The Founding of Jamestown

Not Just the Tudors

415 years ago this month, 104 English men and boys landed in North America and established a settlement they called Jamestown in Virginia. Over the course of the 17th Century, a third of a million people left England for the "New World". But in Virginia, it all started from very small beginnings and there was every chance that this venture - like every previous attempt to settle in America would fail. In fact it almost did.

To learn about the first few years of Jamestown - which includes the true story of Matoaka (better known as Pocahontas) and her marriage to the tobacco cultivator John Rolfe - Professor Suzannah Lipscomb talks to Dr. Misha Ewen, author of the forthcoming book, The Virginia Venture: American Colonization and English Society, 1580-1660.

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