The First Successful English Colony Survives at Jamestown
After nearly starving in their first years, Jamestown colonists established the first permanent English settlement in North America in 1607. The colony introduced tobacco cultivation that drove economic development. Relations with local Powhatan tribes shifted between cooperation and conflict. The 1619 arrival of the first enslaved Africans initiated centuries of bondage. Jamestown established patterns of governance, agriculture, and race relations that shaped colonial America.
