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National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior 1607 Three wooden ships, Susan Constant, Godspeed, and Discovery, carry 104 Englishmen across the Atlantic Ocean to a tiny island in a river they call the James. Within days Indigenous people confront the invaders. The English build a triangular fort for defense. John Smith becomes their leader. Cannon-firing demonstration at Yorktown Battlefield. Colonial National Historical Park Virginia NPS / LINDA WILLIAMS 1608 “First Supply” of skilled tradespeople increases the fort’s small population. 1609 Chief Powhatan orders a siege of James Fort. It leads to the “Starving Time” that kills all but 60 colonists by winter’s end. 1614 Pocahontas, daughter of Chief Powhatan, marries Rolfe in Jamestown Church; a seven-year peace results. First Anglo-Powhatan War. 1619 First elected legislative assembly in the western hemisphere meets at Jamestown Church; its 3rd Petition recommends bringing unmarried women to the colony. Twenty to 30 Africans captured from a Portuguese warship are forcibly landed at Point Comfort on Chesapeake Bay. 1622 Chief Opechancanough leads a massacre of over 350 English outside James Fort. Second Anglo-Powhatan War. 1644 Third Anglo-Powhatan War. 1676 Tobacco prices drop. England’s failure to protect Dreams of finding wealth drew English settlers, backed by the Virginia Company of London, to Jamestown Island in 1607. Here you can visit the ground where they built the original James Fort. Virginia Company of London directors ordered the settlers to make glass, pottery, and iron wares and cultivate mulberries for silk-making. Near the site of the original glass shop, you can observe craftspeople making glass wares like those of the 1600s. Early leaders like Captain John Smith organized a growing colony while exploring the rivers and lands and encountering various Tribes. Over 200 additional English arrived in a settlement that did not have the means to feed them. An extreme drought in 1609 had left maize in short supply for the Indigenous people who grew it, let alone the English settlers. After a series of negotiations, in which neither side was willing to provide what the other wanted, Powhatan decided to stop supplying maize. The starvation deaths of many indentured workers (bound to seven- to nine-year terms of labor) created a labor crisis. The company found it hard to recruit people to a life sure to be hard and brief. In 1619 its treasurer Edwin Sandys proposed “the sending of maids” [women] and children to boost the population. It relaxed its most punitive laws and allowed those who had completed their terms of indenture to purchase land. The company approved the creation of a House of Burgesses, which met in 1619 at Jamestown Church. It was the first representative assembly in English-speaking North America. Although the colonial governor could veto decisions reached by his council and 22 elected burgesses, the colonists began to grow accustomed to having a say in their © JERRY McCOY 1699 Capital moves from Jamestown to Middle Plantation, later called Williamsburg. own destiny. Explore the Memorial Church, built on the site of that monumental event. people mixed on Jamestown Island and gradually merged into a new Also in 1619, two English privateers landed and sold 20 to 30 captive Angolans at Point Comfort, planting the roots of slavery in the Virginia colony. At the New Town home site of planter-merchant William Pierce, archeologists are uncovering the story of a woman named Angelo or Angela. The only one of the first Africans whose name is known, she lived in the Pierce household in 1625. but imperfect society. Colonial National Historical Park important sites from the 1600s and One such port was Yorktown. It occupied 50 acres on the Virginia Peninsula’s north side. It had a deep, protected harbor navigable by increasingly large trade vessels. Its more than 200 buildings included a custom house, church, taverns, and stately brick homes. Yorktown thrived until the mid-1700s. 1700s that tell the story of English colonization and the struggle for American independence. Jamestown’s legacy includes representa- a brutal institution that spread Planters like Pierce grew tobacco, a laborthroughout the colonies. At Yorkintensive cash crop. As the need for labor town, Virginia colonists fought grew, the planters turned to a race-based in the last major battle of the system of lifelong, hereditary enslavement. American Revolutionary War. Many Africans who had lived earlier as free people—through acceptance of ChristianThe 23-mile Colonial Parkway links ity, the free status of one or both parents, the sites and is recognized as an or their place of birth—lost their rights. “All-American Road.” After 1662 children born to enslaved mothers were permanently enslaved, even if their fathers were free men. In 1705 the assembly adopted a Slave Code, stripping all rights from people of color. Werowocomoco Taxes to fill the crown’s coffers were the reason for Yorktown’s founding––but also why some Yorktown citizens joined the boycotts of English imports that gained momentum after England imposed the Sugar and Stamp acts in the 1760s. War between Great Britain and its American colonies began in spring 1775. Che pe RK Gloucester RIVER e Williamsburg YORKTOWN B ay × JAMESTOWN Newport News G JA I N I M ES Hampton RI VE Old Point Comfort R A O L O N Y Excavations at Jamestown Island continue to reveal details of life in the 1600s. JAMESTOWN REDISCOVERY / PRESERVATION VIRGINIA July 30, 1619 Sept. 28–Oct. 19, 1781 First legislative assembly in Allied French and American the western hemisphere forces bombard Yorktown convenes at Jamestown by land and by water, end- Church. As the result of ing its occupation by the the continuing study of British commander and thousands of fragments his troops. The Revolution excavated from the fort, officially ended when the church is now thought England signed the Treaty to have been built of close- of Paris, which recognized studded timberframe. US independence, in 1783. NPS / RICHARD SCHLECHT NPS / ROGER GREEN 1774 1st Virginia Revolutionary Convention; Thomas Nelson Jr., with “Inhabitants of York,” throws tea overboard in Yorktown Harbor to protest British tea tax. 1776 Declaration of Independence. Nelson is one of 56 signers. The American Revolution gains momentum. 1781 In the fifth year of the war, British Gen. Charles, Lord Cornwallis, occupies Yorktown with 8,300 soldiers. Allied French and American armies surround and bombard the town and destroy most it. After proposing terms for his 7,000 surviving troops, Cornwallis surrenders on October 19, 1781. Britain recognizes US independence in January 1783. The war is officially over. NPS / RICHARD SCHLECHT After the Continental Army’s defeat of the British at Saratoga in 1777, France signed military and commercial alliances with the United States. The American Revolution became a world war. The British responded with a new focus on holding the southern colonies where they believed loyalist support to be concentrated. After success in Georgia and South Carolina, Lord Charles Cornwallis eyed North Carolina and Virginia’s wealthy plantations and ports. As fall 1781 neared, his army began to look for suitable winter quarters. In August Cornwallis and 8,300 soldiers occupied Yorktown. General George Washington and his French allies under the Comte de Rochambeau saw the occupation as an opportunity. The new United States lacked its own navy, but France provided a fleet of 26 warships, commanded by the Comte de Grasse, that kept the British navy from rescuing or resupplying Cornwallis. In late August the French disabled six British ships and blockaded the Chesapeake Bay, isolating Cornwallis and his soldiers. Against this backdrop, the combined American and French forces initiated the siege of Yorktown, which left “the Lord … shut up within his fortifications.” Later Cornwallis would write, “I never saw this post in a favorable light.” On October 17, 1781, Cornwallis was surrounded, with all escape routes cut off. His forces were exhausted by the bombardment and siege and depleted by smallpox. He sent a letter to Washington. He proposed terms of surrender for the forces under his command but claimed illness on October 19, 1781, the day of surrender, avoiding having to face George Washington and his troops. Impoverished by fighting many enemies at once, the British government agreed to peace talks, leading to the end of the war in early 1783. The United States had won its independence. Today you can explore Surrender Field, where the British army laid down its arms, and visit some of the colonial-era homes that survived the siege of 1781. 1 78 1 ak × Green Spring 1750s Yorktown thrives as a center for trade; population reaches 1,800. American Victory at Battle of Yorktown sa YO C The 23-mile Colonial Parkway connects Jamestown Island to Yorktown. Visit other sites along the way. 1705 General Assembly votes to create a race-based Slave Code that strips all rights from people of color. was established in 1930 to preserve tive government as well as slavery, I R 1 60 7 1700 The Virginia Colony’s population of enslaved African and West Indian people dramatically increases. In 1691 the General Assembly authorized the Act for Ports, creating towns with wharfs, docks, and counting houses. The towns would aid the British colonial government by supporting trade, collecting taxes for the king on goods imported from England, and inspecting and recording outgoing cargo. Free, enslaved, and indentured V Jamestown Island / Colonial Parkway / Yorktown Battlefield Nathaniel Bacon leads populist rebellion against colonial governor William Berkeley; burns Jamestown. 1691 Through an Act for Ports, the General Assembly establishes Yorktown, with wharfs and storehouses to support and monitor trade. YORKTOWN Establishment of Jamestown Colonial trade vessels against attacks at sea, increased taxes, and policies toward Indigenous people create dissent among some colonists. JAMESTOWN Powhatan, a powerful political and spiritual leader of many Tribes in tidewater Virginia, was wary of the English. He offered them maize, which helped the English sustain themselves. In return the English offered beads and copper. Marshes and wetlands near Jamestown Island. 1610 John Rolfe introduces tobacco, probably from the Caribbean. He finds a strain that will flourish in Virginia’s soil, a “rich, blackish mould.” Cape Henry colonial 612 Colonial National Historical Park includes 8,677 acres on the historic Virginia Peninsula. About 6,000 acres provide habitat for native plants Q parkway, exit I-64 and head west to Jamestown Island or east to Yorktown. Driving west, you’ll Jamestown cypress and wax myrtle trees along the James 143 615 Yorktown VIRGINIA To Richmond Cape Henry forest forms a dense canopy over the Williams- Colonial Williamsburg Visitor Center 60 321 64 Governor’s Palace Matoaka Lake armies camped during the siege in 1781. 616 f Wash i ngton-Ro ch a eo Jones Millpond ay US NAVAL SUPPLY CENTER CHEATHAM ANNEX mbeau Na tio na lH ist or ic Penniman Lake Ca Penniman Spit pt YO ai n Jo 60 Sm Tr ail RK ith Ch 143 199 at R es ap ea ic a Tr il ay ay 60 Creek k e Cr Warehams Pond ill Jamestown Settlement Cree k River est ow Voorhees Archaearium The Preservation Virginia n–S cot dF JAMESTOWN ISLAND I sla Th o r ofar nial Parkw ay Visitor Center 238 238 64 e J E AM S RIVE R YORKTOWN BATTLEFIELD 143 Captain John Sm n ith Ch esa pe ak e 60 io y na Jamestown 704 Skiffes Creek Reservoir N at err Dr i v e See detail below YORKTOWN 238 d lan NO PUBLIC ACCESS Colo Visitor Center Jam Swanns Point Back Sandy Bay Nelson House ARCHITECT OF THE CAPITOL Deep water and strong rip tides on College Creek. Unsafe for swimming and wading. Glasshouse Watermen’s Museum Gloucester Point Yorktown Victory Monument Detail from painting by John Trumbull, Surrender at Yorktown, 1820, US Capitol Rotunda. Brewery Road Lake ek M DETAIL FROM PAINTED FRIEZE, CA. 1880, US CAPITOL ROTUNDA—ARCHITECT OF THE CAPITOL / CONSTANTINO BRUMIDI James City County Marina n Powh a t a 17 American Revolution Museum Busch Gardens Amusement Park © PHOO CHAN Jamestown Beach Event Park i w ee Bald eagle lfw lH rk Ha na al Kingsmill Pond Cr Jamestown leader John Smith claimed that Pocahontas, daughter of the Powhatan chief, saved him from execution. 143 ge io Pa WEAPONS STATION lle Campground Tyndall’s Point Park Roosevelt Pond Co at i US NAVAL 614 N l ek on 199 Lake Powell ke Co Indian Field Creek © ALAN STUDT 31 Scenic pullout I es View of the York River from the parkway. 5 Picnic area or Water Country lg Cre © DAN BACHMAN 615 Fe Colonial National Historical Park st Parkway underpass with Flemish and English bond brickwork. 132 5 hn 2 Miles The use and possession of metal detectors are strictly prohibited. Federal laws protect all natural and cultural features in the park. Park only in designated areas; do not park on grass or road shoulders. Sandy Point 5 LIMITED PUBLIC ACCESS Parkw 716 WILLIAMSBURG 5000 ial on The Capitol Wren Building 1 ER College of William and Mary 143 l Auto R o u t 163 0 North 2 Kilometers 1 V and open fields where the French and Continental GREEN SPRING Co 199 Battlefield, the parkway winds through swamps 0 Cheatham Pond River. Heading east, a mixed pine and hardwood burg to Yorktown segment. Within Yorktown Creek Queens Lake 132 pass wide beaches and a rare community of bald en N AT I O N A L H I S T O R I C A L PA R K 60 and wildlife. For scenic views along the 23-mile ue BR IDG E COLONIAL PARKWAY To Fredericksburg TO LL To 64 lH ist Island 17 or rai ic T Hog Island l Newport News Park JAMESTOWN ISLAND Walking Map es Park staff, volunteers, and partners work to research, preserve, and interpret the history of Jamestown Island and Yorktown. We strive to make facilities, services, and programs accessible to all. For information call or check the park website. es Lawn ki S ek City Reservoir YORKTOWN BATTLEFIELD TOURS Newport News Visitor Center Battlefield Tour (Red arrow signs) Allied Encampment Tour (Yellow arrow signs) A British Inner Defense Line G American Artillery Park B Grand French Battery H Gen. Washington’s HQ Yorktown Battlefield, and Colonial Park- C Second Allied Siege Line I French Cemetery way, which connects them; Green Spring D Redoubts 9 and 10 (open only for special programs); and Cape E Moore House Henry Memorial. Congress authorized the park F Surrender Field COLONIAL National Historical Park 105 includes most of Jamestown Island, FORT EUSTIS Eustis Lake (Yorktown National Cemetery) in 1930. In 1933 the Department of War trans2,000 Civil War interments, to the park. Captain John Smith Chesapeake and WashingtonRochambeau Revolutionary Route national historic trails pass through park lands and waterways. 64 Colonial National Historical Park is one of over 400 parks in the Na­tional Park System. Learn more at www.nps.gov. Jamestown throughout the Chesapeake Bay and Nelson House © MICHAEL BELL based historic trail. It travels over 3,000 miles from Susquehanna River to Cooperstown, New York. Its headquarters are at the Historic Jamestown Join the park community. www.nationalparks.org Visitor Center. Wa IGPO: 2023—423-201/83002 Last updated 2023 rw ick Riv er L Untouched Redoubt Most of the original ornamental details also survived the Civil War and a 1920 renovation. The National Park Service acquired and restored Nelson House in the 1980s. In 2006 Congress designated the Captain John Smith Chesapeake trail as the nation’s first water- J French Artillery Park K French Encampment Area “Houses [were] pulled down, others pulled to pieces for fuel” when French and Continental armies bombarded Yorktown to end the British occupation. Nelson House stayed largely intact. Thomas Nelson Jr. (1738–89) served in the Continental Congress and state legislature and signed the Declaration of Independence. He commanded the Virginia militia during the 1781 bombardment. ferred Yorktown National Cemetery, with over Follow us on social media. Use the official NPS App to guide your visit. Cr ee k More Information Colonial National Historical Park PO Box 210 Yorktown, VA 23690 757-898-2410 www.nps.gov/colo ff Jamestown Island is the original site of the first permanent English settlement in North America. Preservation Virginia acquired 22.5 acres of the island in 1893. The National Park Service purchased the remaining 1,500 acres in 1934. In 1994 Preservation Virginia began an archeological project, Jamestown Rediscovery, to find the remains of the original James Fort, about 1607–24, long thought lost to the James River. The discovery of the fort in 1994 and excavations since have revealed thousands of artifacts and greatly increased our understanding of this first chapter in US history. Cr e To Fort Monroe National Monument, Norfolk, and Cape Henry Memorial