Getting your questions ready
Getting your questions ready
Beat the crowd
10 questions No timer
50 free Jamestown trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Thirteen years before the Mayflower, 104 Englishmen planted a fort on a swampy island in the James River and called it James Fort. The site had no fresh water, plenty of mosquitoes and arrived in the worst drought in 700 years, and within three years most of the settlers were dead. Yet Jamestown survived to grow tobacco, seat America's first elected assembly and serve as Virginia's capital for 83 years. These 50 questions cover the whole story: the Susan Constant, Godspeed and Discovery, Christopher Newport's four-month voyage, Edward Maria Wingfield and John Smith, the Starving Time of 1609–10, the Sea Venture wreck that stranded the relief fleet on Bermuda, the Day of Providence, Pocahontas and John Rolfe, the 1619 assembly, the Polish strike and the White Lion, the 1622 attack, Opechancanough, Bacon's Rebellion and the move to Williamsburg. There are questions too on the 1907 exposition, Queen Elizabeth II's 1957 visit, and the 1996 dig that proved the fort had not washed into the river. Easy questions stick to the ships and the dates; the hard tier asks which future Mayflower passenger was wrecked on Bermuda, who shot Opechancanough, and what the Virginia Company demanded in writing. Every answer is cited to a page we checked, with a short explanation so you learn something either way.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In what year was Jamestown established?
1607
It followed failed English attempts such as the 1585 Roanoke Colony, which vanished around 1590.
Q 02What distinction does Jamestown hold?
First permanent English settlement in the Americas
Spain, Portugal and France had all moved faster; the English did not try until decades after John Cabot.
Q 03Who established Jamestown?
The Virginia Company of London
Its investors expected returns and sent written demands for gold, a route to the South Sea and a lost Roanoke colonist.
Q 04Which three ships carried the first Jamestown colonists?
Susan Constant, Godspeed, Discovery
All sailed under Captain Christopher Newport on a four-month voyage via the Canaries and Puerto Rico.
Q 05Who captained the 1607 fleet to Virginia?
Christopher Newport
Newport later commanded the ill-fated Sea Venture on the third supply mission.
Q 06What did the colonists name their first landfall on April 26, 1607?
Cape Henry
From there they explored Hampton Roads and named the river after King James I.
Q 07The colony's river was named in honour of which monarch?
James I of England
The settlement itself was first called James Fort.
Q 08Who was elected first president of the Jamestown governing council?
Edward Maria Wingfield
He chose the peninsula site on May 14, about 40 miles inland from the Atlantic.
Q 09Why was the island site chosen despite its swamps and mosquitoes?
To evade Spanish naval patrols
The river bend made it defensible, and local nations thought the land too poor to bother with.
Q 10What did tree-ring studies reveal about Virginia from 1606 to 1612?
The worst drought in 700 years
Borings from 800-year-old bald cypresses along the Nottoway and Blackwater rivers told the story.
Q 11Who celebrated the first known Anglican Eucharist in the future United States, in June 1607?
Robert Hunt
He was a former vicar of Reculver in Kent.
Q 12Craftsmen from which two countries arrived in 1608 and set up the colony's first manufactories?
Germany and Poland
Their glassware became the foremost American export to Europe at the time.
Q 13What became the leading American product exported to Europe from early Jamestown?
Glassware
Clapboard had gone back on the very first returning ship; tobacco's boom came after 1612.
Q 21Which Sea Venture castaway later sailed on the Mayflower?
Stephen Hopkins
He spent nine months on Bermuda in 1609–10 before his second Atlantic adventure in 1620.
Q 22Whose relief fleet met the departing colonists on June 10, 1610, and turned them back?
Lord De La Warr
The colonists called it The Day of Providence; the governor later gave his name to Delaware.
Q 23What did the colonists call the day the relief fleet arrived in 1610?
The Day of Providence
Everyone had already boarded Deliverance and Patience to abandon the colony for England.
Q 14Which captain's arrival in July 1609 drove off a Spanish reconnaissance ship?
Samuel Argall
His ship Mary and John outmatched La Asunción de Cristo and kept Spain from learning how weak the colony was.
Q 15Which colony president told London investors to send labourers and craftsmen instead of gentlemen?
John Smith
Smith, the council's third president, was later forced home by a gunpowder burn.
Q 16Why was the colony's third council president forced to sail home in 1609?
An explosion burned him badly
George Percy took over and proved a poor negotiator with the native tribes.
Q 17What is the winter of 1609–1610 at Jamestown called?
The Starving Time
Only 60 of 214 settlers survived; some ate snakes and boiled shoe leather.
Q 18How many of the 214 settlers survived the winter of 1609–10?
60
Archaeological and historical evidence shows some colonists resorted to cannibalism.
Q 19Where was the relief flagship Sea Venture wrecked in 1609?
Bermuda
Admiral George Somers drove her onto the reefs on purpose to keep her from sinking, and everyone survived.
Q 20What were the two ships the Sea Venture survivors built during their nine months stranded?
Deliverance and Patience
They planned one vessel but needed a second to carry all the settlers and the salted pork.
Q 24Who captured Pocahontas, ending the first Anglo-Powhatan War?
Samuel Argall
Her father Wahunsenacawh accepted a peace treaty after the capture.
Q 25What was Pocahontas's actual name?
Matoaka
Pocahontas was a nickname; she later took the English name Rebecca on marrying John Rolfe.
Q 26Where did John Rolfe's tobacco seeds come from?
Bermuda
The plants had grown wild there after shipwrecked Spaniards planted them years earlier.
Q 27In which year did John Rolfe first successfully harvest tobacco?
1614
He grew rich, married Pocahontas and bought the colony several years of peace.
Q 28Where did Pocahontas die in March 1617?
In England
She fell ill at the end of a public relations trip; her father died the following year.
Q 29Which governor assigned 3-acre plots to the "ancient planters" in 1613?
Thomas Dale
Private plots, and the end of the drought, finally produced measurable economic progress.
Q 30For how long did indentured servants typically agree to work for their passage?
Three to seven years
Germans who came as redemptioners bought part of their passage on credit and worked off the rest.