09/20/2012 STEVE EMBER: Welcome to THE MAKING OF A NATION -- American history in VOA Special English. I'm Steve Ember. ► Listen to this story in high quality 192 kbps audio (or right-click/option-click to save) Last week in our series, we talked about the voyages to the New World by Christoper Columbus and other explorers sailing for Spain and Portugal. Today, we tell the story of the first permanent English settlements in North America. (MUSIC) England was the first country to compete with Spain for claims in the New World. Queen Elizabeth the First supported explorations as early as the fifteen seventies. Sir Humphrey Gilbert led the first English settlement efforts, but he did not establish any lasting settlement. He died as he was returning to England. Gilbert's half-brother, Sir Walter Raleigh, continued the work. Raleigh sent a number of ships to explore the east coast of North America. He named the land Virginia in honor of Queen Elizabeth, who never married and was known as "the Virgin Queen." (MUSIC) In fifteen eighty-five, about one hundred men settled on Roanoke Island, off the coast of the present-day state of North Carolina. These settlers returned to England a year later. Another group went to Roanoke the next year. This group included a number of women and children. But the supply ships that Raleigh sent to the colony failed to arrive. When help got there in fifteen-ninety, none of the settlers could be found. At least some of the settlers may have become part of the Indian tribe that lived in the area. (MUSIC) One reason for the delay in getting supplies to Roanoke was the attack of the Spanish Navy against England in fifteen eighty-eight. King Phillip of Spain had decided to invade England. But the small English ships combined with a fierce storm defeated the huge Spanish fleet. As a result, Spain was no longer able to block English exploration. England discovered that supporting colonies so far away cost a lot of money. So Queen Elizabeth took no more action to do it. Not until after her death in sixteen three did England begin serious efforts to start colonies in America. (MUSIC) In sixteen six, the new English King, James the First, gave two business groups permission to establish colonies in Virginia, the area claimed by England. Companies were organized to carry out the move. The London Company sent one hundred settlers to Virginia in sixteen six. The group landed there in May, sixteen seven and founded Jamestown. It was the first permanent English colony in the new world. The colony seemed about to fail from the start. The settlers did not plant their crops in time so they soon had no food. Their leaders lacked the farming and building skills needed to survive on the land. More than half the settlers died during the first winter. (MUSIC) The businessmen controlling the colony from London knew nothing about living in such a wild place. They wanted the settlers to search for gold, and explore local rivers in hopes of finding a way to the East. One settler knew this was wrong. His name was Captain John Smith. He helped the colonists build houses and grow food by learning from the local Indians. Still, the Jamestown settlers continued to die each year from disease, starvation and Indian attacks. The London Company sent six thousand settlers to Virginia between sixteen six and sixteen twenty-two. More than four thousand died during that time. Historians say that all the settlers surely would have died without the help of the local Powhatan Indians. The Indians gave the settlers food. They taught them how to live in the forest. And the Powhatan Indians showed the settlers how to plant new crops and how to clear the land for building. The settlers accepted the Indians' help. Then, however, the settlers took whatever else they wanted by force. In sixteen twenty-two, the local Indians attacked the settlers for interfering with Indian land. Three hundred forty settlers died. The colonists answered the attack by destroying the native tribes living along Virginia's coast. (MUSIC) The settlers recognized that they would have to grow their own food and survive on their own without help from England or anyone else. The Jamestown colony was clearly established by sixteen twenty-four. It was even beginning to earn money by growing and selling a new crop: tobacco. http://learningenglish.voanews.com/content/jamestown-raleigh-powhatan-pilgrims/1511366.html

• published: 06 Dec 2012
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