page_title: Christopher Newport
section_title: First and Second Supply missions
hierarchical_section_title: Christopher Newport / Jamestown / First and Second Supply missions
caption_attribution_description: English: "The Coronation of Powhatan," by the American artist John Cadsby Chapman, oil on canvas. Courtesy of the Greenville Museum of Art, Greenville, South Carolina.
context_page_description: Christopher Newport was an English seaman and privateer. He is best known as the captain of the Susan Constant, the largest of three ships which carried settlers for the Virginia Company in 1607 on the way to found the settlement at Jamestown in the Virginia Colony, which became the first permanent English settlement in North America. He was also in overall command of the other two ships on that initial voyage, in order of their size, the Godspeed and the Discovery.
  He made several voyages of supply between England and Jamestown; in 1609, he became Captain of the Virginia Company's new supply ship, Sea Venture, which met a hurricane during the Third Supply mission, and was shipwrecked on the archipelago of Bermuda.
  Christopher Newport University in Newport News, Virginia, was named in his honor.
context_section_description: In June 1607, a week after the initial Fort at Jamestown was completed, Newport sailed back for London on the Susan Constant with a load of pyrite ("fools' gold") and other supposedly precious minerals, leaving behind 104 colonists, and the tiny Discovery for the use of the colonists. The Susan Constant, which had been a rental ship that had customarily been used as a freight transport, did not return to Virginia again. However, Newport did return twice from England with additional supplies in the following 18 months, leading what were termed the First and Second Supply missions. Despite original intentions to grow food and trade with the Native Americans, the barely surviving colonists became dependent upon the supply missions. Before the arrival of the First Supply, over half of the colonists perished in the winter of 1607–08.
  The urgently needed First Supply mission arrived in Jamestown on 8 January 1608. The two ships under Newport's command were the John and Francis and the Phoenix. However, despite replenishing the supplies, the two ships also brought an additional 120 men, so with the survivors of the initial group, there were now 158 colonists, as recorded later by John Smith. Accordingly, Newport left again for England almost immediately to obtain more supplies for the colonists. On this trip Newport took Powhatan's tribesman Namontack to London, arriving on 10 April 1608. Namontack remained in London for three months and then returned to Virginia with Newport.
  The Second Supply arrived in September 1608, this time with Newport commanding the Mary Margaret, a ship of about 150 tons. In addition to urgently needed supplies, the Second Supply delivered another 70 persons as well as the first two women from England, a "gentlewoman" and a woman servant. Realizing that Powhatan's friendship was crucial to the survival of the small Jamestown colony, Newport was also ordered to "crown" the chief with a ceremonial crown to make him an English "vassal." The coronation went badly however, because he stated he was already a king and refused to kneel to receive the crown. The need for another, ideally much larger, supply mission was conveyed to the leaders of the Virginia Company effectively when Newport returned to England. Additional funds and resources were gathered and readied. However, the Third Supply, as well as the company's new purpose-built flagship, the Sea Venture, were each to become big problems for Jamestown.
caption: The Coronation of Powhatan, oil on canvas, John Gadsby Chapman, 1835
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