History of Jamestown (1607–1699)
history of the Jamestown Settlement in the Colony of Virginia in the 17th century
Jamestown, also known as Jamestowne, was the first settlement of the Virginia Colony, founded in 1607, and the capital of Virginia until 1699 when the seat of government was moved to Williamsburg.
Arrival and first landing
The London Company sent an expedition to establish a settlement in the Virginia Colony in December 1606. The expedition consisted of three ships, Susan Constant (the largest ship, sometimes known as Sarah Constant, Christopher Newport captain and in command of the group), Godspeed (Bartholomew Gosnold captain), and Discovery (the smallest ship, John Ratcliffe captain). The ships left Blackwall, now part of London, with 105 men and boys and 39 crew members.
By April 6, 1607, Godspeed, Susan Constant, and Discovery arrived at the Spanish colony of Puerto Rico, where they stopped for provisions before continuing their journey. By the end of April, the expedition reached the southern edge of the mouth of what is now known as the Chesapeake Bay. After an unusually long journey of more than four months, the 104 men and boys (one passenger of the original 105 died during the journey) arrived at their chosen settlement spot in Virginia. There were no women on the first ships.
They named the Virginia capes at the entrance to Chesapeake Bay after the sons of their king, the southern Cape Henry, for Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales, and the northern, on the Delmarva Peninsula Cape Charles, for his younger brother, Charles, Duke of York. On April 26 upon landing at Cape Henry, they set up a cross near the site of the current Cape Henry Memorial, and Chaplain Robert Hunt made the following declaration:
We do hereby dedicate this Land, and ourselves, to reach the People within these shores with the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and to raise up Godly generations after us, and with these generations take the Kingdom of God to all the earth.
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This entry incorporates text from “History of Jamestown (1607–1699)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.