Willie Balderson, manager of public history development at Colonial Williamsburg, discusses Jamestown settler Anas Todkill, whom he portrays in a Colonial Williamsburg electronic fieldtrip, and the research required to portray a character who took part in early explorations of Virginia.
Jim Axtell, the College of William and Mary's William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Humanities, discusses possible reasons why many people mistakenly believe that Plymouth was founded before Jamestown; and looks at what might be required for Jamestown to assume prominence in popular memory.
Two dramatically different English settlements, New England in the North and Virginia in the South, develop in the 17th century, beginning a collision of values, cultures, and economies that prevails throughout U.S. history. This presentation explores the founding of these settlements and their development.
To view this video, click the small "VoD" graphic in the left hand column. In the new window, if you cannot see the play button, try clicking near the left corner just under the video.
Dr. Julie Solometo of James Madison University attempts to reconstruct the lives of Native Americans as they stood on the eve of and during contact with European colonists in North America. She examines particularly the impact of disease and drought on Native Americans and colonists both, and at the collapse of the Powhatan Chiefdom.
To listen to this lecture, select "Part 2" under the April 19th listing.
Historic Jamestowne is the site of the first permanent English settlement in America. Visitors begin their visit at the Visitor Center with exhibits and an immersion theater experience. They can then tour the Archaearium, which tells the story of James Fort through archaeology; share the moment of discovery with archaeologists and witness archaeology-in-action at the 1607 James Fort excavation; tour the reconstructed 17th-century Jamestown Memorial Church and original 17th-century church tower; take a walking tour with a park ranger through the New Towne area along the scenic James River; "meet" a 17th-century personality; and watch costumed glassblowers at the Glasshouse. A driving tour explores the lush natural setting where exhibits explain how the settlers harnessed that wilderness for their needs.
The site offers exhibits, tours, living history demonstrations and events, and educational and recreational events and programs.
The Foundation operates the Jamestown Settlement and the Yorktown Victory Center, two living-history museums that explore America’s beginnings. Through film, artifact-filled galleries, and outdoor living history, these museums engage visitors in nearly two centuries of the nation's history—from the founding of America's first permanent English settlement in 1607 to the decisive Revolutionary War victory in 1781 and implementation of the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Today at Jamestown Settlement, the story of the people who founded Jamestown and of the Virginia Indians they encountered is told through film, gallery exhibits, and living history. New gallery exhibits and a new introductory film trace Jamestown's beginnings in England and the first century of the Virginia colony and describe the cultures of the Powhatan Indians, Europeans, and Africans who converged in 1600s Virginia. Outdoors, visitors can board replicas of the three ships that sailed from England to Virginia in 1607, explore life-size recreations of the colonists' fort and a Powhatan village, and tour a riverfront discovery area to learn about European, Powhatan, and African economic activities associated with water. In the outdoor areas, costumed historical interpreters describe and demonstrate daily life in the early 17th century. Today at the Yorktown Victory Center, America's evolution from colonial status to nationhood is chronicled through a unique blend of timeline, film, thematic exhibits and outdoor living history. An outdoor exhibit walkway details events that led American colonies to declare independence from Britain.
A second website for the organization can be found here.
The sites offer short films, exhibits, tours, demonstrations, lectures, educational programs, and recreational and educational programs.
This iCue Mini-Documentary describes the colony of Jamestown's struggles to survive, as tense relations with local Indians erupt into the First and Second Anglo-Powhatan Wars of the early and mid-1600s.
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This iCue Mini-Documentary describes the establishment of Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in the Americas, in 1607. The first years were extremely difficult for the colonists, under the leadership of John Smith. Food was scarce and relations with the Native Americans were tense.
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This iCue Mini-Documentary describes an arrangement at Jamestown settlement in Virginia, in which both the English and Indians exchanged young children, including Pocahontas, in order to learn more about each other's culture and language. This arrangement fathered a cultural exchange between the two groups.
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This iCue Mini-Documentary introduces joint-stock companies, which financed the settlement of colonies in the New World. These private companies raised money by selling stock and eventually rewarding investors with the profits from American goods.
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