What sort of men founded Jamestown in 1607? What were their reasons for settling in America?

Permanent European settlement in North America began in May 1607, when one hundred British men and four boys founded Jamestown, a village along the Chesapeake Bay in Virginia. Life in the Chesapeake proved extraordinarily difficult. Many of the settlers were gentlemen, who had never performed physical labor and lacked knowledge of agriculture or other skills necessary to establish a colony in the wilderness. They traveled to Virginia in the hope of finding gold or other sources of wealth. Within months, only 38 of the original 104 settlers survived. Fortunately for the settlers, neighboring Indians under Chief Powhatan assisted the English by showing them sources of fresh water and food. Powhatan aided the colonists because he was eager to trade for some of their goods and because he hoped to enlist them as allies against rival Indians.

The settlers' leader, however, Captain John Smith, frequently distrusted Powhatan, and led raids on Indian lands and supplies. As a result, relations between colonists and Indians quickly soured. Smith was badly burned in a gunpowder explosion in 1609, and returned to England.