History

In 1610, Sir Thomas Gates and Lord La Warr went to the Virginia colony (at Jamestown) on behalf of the Virginia Company only to discover that out of 600 original settlers only 60 remained. The following year when Sir Thomas Dale arrived to check on things, he found the settlers starving – and yet they were bowling in the streets. Why were they bowling when they should have been taking care of themselves? What does this tell us about the first permanent settlers in the British mainland colonies – in terms of their expectations about what they would find; and also their relationships with the Indians? How did Dale respond to this sorry state of affairs and to why was his response ineffective? How did the first immigrants finally solve the labor problem at Jamestown?