Drought During the Establishment of Early American Colonies

I wrote about droughts in general in a post on my Discover Genealogy blog on 29 May 2017: Natural Disasters and Family Misfortunes 3: Droughts. Some of those comments are repeated here.

Drought is basically a condition where there is a lack of water resources. According to researchers Gwyneth Cole and Terry Marsh (2006), of the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology in Oxfordshire, droughts may be caused be due to a deficiency of rainfall (meteorological drought), accumulated deficiencies in runoff or aquifer charge (hydrological drought) or limited water present in the soil during the growing season (agricultural drought). The primary parameters of a drought, though, are a lack of precipitation over an extended period and affecting a large area.

Droughts have been part of natural events for millions of years in all parts of the world. With regard to human history, both recorded and ancient, droughts have played a significant role in the destruction of communities – even whole societies.

A long-lasting drought probably had a major impact on the outcome of the early American colonies. In 1585 new settlers came to Roanoke Island, in what is now Virginia, to begin a new life.

According to a 1998 study, The Lost Colony and Jamestown Drought (Stahle, et at, 1998) the years of 1587-89 saw the region experience a major drought. The authors state that “Tree-ring data from Virginia indicate that the Lost Colony of Roanoke Island disappeared during the most extreme drought in 800 years (1587-1589) and that the alarming mortality and the near abandonment of Jamestown Colony occurred during the driest 7-year episode in 770 years (1606-1612). These extraordinary droughts can now be implicated in the fate of the Lost Colony and in the appalling death rate during the early occupations at Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in America.”

Data collected from tree-rings and population and immigration estimates in the region strongly suggest that mortality rates rose with increasing aridity (drought index). The new settlers in America had the greatest bad luck to arrive at a time when drought was widespread and possibly the worst it had been in centuries. Even considering threats from other sources, such as the potential conflict with the native population, it is no wonder the colonies failed.

This episode was not the first nor the last major drought to affect America, including on both indigenous people and new settlers:

·         The Terminal Classic Drought coincided with the demise of the Mayan civilization between AD 750 and 1050 (Gill, 2000).

·         Between AD 990 and 1300 there were three intense and persistent droughts in the central and southwest part of the US, each lasting several decades. They all had severe impacts on natives that resulted in migration of the people and even collapse of their cultures (Jones et al, 1999).

·         The Civil War Drought (1856-1865) has been considered the most severe in more modern times, possibly rivalling that of the Medieval period (AD 750-1300). Other disastrous droughts occurred in the 1870s and 1890s. http://ocp.ldeo.columbia.edu/res/div/ocp/drought/nineteenth.shtml

Family historians may come across evidence that such natural phenomena have affected their own families, at different times and in different regions. Sometimes short-lived and sometimes over extended time periods, drought can and did have devastating impacts on living conditions.

References:

Cole, G. A. & Marsh, T. J. (2006). An historical analysis of drought in England and Wales. In Climate Variability and Change – Hydrological Impacts (Demuth, S., Gustard, A., Planos, E., Scatena, F. & Servat, E., Eds.). International Association of Hydrological Sciences, publication number 308, pp. 483-489.

Gill, R. B. (2000). The Great Maya Droughts: Water, Life, and Death. University of New Mexico.

Jones, T. L., Brown, G. M., Raab, L. M., McVickar, J. L., Spaulding, W. G., Kennett, D. J., York, A. & Walker, P. L. (1999). Environmental Imperatives Reconsidered: Demographic Crises in Western North America during the Medieval Climatic Anomaly. Current Anthropology, (40/3), pp. 137-170. http://cola.calpoly.edu/~tljones/Jones%20et%20al%201999.pdf

Stahle, David W., Malcolm K. Cleaveland, Dennis B. Blanton, Matthew D. Therrell & David A. Gay. (1998). The Lost colony and Jamestown Droughts. Science, volume 280, 24 April, pp. 564-567.