Jamestown is Founded
May 14, 1607 · Early Modern
On May 14, 1607, approximately 105 colonists sponsored by the Virginia Company of London established Jamestown on a peninsula along the James River, creating the first permanent English settlement in North America. The colony endured disease, famine, and conflict with Powhatan peoples, including the 1609-1610 "Starving Time" that reduced settlers from 500 to 60. In 1619, Jamestown hosted the first representative legislative assembly in British America. The Virginia Company was dissolved in 1624.
Key Figures
Christopher NewportJohn SmithChief Powhatan (Wahunsonacock)Pocahontas (Matoaka)
Locations
London, EnglandJamestown SettlementWerowocomoco
Topics
representative governmentpropertyjamestownnew worldvirginia1607english settlement
Connected Events — 3 Connections
Jamestown tobacco economy created the labor demand that made the 1619 purchase of enslaved Africans from English privateers commercially viable First Africans Arrive in Virginia
The Agricultural Revolution's creation of food surpluses enabled population growth and social stratification that eventually produced the surplus labor, capital accumulation, and demographic pressure driving European colonial expansion to Jamestown The Agricultural Revolution
The Merchant of Venice's themes of commercial risk, venture capitalism, and cross-cultural trade tensions reflected the same merchant-investor mindset that funded Virginia Company expeditions to establish Jamestown The Merchant of Venice Published
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