Early Jamestown Dbq Essay

In early 1607, Englishmen had colonized in the New World, unknowing the difficult life ahead of them. The people were unaware the harsh winters, severe droughts, salt-fresh water transition, and Natives living beside them. Due to their ignorance, it resulted in many colonists to drop dead. In the colony of Jamestown, numerous settlers had died from the starvation and lack of fresh water, disease, and their relations with the Powhatans. Initially, the people of Jamestown died from their lack of food and fresh water. Specifically, they starved because of a famine during summer to winter. In Document A it explains how in early spring they had fish in the streams, but in other seasons they didn’t. This contributed to them dying because the settlers did not have enough fish to survive the following seasons. Also many died from starvation because they did not have enough grain to endure the harsh winter. From Document D it explains how …show more content…
Particularly, the spread of the summer sickness had killed several colonists in 1607, which is stated in Document E. In fact, half of the settlers died. Moving along, the colonists had died because they contracted a disease from their own water source. In Document A it describes how they dumped human waste in the river, believing it would flush away. However, that was not the case because the waste festered at the salt-fresh transition and attributed to disease. So any water they had swallowed had a disease, which ended up killing them in the end. Notably, countless died from disease because their little attention to medical care. Between both the first and second ship lists there’s only two surgeons, which is specified in Document C. Hypothetically, if both surgeons had supposedly died, there would be no one to cure the disease. This would allow the disease to spread and kill most of the Jamestown settlement. Overall, many had perished because of the vulnerability of