The worst period in Jamestown history was not the first couple of years. It was actually the winter of 1609-10. John Smith had returned to England in October of that year, allegedly to receive medical treatment as a result of a hunting accident suffered some weeks earlier. But it is more likely that he returned for his own safety and that the accident was arranged. He was not at all popular with some of the leading gentlemen in the colony who had been forced to engage in manual labor as a condition for sharing the limited provisions of the colony the two previous years. Several of the leading gentlemen wanted to hang Smith for his autocratic style and failure to appreciate their high station, sort of like our modern Libtards who want to silence Fox News.
Long story short, when Smith left, these gentlemen took what they considered their rightful places as rulers of the colony and decided that the provisions should be allocated according to needs, as they perceived them, rather than according to the sweat equity rules which John Smith had established. As the winter progressed, the Jamestown Colonists began eating their cats, brought in to control the rodent populations which got into their granaries. And, when the cats were gone, they resorted to eating the rats. Finally, as the supply of rats dwindled, they dug up the corpses of those who had starved and ate human flesh.
When spring arrived, there were fewer than 100 colonists remaining of the 500 or so who had been their that fall when Smith departed from England.
Of that number, only 60 were well enough to work. It was decided to abandon the colony. The survivors were rescued by two small ships which arrived from Bermuda on May 23. On June 7, they loaded all survivors on board and set sail for England. They were met at the mouth of the James River just two days later by a resupply ships from England with the new governor on board who forced them to abandon their abandonment of the settlement.
Of course, by this time, the electoral dynamics of the colony had changed, the "gentlemen" were no longer in charge because they were mostly among the 80% or so of the colony which perished. The new governor, Thomas West, saw fit to revert to the John Smith model of governance, a decision which was overwhelmingly supported by the surviving colonists.
Thank you for the enlightening peek at Jamestowne history. I had not known those stories before. I am descended from those early settlers — I think from First Supply. Edward De Gurganoy, I think. The records are at home, and I’d have to look it up. I’m not sure what happened to him (he was one of those ill-equipped “Gentlemen”) but his daughter arrived from England a few years later to claim her inheritance, married, gave birth to one child, and died. We’ve been here ever since.
One of the Jamestowne stories that has always curled my hair was about the young man who led one of the rebellions. I forget which one. It was an early rebellion where some of the people thought that the town folk were not doing their fair share to protect the plantations on the outskirts of Jamestowne and they started a civil war. The leader was wounded, but his men didn’t want the other side to know, so they hid his body and hid the news. The leader eventually died — not from his wounds, but from BODY LICE. That gives me the creeps beecause he had joined the colony a few months earlier as the bridegroom to the daughter of one of the leaders. Can you imagine crawling into bed with him?