To help understand the environment that awaited Richard and Elizabeth Eastwood upon their arrival to “The New World” in 1642, it’s important that the reader have a basic knowledge of the history of Jamestown Colony.

Jamestown, America’s first permanent English colony, was founded on the James River, in what later became known as Virginia in 1607, 13 years before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock in Massachusetts. The colony was sponsored by the Virginia Company of London, a group of investors who hoped to profit from the venture. Chartered in 1606 by King James I, (hence the river and colony’s name), the company also supported British national goals of counterbalancing the expansion of other European nations abroad, seeking a northwest passage to the Orient, and converting the native Virginia Indians to the Anglican religion.

The "Susan Constant", "Godspeed" and "Discovery", three English ships carrying a total of 105 male passengers, (one of whom died during the voyage), departed from England in December 1606 and reached the Virginia coast in late April 1607. The expedition was initially led by Captain Christopher Newport. After two weeks of exploration, a site offering deep water anchorage, plus a good defensive position, was selected. On May 14, 1607, work began to construct the first English settlement in America. The arrival of these English pioneers and their subsequent colonization, sparked a series of cultural encounters that helped shape our future nation as well as the rest of the world. The government, language, customs, beliefs and aspirations of these early Virginians are all part of the United States’ heritage today.

    This map shows the counties of origin and hometowns of 120 of the first English colonists to settle in Jamestown, Virginia.

Initially, the colony was governed by a council of seven men, with one member serving as president. Unfortunately, this council had failed to establish any form of diplomatic relations with their native ["Indian"] neighbors. The small band of Englishmen was either unaware or arrogant enough to disregard the tribes of Algonquian -speaking Indians ruled by the powerful leader, Chief Powhatan.

They began construction of their small English outpost, in the midst of the Indian’s chiefdom.

Serious problems soon emerged. Not only were relations with the tribes of Powhatan's Indians tenuous, but settlers also found themselves in an unfamiliar climate, coupled with a brackish water supply and a serious lack of food. Conditions were then aggravated by a prolonged drought, which led to rampant disease and quite often death. Many of the original colonists were upper-class Englishmen seeking wealth from the colony’s natural resources and were oblivious to the realities of establishing the colony which lacked sufficient laborers, as well as, skilled farmers.

The first two English women arrived at Jamestown in 1608, and more followed in subsequent years. However, the men continued to heavily outnumber the women for the remainder of the 17th century.

Captain John Smith became the colony’s leader in 1608, the fourth in a succession of council presidents, and established a “no work, no food” policy. This tough stance was successful for a short time but, unfortunately, Smith was injured by burning gunpowder in the fall of 1609 and left for England. He never returned to Virginia, but promoted colonization of North America until his death in 1631 and published numerous accounts of the Virginia colony, providing invaluable material for historians. Smith’s departure was followed by the “starving time,” a period of Indian hostility and the deaths of many English men and women from starvation and disease. Just when the colonists decided to totally abandon Jamestown, a new boatload of settlers arrived from England with supplies and eager to find wealth in Virginia.

Until the introduction of tobacco as a cash crop about 1613 by colonist John Rolfe (he later married Powhatan’s daughter, Pocahontas), none of the colonists’ efforts to establish profitable enterprises had been successful. Rolfe's success at tobacco cultivation stimulated the rapid growth of the Virginia colony, and was the primary reason for it's survival.

The first documented Africans in Virginia arrived in 1619. They were from the kingdom of Ndongo, in Angola, and had been captured during war with the Portuguese. While these first Africans may have been treated as indentured servants, the same as many whites, the practice of owning Africans as slaves for life began appearing around the middle of the 17th century.

The first representative government in British America began at Jamestown in 1619 with the convening of a general assembly. London’s Virginia Company was dissolved in 1624, and Virginia then officially became a royal colony. It was shortly after this period of Jamestown’s history that Richard and Elizabeth Eastwood departed their family home and headed to Portsmouth Harbor, England’s leading seaport, to board a ship which, over the next four and a half months, would transport them to a new exciting future in America.

Jamestown would continue as the center of Virginia’s political and social life until 1699 when the seat of government moved to Williamsburg. Although Jamestown had ceased to exist as a town by the mid 1700s, its legacies are still embodied in today’s United States.