Drought as a Factor in the Jamestown Colony, 1607-1612 The purpose of this Article is to show the Struggle of the first successful English colony in the New World. Other well known struggles of the first colonies include famine, strife, hostilities, and illness. The Author mentioned, “The local environment has been scrutinized on occasion by modern scholars to establish more objectively how it complicated the early years of the colony.” The Author concluded the water quality in the adjacent James River as the leading cause of disease and, hence, high mortality. The article describes results of one element of the environmental reconstruction effort. Drought was the leading cause of the reconstruction effort back the early