Jamestown became the first permanent English settlement in North America after its founding in 1607.
The Virginia Company established Jamestown on an island in the James River in what is now Virginia. The settlers arrived on three ships—Susan Constant, Godspeed, and Discovery—in May 1607. They chose a defensible site but faced disease, hunger, conflict, and difficult relations with nearby Powhatan communities.
Jamestown was the capital of the Virginia Colony for much of the seventeenth century. Tobacco cultivation, especially after John Rolfe developed a commercially successful variety, helped the colony survive financially. In 1619, Virginia established an elected representative assembly known as the House of Burgesses.
Jamestown is often confused with Plymouth, which English Pilgrims founded in 1620. Plymouth was important, but it was not the first permanent English settlement in North America. St. Augustine, founded by Spain in 1565, predates Jamestown but was not an English settlement.