What do colonists need to survive

The colonization of the Americas by Europeans was built on the aftermath of disease. Large bumps spread on people; some were entirely covered. They spread everywhere, on the face, the head, the chest, etc. The disease brought great desolation; many people died of it. And when things were in this state, the Spaniards came" 1. Disease reached the region we now call Virginia long before John Smith, and disease was one reason the Native communities of the area entered into confederation with one another—to protect themselves from incursions by the Spanish, who they knew brought illness with them.

The psychic, spiritual, material, and political effects of such staggering losses cannot be overstated. The indigenous people of the Americas were often in no position to insist that Europeans leave.

Alliances with the Native people who remained were, however, essential if colonists hoped to survive the rigors of new environments. The Mattaponi people of Virginia recalled that English colonists didn't bring enough food with them to feed themselves, and the ships' manifests reveal that too many of the colonists were gentlemen, and too few were laborers, resulting in a lack of knowledge and skill to adequately plant and bring in a harvest.

Bones of another sort — the remains of meals the colonists once ate — are vital clues. The colonists were frantic for food. After they ran out of provisions, they consumed meats they would never have willingly swallowed otherwise. First they slaughtered their horses. Faced with starvation, they ate dogs, cats, and rats — animals that had come to Jamestown as passengers on English ships — and even snakes.

In the fort's trash pits, many bones of once taboo foods show butchering marks. Careful study of "Jane's" skeleton reveals evidence of suvival cannibalism. Bones can sometimes pinpoint and prove an event in history. Archaeologists also recovered remains of a particular bird species from the early trash pits at Jamestown. These birds could have come only from one place. The island of Bermuda is the only native habitat of the Bermuda petrel, or cahow.

These small petrel bones mark a crucial turning point. In May , more colonists and supply ships from Bermuda landed in Jamestown. In journals written four hundred years ago, the survivng colonists credited their coming with saving the settlement from starvation and abandonment.

Skip to main content. Smithsonian Institution. Struggling to Survive. The Starving Time. They taught them how to live in the forest. And the Powhatan Indians showed the settlers how to plant new crops and how to clear the land for building.

The settlers accepted the Indians' help. Then, however, the settlers took whatever else they wanted by force. In sixteen twenty-two, the local Indians attacked the settlers for interfering with Indian land.

Three hundred forty settlers died. The colonists answered the attack by destroying the native tribes living along Virginia's coast. MUSIC The settlers recognized that they would have to grow their own food and survive on their own without help from England or anyone else.

The Jamestown colony was clearly established by sixteen twenty-four. It was even beginning to earn money by growing and selling a new crop: tobacco. The other early English settlements in North America were much to the north, in what is today the state of Massachusetts.

The people who settled there left England for reasons different from those who settled in Jamestown. The Virginia settlers were looking for ways to earn money for English businesses. The settlers in Massachusetts were seeking religious freedom. His daughter, Queen Elizabeth, established the Protestant faith in England.

It was called the Church of England, or the Anglican Church. Not all Protestants liked this idea. Some wanted to leave the Anglican Church and form religious groups of their own. In sixteen six, members of one group in the town of Scrooby did separate from the Anglican Church. About one hundred twenty-five people left England for Holland. They found problems there too, so they decided to move again -- to the New World. These people were called pilgrims. Pilgrams are people who travel for religious reasons.

About thirty-five pilgrims were among the one hundred and two passengers and crew on a ship called the Mayflower in sixteen twenty. The Mayflower set sail from England, headed for Virginia. But the ship never reached Virginia. It was blown far off its planned course. Instead, it reached land far to the north, on Cape Cod Bay.

The group decided to stay there instead of trying to find Jamestown, far to the south in Virginia. The pilgrims and the others aboard the Mayflower believed they were not under English control since they did not land in Virginia.

They saw the need for rules that would help them live together peacefully. They wrote a plan of government, which they called the Mayflower Compact. It was the first such plan ever developed in the New World. They elected William Bradford as the first governor of the Plymouth Colony. We know about the first thirty years of the colony as William Bradford described it in his book, "Of Plymouth Plantation. It ends with a list, written in sixteen fifty, of Mayflower passengers and what happened to them.