"Countrymen, the long experience of our late miseries I hope is sufficient to persuade everyone to a present correction of himself... He that will not work shall not eat (except by sickness he be disabled). For the labors of thirty or forty honest and industrious men shall not be consumed to maintain a hundred and fifty idle loiterers." — Captain John Smith, The Generall Historie of Virginia (1624), recounting his rule at Jamestown c. 1608
Smith issued this decree primarily to address which crisis facing early Jamestown?
- A
Spanish naval raids that disrupted the colony's tobacco shipments
- B
An armed uprising of indentured servants demanding land grants
- C
A breakaway faction of Separatists challenging Anglican authority
- Dcheck_circle
The colony's starvation due to colonists refusing manual labor in pursuit of gold
Explanation
Early Jamestown nearly collapsed because many gentleman-adventurers expected quick wealth and refused agricultural labor. Smith's "no work, no eat" rule forced participation in food production to stave off the starvation that decimated the colony.