The Vaster Wilds

The Jamestown Colony was first settled in 1607 on the traditional lands of the Powhatan, and it later became the first permanent English European settlement in North America. Because the colony was situated on a marsh along one of the estuary rivers of Chesapeake Bay, its land was unsuitable for agriculture and acted as a breeding ground for mosquitoes. The colonists’ first years were marked by a historic drought in the region, making agricultural attempts even more difficult and affecting the number of supplies that could be stored for winter. Because the colony was rife with diseases and supply shortages, leadership changed hands frequently and the colonists’ relationships with the local Indigenous populations deteriorated. Yet despite these many difficulties, the widespread poverty in England and the stories of gold and other resources still made the colony an appealing option for enterprising settlers, who continued to arrive.

In 1609, much-needed supply ships bringing additional food and colonists were forced to pause in Bermuda due to a hurricane. As a result, the Jamestown colonists spent the winter of 1609 to 1610 in a state of starvation, and evidence indicates that they resorted to murder and cannibalism. Having alienated the local Indigenous population, the colonists feared leaving the fort and resorted to using their own houses as firewood. (The girl’s account in The Vaster Wilds relays these hardships and includes the gruesome yet historically accurate details of a man murdering and cannibalizing his wife and the settlers’ act of devouring the brain of a 14-year-old girl.) Disease also ran rampant in Jamestown during this time, for there was a lack of clean water near the settlement. The situation become so dire that the colony was briefly abandoned in the spring of 1610, with only 60 people still alive out of the original 500 settlers. The surviving colonists were eventually forced to return to the colony and began to cultivate tobacco.