Nabeel’s BLog

Letter from an Early Colonist

September 27, 2008 at 9:56 pm (Uncategorized)

September 11, 1609

Dear Mom and Dad,

  It’s me, John Hoover. It’s been ages since I heard from you or wrote to you.  Here in Virginia things aren’t going too well. Our three ships brought over a hundred male colonists. We named our settlement Jamestown.

It feels very different here. It’s like nobody lives here. The settlement is near water so fortunately we never have shortage of it. There are huge lands behind our settlement. It goes as far as our eyes can see, where the sky meets the land. The land is filled with hills and mountains. To me, the mountains appear as if there is hidden treasure. The land is also abundant in fish, deer, hares, fruits, and roots.

Our captain, John Smith complained that “ten good workmen would have done more substantial work in a day than ten of us in a week.” I don’t quite agree with this. Almost none of the men have farming experience or useful skills to build houses. Other than me, a very small quantity of men get work completed productively. The rest only care about wealth. Gold and silver is on their mind at all times. They did not contribute in the welfare of this town and were not helpful at all to build our colony.

Our place is not a very good settlement. It is surrounded by marshes full of disease-carrying mosquitoes. The water was way too salty to drink. By winter two thirds of our colonists died from diseases and hunger. The few of us that survived were hungry and sick. Soon another leader took control. He forced everybody to work and build better housing. This way there was less death.

We also received help from the powerful Powhatan Confederacy. A man named Wahunsonacock led this alliance of Algonquian Indian. These people would bring food to us. They also taught us how to grow corn. But sometimes we took food from them with force. We didn’t have a choice or we would die.

Once more the winter came and our leader was not present. This time it was worse. Only sixty of us were alive. We had no food or water and this place is packed with diseases. Currently, one of the colonists is working to solve this problem. I hope we can survive and make profit for the London Company.

Love,

John Hoover