Posted on 03/21/2016 10:11:48 AM PDT by EveningStar
Terrific, LS! I’m sending the link to several “moderates” I know!
That’s a great video, thank you Larry and thank you EveningStar for the post.
One of the problems at Jamestown was that the first wave of colonists in 1607 were not cut out for the hard work of carving a colony out of the Virginia countryside. They were not tough blue collar men. They were largely the second sons of a primogeniture gentry seeking to enrich themselves. They thought that they would find gold and they wasted their time looking for it.
They planted the colony in a swampy section of the James river. The river was filled with fish, and had they had the sense and ability to catch them they could have eaten well. But they didn’t. Nor did they have the knowledge of how to plant the crops that they would need, and build the shelter to protect them from the weather. So between a lack of food, a lack of shelter and malaria courtesy of their swampy environment they died in huge numbers. Only 38 of the original 144 lived to see the second year.
The few that survived were put under martial law by Captain James Smith in order that they might survive. It wasn’t really socialism, it was martial law with the survivors forced to live like a military company. Everyone was ordered to spend time farming and building shelter. Unfortunately Captain Smith was badly injured in a gunpowder accident and was forced to return to England. Conditions worsened, the winter of 1609-1610 was the worst of all, the Starving Time. One colonist resorted to cannibalism.
More English colonists arrived along with supplies. What really saved the colony was a small group of Polish workmen who knew how to do practical things like build houses. The unsung heroes of Jamestown.
The colony was a financial failure and the Virginia Company went bankrupt in 1624, just four years after the Pilgrims stopped for a beer run up at Plymouth thinking that they had landed in Virginia. That bunch really did try the commune thing from the start, having learned nothing from the preceding dozen years of experience down in Jamestown. Yankees.
John Rolfe/Pochahontas
12 generations later
Me
I’m descended from Hopkins the signer too
I’m on it! (For later at home...:)
Thanks for the ping CIC!
Thanks for the ping.
BTTT
Ole Hopkins must have been been a randy dude!
My ancestors on both sides were randy dudes.
5 and up children per family was very normal.
Very nice! I’ll have my older kids watch this as soon as I get home. Thanks for posting!
Hi Cousin!
There is a great book available from Amazon.
“Here shall I die ashore!”, by Caleb Johnson.
It tells about our original Stephen Hopkins stranded on Bermuda after their ship and party left Jamestown looking for food. The book isn’t that big. Still I could not put it down when I started reading it until I finished it.
Reading that and later watching Saints and Strangers, I had a chill go up my back with the realization if he had died, I and my family would not be here.
Later I wondered how much of America would be here if not for the Jamestown and Pilgrim survivors? A distant cousin gave me a heads up on a Faux News special on Jamestown. One of the head historians at Jamestown stated that very fact/question. He wondered if/when America would have been really discovered and be what it is today if not for the Jamestown and Pilgrim survivors finding and setting the foundations of our civilization in those areas.
-PJ
He only had five surviving children
Thanks very much for the ping, c_I_c; post, EveningStar; work, LS. OUTSTANDING!
LOL, someone went forth and multiplied!
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