Jamestown — First Permanent English Settlement in America
On 14 May 1607 three ships of the Virginia Company established Jamestown, Virginia, as the first permanent English settlement in North America. The colony nearly failed in its first years—the 'Starving Time' of 1609–1610 reduced the population from 500 to 60—but survived through tobacco cultivation, introduced after 1612 by John Rolfe. Jamestown established the template for English plantation colonialism: company-funded settlement, tobacco as the cash crop, and, from 1619, enslaved African labour. The colony became the foundation of Virginia and, ultimately, of British North America.
- Year: 1607 CE
- Category: Political
