As the third relief crew from England made its way to the English settlement of Jamestown, their ship was hit by a furious hurricane. The crew and its ship were hopeless and in constant fear that they might drown. They miraculously found an island on which they were able to survive and save themselves from death. There had been tales that the island they set foot on was the Devil’s Island. To their surprise, the island they found was better than anything in their wildest dreams. The place the crew landed on turned out to be distinctly different from Jamestown. The experience they underwent and the Bermuda Island gave the Bermuda crew determination by divine intervention, as well as, inspiration.
There are many reasons that Devil’s Island, Bermuda, was distinctly different from Jamestown. Bermuda had natural food and resource wealth beyond the crew’s imagination. The island provided pork, mulberries, cedar berries, prickle peare, fish, tortoises, and birds. There was an account of endless flocks of birds, an inexhaustible supply of pork, and a supply of fish so abundant that fish could surround any man that stepped into the island’s waters. The resource wealth was so great that great slabs of Bermuda limestone could be used to stabilize the boat under the great strength of the ocean waves. Cedar trees were abundant and excellent for building the ship’s hulls. Barrels of wax were excellent for making the ship more waterproof by sealing its seams. Some of the Jamestown settlers were unintelligent enough to look for gold when there was none while when the Bermuda crew looked for resources there was a vast amount. The amount of those that had survived in Jamestown was extremely different as compared to the Bermuda crew. Of the six hundred settlers that originally voyaged to Jamestown, only about sixty survived to greet the crew from Bermuda. The Jamestown settlers were almost starved while the Bermuda crew had eaten like kings. As a result of the Bermuda crew’s good fortune, there was an account that a settler from Bermuda that traveled back to Bermuda fell ill because he had ate a surfeit of pig. The main reason for the ingenuity of the castaways to survive came about because of the abundant food supply. They continued as a result of the abundant food supply and resource wealth. They wanted to finish what they had started because such a feat was possible. They built their ships because it was possible and then could finish what they had begun. On the other hand, the Jamestown colonists did not have the resource and food wealth of the Bermuda crew. During the starving time, the Jamestown colonists ate whatever could be eaten. For example, some ate shoe leather, while others ate insects and even snakes. There was even an account of cannibalism that had occurred because they were so desperate. As a result of the lack of resourceful wealth and lack of food, the Jamestown colonists wanted to immediately sail home. The Jamestown colonists did not know that the plot of land they had landed on was unfertile for growing crops, resulting in their crops failure.
