Jamestown, founded in 1607, was the first permanent English settlement in America’s America250 origin story.
The settlement was established in Virginia by the Virginia Company of London on an island in the James River. Its settlers arrived on May 14, 1607, and named the community Jamestown in honor of King James I of England.
Jamestown struggled with disease, hunger, conflict, and difficult relations with nearby Indigenous peoples. The colony’s survival improved after tobacco became an important export crop, particularly through the work of John Rolfe and the cultivation of tobacco for European markets.
Jamestown is not the same as the earlier Roanoke Colony, which was founded in the 1580s and later disappeared. It is also distinct from Plymouth, founded by English settlers in 1620. “First permanent English colony” is the key wording: other European powers had established earlier settlements in regions that later became the United States.