History of Jamestown - Assignment Example

There were three separate groups of settlers starting from the original group headed by Edward Maria Wingfield; the second group was known as the First Supply on January 1608 headed by Matthew Scrivner, and the third group was the Second Supply settling on the fall of 1608 headed by Captains Peter Winne and Richard Waldo (Preservation Virginia n.p.) These groups intermingled with the Indians and tribes of the Powhaten Confederacy.             Since the settlers were mostly composed of gentlemen, craftsmen, artisans, and laborers, their journey was besieged by numerous problems, to wit: starvation, sustenance, Indian attacks, imposition of penalties for running away (“shooting, hanging, burning and being broken on the wheel” (Brookhiser, 2)), chattel slavery, racism, and diseases (typhoid, dysentery, cancer), among others.

            The predominant successes of Jamestown were few: the tobacco farms which were initiated around 1612 and the system of democratic capitalism. The lives of the settlers depicted a journey filled with hopes but shaped with challenges and trials beyond survival.