Anthony Mederos

43681982

In 1607,Three english ships carrying more than 100 passengers sailed into the mouth of the
Chesapeake Bay thus leading them to Jamestown(According to the background
information).Jamestown is a colony discovered by the english there were already native tribes
living in the same place Virginia in this group included the powhatan.Jamestown was getting
attacked which lead them building a fort on a place called James Island.Of the 100 that came 40
would be alive because of the harsh environment which lead to the Leadership of John Smith.By
1611 more than 500 settlers who had arrived 80% of them died(All according to Background
Information).Why did 80% of the above 500 Colonist die? The reason that so many colonist died
was because of Lack of Water/Food, No proper organization, and Native Attacks/diseases.

One reason why the so many colonist Was because of the lack of clean water and amount of
food.This is because in Document A it said that "Fresh water would be scarce by the seventeenth
century".This is showing how the colonist from Jamestown would have to be struggling because
by seventeenth century the colonist were in demand in water supplies.Also in Document B it
show a line graph explaining the rainfall over the years.The graph shows if it's below or above
average on this graph there is more time where it's below average more than it was above it.This
is explaining that people were struggling to get rain fall which could affect the growth of crops
for the colonist and could also affect the Colonist because it’s a drought showing that the
Colonist would also be in lack of water in general which could kill their colonist.”Salt poisoning
was only one price to pay to stay hydrated” (according to
http://www.history.com/news/did-jamestowns-settlers-drink-themselves-to-death​). This is saying
that the people from Jamestown would drink salt water just to stay hydrated because there were
no other options for the water supply.”​Only 60 of 500 colonists survived the period, now known
as “the starving time.”(According to
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/death-jamestown-background/1428/​). This is showing how only
a few people were able to survive the this harsh winter because lack of food.This is why food
and water were a key factor in why the Jamestown colonist died.

Second reason why so many colonist died is because it wasn’t organized at all.This is because in
document Document C because there is many things that have no people in that category so it
means there is things missing and there was many gentleman which means that the weren't
helping.This is showing how the English had too many people in one occupation and that would
mean that there is no one to help others in another occupation. In Document C it also shows that
there is no female in Jamestown.So this means that there was no way of reproduction and every
time there was more deaths there was no one being born since there was no way of
reproduction.Then also it was very unorganized because there were only 12 jobs that were shown
and they all didnt have moore than 1 showing many didn’t work there was a large number in the
government but what will that help if there is no people living since there isn’t many people to
help out(According to
http://historicjamestowne.org/hisistory/history-of-jamestown/first-settlers/). This showing that
Jamestown focused on more jobs than other which lead to them dying because there was less
housing and less surgeons or people defending the colony.According to this chart there was still
not many changes to the jobs after the supplies showing that the english were organized and
brought workers who can be considered useless and only bringing more problems(According to
http://www.virtualjamestown.org/census1a.html​). This is showing that it was unorganized
because people weren't sure what to do with these jobs and be able to supply to Jamestown.So
this showed thanks to the unorganized colonies it led to many deaths.

The final reason why so many colonist died was because of the native
attacks/Diseases.According to Document E there was events where the Jamestown colonist were
attacked by natives and lead to many death as much as Almost getting more than 120 killed by
the natives.This is showing how Natives attacked unexpectedly the Jamestown colonist which
lead to deaths.Then also in the Same Doc E it show in the chart 110 died of diseases and before
that many died of diseases in the harsh winters(According to Doc E).This is showing how
Colonist had to live with these diseases but had no immune to it.According to this source the
harsh winter was not only harsh because of the food but because of all the diseases
given(according to
http://www.history.com/news/did-jamestowns-settlers-drink-themselves-to-death​). This is
showing why so many colonist died because in the harsh winter more than 80% died of this.This
source gave information like showing how native attacks were dangerous because Jamestown
weren’t prepared for the attack and had to take focus of growing crops just to build
forts(according to
http://burnpit.legion.org/2010/03/jamestown-colony-attacked-powhatan-indians) .This is
showing how Natives took the clonist attention off priorities which led to deaths.This is how
Native attacks and diseaases lead to deaths.

The reason so many colonist died were because of lack of food/water, unorganized, and finally
because of native attacks/diseases.This is why Jamestown struggled to keep the colony organized
because of all these things which lead to many deaths because Jamestown couldn't get things
right and settled.