Arrival in Chesapeake Bay.
Founding of Jamestown; Wingfield chosen president.
Captain Newport's voyage was a long one, for he followed the traditional route, first running down to the Canary Islands and then following Columbus's route, wafted by the trade-wind straight across to the West Indies. It seems strange that he should have done so, for the modern method of great-circle sailing,—first practised on a great scale by Americus Vespucius, in 1502, in his superb voyage of 4,000 miles in 33 days, from the ice-clad island of South Georgia to Sierra Leone,[45]—this more scientific method had lately been adopted by Captain Gosnold, who in 1602 crossed directly from the English Channel to Cape Cod. As Gosnold was now second in command in this expedition to Virginia, it would seem as if the shorter route might once more have been tried to advantage. So many weeks upon the ocean sadly diminished the stock of provisions. In the course of the voyage some trouble arose between Smith and Wingfield, and while they were stopping at Dominica, on the 24th of March, an accusation of plotting mutiny was brought against the former, so that he was kept in irons until the ships reached Virginia. After leaving the West Indies they encountered bad weather and lost their reckoning, but the 26th of April brought them to the cape which was forthwith named Henry, after the Prince of Wales, as the opposite cape was afterwards named for his younger brother, Prince Charles. A few of the company ventured on shore, where they were at once attacked by Indians and two were badly wounded with arrows. That evening the sealed box was opened, and it was found that Bartholomew Gosnold, Edward Wingfield, John Smith, John Ratcliffe, John Martin, and George Kendall were appointed members of the Council,—six in all, of whom the president was to have two votes. As the ships proceeded into Hampton Roads after so much stress of weather, they named the promontory at the entrance Point Comfort.[46] The name of the broad river which the voyagers now entered speaks for itself. They scrutinized the banks until they found a spot which seemed suited for a settlement, and there they landed on the 13th of May. It was such a place as the worthy Hakluyt (or whoever wrote their letter of instructions) had emphatically warned them against, low and damp, and liable to prove malarious.[47] At high tide the rising waters half covered the little peninsula, but in this there was an element of military security, for the narrow neck was easy to guard, and perhaps it may have been such considerations that prevailed. Smith says there was a dispute between Wingfield and Gosnold over the selection of this site. As soon as the company had landed here the members of the Council, all save Smith, were sworn into office, and then they chose Wingfield for their president for the first year. On the next day the men went to work at building their fort, a wooden structure of triangular shape, with a demi-lune at each angle, mounting cannon. They called it Fort James, but soon the settlement came to be known as Jamestown.[48] For a church they nailed a board between two trees to serve as a reading desk, and stretched a canvas awning over it, and there the Rev. Robert Hunt, a high-minded and courageous divine, first clergyman of English America, read the Episcopal service and preached a sermon twice on every Sunday.
The Powhatan tribe, confederacy, and head war-chief.
Smith's enemies were a majority in the Council and would not admit him as a member, but he was no longer held as a prisoner. Newport's next business was to explore the river, and Smith with four other gentlemen, four skilled mariners, and fourteen common sailors, went along with him, while the Jamestown fort was building. They sailed up about as far as the site of Richmond, frequently meeting parties of Indians on the banks or passing Indian villages. Newport was uniformly kind and sagacious in his dealings with the red men, and they seemed quite friendly. These were Algonquins, of the tribe called Powhatans, and the natives who had assaulted the English at Cape Henry belonged to a hostile tribe, so that that incident furnished a bond of sympathy between the Powhatans and the white men. After a few days they reached the village called Powhatan (i.e. "Falling Waters"), which Thomas Studley, the colonial storekeeper, describes as consisting of about a dozen houses "pleasantly seated on a hill." Old drawings indicate that they were large clan houses, with framework of beams and covering of bark, similar in general shape though not in all details to the long houses of the Iroquois. The Powhatans seem to have been the leading or senior tribe in a loose confederacy. Their principal village was called Werowocomoco, situated on the north side of the York River, about fifteen miles northeast from Jamestown as the crow flies. The place is now called Putin Bay, a name which is merely a corruption of Powhatan. At Werowocomoco dwelt the head war-chief of the tribe, by name Wahunsunakok, but much more generally known by his title as The Powhatan, just as the head of an Irish or Scotch clan is styled The O'Neill or The MacGregor. Newport and Smith, hearing that The Powhatan was a chief to whom other chiefs were in a measure subordinate, spoke of him as the emperor and the subordinate chiefs as kings, a grotesque terminology which was natural enough at that day but which in the interest of historical accuracy it is high time for modern writers to drop.[49]
When Newport and Smith returned to Jamestown, they found that it had been attacked by a force of 200 Indians. Wingfield had beaten them off, but one Englishman was killed and eleven were wounded. In the course of the next two weeks these enemies were very annoying; they would crouch in the tall grass about the fort and pick off a man with their barbed stone-tipped arrows. Hakluyt had warned the settlers against building near the edge of a wood;[50] it seems strange that bitter experience was needed to teach them that danger might lurk in long grass. Presently some of their new acquaintances from the Powhatan tribe came to the fort and told Newport that the assailants were from a hostile tribe against which they would willingly form an alliance; and they furthermore advised him to cut his grass, which seems to prove that they were sincere in what they said.
Newport sails for England June 22, 1607.
Suffering of the colonists.
Percy's account.