#65 Jamestown and the Powhatans Part 7: The Starving Time

The History of the Americans

Jack Henneman

History

4.9 • 632 Ratings

🗓️ 22 March 2022

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In this episode we look at the gruesome “starving time” in Jamestown and the resurgent Powhatan war during the seven months after John Smith’s departure in October 1609. The mortality rate at the colony was close to 80% in just that winter, and the incompetence that led to it is breathtaking. Relief comes only with the arrival of two ships from Bermuda carrying the castaways from the Sea Venture shipwreck. The Powhatans almost eject the English from Virginia, but the aptly named Lord de la Warr fatefully arrives just in time with much-needed reinforcements and supplies. If a few things had gone even slightly differently, Jamestown would not have survived, and English North America would be very different.

[Errata: “De la Warr” was pronounced closer to “Delaware” than my own pronunciation in this episode.]

Twitter: @TheHistoryOfTh2

Facebook: The History of the Americans Podcast

Selected references for this episode

David Price, Love and Hate in Jamestown: John Smith, Pocahontas, and the Start of a New Nation

James Horn, A Land As God Made It: Jamestown and the Birth of America

All That’s Interesting/Starving Time (Story about archeology at the Jamestown site that I came across after I had recorded the episode)

United States state-level population estimates: Colonization to 1999

Dr. Strangelove (checklist scene)

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Welcome to the History of the Americans podcast, episode 65.
0:10.8	I'm your host, Jack Heneman, and I'm recording this on March 22nd, 2022, in my bedroom closet in New Orleans.
0:21.5	If you are new to the podcast, we are telling the history of the lands now encompassed by the United States from the beginning without presentism.
0:32.5	Before we get to today's episode, a number of items bear mentioning.
0:37.4	The first is that the schedule will get
0:39.6	a bit irregular in the next few weeks. As I mentioned last time, I'm going to try to get through
0:44.7	Jamestown to 1622 or so as quickly as I can in the real world calendar. And as part of that,
0:51.5	I'm going to experiment with shorter and more frequent episodes.
0:55.9	So I'll try to average more than once a week over the next month or more, even if I don't quite manage two a week, maybe one every four or five days.
1:05.4	The second is that today, March 22nd, 2022, is the 400th anniversary of the start of the second Anglo-Pohattan
1:15.5	War. On March 22nd, 1622, Opa Cancana would spring his lethal trap. Sadly, you'll have to wait
1:24.4	a few weeks for our episode on that gruesome day.
1:27.8	No doubt, I should have timed it a bit better.
1:31.3	The third point is that it is the 401st anniversary of the peace treaty between the Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony and the Wampanoag Confederacy.
1:40.8	Apart from the happy coincidence of the date, the moment is worth mentioning because the treaty
1:45.7	and peace between the Plymouth colonists and the Wampanoogs would last 50 years, a track
1:52.3	record of cooperation and coexistence with the Indians that puts to shame Jamestown and
1:57.6	virtually every other European incursion into North America.
2:03.2	That's at least one reason why Americans want to think of Plymouth as their founding colony rather than Jamestown.
2:11.5	The fourth is that listener Fraser from New Mexico did a little work and came up with an estimated population for Santa Fe in 1610, roughly 1,000, which means that my guess in last week's episode that Santa Fe was smaller than at St. Augustine and Jamestown in 1610 was absolutely wrong.
2:32.9	This comes from a document put together by the United States Department
2:36.2	of Agriculture that purports to estimate state populations from the earliest moments of European
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Jack Henneman, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Jack Henneman and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.