This essay examines the first permanent English colonies in America — Jamestown, Virginia, and Plymouth, New England — by comparing their founding motives, methods of governance, relationships with Native Americans, and ultimate outcomes. Drawing on the Spanish colonial model as a point of contrast, the paper argues that Jamestown's profit-driven orientation led to disorganized leadership, exploitation of native and African labor, and near collapse, while Plymouth's pursuit of religious freedom produced democratic self-governance and cooperative relations with indigenous peoples. The essay concludes that Plymouth's model, not Jamestown's, provided the foundational principles later adopted by the American Constitution.
Many Europeans viewed America as the New World — a place full of new expectations, opportunities, and for some, the chance of a fresh beginning. The success or failure of the early settlers depended largely on the motives and expectations they brought with them, but also on the way in which they dealt with the challenges awaiting them in their new land. Just as with the Spanish settlers of the sixteenth century, the inhabitants of the first permanent English colonies — at Jamestown in Virginia and Plymouth in New England — came to America with differing motives and individual sets of expectations. The historical record suggests, however, that in pursuit of their opportunities, the colony at Jamestown adopted an approach similar to that of the Spanish, unlike their counterparts in Plymouth.
Those who traveled to America did so for a wide variety of personal and economic reasons. Among the most common were the desire for wealth, the quest for political or religious freedom, the establishment of trade routes, and the claiming of land on behalf of their native countries. The Spanish came, initially, to the New World hoping to create a trade route with the East, but soon concluded that America was itself a source of wealth. The first Spanish settlers were interested only in exploiting American stores of gold and silver, and the discovery of these riches made Spain one of the wealthiest and most powerful nations on earth. This empire, however, was built upon the murder of native populations and the destruction of native cultures. Furthermore, while the earliest Spanish ventures in the New World had operated independently, by the end of the sixteenth century the Spanish monarchy had taken control over the governance of local communities, forbidding colonists from governing themselves (Brinkley, 1993).
In the early years of the seventeenth century, the London Company (later to become the Virginia Company) sent a group of settlers to colonize Virginia. They reached the American coast in the spring of 1607, sailed into Chesapeake Bay and up a river they named the James, and established the colony of Jamestown. For seventeen years, one wave of settlers after another attempted to make Jamestown a habitable and profitable colony, without much success (Virtual Jamestown). The colony became a place of misery and death, and the London Company faced economic disaster.
The initial colonists ran into serious difficulties from the moment they landed, because, like the Spanish, the Jamestown colonists had no system of leadership or self-government (Brinkley, 1993). Additionally, as the colony was primarily a business enterprise, the London Company was desperate for a return on its investment. For this reason, it encouraged the colonists to focus their energy on futile searches for gold and iron rather than on developing the land and growing food. The company also had little interest in creating a family-centered community and sent virtually no women to Jamestown. The settlers therefore could not establish real households and had difficulty feeling any sense of community.
In January 1608, with the colony almost extinct, Captain John Smith took control and imposed work and order on the community. He also organized raids on neighboring Indian villages to steal food and kidnap natives. Even so, fewer than half the settlers survived the colony's first few years, and the London Company — by then renamed the Virginia Company — was forced to send more settlers and large quantities of supplies to the struggling settlement (Brinkley, 1993). The savior of Jamestown proved to be the discovery of tobacco, which the colonists were able to trade to Europe and thereby secure the colony's future. The expansion of the colony required more labor, and, in a fashion similar to the Spanish, the Jamestown settlers resorted to exploiting the native Indian population in addition to importing African slave labor (Brinkley, 1993).
"Pilgrims, Mayflower Compact, and Native cooperation"
On December 21, 1620, the Pilgrims stepped ashore at Plymouth Rock. Just as in Jamestown, their first winter was a difficult one, with half the colonists perishing from malnutrition, disease, and exposure. But, unlike the Jamestown and Spanish settlers, the Plymouth colony sought and maintained good relationships with the local Indians. It was largely due to the assistance of the natives — who showed the Pilgrims how to gather seafood and cultivate corn — that the colony was able to survive (Brinkley, 1993). After the first autumn harvest, the settlers invited the natives to join them in a festival, the original Thanksgiving (Ayers, 1999). The Pilgrims could not create rich farms on the sandy and marshy soil around Plymouth, but they developed a profitable trade in fish and furs. New colonists arrived from England and, although the Pilgrims were always a poor community, they were content to live their lives in peace with a large degree of self-governance.
The two English colonies at Jamestown and Plymouth represent two very different models of settlement. At Plymouth, where the primary motives were a search for personal and religious freedom, the colonists built their community on the principles of peace and democracy. By creating an agreed constitution for their self-governance and by maintaining good relations with the native Indians, the Plymouth settlers were able to overcome the problems and obstacles they encountered in a peaceful and humane manner.
Conversely, the desire for wealth and economic trade motivated the colony at Jamestown, in a manner similar to the Spanish before them. This resulted in a lack of organized self-governance and a great deal of competition — both among colonists and between the colony and the natives. In the pursuit of wealth and economic success, the Jamestown colony adopted the Spanish model of exploiting native Indians and, later, African immigrants. Although both colonies ultimately survived, it is worth noting that it is only from the Plymouth model that the modern American Constitution drew its foundational ideas.
Ayers, Edward. American Passages: A History of the United States. London: Harcourt Brace College, 1999.
Brinkley, Alan. The Unfinished Nation: A Concise History of the American People. New York: McGraw Hill, 1993.
Virtual Jamestown. Jefferson Village. 25th September 2002.
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