Roanoke Island

The History of Jamestown, Virginia In June of 1606, King James I granted a charter to a group of London entrepreneurs, the Virginia Company, to establish a English settlement in the Chesapeake region of North America. By December, 104 male settlers sailed from London instructed to settle Virginia, and find gold and a water route to the Orient. According to a list published by Captain John Smith, "Gentlemen" made up about half of the group, whose gentle birth suggests they knew nothing of or thought it their personal duty to tame a wilderness. The rest were artisans, artisans, and laborers. On May 13, 1607, the Virginia Company explorers chose to settle on Jamestown Island, along the James River 60 miles from the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay.

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In 1419, Prince Henry the Navigator of Portugal began the period of time known as the “Age of Exploration”. Europe’s leading superpowers, France, Spain, Portugal, Holland, and England, all competed for colonization in unknown territories. Samuel de Champlain colonized along the St. Lawrence River in 1608, Henry Hudson of Holland established Albany in 1609, and Spain established colonies in Mexico and Mesoamerica. In 1607, England established its first colony in North America around the Chesapeake Bay, and nearly a decade later established a second colony in present-day New England. Both New England and the Chesapeake were founded by the British around the same time; however, both colonies developed a different economy, government, and many other ways of life.

The site was actually an island on North America's eastern seaboard protected by the outer banks of what is now North Carolina's coast. Sir Richard Grenville led the fleet that brought them to the New World, the Governor of the colony was Master Ralph Lane and among the colonists was Walter Raleigh's confidant Thomas Harriot, author of "A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia", a chronicle of their adventure. Sir Francis Drake, who was seeking Spanish conquests in the New World, rescued this group just as they were losing control of their situation. Another colony was left at Roanoke in 1587 but by 1590, when a long delayed supply ship finally arrived, they had disappeared without a trace. This was the so-called "Lost Colony".

Amerigo Vespucci was the first explorer to declare finding new land, and he is the man who named the Americas. His discovery was the start of what we call home today. One of the first well know colonies to be established on the new land was, the Jamestown Colony. This colony was located in the area that became Virginia. As this colonization grew in the new world the growth morphed into one of the largest and most powerful countries on the face of the Earth.

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