Jamestown Discussion, Essay Example

Jamestown is one of the historical settlements in the Virginia colony that was established by the Virginia Company of London initially known as the James Forte. According to history, it was the first English settlement and currently a common united states because of the failure in an attempt to settle permanently there.

Location of the settlement

Jamestown is an island located near peninsula. The conflicting information in this case is that there has been an existence of a strip of land that appears and disappears due to the variation of the water levels in the dividing James River which sometimes. Sometimes, the island is said to be part of the mainland whenever the water levels go down and the strip of land is largely visible and thus recreates a connection between the island and the mainland. According to history, the island is said to have been largely cut off from the mainland where there is large game and wildlife and other natural resources. The area is swampy and is largely isolated from the hunting grounds. The choice was better placed due to isolation and has a clear view of any attacks from an intruder basically the native owners of the area. The Jamestown settlement is located about 1.25 miles away from where the colony way originally located which is adjacent to the Jamestown Island (Frank, 2007).

Interaction with the Powhatan’s

Initially their relationship wasn’t that effective due to the fact that chief Powhatan had wanted to execute Smith a colonist on the island. This act is believed to have been stopped by the pleas of the young daughter to chief Powhatan. Its chief Powhatan’s daughter who seem to have established the relationship between the two parties first when she saved Smith the colonist from being executed by her father and secondly when she started supplying the colonists on the island with food and other non food items like the clothing during winter after the great fire had destroyed the fort of the colonists on the island. Later on, Powhatan’s daughter is said to have engaged Smith in a negotiation that led to the release of the Virginia Indians that had been arrested or rather captured by the colonists when they raided to get back the weapons that belonged to the English. This relationship later on became strong when Chief Powhatan’s daughter “Pocahontas” who had already gotten married to a nearby tribe that traded with her father’s tribe was kidnapped by the colonists, converted into Christianity and remarried to John Rolfe who was a known planter. Intermarrying with a common enemy strengthened the relationship between the parties and therefore chief Powhatan would not attack them because they had married their daughter (Price, 2003).

Composition of the workforce

The colonist group mainly comprised of traders and medics to take care of people’s health. The initial group had no farmer to cultivate the farm; it is until later that the introduction of Rolfe who came and introduced tobacco farming in Virginia and had a great export later on. The initial team comprised of the administrators and tradesmen who worked on the ship and negotiated trade in exchange of food from the neighboring native tribes within the locality. The decision to have craftsmen on the team necessitated the reconstruction of the ships especially during the hurricanes on the ocean. The medics were important too to take care of the health conditions on the island. The team also had traders who helped negotiate barter trade that helped them to get food in exchange with non food items.

Economic activity

The main economic activity on the island was trade. This is evidenced by a series of gold exchange with the native communities for food stuffs. Some of the gold is said to have been shipped back to England “fools gold” to help convince the country support back the inhabitation on the island. Another economic activity introduced later is farming which was initiated by Rolfe who began the activity by planting tobacco for export and was indeed recognized as a great exporter of tobacco from the island. The island colonist also did establish the making of glass and selling them immediately after settlement of the third team. These innovations were important and did help them to gain more access to food items as a result of trade because they were poor producers of farm products (Egglof, 1992).

Agricultural products

The main agricultural product from the island was tobacco which was established on lots of acres of land by the colonists on the island. His successful growing and export of tobacco influenced other colonists to adapt the system and it thus made most of them wealthier hence terming it a survival mechanism on the island. The option of venturing into tobacco cultivation was a great deal because it was the only crop option that they had on the island, and therefore investing more efforts in it would have eradicated poverty and helped more export that did aid barter trade.

The supply of food, health facilities and personnel, wealth and morale a boost to the colonists welfare but was never meant to be there forever. The introduction of sustainable trade would have been a better choice on the welfare of the territory due to poor farming skills that did exist before the coming of Rolfe. The wealth did sustain the batter trade for the food substance from the neighboring native communities.

As a governor, I would have initiated food production to sustain the livelihoods on the territory and even enhance the barter trade with other regions around the globe. This would have been facilitated through the introduction of other food and non food crops on the island, introduce more laborers that would have worked on the farm to enhance more production of the crops. I would have also invested the industrial revolution which had been started through the production of glass through the increase in production and cultivating better relations with other people to enhance market for our manufactured produces.

In my opinion, the native consultations were probably useful in application compared to charter and settler for these would have created tension between the original owners of the land and the visitors. The settlement on the Jamestown territory would have been successful and void of attacks if at all the settlers would have consulted the owners and perhaps negotiated the terms of settlement on the land which would have probably worked and later on established a relation that would have saved them a longer stay on the island (William, 1997).

The charter would perhaps be a one sided success although not longtime due to the agreement. The structures laid in operation would have been limited to some facts for reasons that the settlers would have been evicted any moment by the owners. I personally believe in success, starving times in this were inevitably based on the fact that the settlers were living on manner instead of cultivating their own food for reliable sustainability.

Works Cited

Price, D. (2003). Love and Hate in Jamestown. Routledge publishers

Egloff et al, (1992). First People: The Early Indians of Virginia. Charlottesville: The University Press of Virginia

Frank et al, (2007). Jamestown Colony: A Political, Social, and Cultural History. ABC-CLIO publishers

William et al. (1997). Jamestown Rediscovery .SAGE publishers