Colonial Virginia Analysis

Virginia was a colony of many misfortunes, miscalculations, and misconceptions. This colony was an experiment in the process of English Colonialism during which many people died, starved and suffered. During the period of Virginia’s beginnings historians learned a great deal of information about the construction of Virginia. In addition to that Virginia’s actions would affect America in the long run with things such as slavery and agriculture. Likewise this Chapter tells us a lot about the study of history, it states that history can be misinterpreted and lead on people into one point of view. The reason being since the one reading the account of an individual does not have a sufficient understanding of the customs and traditions of that era or culture. For example John Smith describes that he was kidnapped by
Powhatan’s tribe and was about to be executed by being beat to death but Powhatan’s daughter intervened and saved his life.
But according to some historians this was merely an initiation ceremony where he is to be hazed and then accepted into the tribe. The Virginia Company had people invest and their strategy was for the income of the expedition to pay the bills of the Virginia Company and also to give an incentive to the stockholders. The other idea was that the people that came to live in Virginia would gain profits, and England would gain more control of the Americas. The Virginia Company’s plan for achievement was to form a colony and collect the assets of this new territory. Furthermore Virginia was a colony that experienced many deaths from starvation and it is recorded in 1622 that there were 3500 Virginians missing. The death rate was as high as 80 percent this was partly due
to the fact that there was contaminated drinking water and the onslaught of malaria. When the King got word of the death toll he was astounded and therefore he revoked the charter. One can make many assumptions about the death of these colonists but there is one thing that historians conclude is that the colony could not supply enough resources for the colony to thrive. In addition to that people did not want to plant corn instead they wanted to plant tobacco to make a profit. It got so bad that Governor Argall mad a law requiring everyone but tradesmen to plant corn. From the reading it tells us that corn was an easy crop to maintain and harvest and it took about 48 hours of work. Which shows the colonists were really driven to strike it rich than to survive. Since there was a large economic boom from tobacco there was a high demand in human labor. This lead to the importation of slaves to Virginia from the cheaper servants who only had to work for seven years to the more expensive slaves who worked for the rest of their lives and you receive the labor offspring.
Beginning this reading the study of history is really emphasized in this Chapter because you are put into a position where you can draw a conclusion and make your own assumptions with different reasonable coinciding arguments.