E20 - America Takes Root: Jamestown and the Giant Journey West

Today (a day late, I know!) we officially set off on our deep dive into the founding of Jamestown by focusing on the high-stakes, top secret planning and chaotic voyage of 1606–1607. Driven by a desperate need for profit and backed by the newly formed Virginia Company, England’s colonization effort was a risky business venture shaped by secrecy and competition with Spain. We start introducing some key figures- and their controversial backgrounds- as we try to immerse ourselves in the experiences of these brave adventurers. The journey itself was plagued by delays, dwindling supplies, interpersonal drama, and navigational difficulties, before the group miraculously limped into the Chesapeake Bay. 

The main sources for this episode are:

• Savage Kingdom: The True Story of Jamestown, 1607, and the Settlement of America, written by Benjamin Woolley, and published in 2007 by HarperPress UK
• Jamestown, The Truth Revealed, written by William Kelso, and published in 2017 by the University of Virginia Press
• Pocahontas and the Powhatan Dilemma, written by Camilla Townsend, and published in 2004 by Hill and Wang

To get updates and other content, follow @thecuriousalexjones on Instagram and Threads.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:09

Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, gentle folks, whenever and wherever you happen to be listening. My name is Alex Jones. Not that one. And I am intensely curious about generally everything. And I read a lot. So consider me the girl in your history study group that actually did the reading. It explains everything you need to know to pass the exam. I'm a former high school English teacher with a master's in secondary ed and a bachelor's in both English and art history, so I'm pretty well versed in research, critical thinking, and fostering curiosity. If you've been wanting to learn more about history that you didn't learn in high school, I'm here to share the process of my own learning with you. I'm not a career academic or historical expert, but I am a pretty well-educated and intelligent person with a knack for learning and teaching. So come with me if you're ready to get curious. Imagine this. You're on the deck of a ship just before dawn, somewhere in the great Western Ocean, having sailed north from the West Indies where you had been hopping island to island, attempting to replenish food and fresh water reserves after what seemed like a never ending journey from London. For days, you've been worried you'll never find land again. Your captain had you sounding, testing the depth of the water beneath you, in the hopes that you would find the shallower waters that meant you were close to land, to Virginia. But the ropes just kept going and going and going deeper into the water, never finding the seabed. You're just a boy, really, sent by the master you are indentured to on this secret venture to the new world to colonize and cultivate and hopefully find gold on his behalf. And you're nervous you're scared. Many of the older men are fighting, arguing, exasperated at the seemingly hopeless situation of being lost. If you have to turn around, will you even make it home? The raging storm that began yesterday and thrashed you on the waves all night has finally settled. And the clouds seem to be dissipating. But you have no idea where you are. Scanning the expanse to the west as the first hints of daylight peek up over the ocean behind you, you're all praying for a miracle. Suddenly, just as you think you spot a disturbance against the horizon, a sailor above you bellows Land, land ho. There's a sudden flurry of movement, and after the ship's navigator checks his measurements and maps, he confirms a miracle indeed that you have finally arrived at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. Rejoicing cries fill the air, prayers of gratitude are whispered beneath breath, and you at last feel the tightness in your chest loosen, replaced by an excited fluttering in your stomach. The voyage over has been far more difficult than you expected, but none of you can even begin to imagine the years of suffering and death that await you on shore. Welcome, one and all, to the first deep dive episode into the founding of the Jamestown Colony in Virginia. I suggest, if you haven't already, that you do go back and listen to the intro/slash summary episode I put out last week first, as it provides not just like the briefest of overviews of the span of time we'll be covering in this series, but the cultural context or framework that influenced its coming about in the first place, and why I'm so curious about it. I don't think anyone arriving on the shores of the Chesapeake Bay in the spring of 1607 could have ever imagined what the eastern coast of mainland North America would come to look like 100, 200, 300 years later. Not to mention today, almost exactly to the day 420 years later. It had existed up until then mostly unchanged, as it did the day they landed for who knows how long before. But the exponential growth of English as well as French and Dutch settlements north of Spanish territory that's closer to the equator would explode soon after it became clear that Jamestown could actually survive long term. But it took essentially 20 years for that to become a reality. Growing up in Massachusetts, I learned far more about Plymouth Colony than I did Jamestown, thinking that maybe it was more important to the creation of the American colonies than it might really be. And as I'm trying to explore and understand how and why the U.S. has come to exist as it does today, I've come to realize just how important the survival of Jamestown was to the domino effect of colonization that eventually led to those colonies' rebellings, starting the first revolution of its kind, establishing the first modern democracy. But it almost failed like countless times. I almost wonder has that perseverance or stubbornness become ingrained in the American psyche? Does it explain, at least in part, some of the issues we still grapple with today? To understand this, I need to start in the years before the men and boys who first settled the river island that became Jamestown ever set foot there. And today's episode will focus just on the planning and voyage itself, with the next episode covering the first couple years before we focus on an entire episode solely covering the starving time, or the winter of 1609 to 1610. At least that's the plan. Knowing me, I could end up doing something entirely different. But Rono Colony, 20 years before Jamestown, had failed. Numerous other colonization attempts had failed. But it was clear from a returning mission to the area of modern-day New England in 1602. This is the one called Norumbega, apparently. Um this mission showed that even if there isn't gold, there was an abundance of innumerable other natural resources that Europeans could turn a profit on. And England was desperate for the money and power that could result from colonies and trading posts in the New World. I do have to pause here and go off on a very brief tangent and mention specifically that one of those natural resources that they thought they could turn a huge profit on was sassafras. If you haven't heard of that before, because you are not familiar with the eastern coast of North America, it's a tree, which they thought at the time was some kind of cure or treatment for syphilis. And let me explain something I've started picking up on the longer I've been studying history as a hobby. Everyone had syphilis. Nowadays, we do make a lot of jokes involving STIs and STDs because, especially here in America, they're by and large very treatable or curable. And I definitely giggle to myself when I learn of another figure in history who had or supposedly had it. Like, dude, of course this crazy guy had syphilis. Like Blackbeard, syphilis. Lord Byron, syphilis. Al Capone, Oscar Wilde, syphilis, and yeah, syphilis. And apparently somehow Mary Todd Lincoln. I could probably do an entire episode on the history of this, but basically the first documented cases of syphilis were in an outbreak in Italy just a couple years after 1492 when Columbus sailed the ocean blue. So they thought it must have originated from the New World. They also believed at the time that a cure for a disease could always be found in the same geographical location that the disease itself originated from. So the cure must be found in the New World. And because it was so widespread, the symptoms were so severe, and the only other quote, cure they had was mercury. A less toxic treatment would be extremely profitable. But why sassafras? Well, explorers began noticing locals in the areas that this tree grew in using it as an herbal remedy for numerous things in numerous ways, like teas to help with fevers or colds or digestive issues, or made into a poultice to topically treat wounds or skin infections, and on and on and on and on. In more recent years, sassafras root was used to make root beer, but it isn't even used for that anymore. Um, but yeah, we can joke. But for them, this was an incredibly serious problem. So, looking for any possible way to turn the natural resources of the Americas into a profit for themselves, in January 1606, two brothers whose job it was to propose economic opportunities and schemes to the English crown had sent a letter to Robert Cecil, the Lord Salisbury, King James I's Secretary of State and right hand man, suggesting a public colonization venture to Virginia, funded and sponsored by the government. At the same time, Cecil's right hand man, Sir Walter Cope, was making the same suggestion, but that it be completely private. The previous failed attempts had all been more or less, I think, public ventures, like funded entirely and led by the aristocratic class, like working in conjunction with the Crown, I think, all of whom, like Sir Walter Raleigh, who organized Roanoke and saw himself as like the owner of Virginia, had lost vast amounts of wealth whenever a colony failed. And England is trying to make money, not lose money, so a public venture could very well end up just bankrupting the country. Determined to finally make a success out of colonization, Cecil and Cope decided this would be entirely a business scheme with wealthy merchants organizing, sponsoring, and funding the mission. It would be manned by gentlemen of the aristocratic class and or men representing them, along with skilled workers and craftsmen associated with those wealthy merchants, almost all of whom had to pay for their own crossing themselves, but would be contracted to work the land and labor to find gold and other precious metals for a small share of the profits, as well as, most importantly, the opportunity to own vast swaths of land to cultivate for themselves. Because, especially at this time, land meant money, so had the potential to make them exceedingly rich, if they survived. The Virginia Company of London, aka the London Company, aka the Virginia Company, I won't sing it, was created specifically for the purposes of this mission. And in April 1606, the official Virginia Charter, because they love their official paperwork, was signed and sealed. It clearly establishes the motive of this colony as monetary. And any patentee, gentleman, merchant, adventurer, etc., who found any precious metals like gold or silver would receive 20% of the share of the profit from mining those ores, which is a pretty good deal. It separated Virginia, which essentially existed at the time as the entire North American mainland, not that they were aware of that, into two specific entities. A northern colony would settle somewhere between the modern day area of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, north all the way up to uh Newfoundland, Canada. A southern colony would settle between Philly south to Cape Fear, which is around modern-day Wilmington, North Carolina. Specifically, the Southern Venture was told to settle in the Chesapeake Bay, the Northern on the coast of Maine. The Virginia Company consisted of a royal council of 13 upper class men led by a man named Sir Thomas Smythe, who reported directly to Robert Cecil. And Robert Cecil reported directly to the king. So again, even though it's a private venture, like this is a monarchy, uh, the king is still like essentially in charge. And a royal council was very common at this time as a way to manage authority over a geographical area that England claimed control over, such as Ireland, or areas that required more control because they were simply rebellious, like Northern England. That's like Yorkshire, Northumberland, like up there along the uh border with Scotland. It was from the get-go, an uphill battle. Finding investors was difficult, given that North America had a reputation as being a money pit of failure, and not just for England. And Cecil ordered the entire endeavor to be like the secretest of all secrets, so money was also harder to come by. All of this because of Spain and England's relationship. They were in 1606 technically at peace, following the Somerset House Treaty, which officially ended the privateering, or legal piracy, of Spanish ships, which was one of England's main sources of income for a while during any voyages to and around the New World. They had permission to attack Spanish ships and steal whatever they had. So that was a lot of money for them, and now they don't have that. England, however, still not a fan of Spain, especially given their Catholicism. So to help motivate investors in a religious or moral sense to justify this entirely greedy monetary endeavor, the Virginia Charter adds, like essentially a little side note that establishing English colonies that could send out missionaries to convert the Algonquian peoples to the Protestant Anglican faith of the Church of England was not just beneficial to stopping the spread of Spanish Catholicism in the New World, which they were obviously heavily against, but would be like, you know, like holy bonus points in God's eyes. Like, you'll definitely go to heaven if you give us money to go over and be violent colonizers to these native peoples. But anyway. The next few months continued without any written record of planning meetings or discussions, likely because of the secrecy. But by November 1606, pressure was on to get the venture going. Smythe, head of the Royal Council, called a meeting to get this Shindig all the road, so to speak. And it's at this meeting that it's decided that there wouldn't be like a single governor in charge of the colony, like Ralph Lane and John White were to the Roanoke attempts. But instead, like the Royal Council in London, there would be a local council of colony leaders in Virginia that answered directly to the Royal Council in London. It would be their responsibility to enforce the rules and regulations that would follow English law. For example, any infraction from theft to rape to murder would be punished following a trial judged by a 12-man jury. We'll actually learn of a crazy murder during the starving time that they did punish the guy for, I'm pretty sure, if I remember correctly. But like, I highly doubt they ever actually punished any of their men for the rape of so many Native American women. That's a whole other side issue. This local council would also work together to organize the labor efforts, explorations of the area, et cetera. Now, because England is a monarchy and the king technically still always gets the final say, he or his representatives personally choose a man named Captain Christopher Newport, for whom Newport News, Virginia is now named, to be the appointed main leader of the settlers both on the sea and land until the local council was officially instated. And Newport could sail home to England knowing, like, okay, there's a group in charge, I'm gonna go report back to the crown, grab some provisions, uh provisions, and bring them back. I mentioned this in the intro episode, but the local council that would govern in Virginia was chosen by the Royal Council completely secretly in private, writing their names and probably a few instructions on a piece of paper, sealing it with wax, locking it in a box, and the only member of the voyage who knew what names were on there and had possession of the box and its key, only key, was Captain Christopher Newport. And he was sworn to secrecy not to reveal the names until a location for their settlement was chosen. Christopher Newport was a very well-known sailor by this point, having been one of the most successful of Queen Elizabeth I's so-called sea dogs during the time when Spain and England were actually enemies. These were privateers personally authorized by the Queen to play pirate and attack Spanish ships prior to peace with Spain. So Newport was now obviously looking for work and quite capable and experienced as a leader of men on the open ocean. He could command, he could manage conflict, and they were going to need a strong commander who could manage conflict. He was to make sure all the ships arrived safely at their destination, lead the initial expeditions to survey the area, begin establishing trading relationships amongst whichever Algonquian peoples they encountered, and locate a suitable settlement site, following the instructions of Richard Hacklett, which we'll talk more about next episode. Newport obviously had a whole crew of sailors and other ships and their captains under his command that would like return to England with him, but there were about 104 or 105 men and boys as passengers who would be dropped off in Virginia. And I think one or two of the three ships in the fleet that went over stayed. So they weren't like completely stranded like Roanoke was. Those settlers were assembled, obviously on the down low, through the Royal Council's various merchant or business. Connections, by and large, not known to each other, but most generally from an aristocratic background or representatives of aristocrats or other wealthy merchants, such as indentured servants or apprentices. Like, you had to have the right connections to be offered a position on this voyage. Because secrecy. But many had decent military experience, but I think were mostly like either faltering in their careers, as one way was put, fading in success, like they're looking for a comeback, maybe, or they were like George Percy, just for one example, they were younger sons of aristocrats whose older brother inherited, leaving the younger brother to make their own way in the world. Basically, if you were on this voyage, you were either an aristocrat in need of a financial boost, a military man in need of a comeback, or a skilled worker or craftsman looking to climb the social ladder through financial success. Fun fact about Percy, remember Governor Radcliffe's uppity dog, Percy? I think he was like a pug in the uh Disney Pocahontas movie, who thinks he's like so fancy and is like taking a bubble bath and gets into spats with the raccoon and hates getting dirty and everything. Yeah. He's named for George Percy and probably gets his personality from him too. We'll learn why in just a little bit. As we go through the voyage and settlement itself, we'll talk more specifically about specific individuals like John Smith and John Ratcliffe, which wasn't even his real name apparently, as they became or become important to the narrative. For now, we're focusing on key events and just like a couple people leading to their departures. So in late November, the plan was to metaphorically hit the road. The ships were gathering in or just outside London on the River Thames and were being stocked and provisioned and manned by crew members. But even from this point, the very, very start, with most passengers still not even on the ships, there are delays. While at anchor in the Thames, the lead ship, uh the Susan Constant, collides with another ship, with a less experienced crew who I guess didn't have their ropes tight enough or something like that, so they bump into each other. And repairs to the Susan Constant are delay number one. While waiting on the repairs, a selected group of leaders, not necessarily like the secret list of names, because again, like they're not supposed to know who's on that yet, but you know, the people they assign as captains of the ship, um, Newport, other like upper class people on the trip, meet on shore. Um, I think at either Smythe or Coke's house. And a man named Captain Bartholomew Gosnold, love that name, was given command of one of the other ships, and the mysterious John Ratcliffe, that has a fake name and no one knew anything about, was named Captain of the Other. So the three captains are Newport, Gosnold, Ratcliffe. They were all briefed on the details of Richard Hacklett's instructions of everything they were meant to do once they arrived, how to find a suitable location, etc. Again, we'll go real into detail on those instructions next episode when we talk about them actually like trying to follow them. But that was December 10th. They wanted to be gone by now. And finally, on December 20th, the fleet leaves London, sails down the Thames toward the English Channel, and arrives at Dover on the coast a few days later. I want to note, B.T. Dubs, if you remember the opening scene of Disney's Pocahontas, everyone's like gathered on the docks, like sending them all off with like a huge fanfare. Obviously, if you you're thinking about it, that didn't happen. They slipped out quietly because secrecy. They stay anchored at Dover on the coast for over a month, something like six or seven weeks, almost two months, waiting for favorable winds. This, their biggest delay, is delay number two. And because they can't know when the winds will change so that they can safely navigate out of the English Channel into the Atlantic Ocean, everyone has to stay on the ship at all times. So even though like you're right there next to shore, you have to stay on the ship ready to go just in case. And you can imagine that being confined to such a small space, if you've never been on like a replica or like an old sailing ship, um, you know, pre-modern sailing, very little space. Like you have to crouch. I'm five foot three and on the replica Mayflower, which like lifted the ceilings from the height they were supposed to actually be, like, you have to crouch. It's it's very claustrophobic. You can imagine that's going to cause tension. And this is where we start seeing the drama and factions or clicks that I mentioned last episode starting to form. Before even leaving England, what happens is previously mentioned George Percy and an important leader to be named Edward Mariah Wingfield start talking and they start getting suspicious of a religious plot, a Catholic scheme to either undermine the journey or like somehow turn it Catholic. I don't know. But they start being like, yo, I think this guy over here is secretly Catholic and trying to start something. This guy that they're talking about is Reverend Robert Hunt of the Church of England. And this is where it's gonna get extra, extra juicy. Unlike George Percy, Edward Mariah Wingfield was actually an eldest son, very well off, a successful veteran of military campaigns in Ireland and the Low Countries, which is like the Netherlands, and probably met Ralph Lane in Ireland, you know, the violent first governor of the first Roanoke colony attempt, whose behavior likely contributed to the disappearing of this second attempt. Um, I think Wingfield was the oldest in this like entire mission. Uh he was like 56, I think. He provided a large portion of funding for the voyage, so he probably went to make sure his money was like being used effectively to ensure financial success, whatever, um, and was related somehow to Captain Gosnold as well, like cousins of some sort. I don't know. What makes it rich, though, that he's accusing an Anglican chaplain of being involved in some kind of Catholic plot, is his family background. His family, perhaps his like father, grandfather, uncles, someone, were multiple people known to have supported Catholic monarchs in the past, like Queen Mary I, Elizabeth I's older half-sister, and may have even had ties to the recent gunpowder plot to blow up Parliament and King James I for persecuting Catholics. Wingfield himself seemed to be what author Benjamin Woolley calls a pragmatic Protestant. He doesn't seem to have been religiously fervent in any way, just going through the motions of the Church of England to fit in. Which makes it seem super sus to me that he would be so passionate about rooting out these supposed Catholic plotters. Unless he had some kind of grudge, maybe, because of his family shaming their name or whatever, like maybe he wants to like make himself look good, but in my mind, he's just Regina George trying to pretend that it's not his burn book. And George Percy, backing him up, in my mind, probably just following whatever Wingfield says, because he's a much more successful, like higher class guy. He was the runt of his litter, the youngest of eight or so kids. He was epileptic and generally of poor health. And he was on this voyage out of desperate need of money and a warmer climate for his health. His older brother Henry was actually involved in the gunpowder plot and was at that time in prison for it. He had been financially supporting George prior to this, and George insisted on extravagance beyond his financial means. Like he always wanted to be like fancier than he really was. And now he didn't have any money coming in. George Percy was never implicated. Edward Mariah Wingfield was never implicated in any way to the gunpowder plot. But with that those family backgrounds, I find it incredibly perplexing that Percy and Wingfield, whose families were Catholic plotters, would accuse an Anglican priest of a Catholic plot. Like, are they just deflecting, accusing others of what they're guilty of or what their family was guilty of to make themselves look good? They wouldn't be the first, and definitely weren't the last to do so, if that's what they are doing. But whom were they up against? Well, the Reverend Robert Hunt was he was no saint, if I'm being honest. In fact, according to Wikipedia, he and his wife were probably both guilty of adultery. Like, what a great religious leader. But there's not a ton of information out there on him. I can't find anything explaining why he specifically was recruited, but who knows? Maybe the Archbishop of Canterbury, the head of the church who recruited him for this mission, wanted to send him off somewhere, like until the drama of all the adultery cooled down or something like that, or maybe as a punishment for it. I have no idea. That's entirely my musings on the subject, but he's not perfect. But nothing in his past that anybody can find indicates any ties with Catholicism. And Wingfield himself actually went out, like in the planning of this voyage, to meet the guy and like basically vet him and say, okay, yeah, he seems like a really great, like, Protestant guy, like, no worries here. So what? But no ties to Catholicism that we can find. And supporting him after becoming his friend while nursing Hunt during an illness on board during this time, like while anchored off the coast of England, Hunt gets sick, and who nurses him back to health? The one and only John Smith. The so-called quote captain, John Smith, was definitely not an aristocrat. His father was a farmer, not like a poor farmer. He was successful. He probably had like a lot of land and employees, but in writing of his background, Smith says his parents died when he was a lot younger than he really was. So, like, just total lie. He was about 16 when his dad died, and his mother is recorded as having remarried years later. But he probably wrote them out of his life because his father had apprenticed him to a merchant, which he hated. And as soon as his dad died, he ran away, which infuriated his mother. So already a troublemaker. To keep his story short, because I don't think he deserves as much attention as we tend to give him, runs away. He ends up in mainland Europe looking to be a soldier in the Low Countries, but over the years ends up in Eastern Europe fighting with the Holy Roman Empire against the Ottoman Empire. Basically, he kept going somewhere looking for a fight, but there wasn't much going on wherever he ended up, and so he just kept traveling like country to country until he found one. He's one of those guys that is just like, yeah, I want to be in that fight. Like, I want to like kill somebody, or like he's aggressive, he wants that violence. According to him, he ends up a prisoner of war, enslaved, writes the same exact beautiful princess saved my life by blocking my execution with her own body trope, somehow gets free, and by the way, it's the king of Poland that, according to Smith, grants him a coat of arms, calls him an English gentleman, and gives him the title of captain. So take all of that with a grain of salt. Take everything he writes with a lot of salt. And as we'll discover over time, as violent and self-serving as he is, he's apparently deeply religious. I don't understand how that works, but we'll hear more about it as we go through everything. So he's gonna defend the Protestant priest. But what this kind of boils down to is two aristocratic highborn gentlemen whose families were involved in Catholic plots, accusing an Anglican priest of the Church of England of a Catholic plot, with a braggadocious and exaggerating storyteller from the lower class who's making himself out to be some great military captain backing him up. It's more of an interclass conflict to me than a religious one. Like, maybe these two aristocrats just really didn't end up liking Hunt and like definitely didn't like Smith, and they were becoming friends, and they just like really looked down on them and just came up with something. I don't know. I have no idea, but it's getting heated. And the two factions are reaching a boiling point when suddenly on the night of February 12th, yeah, they were there from like December 20 something to February 12th, just sitting in those ships waiting. Obviously, things are getting heated. On February 12th, the night, the skies are clear for the first time in weeks. A freaking comet is streaking through the sky, the winds suddenly change, and immediately it's all hands on deck, motion and movement, and men running around everywhere, and the three ships finally set sail. So it's too busy to worry about this, like infighting. I'm trying to remember, but I think there was also an ominous comet with auspicious timing on either the Mayflower or Roanoke voyage as well. I think it was the Roanoke voyage, which is a really strange coincidence. Now, remember, if you've listened to previous episodes or series, that a lack of provisions seems to be the greatest danger to all of these colonization attempts. And this one in specific seems to have planned on the like conservative side. And these adventurers have been stuck on their ships using up their provisions for like a month and a half or two months before leaving England. So they need more. To restock, they stop at the Canary Islands, which are off the coast of Morocco and South uh South Northwestern Africa. A very common stopover point if you need supplies before crossing the ocean. Not only is this delay number three, but as soon as they arrive, the fight picks back up again. Seemingly, no surprise here, driven entirely by John Smith. Like seriously, he's just constantly looking for a fight. So Newport, out of patience, locks him up. And he stays locked up practically the entire journey. March 23rd, they catch their first sight of the West Indies, now called the Caribbean Islands, and spends some time stopping at various islands, again, to make sure they stock up on food and fresh water and do a little trading with the indigenous. Um, but yeah, these like these are like delays numbers four through umpteen. Probably for the sake of his health more than anything, Newport releases Smith at one of the last islands they stop at and allows him to mingle. But the drama instantly starts back up again. This time, Captain Newport has gallows built to hang him. He obviously doesn't, because we know history, but I'm very confused by this instance. The written record says Smith, quote, could not be persuaded to use them, end quote. Meaning, like, what they expected him to be like, oh my god, guys, you built this for me, you shouldn't have, and put the rope around his own neck. It doesn't make sense. So my guess is that this was really more of a threat, like, dude, you've got one more chance. Which seems exceedingly dramatic, but we'll learn later, perhaps truly why Newport didn't actually force him onto the gallows and hang him. They move on, every stop for more water or food, another delay. And at the next one, at the next island, they experience their first death. In early April on the tiny island of Mona, which sits between modern-day Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, it was so oppressively hot, and the English were so stubborn about wearing their heavy metal armor, that one man named Edward Brooks is said to have just melted. George Percy writes, at least, that the fat within his body melted. And now I'm just picturing like the wicked witch of the West, like a melting, um, which is probably horrible of me, the poor guy. But I mean, he he could have taken it off instead of forcing himself to experience what was probably heat stroke. Honestly, though, I'm pretty impressed, only one man died. But it's then there, from the Isla de Mona, that the fleet sets sail off to their final destination, and not without great difficulty. Nautical navigation at this time is not what it becomes by the end of the Great Age of Sail. They apparently have an established system to determine longitude but not latitude, or maybe it's the other way around, I forget. And they're having trouble determining how close to mainland North America they are. One of the early ways to determine approximate location is called sounding. Basically, dropping a long ass rope that has like an oiled lead weight at one end and knots at equal distances tied along the length of the rope. And when the weight hits the seabed, they um, you know, they're counting the knots as it drops to determine how many fathoms deep. And the tallow or bull fat that oils the lead weight allows some particles to stick to it so that they can determine the kind of seabed. Um, you know, because like geographical areas have different rock and sand and all that geology stuff. So what they're looking for is the continental shelf or the edge of the North American continental plate, where it gets drastically shallower. And unfortunately, the rope just keeps going. So after days of doing this, realizing they're lost, the navigator under Captain Christopher Newport, a man named, I think it's Robert Tyndall, asks to try out a newer way of determining location. He used an astrolabe, which was pretty new at the time and was this device the device that's used to calculate like the angles of like stars and shit against the horizon. To like, I think mathematically determine location. And um, it becomes very popular. This is one of the early uses of it. Tyndall determines they just need to sail due west, and eventually they'll reach North America, which is also just like logical. But hopefully, by his estimation, if we head due west, we will basically hit the Chesapeake. But if not, from there they can figure out wherever they do land, like, do we need to go north or south? But after a day or two of this, a massive storm hits and just tosses them on the waves. Once that clears, though, just before dawn the following morning, by the grace of God, land is spotted. And not just any land. It's the exact location they're looking for. It's the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. If any sailors or passengers were feeling relief at this, or that the worst was behind them, they would quickly learn the opposite. Between the cultural differences and English superiority complex that would lead to bloodshed, the lack of provisions brought with them and the poor state of water where they settle, and the unexpected years of drought that would follow, I'd bet they saw their journey over as the easy part. So, next episode, we'll cover their first couple years, the explorations up the rivers, attempts to establish trading relationships with the Powhatan, the unexpected climate, the famine, the cannibalism? It's wild to think sometimes how colonization here succeeded. I am honestly flabbergasted, like every time I'm reading about colonization here, like sometimes as I learn about all the horrible things the early colonists faced, like, how did they ever survive? Like, how did the United States of America ever even come into being? That has to have influenced the American psyche, the pick yourselves up by the bootstraps myth of the American dream. But we'll figure that out more as we go through this next probably like dozen episodes, knowing me. Um, but if you are hooked now and you want to read for yourself all about this utter chaos, the book I heavily drew from for this specific episode is called Savage Kingdom: The True Story of Jamestown, 1607, and the Settlement of America by Benjamin Woolley. It's really dense with detail, but still a very engaging read. So if you are the kind of person that can like read historical nonfiction, totally worth it. So, my dudes, go read, go explore, go learn, and until next week, go get curious. General Curiosity is research, written, edited, and hosted by me, Alex Jones. Music is provided by Magpie Music on Fox Today, and for updates and other content. Follow me on Instagram and threads at Victorious Alex Jones.