The Failures of Jamestown - Case Study Example

The Failures of Jamestown The Jamestoune Setlyement which is now referred to as Jamestown Settlement was the foremost "permanent English settlementin North America."1 In the late 1606's, English capitalists set sail with a granted right from the Virginia Company of London to establish a colony in the New World which eventually led to its discovery in May 14, 1607 in the colony of Virginia and was named after King James I of England. Its discovery established a permanent foothold for England to North America and concurrent to this, for purposes of a quick profit for investors from gold mining exploits. There have been noted ignominies and failures at Jamestown. It was evident from several accounts that seemingly the Englishmen were unwilling or incapacitated to feed themselves. Mostly, Jamestown suffered from poor and corrupt leadership and a population of men that were almost unfit for life in the wasteland. Moreover, explanations were provided as to why they destroyed the corn that might have fed them and committed atrocities upon the people who grew it. What are the reasons behind these mishaps' One thing that can be accounted for was the colony's poor organization and direction. The government approved by the charter places full powers in a council appointed by the king, with a president voted upon by the other members. The president had virtually no authority of his own; and while the council lasted, the members spent most of their time dealing with internal strife and intriguing against each other and especially against the one man who had the experience and the assurance to take command. Another explanation, for Jamestown's early troubles, and especially for its failure to feed itself, is the collective organization of labor in the colony. All the early settlers were expected to work together in a single society effort, to produce both their food and the exports that would make the company flourish. Those who held shares would eventually get a share of the profits, but for the time being the inducements of private enterprise were deficient. The work one man did is not commensurate to his reward. The slacker would get a large share in the end compared to the man who worked harder. Still another explanation for the squandering of Virginia's pioneers is one that John Smith often laid emphasis on, and that is the character of the immigrants. They were certainly an odd group of people, for the most noticeable group among them was unusual number of gentlemen. Virginia, as a patriotic enterprise, had stimulated the imagination of England's nobility and gentry. Gentlemen, by definition, had no manual skill; neither could they be expected to work at normal labor. They were expected to be useful for the force of knowledge, the exercise of counsel; but to have ninety-peculiar wise men offering advice while a couple of hundred did the work was discouraging, especially when the wise men included many unruly individuals joined with the friends to merely escape their ill destinies in England. John Smith complained that he could never get any real work from more than thirty out of two hundred, and he later disputed that of all who were sent to Virginia, a hundred good laborers would been beneficial than most of those who went. Furthermore, if the company had succeeded in filling the early ships with a great diversity of specialized craftsmen as what was hoped for, the result might possibly have been worse than they were. The first settlers in 1608 had six tailors, two goldsmiths, two apothecaries, a blacksmith, two refiners, a gunner, a cooper, a jeweler, a tobacco pipe maker, and a perfumer. Without a doubt, being skilled would mean they greatly expected to be paid and be fed for doing the work for which they are hired for. Some may have been useful but others found themselves without means to use their special talents. They did not also intend to use their hands for any other tasks. In addition to this, the men devoted more time to rest during pastimes and merry making. None among the colonists knew how to work in terms of agricultural demands. Instead, most of the skills they possess dealt with iron mining, smelting, salt-making, pitch making, and glassmaking. This was due to the fact that they were expecting to dedicate their work time to the supposed processing of promised riches of the land for export. To have grown enough corn to feed the colony would have required only a part of the specified short working time, nevertheless it was not grown. Even in their spare time men avoided the simple tasks that were adequate for the Indians. And the very truth that the Indians did grow corn may be one reason why the colonists did not intend to. The Englishmen were somehow not prepared for the challenge to be of the same status as the Indians. It broke their self-esteem, posed a challenge to their image of themselves and to their belief of their own superiority over outsiders especially over barbarous foreigners such as the Irish and the Indians. The Englishmen's technology, though appeared to be far advanced than the Indians, proved futile in their living conditions in Virginia. The Indians on the other hand, who are dubbed to be savages and primitive, were living abundantly and sooner than later, some of the colonists deserted their own in order to live with these savages. This was too much for most of the Englishmen to take, that is why they resulted to burning the Indian villages, tortured and killed the natives, and burned their cornfields. These proved their superiority in spite of their failures. An additional factor that caused the miserable state of the early settlers was the strategic location of Jamestown. Its location where it was found was a swamp thus home to several diseases due to the presence of mosquitoes. While it certainly provided good cover from the potential ambushes from the local Indians, but its swampy climate breed these pests that are capable of spreading malaria, high fever, and they can make an area inhospitable if not close to impossible to live in. Swampland is notorious for its poisonous wildlife, disease and shortage of fresh water made it an indescribable hell for the average seventeenth century European. Harsh weather conditions even attributed to facilitate the supply of fish and salt back to the colony from Jamestown. Nevertheless, the London Company concealed these facts from those whom they sent to their colony. Instead, they mired their imagination with gold and countless treasures. Although luring the greedy was not the only scheme that the London Company used to expand the colony, but most of the people then dreamed of becoming land owners in Great Britain. And this can be acquired through voyages to where land opportunities can be found. To make matters even worse, Virginia experienced the worst case of winter in the year 1609 to 1610 which was commonly known as the Starving Time. There were numerous casualties and some even attempted to abandon the colony. Arms and valuable work tools were traded to the Indians for a meager amount of food. Houses were already used as firewood. Later reports from Archaeologists suggested that because of starvation they ate cats, dogs, horses, and rats. More morbid accounts presented facts that some dug up corpses and human flesh was eaten. In conclusion, the first permanent English colony in North America that was established at Jamestown was an immediate disaster. It was situated in a swamp, which soon resulted to diseases and other maladies, and just as dire was the failure of the colonists to work together for the common good, or definitely to work at all. Bibliography: (1) Envisioning an English Empire: Jamestown and the Making of the North Atlantic World. Robert Appelbaum and John Wood Sweet. Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 2005. (2) Bemiss, Samuel. "The Three Charters of the Virginia Company of London: With Seven Related Documents 1606-1621." Jamestown 350th Anniversary Historical Booklet 4 (1975): (3) Bridenbaugh,Carl. Jamestown, 1544-1699. New York: Oxford UP, 1980. (4) Craven,Wesley Frank. Dissolution of the Virginia Company: The Failure of a Colonial Experiment. New York: Oxford UP, 1932. (5) ---. The Southern Colonies in the Seventeenth Century, 1607-1689. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 1949. Read More