First Word: Jamestown, Virgina
Category: Foundations
What would happen if you poke a hontas? Well for one thing, she might poke you back. Or her husband, John Rolfe, might poke you. On the other hand, Pocahontas might have been one the non-belligerent previous residents of Virginia when the three Virginia Company ships arrived in 1607, so maybe you could avoid being the pokee. A United States coin, the Virginia quarter, shows the three ships landing at Jamestown. If you look closely, you can see Pocahontas waving from the shore as the ships land. Of course, she skedaddled almost immediately because a group of hostile residents attacked the colonists. As near as I can tell, historians have no clue as to the motive of the attack. My best guess is that the residents knew that white people had iron weapons, which would provide an advantage over other tribes in the area with whom they were probably in constant warfare.
Jamestown became the first capital of the British colony, Virginia (until 1699?). For a short time, Virginia included the Bahamas, but almost immediately they became a separate colony. The British had had other colonies in the America?s, one in the Carolinas and one in South America. American school textbooks don?t say much about them except that they were not financially successful. Another possible colony was located in Nova Scotia, but it is part of Canada; and while it was successful as an exporter of fish and whale oil, maybe it didn?t have any permanent residents until after Jamestown.
Some books mention a list of commodities, like iron ore and lumber, which colonists exported, but they must have been relatively minor after Mr Pocahontas, John Rolfe, began exporting tobacco. The Virginia Company did explore for minerals, but I think Powhatan copper jewelry might have been the only mineral discovers. A colonist had a lead mine from which he smelted lead to make musket balls. He kept the location secret, and when he was killed, the location was lost. Tobacco continued to be the major crop until after the invention of the cotton gin, but other crops were exported. George Washington grew corn, (maybe?) hemp, indigo, rice, and tobacco, and he experimented some with cotton. After he left government service; he distilled whiskey, which over the next hundred years replaced rum as the American drink.
John Rolfe says in his diary that in 1619 he bought African laborers. Historians disagree about whether they were slaves or indentured servants. How African laborers became different that European laborers seems to be a mystery. One version the story suggests that Africans had a tradition of living as slaves. Also, they may have borrowed money for which they pledges more years, and the tradition of Africans as permanent slaves in Spanish colonies might have arrived first in the Carolinas when British colonists from Barbados began planting rice. However it happened, the African labor made possible Virginia?s success. Virginia?s economy must have been almost all agriculture until manufacturing began in Wheeling after the construction of the Cumberland Road.
Virginia is a birthplace of presidents, Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Harrison, Tyler, Taylor, Wilson.