Jamestown was the first permanent English settlement in North America associated with the United States.
The Virginia Colony established Jamestown in 1607 on an island in the James River. The settlement was named for King James I of England and became the capital of the Virginia Colony for much of the seventeenth century.
Jamestown struggled with disease, hunger, conflict, and difficult relations with the Powhatan Confederacy. The cultivation and export of tobacco later helped Virginia develop economically, although the colony’s growth was also tied to Indigenous dispossession and systems of enslavement.
Jamestown is often compared with Plymouth, founded by English Separatists in 1620. Roanoke was an earlier English colonial attempt, but it did not become a permanent settlement. St. Augustine was founded by Spain in 1565, not England.