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How Did Water Cause Death In Jamestown

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Death in Jamestown The first years of the first permanent English colony, Jamestown, was not easy. Around 110 Englishmen settled off the Chesapeake Bay on the coast if Virginia in 1607. Many of these colonists were looking to gain religious freedom or start new lives. However, many of these colonists died due to brackish water, lack of skills, and bad relations with the Powhatons.
One of the factors that contributed to the high death rate in Jamestown was water. Water cause problems for the colonists in 3 ways. For instance, the water was too salty to drink (Document A). The tides would cause to salty water to flood the freshwater, so the colonists had no other water to drink. Then when they drank the salty water, they would get sick. Also, the water was full of trash (Document A). The colonist threw their trash and waste in the water, but the waste would fester instead of flush away. And again, the colonists had no other water, so they would get sick. Lastly, there were many droughts around the time the colonists settled. The droughts left no water for the crops (Document B). Since the colonists could not grow enough crops, famine spread across Jamestown. Therefore, water and the lack of water cause many problems for the Jamestown colonists. …show more content…
Many colonists were not prepared in Jamestown. For example, there were too many gentlemen, men who didn't do any physical labor (Document C). Many successful colonies need people doing everything to get work done. Since there were a lot of gentlemen and not farmers, no work was done. Also, there were no farmers and no apothecaries (Document C). There was nobody to make crops, so many people starved. Also, when people got sick, there was nobody to make medicine to cure them. These examples prove that people with wrong or no skills led to

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