Essay
Jamestown and the Founding of English America
Shortly before Christmas 1606, three small ships left London’s Blackwall docks to establish a settlement on Chesapeake Bay, in North America. The largest of the ships, the heavily armed, 120-ton merchantman Susan Constant,...

![French enter the River of May in Florida, engraving by Theodor de Bry in Brevis Narratio eorum quae in Florida Americae [1591]. (Library of Congress Rare Book and Special Collections Division)](http://gilderlehrman.org/sites/default/files/imagecache/aggregate-208x148/essay-images/3b08657u.synop_.web_.jpg)