Excavations

A terrible death toll continued for almost 20 years in Jamestown, between 1620 and 1640. The Virginia Company ran out of money by 1624 and Jamestown was thereafter ruled by the king.  For generations, historians blamed Jamestown's failure on the foolishness and laziness of its planters and leaders. "They appear to have been without a trace of foresight or enterprise", wrote W. E. Woodward in "A New American History" (1937).  Tsk, tsk.  My genealogical research into the lives of many of these first settlers has proven  that they faced Indian attacks and starvation in a venture no longer supported by entrepreneaurs.  Also, the personal costs to these colonists to get necessary supplies and building materials shipped to them.   Finally, archelogists began excavating. the site of the fort during the 1990s. The site itself was low and marshy and so close to the ocean that the river water tasted of salt.