Editing Jamestown, Virginia (section)

===1610–1624: Rising fortunes===
<!--the following is intended to be a summary of the key points for the casual reader; a detailed articled exists at History of the Jamestown Settlement (1607–1699)-->
Due to the [[aristocracy (class)|aristocratic]] backgrounds of many of the colonists, a historic drought and the communal nature of their workload, progress through the first few years was inconsistent. By 1613, six years after Jamestown's founding, the organizers and shareholders of the Virginia Company were desperate to increase the efficiency and profitability of the struggling colony. Without stockholder consent the Governor, Sir [[Thomas Dale]], assigned {{convert|3|acre|m2|adj=on}} plots to its "[[ancient planter]]s" and smaller plots to the settlement's later arrivals. Measurable economic progress was made, and the settlers began expanding their planting to land belonging to local native tribes. That this turnaround coincided with the end of a drought that had begun the year before the English settlers' arrival probably indicates multiple factors were involved besides the colonists' ineptitude.<ref name="Stahle">[http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/drought/drght_james.html "The lost colony and Jamestown droughts."] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090913074343/http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/drought/drght_james.html|date=September 13, 2009}}, Stahle, D. W.; M. K. Cleaveland; D. B. Blanton; M. D. Therrell; and D. A. Gay. 1998. ''Science'' 280: 564–567.</ref>

Among the colonists who survived the Starving Time was [[John Rolfe]], who carried with him a cache of untested [[tobacco]] seeds from Bermuda, which had grown wild there after being planted by shipwrecked Spaniards years before.<ref>{{cite web|title=John Rolfe|url=http://www.nps.gov/jame/historyculture/john-rolfe.htm|publisher=NPS.gov|work=Historic Jamestowne|access-date=June 8, 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110530093741/http://www.nps.gov/jame/historyculture/john-rolfe.htm|archive-date=May 30, 2011|url-status=live}}</ref> In 1614, Rolfe began to successfully harvest tobacco.<ref>''John Marshall,'' p. 52.</ref>{{Full citation needed|date=August 2024}} Prosperous and wealthy, he married Pocahontas, bringing several years of peace between the English and natives.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.apva.org/history/pocahont.html |title=history of Pocahontas |publisher=Apva.org |access-date=September 22, 2009 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090417025121/http://www.apva.org/history/pocahont.html |archive-date=April 17, 2009 }}</ref> However, at the end of a public relations trip to England, Pocahontas became sick and died on March 21, 1617.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.nps.gov/jame/historyculture/pocahontas-her-life-and-legend.htm |title=Historic Jamestowne – Pocahontas: Her Life and Legend (U.S. National Park Service) |publisher=NPS.gov |work=Historic Jamestowne |date=January 4, 2008 |access-date=September 22, 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090901024035/http://www.nps.gov/jame/historyculture/pocahontas-her-life-and-legend.htm |archive-date=September 1, 2009 |url-status=live }}</ref> The following year, her father also died. Powhatan's brother, a fierce warrior named [[Opechancanough]], became head of the [[Tsenacommacah|Powhatan Confederacy]]. As the English continued to appropriate more land for tobacco farming, relations with the natives worsened.

Because of the high cost of the trans-Atlantic voyage at this time, many English settlers came to Jamestown as [[Indentured servitude|indentured servants]]: in exchange for the passage, room, board, and the promise of land or money, these immigrants would agree to work for three to seven years. Immigrants from continental Europe, mainly Germans, were usually [[redemptioner]]s—they purchased some portion of their voyage on credit and, upon arrival, borrowed or entered into a work contract to pay the remainder of their voyage costs.<ref>Gary Walton; ''History of the American Economy''; p. 32.</ref>

In 1619, the first representative assembly in America, the General Assembly, convened in the [[Jamestown Church]], "to establish one equal and uniform government over all Virginia" which would provide "just laws for the happy guiding and governing of the people there inhabiting." Initially, only men of English origin were permitted to vote. On June 30, 1619, in what was the [[1619 Jamestown craftsmen strike|first recorded strike in Colonial America]], the [[Jamestown Polish craftsmen|Polish artisans]] protested and refused to work if not allowed to vote.<ref name="MSO-2007">{{cite web |last=Odrowaz-Sypniewska |first=Margaret |title=Poles and Powhatans in Jamestown, Virginia (1606–1617) |url=https://www.angelfire.com/mi4/polcrt/AmPoles.html |date=June 29, 2007 |publisher=self-published |access-date=October 3, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140902201526/http://www.angelfire.com/mi4/polcrt/AmPoles.html |archive-date=September 2, 2014 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="JamestownColony">{{cite web |last1=Holshouser |first1=Joshua D. |last2=Brylinsk-Padnbey |first2=Lucyna |last3=Kielbasa |first3=Katarzyna |title=Jamestown: The Birth of American Polonia 1608–2008 (The Role and Accomplishments of Polish Pioneers in the Jamestown Colony) |url=http://www.pac1944.org/jamestown/roles-and-accomp.htm |date=July 2007 |work=[[Polish American Congress]] |access-date=October 3, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150724124454/http://pac1944.org/jamestown/roles-and-accomp.htm |archive-date=July 24, 2015 |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref name="DB-2002">{{cite book |last=Badaczewski |first=Dennis |title=Poles in Michigan |url=http://spuscizna.org/spuscizna/history-usa1.html |date=February 28, 2002 |publisher=[[Michigan State University Press]] |isbn=978-0870136184 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150311081232/http://spuscizna.org/spuscizna/history-usa1.html |archive-date=March 11, 2015 |url-status=live }}</ref> On July 21, 1619, the court granted the Poles equal [[Suffrage|voting rights]].<ref name="JamestownMarker">{{cite web |last=Obst |first=Peter J. |title=Dedication of Historical Marker to Honor Jamestown Poles of 1608 – The First Poles in Jamestown |url=http://www.poles.org/Jamestown_Marker/ |date=July 20, 2012 |work=Poles.org |access-date=October 7, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141011093338/http://www.poles.org/Jamestown_Marker/ |archive-date=October 11, 2014 |url-status=live }}</ref> Afterwards, the labor strike was ended, and the artisans resumed their work.<ref name="DB-2002" /><ref name="JamestownStrike">{{cite web |author=Staff |title=Spuscizna – History of Poles in the USA |url=http://spuscizna.org/history.htm |work=The Spuscizna Group |access-date=October 3, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304001146/http://spuscizna.org/history.htm |archive-date=March 4, 2016 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="JSmith-1624">{{cite book |last=Smith |first=John |title=The generall historie of Virginia, New England & the Summer Isles, together with The true travels, adventures and observations |chapter-url=http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/h?ammem/lhbcbbib:@field(NUMBER+@band(lhbcb+0262a)) |date=1624 |volume=1 |chapter=VII |pages=150–184 |publisher=[[American Memory]] |access-date=October 3, 2014 |title-link=The Generall Historie of Virginia, New-England, and the Summer Isles |archive-date=January 9, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140109124728/http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/h?ammem%2Flhbcbbib%3A%40field%28NUMBER+%40band%28lhbcb+0262a%29%29 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="FTS-1911">{{cite book |last=Seroczynski |first=Felix Thomas |title=Poles in the United States |url=http://spuscizna.org/spuscizna/history-usa1.html |publisher=[[Catholic Encyclopedia]] |volume=XII |date=1911 |access-date=October 3, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150311081232/http://spuscizna.org/spuscizna/history-usa1.html |archive-date=March 11, 2015 |url-status=live }}</ref> Individual land ownership was also instituted, and the colony was divided into four large "boroughs" or "incorporations" called "citties" by the colonists. Jamestown was located in [[James City (Virginia Company)|James Cittie]].

Of the [[First Africans in Virginia|first documented African slaves]] to arrive in [[British North America|English North America]], on the frigate ''[[White Lion (privateer)|White Lion]]'' in August 1619,<ref name="auto1"/> were an African man and woman, later named Antoney and Isabella. Listed in the 1624 census in Virginia, they became the first African family recorded in Jamestown.<ref>{{cite news |last=Brown |first=DeNeen L. |date=August 24, 2018 |title=Slavery's bitter roots: In 1619, '20 And odd Negroes' arrived in Virginia |newspaper=The Washington Post |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2018/08/24/slaverys-bitter-roots-in-1619-20-and-odd-negroes-arrived-in-virginia/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190825170115/https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2018/08/24/slaverys-bitter-roots-in-1619-20-and-odd-negroes-arrived-in-virginia/ |archive-date=August 25, 2019}}</ref> Their baby, named William Tucker, became the first documented African child baptized in British North America. Another of the early enslaved Africans to be purchased at the settlement was [[Angela (enslaved woman)|Angela]], who worked for Captain William Peirce.<ref name="auto2"/>

After several years of strained coexistence, Chief Opechancanough and his Powhatan Confederacy attempted to eliminate the English colony once and for all. On the morning of March 22, 1622, they attacked outlying plantations and communities up and down the James River in what became known as the [[Indian massacre of 1622]]. More than 300 settlers were killed in the attack, about a third of the colony's English-speaking population.<ref name="Stahle" /> Dale's development at [[Henricus]], which was to feature a college to educate the natives, and [[Wolstenholme Towne]] at [[Martin's Hundred]], were both essentially wiped out. Jamestown was spared only through a timely warning by a Virginia Indian employee. There was not enough time to spread the word to the outposts.

Of the 6,000 people who came to the settlement between 1608 and 1624, only 3,400 survived.<ref name="Stahle" />
<!--During these first years of the colony, many of the people lived in cavelike holes dug into the ground, and in the winter of 1609–1610, they were
:″...driven through insufferable hunger to eat those things which nature most abhorred, the flesh and excrements of man as well of our own nation as of an Indian, digged by some out of his grave after he had laid buried there days and wholly devoured him; others, envying the better state of body of any whom hunger has not yet so much wasted as their own, lay wait and threatened to kill and eat them; one among them slew his wife as she slept in his bosom, cut her in pieces, salted her and fed upon her till he had clean devoured all parts saving her head...″-->
<!--(Through their son, [[Thomas Rolfe]], many of the [[First Families of Virginia]] trace both Virginia Indian and English roots.) -->