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 is 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 there. 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.

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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)