The Jamestown settlers arrived in Virginia during a severe drought, according to a research study conducted by the Jamestown Archaeological Assessment (JAA) team in the 1990s. The JAA analyzed information from a study conducted in 1985 by David Stahle and others, who obtained borings of 800 year-old baldcypress trees along the Nottoway and Blackwater rivers. The lifespan of these trees is up to 1,000 years and their rings offer a good indication of an area's annual amount of rainfall. The borings revealed that the worst drought in 700 years occurred between 1606 and 1612. This severe drought affected the Jamestown colonists and Powhatan tribe's ability to produce food and obtain a safe supply of water.[21]
Salt marshes along Jamestown Island. The ample wetlands on the island proved to be a breeding ground for mosquitoes.
The settlers also arrived too late in the year to get crops planted.[22] Many in the group were either gentlemen unused to work or their manservants, both equally unaccustomed to the hard labor demanded by the harsh task of carving out a viable colony.[22] One of these was Robert Hunt, a former vicar of Reculver, England who celebrated the first known Eucharist in the territory of the future United States on June 21, 1607.[23]
In a few months, 80% of the party were dead; some of the survivors were deserting to the Indians whose land they had colonized.[22] Virginia Native Americans had established settlements long before the English settlers arrived, and there were an estimated 14,000 in the region who were politically known as Tsenacommacah and who spoke an Algonquian language. They were the Powhatan Confederacy, ruled by their paramount chief known as Wahunsenacawh or "Chief Powhatan". Wahunsenacawh initially sought to resettle the English colonists from Jamestown, considered part of Paspahegh territory, to another location known as Capahosick where they would make metal tools for him as members of his Confederacy, but this never happen
