PastTimes is a publication that reports the stories of American history.

From Volume III Issue 1

Starving Settlers Forced

to

Remain

in

Jamestown

1610 By Victoria Bosch

Page 1 | Page 2
The colonists of Jamestown carried out their dead during the harsh winter of 1609 to 1610.Lord De La Warr had come over from England to become the new governor of Jamestown.

The other ships made it to Jamestown, but many people had died. They thought that everyone on the Sea Venture had died, too.

But the Sea Venture’s passengers were not going to give up on their voyage to Jamestown, although Bermuda was beautiful and had plenty of fruit for them to eat and animals to hunt. For nine months, they were stranded on the island. They spent the time building two new boats, the Patience and the Deliverance, to take them to Jamestown. Finally, in May 1610, they left Bermuda.

Twelve days later, the Patience and the Deliverance reached Virginia. The new arrivals were shocked when they saw Jamestown. It looked abandoned. They rang the church bell, and only then did Jamestown’s residents come out to greet them. Only 60 settlers were still alive, and they were very sick. There was not enough food for everyone. The settlers and the Sea Venture’s passengers decided to abandon the colony.

The colonists of Jamestown carried out their dead during the harsh winter of 1609 to 1610.“Margaret Thomas based her 1882 ­portrait of Lord De La Warr on a painting done by Wybrand Simonsz de Geest in the 1600s. Both the Delaware River and the US state Delaware were named after Lord De La Warr.”

They planned to leave on the morning of June 7. Some of the settlers wanted to set fire to the remains of the settlement. But Sir Thomas Gates, who was one of the survivors of the Sea Venture, stopped them. Once everyone was aboard the ships, they set sail for Newfoundland, a colony to the north. They hoped that once in Newfoundland, they could find a way back to England. But just as they were leaving, another boat arrived.

The ship carried new colonists and enough food for a year. One of the men on the boat was Lord De La Warr, who had come over from England to become the new governor of Jamestown. Lord De La Warr was angry when he found that everyone wanted to leave. He ordered them to get off of the boats and return to Jamestown.

“We should have burned it when we had the chance,” many of the men said as they returned to the town where they had seen so many people die.

Now, Lord De La Warr is trying to fix Jamestown. He has made very strict rules for all of the settlers. Maybe this time the settlement will succeed.

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