Comment by duxup
8 days ago
The experience of early colonists is so fascinating. Some of these colonies were very tenuous and seemed very unprepared.
8 days ago
The experience of early colonists is so fascinating. Some of these colonies were very tenuous and seemed very unprepared.
The Jamestown colonists starved to death literally living on the shore of the most productive marine environment on earth. They didn’t know how to care for the fishing nets, so they rotted, and then didn’t know how to fix them.
The issue was that many of the colonists were second sons of relatively wealthy families, and weren’t all that familiar with fishing or farming. The first son inherited everything, and the second son had to make his way in the world, and colonizing was an enticing prospect for making your fortune. Poorer families, at the very early stages, weren’t sending their sons on these ventures because they needed the labor at home.
https://historicjamestowne.org/wp-content/uploads/Subsistenc...
As someone who grew up next to Jamestown, I can add some context.
John Smith, one of Jamestown's leaders, was not from a wealthy or privileged background. "The issue" may have been less about class and more about poor organization, leadership and unrealistic expectations.
Fishing and farming skills also deserve context. The soil around Jamestown was marshy and brackish, unsuitable for traditional English farming methods. Yes there were lots of fish but they only ran seasonally (sturgeon etc). The "starving time" you are referencing was made worse by a drought and cutoff trade with the indians
The soil may have been brackish, but this wasn't their main setback.
The Jamestown colonists didn't even attempt to plant crops for several years after their arrival. Their first ship brought jewelers and smiths to work the gold they assumed they'd find, but didn't have a real plan for agriculture. The majority died of starvation and disease, but the survivors were sustained by meager leftover travel supplies from newly arriving ships, and by raiding neighboring natives for their corn.
Less than a decade later, separatist Pilgrims landed in New England, and by contrast, grew crops immediately, and cultivated diplomatic relations with their neighbors. The Pilgrims settled in a higher latitude with a shorter growing season, but during their first drought they had already stored enough supplies to share with local natives.
Jamestown could have been on a similar footing if they'd prioritized survival and diplomacy over finding treasure for the crown, the chartering company, and themselves.
2 replies →
This mostly fails a sniff test to me? And indeed, reading the linked article doesn't support your editorializing. To quote: "There is some evidence that they had poor fishing skills, but other factors may have contributed more to their failures"
The idea that they were not nearly as efficient at building a town as they could have been is not at all surprising. All the more so when you consider just how different the storm season was compared to what they were used to.
But the idea that they failed due to their own inadequacies feels like a stretch? Like, had they "stayed home" what kind of life do you think they had there? People used to have to do far more of their own survival than modern people can really understand.
From the article:
‘They suffered fourteen nets (which was all they had) to rot and spoil, which by orderly drying and mending might have been preserved. But being lost, all help of fishing perished.’ (25)
(25) Strachey, W. 1998b [1610], ‘A True Reportory of the wrack and redemption of Sir Thomas Gates, knight, upon and from the Islands of the Bermudas; his coming to Virginia, and the estate of that colony then, and after under the government of the Lord La Warre’, in Haile 1998, p. 441
I originally learned this by talking with a Jamestown National Historical Park docent. I said that, having grown up in Virginia in the 20th century and knowing what tidewater Virginia was like in the 17th century, it would have been very hard to starve to death. American chestnut was still the dominant forest tree, and provided literally tons of nuts per tree. Black walnut and acorn were also plentiful and make good survival foods if you know how to prepare them. The Chesapeake Bay had enormous oyster beds, with oysters being described as "the size of dinner plates", and John Smith said that he thought he could have walked across it on the backs of fish, and if you know how to dry or salt fish it doesn't matter that the sturgeon and rockfish are seasonal. Mussels and crab, likewise, would have been plentiful, and unlike fish, accessible year round. Deer, turkey, rabbit, groundhog, squirrel, opossum and raccoon were plentiful, and passenger pigeon were also around, not having suffered the overhunting they did in the early 20th century.
She indicated that the majority of the English settlers weren't farmers or fishermen and didn't have the hands-on experience to make use of the resources at their disposal. I went home and did a bit of internet research on that statement, and it seemed fairly accurate.
I do not claim to be a trained historian of colonial Virginia; I just grew up there.
5 replies →
Jamestown also starved because they tried collective farming (communism). It didn't work for them any more than it worked for anyone else.
So did the Pilgrims for their first year. They starved, too.
Walter, I appreciate your comments but you surely have to know Jamestown settlers were in no way practicing communism as it's understood today.
9 replies →
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Even today, with modern information available to us, people still woefully underestimate what it would take to live in a true wilderness.
I've got a great example of this. I'm renting a house that provides a gas powered lawnmower for tenants to use, and I've elected to just let the grass grow because I have no idea how to use the thing
Now look, there's debates to be had about whether or not lawns are good idea, or how long grass should grow, etc. but there's no excuse for not figuring out how a gas mower works. I could tell you here in a paragraph or you could watch a 30 minute Youtube which will contain in it somewhere the 1 minute of actual instructions you need. It's a pretty damn simple system.
Adjust the height to the highest setting.
Put gas in it. If there's a soft rubber thing near the gas, hit it twice to provide some fuel but no more as you risk "flooding" the engine.
Hold down any handle at the top of the mower, often the thing will require you to manually hold it down during start and all operations.
Look for the starter pull. It's often on the right, on the motor or mower handles. It's a piece of plastic attached to a cable. Give it a yank with a full follow through. It doesn't have to be maximum effort but too gentle won't work either.
Are you joking or something? It's just check the gas and oil, hold down the brake lever on the handle, pull the crank a few times and away you go. Maybe it's old and has a fuel bulb or a choke, or fancy and has a transmission and the lever to engage it, but it's really not complicated at all.
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Lazy,
You cannot live this way. I can walk you through anything related to home care.
9 replies →
Note that once the grass has grown past a certain height, you won't be able to use a mower anymore even if you want to. At that point it will require a line trimmer (a.k.a. weed whacker) which is a lot more work.
Though personally I'm a fan of "kill your lawn" efforts. You can smother it with cardboard (or burn it, or till it, etc) and replace with native meadow.
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this is maybe the most accidentally insightful post I have seen on HN. Or satire so sharp it cuts in line.
The colonists didn't have anything near this level of technology though...
How would you have prepared, were you in their shoes? Roanoke Island was first landed in 1585. The only foreknowledge of the area would have been wildly embellished and optimistic reports (competing for financing, royal favor and prestige) from the likes of Spanish and French expeditions, or Sir Francis Drake. This was mostly limited to coastal recon and said little of the dangers of malaria, indian politics, seasonality, etc.
For example, the Amadas-Barlowe Expedition (1584) described Roanoke Island as "the most plentiful, sweet, fruitful and wholesome of all the world," with fertile soil, abundant wildlife, and friendly natives
>were very tenuous and seemed very unprepared.
Old world politics at the time explain most of this. Some of the english colonies were, ugh, rushed and less well funded than they would have been under ideal situations.
This is basically the same reason they didn't look too hard to see what happened to the Roanoke colony.
It was the VC model of colonization. They expected a few sites to fail to prosper.
Not unlike youth in our current society who leave home then bounce around from one place to another until they find the spot they want to settle in for a while.
I mean sure, colonists from hundreds of years ago are different than young adults of today.... but the tenuous nature, in general, of people out exploring the world for a new home is unsurprising.
No I don’t think they are anything alike.