In 1607, Jamestown Island, then a peninsula, matched the Virginia Company's criteria for an ideal settlement site because it stood on a river that bent toward the northwest, was surrounded on three sides by water, lay at a bend well up from the river's mouth, and had a deep water port. The James River connected Virginia Indian tribes to trade routes and resources throughout the Chesapeake Bay area. For Englishmen, it helped bridge continents by carrying the people and supplies essential for survival. John Smith and others traveled the James to explore and map the region in search of natural resources, and the river provided abundantly for those who lived along its shores.
