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Three ships carrying 105 settlers select a site on Chesapeake Bay for a new settlement named Jamestown.
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Captain John Smith departs Jamestown with a provisioning party to obtain food from the neighboring Indian villages. During this mission, he will be captured by the Pamunkey chief Powhatan. Later he will be rescued by Pocahontas.
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Sir Thomas Gates is named governor of the Jamestown colony as part of a reform effort. He will arrive in Jamestown on 23 May 1610, only to discover that just 60 of the colony's 500 settlers have survived the preceding winter.
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English settler John Rolfe begins experimenting with cultivation of tobacco. While the tobacco produced locally by the Indians is too harsh to sell in the European market.
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About twenty Africans servants are delivered to the colony. These may be the first Africans in Virginia.
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Pamunkey Indians, disturbed by the rapid growth of the Jamestown colony, attack the English settlement, killing 347 people. Harsh retaliatory raids lead to the deaths of a far greater number of Native Americans.
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The Virginia Company's charter is revoked and governance of Jamestown is transferred to the Crown. Virginia becomes Britain's first royal colony in America.
