
the tobacco fluctuated in price in England, it made a very unstable
standard of value. Gradually, afterwards, large amounts of gold and
silver coin came into Virginia in payment for produce, thus
supplanting the tobacco as a standard.