The Jamestown Fiasco The mistakes made by the early settlers at Jamestown, which threatened their survival is the fact that they didn’t harvest for themselves, but rely on Indians. During the winter of 1609-10, things could have been better, yet 500 settlers were starving from lack of harvesting. The result is that they showed one and only authentic examples of cannibalism witnessed in Virginia. By the spring, only sixty of them were left alive. Also, …showed first 75 words of 857 total…

…showed last 75 words of 857 total…they wanted it, but when John Rolfe tried some seeds of the West Indian variety, the result was much better. The colonists started to plant tobacco, and in 1617, ten years after the first landing in the Jamestown, they shipped their first cargo to England. Later, when tobacco was used for smoking “for fun,” it changed the Virginia Company’s economy completely, for the demand for tobacco was multiplying as more and more settlers grew tobacco.