Why did so many colonist die in early Jamestown?

In this essay, I will be explaining how and why so several colonists died in Jamestown back in 1607 to 1609. It all began in the spring of 1607 when 3 English ships carrying about 110 men sailed into the Chesapeake Bay. They sailed up the James River with high hopes simply because this was going to be the 1st permanent English settlement in the New World. The settlers explored the coast and picked an island spot that could be easily defended if they had been attacked by the neighborhood natives. They named the new settlement Jamestown soon after King James I, They then constructed a triangle shaped fort for protection. There were a lot of plans for this New Planet like locating riches, teaching Native American individuals the methods of Christ, and also locating a trade route to China.

Sadly, their dreams had been crushed when over half of them died. Many colonists died simply because of the environment. The principal explanation the atmosphere killed them was that of the Brackish water, tides, and droughts. The contamination of their water occurred when they decided to throw their waste in the water. They did this because they thought that the waste would wash away but it started to fester instead of flushing away, according to document A. They would then drink the water and would get sick and sooner or later die from the disease. The tides are also incorporated in killing colonists due to the fact when it is a higher tide, the salt water would come into their fresh water, making the water brackish and would make it poor to drink. Drinking as well much brackish water is not great for you and can give you a illness and kill you. The tides also mixed the water which created the water even much more contaminated. Also in Document E, the chronology post, it says that several of the colonists died from sickness.

Based on the proof I discovered, I feel the disease is one particular of the main causes of all of the deaths. In conclusion, I think that so several colonists died in early Jamestown simply because of illness, lack of surgeons, and medicine. Droughts killed several colonists in the Jamestown. Drought from 1607 to 1611 shown by document B that shows tree rings which is an evaluation of what occurs to the tree. If the ring is thicker, that was a period of wet weather and if the ring is thinner than that was a period of dry weather. The ring was thinnest and longest under typical rainfall in 1607 to 1611 which was talked about just before. A drought is a extended period of dry climate, extended adequate to harm crops. A drought would harm crops and killing them and would leave the colonists with a restricted food supply if any. This would lead to the trade with the Native Americans which would not go properly going back to the earlier point of their relations with the Native Americans. An additional lead to of death in the colony was starvation. The Starving Time at Jamestown in the Colony of Virginia was a period of starvation throughout the winter of 1609–1610.

When the colonists sailed from England to Jamestown, they had really tiny food supplies because they believed they would quickly understand how to create the land and grow their personal food. Even so, the Powhatans refused to give over their food and firewood that had been positioned outdoors of the fort walls. The colonists started to die from extreme starvation. Meals became so scarce, that the colonists began to result in cannibalism to preserve from starving. Cannibalism is the practice of consuming the flesh of one’s personal species. Generally, several colonists died in early Jamestown since of the relations with the Native Americans, normally the trading incident with cutting extremities, the environment, which is the contamination of water, tides and droughts, and ultimately the lack of skills, which are jobs that supply food, help the sick and social capabilities with the Native Americans. All these difficulties were very difficult for the colonists, only 90 individuals got throughout of 560 colonists. These obstacles that the colonists faced really changed the development of the settlement of Jamestown and affected the coming of any future settlement.