First and foremost, in the year 1607, more than 300 English men sailed to the new world on three English ships. They had high hopes of this being the first permanent English settlement in the new world. There were also many other reasons why their hopes were high; there was freshwater streams, possible riches, to spread their religion about Jesus Christ, and maybe even a hidden route to China. They sailed through the James River and then disembarked near the James River. What they did not know was that they were not alone; there were at least 15,000 Powhatan Indians living in small villages.
Furthermore, one reason that can have caused many deaths could have been because of the drought that they had to live through. According to Doc B, in the years, 1600 and 1610, Jamestown suffered the longest unbroken period of drought. …show more content…
So there must be another reason that was also responsible for some of the deaths, and that reason is that the colonists were left without any food to survive the winter. This is all due to the fact that the colonists sent Francis West and thirty-six men with him to sail to Chesapeake Bay so he could try to trade with the Indians for corn. According to Doc Francis West was able to trade for grain, but in doing so he had to do “some harsh and cruel dealings by cutting two of the Salvages heads and other extremetyes." The amount of grain that they got was going to be beneficial to the colonists but it would not be enough for them to last the whole winter. So West and the rest of the settlers decided that it was plenty for them to get them fatly back to England. So they took the grain with them and abandoned the rest of the colonists without food. That is another reason why so many colonists died in early