The Jamestown brides, tobacco wives, and mail-order brides are only a few names for the women who immigrated from England to Jamestown, Virginia in 1620. They were women who were offered good incentives to make the long voyage for a husband, so they could help build up the population of Jamestown, the first colony settled in America. Once the women arrived in America, their lives became a 1620 version of The Bachelorette.
16. A Depleting Population Causes Colonial Men to Become Desperate for English Women
A severe gender imbalance was threatening Jamestown colony. The men in the territory were desperate to find wives; however, there was one big problem, women were not immigrating to Jamestown. The European women had heard a variety of negative reports from other people who had either been to Jamestown and went back to England or had written to someone in England after arriving in Jamestown. The women had been told horrifying stories of disease, attacks from Native Americans, and famine.
Jamestown was first settled in 1607, and by the time 1618 rolled around, the colony was nearly entirely male. Because the men could not find women in the settlement, they started to leave the area and travel elsewhere. This movement was another reason Jamestown’s population was dying, and soon people began worrying that Jamestown would completely die out. With the desperate need to save Jamestown, women needed to immigrate to Jamestown quickly. Therefore, the leaders of the colony decided to put out advertising which would target women, who would be interested in becoming wives to the colonial men in Jamestown.