Meanwhile, at Jamestorn’s ruined fort, De La Warr set his men and
others who were able-bodied to work. Some were put to cleaning up the debris of
ruined houses inside the fort, others to making coal for the forges
(blacksmiths were essential for making tools and weapons and ammunition), still
others to fish, but the latter, the Captain-General noted with disappointment,
“had ill success” in the James River. The starving residents of Jamestown had
become too weak and too frightened of Indians to fish in the river, and they
had let their nets—fourteen of them by one count—rot to pieces. The newcomers
had some nets, but they had little luck in casting them. They hauled in their
nets every day and night, “sometimes a dosen times one after the other,” but
they did not catch enough to feed even a fourth of the people who were there. Strachey
wrote ruefully, “Notwithstanding the great store [of fish] we now saw daily in
our River; but let the blame of this lye where it is, both upon our Nets, and
the unskilfulnesse of our men to lay them.” Captain-General De La Warr sent
some of his men in the pinnace Virginia
to fish downriver and in Chesapeake Bay, but they returned by the end of June
with nothing to show for their fishing trip.
In short, Jamestown’s residents
were still desperately hungry. They needed many more calories than normal if
they were to recover from months of severe malnutrition. And many had simply
lost heart. They no longer wanted to make an effort. Sir Thomas Gates was
shocked to find that what little fish they managed to come by, they ate raw
“rather than they would go a stones cast to fetch wood and dresse it.”\
Where was John
Smith when they needed him?
No comments:
Post a Comment