ThePest179
Banned
Suppose that for whatever reason, the Jamestown colony is a complete failure. How would this affect subsequent English colonization efforts?
WI: Jamestown collapses?
- Thread starter ThePest179
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ThePest179
Banned
In the beginning. As for how, perhaps the rampant diseases get even worse then OTL or the Native Americans don't offer the colonists any support. Take your pick.
It almost did not survive, keep in mind that by 1610 fewer than one-fifth of the original settlers had survived, the majority having died of disease. The region of Jamestown was marshy and invested with mosquitoes carrying malaria, coupled with brackish water of the James River causing dysentery, many others died of saltwater poisoning. On 7 June 1610 it was decided that the colony would be abandoned with many of the remaining 90 settlers being transported to England on two ships.
However, the Lord De La Warr, the new governor arrived in 1610 and was able to intercept the two ships of settlers at sea, forcing them to return. More supplies were obtained allowing the colony to survive. It is not very difficult to see it being abandoned permanently. Unlike, New England the diseases of the marshy tidal lowlands of the region would keep natural growth of the white population occurring throughout the entirety of the British colonial period.
However, the Lord De La Warr, the new governor arrived in 1610 and was able to intercept the two ships of settlers at sea, forcing them to return. More supplies were obtained allowing the colony to survive. It is not very difficult to see it being abandoned permanently. Unlike, New England the diseases of the marshy tidal lowlands of the region would keep natural growth of the white population occurring throughout the entirety of the British colonial period.
Cuāuhtemōc
Banned
English colonization efforts focus in New England. The Powhatan and their neighbors are spared the presence of Europeans for a few decades longer, at least until someone figures out that you can make great bank off tobacco and other cash crops.
Who ends up being the first enduring white settlers of the Chesapeake region? Dutch? swedes? New englanders migrating south along the coast? The Anglo Barbadians who started South Carolina? Quakers?
If I would have to place a bet, The Dutch, because they were always looking to turn a profit. So imagine when they find that tobacco is an excellent crop for the land. They would jump on that like a tiger pounces on its prey. Maybe we would even see a purchase of OTL Virginia, along the lines of what happened in Manhattan.
Napoleonrules
Banned
Jamestown actually did fail. That's why the "historic" community that you can tour (similar to Williamsburg) is NOT on the land of the real Jamestown. It's STILL a malarial swamp and not conducive to humans tramping around. Jamestown failed miserably. The four oldest white settlements in the USA today are Sante Fe, NM St Augustine, FL Jamestown, VA and Albany, NY; the Dutch won't be affected and James, the Duke of York will still be given the right by the English king to attack and take New Netherland (which at that point had already absorbed New Sweden) at which point the the duke takes what he had in OTL. Quakers and William Penn will still occupy Pennsylvania, Calvert and Maryland will still occur. New England will occur. OTL basically continues unadverted. Virginia will still occur.
With a total Jamestown collapse in the first 10 years, are the Pilgrim Fathers still going to migrate at the same time as OTL (1620) and go to the same place as OTL (Cape Cod), and are the Puritan fleets of 1628 onward still going to go to Massachusetts Bay? For the Chesapeake, will the first English colony be Maryland in 1634? Or would would see other attempts, perhaps successful ones, in the territory or present-day Virginia before 1620.
Particularly with the Pilgrims, I wonder if failure of prior settlements in the Chesapeake region will make it more likely for them to go "hey, there's no other englishmen in Chesapeake and James River areas, so it's a blank slate for us" or if it will reinforce the idea of, "hey, when we go to America, let's make sure its a little further north and away from the areas of previous failures" thus landing them in Cape Cod or at least some point from Manhattan island northward.
Particularly with the Pilgrims, I wonder if failure of prior settlements in the Chesapeake region will make it more likely for them to go "hey, there's no other englishmen in Chesapeake and James River areas, so it's a blank slate for us" or if it will reinforce the idea of, "hey, when we go to America, let's make sure its a little further north and away from the areas of previous failures" thus landing them in Cape Cod or at least some point from Manhattan island northward.
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...when ?
They waited 17 years after Roanoke was lost in 1590 to try in Jamestown, which wasn't exactly in the same region either. Whites did not recolonize Roanoke island itself again until the mid-1600s, so if we're thinking that's no earlier than 1635, well that's still almost a fifty year gap.