The Handy American History Answer Book. David L. Hudson

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      Born to Eleanor and Ananias Dare on August 18, 1587, Virginia Dare was the first person born to English parents in the New World. She disappeared along with the rest of the Roanoke colony.

      After whom was the colony of Jamestown named?

      It was named after the English king at the time, James I (1566–1635), the first of the Stuart kings. He was King James VI of Scotland before the Scottish and English crowns were united. His mother was Mary, Queen of Scots. He succeeded Elizabeth I (1533–1603), who was also known as the Virgin Queen. Because Elizabeth I had no children, the crown passed to James. King James disliked tobacco and even wrote a treatise entitled A Counterblaste to Tobacco (1604), in which he called tobacco a “filthy habit.”

      What happened to John Rolfe?

      He traveled back to Virginia after losing Pocahontas. He began farming and working on his plantation. He remarried Jane Pierce, with whom he had a daughter. Unfortunately, Rolfe died in 1622 after an attack by Native Americans. It is unknown whether Rolfe died directly during the attack or from an illness contracted shortly afterward.

      What was the Jamestown Massacre?

      The Jamestown Massacre, or the Indian Massacre of 1622, was an attack by the Powhatan Indians on the Jamestown colony that led to more than 340 deaths suffered by the colony. Relations between the Indians and the colonists were generally good when Chief Powhatan was alive. However, after Chief Powhatan’s death in 1618, his half-brother, Chief Opechancanough (1554–1646), led a series of attacks upon the colony. Under his reign, Opechancanough participated in the Second and Third Anglo-Powhatan Wars.

      What happened to Chief Opechancanough?

      Chief Opechancanough lived more than ninety years. Some historians list his age as more than one hundred. During the Third Anglo-Powhatan War, begun in 1644, the colonists captured him. A soldier assigned to guard the chief allegedly shot and killed him.

       How did Pocahontas die?

      Most historians believe Pocahontas contracted smallpox, causing her death at only twenty-two. In 1716, Rolfe and Pocahontas traveled to England, where Pocahontas was treated very well. In 1717, the couple boarded a ship and planned to return to Virginia. En route to Jamestown, Pocahontas became very ill. She was taken ashore and died a few days later. She was buried in Gravesend’s St. George Church.

      What legislative body was created in Jamestown?

      The Virginia House of Burgesses was created in Jamestown, becoming the first legislative body of elected members in North America. It held its first meeting on July 30, 1619. It was the governing body of the colony of Virginia until it was replaced by the Virginia House of Delegates in 1776.

THE PILGRIMS AND THE PURITANS

      Were the Pilgrims explorers?

      The Pilgrims were early settlers who sought religious freedom and self-government in the New World. Since theirs was a religious journey, they described themselves as pilgrims. In fact, they were Separatists, Protestants who separated from the Anglican Church to set up their own church. In 1609, they fled their home in Scrooby, England, settling in Holland. Fearing their children would lose contact with their own culture (becoming assimilated into the Dutch culture), the group decided to voyage to America to establish their own community. In 1620, they arrived on the rocky western shore of Cape Cod Bay, Massachusetts. Their transatlantic crossing aboard the Mayflower took sixty-six days. Two babies were born during the passage, bringing the number of settlers to 102. Only some thirty-five were Pilgrims; the rest were merchants. On November 21, 1620, the Pilgrims drafted the Mayflower Compact, an agreement by which the forty-one signatories (the men aboard the Mayflower) formed a body politic authorized to enact and enforce laws for the community. The Compact’s members elected religious leader John Carver (1576–1621) governor. Although their colonial charter from the London Company specified they were to settle in Virginia, the Compact’s members decided to establish their colony at Cape Cod, well outside the company’s jurisdiction. By December 25, 1620, the Pilgrims had chosen the site for their settlement and began building at New Plymouth.

      During the first year, the Pilgrims faced many hardships: thirty-five more colonists arrived aboard the Fortune, straining already limited resources; sicknesses such as pneumonia, tuberculosis, and scurvy claimed many lives, including that of Governor Carver; and the merchants in the group challenged the purity of the settlement. Having secured a new patent from the Council of New England in June 1621, the lands of New Plymouth Colony were held in common by both the Pilgrims and the merchants. However, this communal system of agriculture proved unsuccessful. In 1624, William Bradford (1590–1657), who succeeded Carver as governor, granted each family its own parcel of land. The Wampanoag Indians, who had previously occupied the land settled by the Pilgrims, proved friendly and helpful advisers in agricultural matters. In 1626, the Pilgrims bought out the merchants’ shares, claiming the colony for themselves. Although inexperienced at governing before arriving in America, and despite a lack of formal education, the Pilgrims successfully governed themselves according to the Scriptures. Plymouth Colony remained independent until 1691, when it became part of the Massachusetts Bay Colony—founded by the Puritans.