Early Jamestown: Why Did So Many Colonists Die?

What would you do if you could discover a “new world”? That’s exactly what the Jamestown Colonists were going to find out when they sailed out for the new world even though this journey could mean their death. The question for this essay is “Early Jamestown: Why did so many colonists die?” even though Jamestown was supplied with 560 colonists only 90 colonists survive after the May of 1610. What the colonists were expecting to find was a new route to china and Valuables but when the colonists sailed out they were met with diseases, were attacked by natives, and lacked the survival skills to continue on So when they set out to establish a Jamestown settlement the majority of the colonists were met with a horrible fate. Many of the colonists died because …show more content…
Most of the colonists were gentlemen who were not used to doing work with their hands or really any labor at all there was only around 33 people who were laborers and no farmers. Since there was no farmers there was a lack of food which forced the colonists to attempt trade with the Indians they had no hunters and unlike the Indians were almost completely incapable of catching and hunting their own food. On both ship lists there was only one surgeon and only on the 1st resupply of January 1608 were druggists on board and with over 560 people to take care of the surgeon and druggists were overworked and back then women were also used to take care of the weak or sick but on both ship lists there were no women at all which made the colonists vulnerable to sicknesses like the summer sickness which killed off around 128 colonists which was most likely either Malaria and or Yellow fever which is transmitted by mosquitoes. Obviously the colonists were not too focused on making settlement and more so on the gold and riches since the crew they sailed off with were almost all incapable of taking care and fending for