They arrived at the wrong time of year also, too late for planting anything.
The Jamestown settlers arrived in Virginia during a severe drought, according to a research study conducted by the Jamestown Archaeological Assessment (JAA) team in the 1990s. The JAA analyzed information from a study conducted in 1985 by David Stahle and others, who obtained drawings of 800-year-old
bald cypress trees along the
Nottoway and
Blackwater rivers. The lifespan of these trees is up to 1,000 years, and their rings offer a good indication of an area's annual amount of rainfall. The borings revealed that the worst drought in 700 years occurred between 1606 and 1612. This severe drought affected the Jamestown colonists and
Powhatan tribe's ability to produce food and obtain a safe supply of water.
[16]The settlers also arrived too late in the year to get crops planted.
[17] Many in the group were either gentlemen or their manservants, both equally unaccustomed to the hard labor demanded by the harsh task of carving out a viable colony.
[17] One of these was
Robert Hunt, a former
vicar of
Reculver, England, who celebrated the first known Anglican
Eucharist in the territory of the future United States on June 21, 1607.
[18]Two-thirds of the settlers died before ships arrived in 1608 with supplies and
German and
Polish craftsmen,
[19][20][21] who helped to establish the first manufactories in the colony. As a result, glassware became the foremost American products to be exported to Europe at the time.
Clapboard had already been sent back to England beginning with the first returning ship
The delivery of supplies in 1608 on the
first and second supply missions of Captain Newport had also added to the number of hungry settlers. It seemed certain at that time that the colony at Jamestown would meet the same fate as earlier English attempts to settle in North America, specifically the Roanoke Colony (Lost Colony) and the
Popham Colony, unless there was a major relief effort. The Germans who arrived with the second supply and a few others defected to the Powhatans, with weapons and equipment.
[22] The Germans even planned to join a rumored Spanish attack on the colony and urged the Powhatans to join it.
[23] The Spanish were driven off by the timely arrival in July 1609 of Captain
Samuel Argall in Mary and John, a larger ship than the Spanish reconnaissance ship La Asunción de Cristo.
[24] Argall's voyage also prevented the Spanish from gaining knowledge of the weakness of the colony. Don Pedro de Zúñiga, the Spanish ambassador to England, was desperately seeking this information (in addition to spies) in order to get
Philip III of Spain to authorize an attack on the colony.
[25]The investors of the Virginia Company of London expected to reap rewards from their speculative investments. With the second supply, they expressed their frustrations and made demands upon the leaders of Jamestown in written form. They specifically demanded that the colonists send commodities sufficient to pay the cost of the voyage, a lump of gold, assurance that they had found the South Sea, and one member of the lost Roanoke Colony. It fell to the third president of the council,
Captain John Smith, to deliver a bold and much-needed wake-up call in response to the investors in London, demanding practical laborers and craftsmen who could help make the colony more self-sufficient.
[26]
