Starving Time
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The Starving Time at Jamestown in the Colony of Virginia was a period of starvation during the winter of 1609–1610. There were about 500 Jamestown residents at the beginning of the winter; by spring o
Sickness at Jamestown, circa 1610
Early colonial burial during a winter storm. This was a common occurrence during the Starving Time in Virginia.
Thomas Gates reaches Jamestown during Starving Time, 1610
Graves at Historic Jamestowne
John Rolfe
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John Rolfe was an English explorer, tobacco farmer and merchant. He was the husband of Pocahontas and the first settler in the colony of Virginia to successfully cultivate a tobacco crop for export.
Starving Time
…governor Francis West, intercepted them on the lower James River and returned them to Jamestown. Within a few years, the commercialization of tobacco by John Rolfe secured the settlement's long-term economic prosperity. There is historical and scientific evidence that the settlers at Jamestown had turned to…
A posthumous painting of John Rolfe and Pocahontas made c. 1850
Rolfe cultivating tobacco, as illustrated in 1874
Rolfe (right, standing behind Pocahontas) as portrayed in Baptism of Pocahontas, 1840, by John Gadsby Chapman