exactly what day was jamestown, virginia settled?

Question

i know it was in may of 1607 but exactly what date? i cant believe virginia's 400 years old, whoa!

Answer 1

On May 14, 1607, the Virginia Company explorers landed on Jamestown Island, to establish the Virginia English colony on the banks of the James River 60 miles from the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. By one account, they landed there because the deep water channel let their ships ride close to shore; close enough, to moor them to the trees. Recent discovery of the exact location of the first settlement and its fort indicates that the actual settlement site was in a more secure place, away from the channel, where Spanish ships, could not fire point blank into the Fort. Almost immediately after landing, the colonists were under attack from what amounted to the on-again off-again enemy, the Algonquian natives. As a result, in a little over a months' time, the newcomers managed to "beare and plant palisadoes" enough to build a wooden fort. Three contemporary accounts and a sketch of the fort agree that its wooden palisaded walls formed a triangle around a storehouse, church, and a number of houses. While disease, famine and continuing attacks of neighboring Algonquians took a tremendous toll on the population, there were times when the Powhatan Indian trade revived the colony with food for copper and iron implements. It appears that eventual structured leadership of Captain John Smith kept the colony from dissolving. The "starving time" winter followed Smith's departure in 1609 during which only 60 of the original 214 settlers at Jamestown survived. That June, the survivors decided to bury cannon and armor and abandon the town. It was only the arrival of the new governor, Lord De La Ware, and his supply ships that brought the colonists back to the fort and the colony back on its feet. Although the suffering did not totally end at Jamestown for decades, some years of peace and prosperity followed the wedding of Pocahontas, the favored daughter of the Algonquian chief Powhatan, to tobacco entrepreneur John Rolfe.

Answer 2

Jamestown Was Established
May 14, 1607

Answer 3

May 14, 1607, indeed.

There's an interesting article about the foundation of Jamestown on todays BBC News website :

"So why was Jamestown largely ignored by Americans? It was, after all, the capital of Virginia for almost 100 years."

" "It's partly to do with image and a bad press," Bly Straube, the curator of the new site museum explained."

"At the beginning it was a nightmare of a place. They arrived in a drought with a charter from King James to find gold, keep the Spanish out of North America and find a new route to the riches of the East."

"But in 1609 they starved and died like flies. There is even documentary evidence to suggest that at one point they ate each other."

"Nineteenth century historians had little respect for the settlers whom they described as lazy and incompetent. In short, Jamestown was a fiasco."

"Virginia was also on the wrong side in the civil war. Sitting on top of Jamestown fort are the remains of a confederate gun emplacement."

" "Historians in the 19th century were looking for a more noble beginning and opted for The Pilgrim Fathers," Bly Straube explained."

"They landed in Plymouth in 1620. They had their women and children, and were determined to forge a new life with religious freedom in a new England."

"That read much better than the story of the commercially driven Virginia company with its slaves and tobacco in the background, and reports of violence and cannibalism."

"With the history of settlement re-versioned, the Thanksgiving holiday became associated with the ideals of the Pilgrim Fathers and although nothing remains to be seen of Plymouth's original settlement today most Americans will tell you that Plymouth is where it all began."

"Remarkable archaeological discoveries have put Jamestown back on the map and all we need now, says Bly Straube is another holiday straight after Thanksgiving called Jamestown day. "

"Putting Jamestown into context", Malcolm Billings, BBC News :http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/6616037.stm

Answer 4

may the fourteenth