"The Founding of Jamestown," an excerpt from The Generall

Historie of Virginia

Reprinted in Eyewitness to America

Published in 1997

"Now fell every man to work, the Council contrive the Fort, the rest cut down trees to make a place to pitch their tents;"

England again turned its attention to North America in 1604, after signing a peace treaty with Spain. Freed from the threat of war, the government now had funds that could be used for colonization and trade. Since the failure of the Roanoke settlement sixteen years earlier, English investors had come to realize that North America offered more than gold, silver, and other precious metals. As the Spanish had proven in the Caribbean, sizable profits could be made from plantations that...