by GlenTheMachine | 2025-06-12 23:52:37+00:00
Like most disasters, there were many causes for this one. The general unpreparedness of the Jamestown settlers is, however, an important one, and probably the primary causative one (although see edit #2 for a strong contrary argument).

We know for a fact that the proportion of wealthy nobles to manual laborers was really, really high compared to the population of England at the time, and there werent' enough of the latter to keep the colony afloat (source: https://encyclopediavirginia.org/the-myth-of-living-off-the-... and https://www.jyfmuseums.org/visit/jamestown-settlement/histor...). These were largely second sons of wealthy families (source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Families_of_Virginia). Most of the rest were the gentlemen's manservants, e.g. they were also urbanites (source: https://bandbwilliamsburg.com/jamestown-settlement/#:~:text=...

Regarding the quote from the paper:

The colonists’ performance in fishing in the first years, in common with all other activities, must also have been severely hampered by their generally poor health, malnutrition and subsequent lack of energy.

Obviously, once you're in the throes of malnutrition and illness, your ability to fish and forage is going to be significantly reduced. But the disaster is already in progress at that point. Why were they already malnourished? In large part because they weren't very good at fishing or farming, and didn't actually plan to survive by farming at all, instead intending to rely on trade with the natives. But they mismanaged diplomatic relations with the natives to the extent that not only was trade non-existent towards the second year, but they were actually being shot on sight. They exhausted their supply of small game on the Jamestown peninsula, and couldn't voyage farther than that due to danger from the native Americans, again due to their own mismanagement of relations.

Note that a primary reason for the poor relationship with the native Americans was that the settlers didn't have their own food sources, and resorted to theft and assault to get native's food supplies -- which, as a result of the drought, weren't all that great (source: https://www.loc.gov/classroom-materials/united-states-histor...)

They also didn't have the skills necessary to (for instance) prepare acorns or harvest pine bark cambium. Survival foods would have been foods that noble Englishmen hadn't ever even eaten, much less prepared themselves.

From the Wikipedia article on "The Starving Time":

Although they did some farming, few of the original settlers were accustomed to manual labor or were familiar with farming. Hunting on the island was poor, and they quickly exhausted the supply of small game. The colonists were largely dependent upon trade with the Native Americans and periodic supply ships from England for their food.

And in point of fact, they actually ended up hiring native Americans to fish and harvest shellfish for them, because they didn't know how to do it on their own. (source: https://virginiahistory.org/learn/oysters-virginia#).

As a consequence of the deteriorating relationship with the natives, the Jamestown colonists' ability to do any land-based (as opposed to water-based) subsistence activities was severely curtailed, and, one assumes, their ability to hire natives to fish for them also eroded. But they did have one major advantage, an actual oceangoing ship that they could have sailed into the Bay and used to fish. The natives had only canoes and could not possibly have constituted a major threat on the waters of the Bay. But that only works if you know how to fish, which they didn't. Once the nets rotted due to the colonists not understanding the importance of drying them, that advantage was also neutralized, and starving was inevitable in the absence of relief supplies from England or the Caribbean.

Probably also worth remembering how parasite ridden all of the food supplies you are mentioning would be.

Everyone in the colonial period was parasitized to some extent, including the natives. However, the plant-based survival foods I mentions above (chestnuts, acorns, black walnuts, etc.) are not known for harboring parasites. The animal game certainly would have, but almost certainly not more so than the same game in England would have.

The colonists were ill primarily because they didn't practice good hygiene wrt situating their toilet facilities away from their drinking water and ended up with dysentery, a problem that the native Americans managed to avoid (source: https://encyclopediavirginia.org/the-myth-of-living-off-the-...).

Summary: the original contingent of Jamestown settlers had bad luck (drought, several supply ships being wrecked or otherwise not showing up on time) but their primary problem was that they didn't intend to live off the land at all, either by fishing and farming or by foraging. They didn't have the right supplies to do so, and mostly didn't have the knowledge needed to do it as a backup plan when the original plan of trading with the native Americans failed (due to poor diplomatic skills and poor diplomatic decision making.)

EDIT: to head off argument on this score, the poor relationship with the native Americans wasn't inevitable. The Roanoke Colony settlers, when their food ran low, joined the local tribe and the evidence indicates that they were adopted as members, intermarried, and survived there. (source: https://www.whro.org/arts-culture/2025-01-20/new-artifacts-o... and https://nypost.com/2025/06/07/us-news/researchers-discover-e...)

EDIT: Here's the best contrary argument, that it was primarily the drought that was to blame and not the incompetence of the English settlers: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/rethinking-jamestown-...