Third Supply

The Third Supply was the first truly successful wave of colonization in the first British settlement in the Americas at Jamestown. It also resulted in the settlement of Bermuda (as an unintended side-effect).

However, from the perspective of the colonists anxiously awaiting supplies at Jamestown, the Third Supply was anything but smooth, and 80% of the colonists perished during the "starving time" before the leaders and some of the supplies which had been aboard the ill-fated flagship "Sea Venture" finally arrived in Virginia, 10 months later than expected. Even then, the salvation of the colony only came with the timely arrival of Thomas West, 3rd Baron De La Warr (Lord Delaware) and another supply mission a few weeks later.

History

The Third Supply Mission from England to Jamestown consisted of five to six hundred people, in a fleet of eight ships, with Admiral Sir George Somers, Samuel Jordan and Sir Thomas Gates. All of these were on the new flagship of the Virginia Company, the "Sea Venture".

The ships ran into a massive 3 day storm believed to have been a hurricane. The "Sea Venture" became separated. Taking on water through her new caulking, she was deliberately run aground on Bermuda. Admiral Somers and his officers managed to land everyone safely from the wreck. The rest of the fleet continued on to Jamestown, not knowing of the fate of the "Sea Venture".

Over a period of 9 months, the survivors built two new ships — "Patience" and "Deliverance" — using Bermuda cedar and hardware salvaged from the "Sea Venture". Their struggle to survive may have been the inspiration for Shakespeare's play, "The Tempest".

Without the leadership, and most of the supplies, all of which had been aboard the "Sea Venture", the rest of the group which arrived at Jamestown on the other ships and those already there were ill-prepared to survive, resulting in the "starving time" of 1609-1610 when over 80% of the colonists perished.

The fate of Jamestown and the surrounding colony only turned when the officers showed up less than a year later in their replacement vessels, and were resupplied by yet another supply mission from England headed by Lord Delaware.

John Rolfe was one of the surviving colonists who had been shipwrecked with the "Sea Venture". Despite the death of his wife and young son in Bermuda, he went on to Virginia, and in 1611, successfully cultivated new strains of tobacco, providing a critical cash crop for the colonists to grow and export beginning in 1612. Rolfe later married Pocahontas, a Native American leader's daughter. Through their son, Thomas Rolfe, many of the First Families of Virginia trace both English and Native American heritage roots.