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The people of Jamestown are ready to call it quits when, in 1610, Lord Thomas West De la Warr arrives in Virginia to be governor. John Rolfe marries Pocahontas and introd
The year was 1610. The settlement of Jamestown in Virginia was now a failure and had been abandoned. What was left of its population had packed up and sailed for home, England. But they did not get very far. Just a few miles down the James River they met a supply ship making its way towards Jamestown. Aboard was a man of importance. The gentleman was Lord Thomas West De la Warr and he was to be the new governor. Today we spell his name a bit differently. As in the state name and Indian tribe, we spell it Delaware. Under this new leadership the colonists agreed to return to Jamestown and try again. By 1612, things were getting better for the inhabitants of Jamestown. John Rolfe, who had married Pocahontas, introduced the cultivation of tobacco. Now the colony had a firm economic base. Then in 1619, the first democratically elected legislative body in America was formed in Jamestown. Progress was certainly in the future for the colony as settlement began to expand eastward and westward along both sides of the James River. This was the year, also, that the first Negroes arrived in the colonies, not as slaves but as indentured servants. That same year a new charter went into effect that allowed each free colonist a tract of land. Those tracts of land went to good use for many fortunate, or unfortunate, fellows because of another event that took place in Jamestown that year. Perhaps of even more importance to many in 1619, but of a personal nature, was the arrival of the first white women to Jamestown. The Virginia Company of London had sent several shipments of mail-order brides in return for payment in tobacco for the women's passage to America. Sources: Collier's Encyclopedia, Volume 23. Crowell-Collier Educational Corporation, 1968. Comptons, The Complete Reference Collection. CD Rom, 1997, The Learning Company, Inc. Musick, John R. Columbian Historical Novels, Volume IV: Pocahontas: A Story of Virginia. Funk & Wagnalls Company, New York, London and Toronto, 1895.
The copyright of the article Settlers Return to Jamestown in American History is owned by Mary Trotter Kion. Permission to republish Settlers Return to Jamestown in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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