English people were now beginning to think in earnest of founding colonies. It was getting harder and harder to earn one's living in England, and it was very difficult to invest one's money in any useful way. It followed, from this, that there were many men who were glad to become colonists, and many persons who were glad to provide money to pay for founding colonies. In 1606 the Virginia Company was formed and colonization began on a large scale.

The first colonists sailed for Virginia in December, 1606. They were months on the way and suffered terrible hardships. At last they reached Chesapeake Bay and James River and settled on a peninsula on the James, about thirty miles from its mouth. Across the little isthmus which connected this peninsula with the mainland they built a strong fence, or stockade, to keep the Indians away from their huts. Their settlement they named Jamestown. The early colonists of Virginia were not very well fitted for such a work. Some of them were gentlemen who had never labored with their hands; others were poor, idle fellows whose only wish was to do nothing whatever. There were a few energetic men among them as Ratcliffe, Archer, and Smith. But these spent most of their time in exploring the bay and the rivers, in hunting for gold, and in quarreling with one another. With the summer came fevers, and soon fifty of the one hundred and five original colonists were dead. Then followed a cold, hard winter, and many of those who had not died of fever in the summer, now died of cold. The colonists brought little food with them, they were too lazy to plant much corn, and they were able to get only small supplies from the Indians. Indeed, the early history of Virginia is given mainly to accounts of "starving times." Of the first thousand colonists not one hundred lived to tell the tale of those early days.

In 1611 Sir Thomas Dale came out as ruler, and he ruled with an iron hand. If a man refused to work, Dale made a slave of him for three years; if he did not work hard enough, Dale had him soundly whipped. But Sir Thomas Dale was not only a severe man; he was also a wise man. Hitherto everything had been in common. Dale now tried the experiment of giving three acres of land to every one of the old planters, and he also allowed them time to work on their own land.