Jamestown’s first month was hectic to say the least. After the governing council was established, the settlers began building their base. Concurrent with this undertaking, Christopher Newport led an expedition up the James River and met with many of the tribes along the way, before being convinced to turn around at the falls near present day Richmond, VA.

When Newport and his men arrived to Jamestown, they discovered that an Indian attack had taken place the day prior to their return. This prompted James Fort’s building, an audacious 3 week project amidst fatal conditions. A week after the fort was finished, Christopher Newport loaded two of his ships, and sailed back to England, just as the colony was about to begin a period of suffering.

LINKS TO THE PODCAST:

• Uneasy Times on Libsyn
• RSS Feed
• VA History Podcast on iTunes
• VA History Podcast on Stitcher

SOURCES:

1. Billings, Warren M.; Selby, John E.; and Tate, Thad W. Colonial Virginia: A History. White Plains, NY: KTO Press. 1986.
2. Dabney, Virginius. Virginia: The New Dominion, A History from 1607 to the Present. Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, 1971.
3. Deans, Bob. The River Where America Began: A Journey Along the James. Plymouth, UK: Rowan and Littlefield, 2009.
4. Firstbrook, Peter. A Man Most Driven: Captain John Smith, Pocahontas, and the Founding of America. London: Oneworld Publications, 2014.
5. Horn, James. A Land as God Made It: Jamestown and the Birth of America. New York: Basic Books, 2005.
6. Hume, Ivor Noel. Here Lies Virginia. New York: Alfred Knopf, 1963.
7. Hume, Ivor Noel. The Virginia Adventure: Roanoke to James Towne – An Archaeological and Historical Odyssey. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1994.
8. Kelso, William M. Jamestown: The Buried Truth. Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, 2006.
9. Kupperman, Karen Ordhal. Apathy and Death in Early Jamestown The Journal of American History, Vol. 66, No. 1 (Jun., 1979), pp. 24-40
10. Kupperman, Karen Ordhal. Captain John Smith: A Select Edition of His Writings. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press published for the Omohundro Institute, 1988.
11. Kupperman, Karen Ordhal. The Jamestown Project. Cambridge, MA: The Belknapp Press of Harvard University Press, 2007.
12. Mapp, Alfred J. Virginia Experiment: The Old Dominion’s Role in the Making of America, 1607-1781. Lincoln, NE: iUniverse, Inc., 2006.
13. Price, David A. Love and Hate in Jamestown: John Smith, Pocahontas, and the Start of a New Nation. New York: Vintage, 2003.
14. Rothbard, Murray N. Conceived in Liberty. Auburn, AL: Ludwig Von Mises Institute, 1999.
15. Rountree, Helen C. Powhatan Foreign Relations: 1500-1722.Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1993.
16. Rountree, Helen C. Pocahontas, Powhatan, Opechancanough: Three Indian Lives Changed by Jamestown. Charlottesville, VA: UVA Press, 2005.
17. Wallenstein, Peter. Cradle of America: Four Centuries of Virginia History. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2007.
18. Williams, Tony. The Jamestown Experiment: The Remarkable Story of The Enterprising Colony and the Unexpected Results that Shaped America. Naperville, IL: Sourcebooks, 2011.
19. Wooley, Benjamin. Savage Kingdom: The True Story of Jamestown, 1607, and the Settlement of America. New York: Harper and Collins, 2007.

ADDITIONAL LINKS:

1. Historic Jamestowne
2. Virtual Jamestown

All photography used on this site is owned and copyrighted by the author unless otherwise noted. This photograph was taken on the James River, while facing southward toward Surry, VA.

Music for this episode is “Just Around the Riverbend” performed by Judy Kuhn for the 1995 Disney movie Pocahontas.