What lessons do you think English colonist learned from their JamesTown experiences?

Question

three reasons with support :)

Answer 1

They should of been better prepared, and studied for a better area to settle in. The area they pick was insuring disaster.

Location, Climate, and not enough source of food and poor soil for farming.

That was a fact unknown to the English voyagers who landed on the shoreline of what would become known as Jamestown. Once the Susan Constant, the Godspeed and the Discovery docked, 104 weary colonists trudged from their cramped quarters onto swampy marshland.

For almost five months, these men had traveled from England, sent by the Virginia Company of London. The Jamestown site was a peninsula, connected to the mainland by a narrow isthmus and protected on three sides by the James River, Back River and Sandy Bay.

In 1607, Jamestown's tidal wetlands looked much like the tidal wetlands of today. The sea level, however, was about 3 feet (0.91 meter) lower than now, exposing more land. Jamestown Island was originally a peninsula during the time of the early settlers, but the waters around it were, and remain, restless, eating away the land.

Some contemporary studies indicate that the shoreline was eroding rapidly even during the time of the English colonization, at rates as high as five to six feet (1.52 to 1.83 meters) each year. Wave action would eventually turn the peninsula into an island.

Directed by the Virginia Company to find "the true, most wholesome and fertile place" to settle, the Jamestown site was defensible with a deep harbor close to shore. About 40 miles (64.4 kilometers) upriver from the Chesapeake Bay, the area was also easily accessible for overseas trade. The forests were filled mostly by hardwood trees. Walnut, beech, oak and hickory trees covered the low-lying land.

Wahunsenacawh, or better known to history as Powhatan, was the paramount chief of a powerful chiefdom of Virginia Indians who lived throughout the coastal plain of present-day Virginia, where the Englishmen had chosen to build their new settlement. Both Powhatan and his daughter Pocahontas became important to the Jamestown settlers. One of Powhatan's sons described the area around Jamestown as "waste ground" because the Powhatan Indians knew it was difficult to find fresh water there. Their villages were built in areas with easy access to fresh water.

By mid-May 1607, the early Jamestown settlers realized that weather in their new land was very different than weather in England, their homeland. Summer in England had little humidity and few bugs. Summer in Jamestown, with tropical humidity and oppressively high temperatures, bred mosquitoes and biting flies. And winters, as the settlers soon discovered, were as cold as the summers were hot.

Evidence from archeological digs shows that 1607 fell within a cool period in North America and western Europe that historians call the "Little Ice Age." The heat of summer did not last; the colonists were greeted by a severe winter in 1607-1608. The harsh conditions were compounded by the fact that they also had to endure one of the worst droughts in nearly 800 years. Although the Jamestown settlers had been instructed to try farming on a small scale, the sandy soil did not hold moisture well and the drought killed what crops they did manage to plant. Food supplies ran very low and many of the settlers starved to death during the winter of 1609-10, called, "The Starving Time." The colony's survivors were saved only by the arrival of ships from England with fresh supplies.

Answer 2

Well, my "support" is that I used to live in the area of Jamestown. I've been on the site numerous times. I've even played in the dirt of the archaeological dig of the original Fort of Jamestown.

First lesson.... they were in uncharted territory and completely out of their element.

Secondly... they were NOT superior humans beings and that thinking that will get them killed and that they were severely lacking in public relations training.

Thirdly... they were COMPLETELY unprepared for life in the new land and seriously lacking in productive planning.

They completely underestimated the natives.

They took no time in trying to learn and understand their neighbors.

They actually thought they could build a little English village in the middle of the unknown territory and ignored the tried and true lives of the native neighbors.

They were totally ignorant of the guerrilla warfare used by their native neighbors.

They had a total lack of respect for people different than they were.

They had NO clue as to how to even feed and care for themselves, being completely surround by extremely abundant forests and along an enormous river teeming with fish even today.... they starved to death. (the Jamestown Island is still a favorite fishing place & the wildlife is still so abundant it's almost a nuisance and because the entire area is covered in wetlands, the soil is incredibly fertile)

They took no feed and grain to get themselves thru the winter.

Basically they survived as well as shipwrecked people would, deserted far from home but this was SUPPOSED to be a PLANNED excursion.

It's a wonder any of them survived.

Everything they learned was a lesson.

EDIT:

As to answering the other answerer......Location, Climate, and not enough source of food and poor soil for farming. Sorry, Completrely incorrect. Location was excellent and NOT 40 miles from the Bay. People ride their BIKES from Yorktown to Jamestown. The climate of that area of Virginia is actually quite decent, humid summers but no where NEAR the heat of the deeper South, certainly NOT tropical, rather mild winters, very RARELY snow enough to cover the ground, and gorgeous springs & falls. It's a huge source of natural foods even today, fish, game, crabs. The soil is very fertile. The place were the fort was/is is NOT marshy at all and has a "hard" coast line there. And considering the years, that part of the shore line hasn't eroded that much at all. they only lost a corner of the fort due to erosion of the riverline. It was certainly NOT eroding where they could actually SEE it then. the fort was built VERY close to the shoreline to begin with. But the area they landed was NOT a swampy marshland. Oh, there was wetlands near them, but not at the site. The connecting point from the fort to the main land was always very low & according to the natives, that connecting piece of land didn't exist at one time, just like the near by community of Willaby Spit....a hurricane "spit" it out one time....not unusal with areas that deal with hurricanes.

That part of the river is quite "fresh" and NOT brackish. A person could even survive today on the fish and game of the area alone. Even they knew that certain crops will not grow in certain grounds. It was just sheer ignorance and a complete lack of planning.