Historic Jamestowne sits on Jamestown Island beside the James River in Virginia. Its national story often begins in 1607, when English colonists established a permanent settlement, but the island’s history is older. National Park Service archaeology records Indigenous activity there thousands of years before the English arrived. In 1607 the island lay within the territory of the Paspahegh people, part of the broader Powhatan political network. The site should therefore be understood as an encounter on Indigenous land, not as an empty stage awaiting a colony.
The Virginia Company of London sent three ships and settlers across the Atlantic to establish an English foothold. The colonists selected the river location in May 1607 and named their settlement for King James I. It became the first permanent English settlement in North America, a precise distinction that does not erase earlier Indigenous societies or other European attempts at colonisation. Jamestown later served as Virginia’s colonial government centre for about 92 years, while the settlement and its population changed repeatedly.
