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From London to Jamestown, 400 Years Later

Jamestown 2007 Celebration

400 years ago this month, three small ships arrived on the Virginia shore to establish what would become America's first permanent English colony -- Jamestown. This year, celebrations on both sides of the Atlantic are marking this anniversary with special exhibits, festivals and events to tell the story of the English settlers who braved the five-month voyage to arrive in Virginia in May 1607.

The highlight of this commemorative year is the state visit of Queen Elizabeth II to the United States, May 3-8. The Queen will visit Jamestown, the Kentucky Derby, and Washington, D.C. Her first visit to the United States, in 1957, coincided with the 350th anniversary of Jamestown. Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip visiting Jamestown to celebrate the settlement's 350th anniversary in 1957. (Library of Congress photo)

Robert Tuttle, U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom, sees the settlement of Jamestown as a pivotal moment in history.

"Those brave voyagers who crossed the Atlantic 400 years ago could not have known that their small, struggling settlement would engender a strong English presence in the New World, and eventually produce a new country, the United States of America," he said. "We look forward to welcoming Her Majesty to the United States as part of our celebration."

Ambassador Tuttle will also travel to Virginia and Washington, D.C., for the Queen's state visit.

Jamestown on the Cusp of History

The story of Jamestown begins in London in 1606, when James I granted the Virginia Company a charter to "make habitation, plantation and… deduce a colony of sundry of our people" between the French-occupied lands to the north of the St. Lawrence River, and Spanish territories in Florida. In the autumn of 1606, three small merchant ships, the Susan Constant, Godspeed and Discovery set out from the Isle of Dogs in East London; they arrived in Virginia on May 13, 1607.

The ships' passengers were mandated by the Company's charter "to digg, mine and searche for all manner of mines of goulde, silver and copper" and were also under orders to search for the lost settlement of Roanoke.

The opening of the Charter for the Virginia Company of London, written in 1606. (From: Virginia Records Time Line, 1553-1743, Jefferson Papers, American Memory collections, Library of Congress)

The men and boys aboard the three ships began work on a fortified trading outpost called "James Towne," which became the first permanent English settlement in the Americas. These first settlers could not have imagined how important their settlement would become, as the nucleus of a thriving English colony that would eventually become the United States of America.

There were no women aboard the original ships that reached Jamestown, but the passenger list of the second supply ship of 1608 includes "Mistresse Forrest, and Anne Burras her maide" and, by 1619, the Virginia Company was sending young single women to the colony to be wives for the planters, and to ensure the permanency of the community. Each man paid for his new wife's voyage in tobacco.

The first years at Jamestown were extremely difficult. Bad weather, including blistering heat in the summer and freezing gales in the winter, combined with unfit water supplies, disease, starvation, shiploads of under-prepared "colonists" from England, and even a period of martial law, were exacerbated by continuing hostilities between the English settlers and the Native Americans.

Tobacco: Virginia's gold

Cultures Collide: Pocahontas

The confluence of English settlers, Native Americans, and African slaves at Jamestown was not an equal meeting, and the consequences were sometimes devastating. The European settlers enslaved Africans (the first shipment of slaves arrived in Jamestown in 1619) and killed or displaced Native Americans. Nevertheless, some encounters between settlers and Native Americans tell a happier story.

Pocahontas endures as one of the most well-known figures in the history of Jamestown. The daughter of the Chief of the Powhatan Confederacy, she saved the life of John Smith, the president of the Jamestown colony, and went on to marry John Rolfe in 1614. Rolfe took Pocahontas and their baby son to England in 1616, and Pocahontas died there in 1617 without ever having returned to Jamestown. She is buried in Gravesend in Kent. Right: Statue of Pocahontas, Colonial National Park (National Park Service photo)

Their son, Thomas, was left to be raised in England, and his father, John Rolfe, returned to Jamestown, where he died, probably in an Indian massacre, in 1622. Thomas eventually returned to Virginia to claim the lands inherited from both his English father and his Powhatan grandfather. There he married an Englishwoman, and began a family. There are Americans and Britons today who proudly trace their lineage back to Thomas Rolfe, son of John Rolfe and Pocahontas.

Jamestown Today

Little remains of the original settlement. In 1699 the capital of Virginia moved from Jamestown to Williamsburg, further up the river. For many years, it appeared that nothing remained of the original settlement in Jamestown, but in one of the great archeological finds in American history, remnants of the original Jamestown fort - long believed to have been washed into the river - were discovered in the 1990s.

Today, near the site of the original settlement, visitors can see replicas of the ships, a Native American village, the fort, and other buildings, all bringing the Jamestown story to life.

London Celebrates Jamestown 2007

In London, commemorations for the Jamestown 400th anniversary began in December 2006, when the Governor of Virginia, Timothy M. Kaine, presented a replica of the ship Discovery to London's Museum in Docklands. The replica ship will be moored just outside the museum, in the waters of West India Quay, until 13 May 2007.

In addition to the Docklands exhibit, the British Museum is hosting "A New World: England's First View of America," an exhibit of watercolors from one of the earliest voyages to Virginia, in the 1580s. The exhibition also features a selection of Elizabethan portraits, maritime and scientific instruments of the period, and historic maps, books and prints of the time.

In advance of her state visit to the United States, Queen Elizabeth II hosted a reception at Buckingham Palace in March for Americans in the UK. Items from the Docklands Museum exhibit were on display in Buckingham Palace during the event.

Virginia Celebrates "America's Anniversary"

On the other side of the Atlantic, the state of Virginia is hosting 18 months of events honoring the 400th anniversary of Jamestown, including festivals, fairs, concerts, educational initiatives, plus commemorative gardens, stamps, and coins, and a host of other events. A 15th Century copy of the Magna Carta will be among the items on display at the Jamestown Settlement Museum in Williamsburg, Virginia.

In the legislation authorizing this commemorative coin program, Congress says: “The Jamestown Settlement brought people from throughout the Atlantic Basin together to form a society that drew upon the strengths and characteristics of English, European, African and Native American cultures. The economic, political, religious and social institutions that developed during the first nine decades of the existence of Jamestown continue to have profound effects on the United States, particularly in English common law and language, cross cultural relationships, manufacturing, and economic structure and status.”

At Jamestown, the weekend of May 11-13 has been designated "America's Anniversary Weekend," marked by special performances (including a 1,607-voice choir) and highlighting the history-changing significance of the Jamestown settlement.

The annual Smithsonian Folklife Festival, held on the Mall in Washington, D.C., in June and July, will also honor the founding of Jamestown, with a full program exploring Virginia's Native American, English and West African roots. As part of this program, groups from Kent, in England, will represent the cultural traditions of the earliest colonists.

Queen Elizabeth's visit to Jamestown, on May 3 and 4, will be the highlight of the Jamestown 2007 festivities. Promising to welcome the Queen "with true Southern hospitality," Virginia Governor Timothy Kaine said, "This royal visit speaks to the importance of Jamestown to both our countries, reaffirms the strong, historic ties between our two nations, and demonstrates a mutual commitment to reinforce these connections as we go forward together."

Links

Jamestown 2007:
www.jamestown2007.org/

Docklands Museum:
www.museumindocklands.org.uk

British Museum:
www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk/aneworld/

Native Americans:
www.indians.vipnet.org
powhatan.wm.edu/The village of Werowocomoco

Jamestown 2007 British Committee:
www.jamestownuk.org

White House Press Release:
www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/11/20061115-1.html

Buckingham Palace Press Release:
www.royal.gov.uk/output/Page5911.asp

Governor of Virginia Press Release:
www.governor.virginia.gov/MediaRelations/NewsReleases/viewRelease.cfm?id=355

Virtual Jamestown:
www.virtualjamestown.org

The Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities:
www.apva.org/history

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