![[Pasted image 20250202091941.png]] The [[Chesapeake]] colonies of [[Virginia]] and later [[Maryland]] ultimately enriched investors and colonial leaders by producing the valuable cash crop, tobacco. However, the first few years of [[Jamestown]] did not suggest the English outpost would survive. Most of the settlers were younger sons of the nobility, seeking their fortunes in the new world since they would not be inheriting wealth or titles. They had no intention of working and expected either to find gold as the Spanish had, or to become rich by trade or conquest. Settlers struggled both with each other and with the Powhatan Indians who controlled the area. Jealousies and infighting among the English destabilized the colony. Captain John Smith, who later wrote about his experiences in Virginia as well as New England, took control of the colony for a time and exercised nearly-dictatorial powers. The settlers’ unwillingness and inability to grow their own food compounded their problems. Lack of food and fighting with native peoples killed many of the original Jamestown settlers. The winter of 1609–1610, which became known as “the starving time,” came close to annihilating the colony. Only sixty out of 500 settlers survived the winter and some resorted to stealing bodies from graves for food. One man killed his wife and ate her; he was burned at the stake. By June 1610, the few remaining settlers had decided to abandon the area and only the last-minute arrival of supply ships from England prevented another failed effort like the lost colony of Roanoke thirty years earlier. Supply ships brought new settlers, but only twelve hundred of the seventy-five hundred people who came to Virginia between 1607 and 1624 survived. --- Next: [[3.9 English America]] Back: [[3.7 Patroons]]