Program Information

Series: Jamestown and Bermuda: Virginia Company Colonies
Duration: 00:02:33
Year Produced: 2007
Description:

In June of 1609, a fleet of nine supply ships carrying new settlers and cargo left England bound for Jamestown, Virginia. In the midst of the Atlantic they hit a hurricane and the fleet was scattered. The largest of the fleet, The Sea Venture, was caught in the hurricane and wrecked off of the Bermuda Islands.

For more information visit: http://historyisfun.org

Transcript

Lead: In June of 1609, a fleet of nine supply ships carrying new settlers and cargo left England bound for Jamestown, Virginia.

N.E.: “In the midst of the Atlantic they hit a hurricane and the fleet was scattered. The largest of the fleet, The Sea Venture, was caught in the hurricane and wrecked off of the Bermuda Islands.” (11.4 sec)

Intro: I’m Steve Clark with Jamestown and Bermuda: Virginia Company Colonies. Sponsored by Jamestown Settlement, a living history museum near Williamsburg, Virginia.

Content:

S.C.: Historian for Jamestown Settlement Nancy Egloff says the 150 passengers and crew scavenged from the wreckage of the Sea Venture, and then spent almost a year discovering the bounty of Bermuda.

N.E.: “They discovered that there were wonderful cedar woods that were available; there were wild hogs that had been left behind from previous Spanish shipwrecks; There were fowl and fishes in abundance; and so over that period of 10 months, taking what they could from the wreckage of the Sea Venture and cutting down cedar, they created two new vessels, The Patience and Deliverance, and sailed to Virginia, arriving in Virginia in May of 1610. (32.8 sec)

S.C. …and not a moment too soon for the colonists found at Jamestown had been devastated by a starving winter and were themselves in need of rescue. Together, the two groups decided to abandon the settlement.

N.E.: Just as they are sailing down the James, fortuitously up the river comes Lord De la Warre, the new governor and captain general of the colony, with three vessels full of new settlers and supplies. So the whole group… the new Bermuda settlers, the old Jamestown settlers, and the new De la Warr settlers all resettled Jamestown.

S.C.: Some of those ships returned to England in 1610 and 1611, carrying news to Virginia Company officials not only about the Jamestown colony but about the wreck of the Sea Venture and about the bounty found by its passengers on the islands of Bermuda.

N.E.: So in the new charter the Virginia Company obtained from the Monarch, James the 1st in 1612, the charter was extended out into the Atlantic far enough to include Bermuda as part of the Virginia Company.

Conclusion: To learn more, visit Jamestown Settlement or history is fun dot org

Virginia Standards

4th Grade SOLs » History-Social Science » VS.2
4th Grade SOLs » History-Social Science » VS.3
4th Grade SOLs » History-Social Science » VS.4