The Third Supply was the first truly successful wave of colonization in the first English settlement in the Americas, at Jamestown. It also resulted in the settlement of Bermuda (as an unintended side effect).
However, from the perspective of the colonists anxiously awaiting supplies at Jamestown, the Third Supply was anything but smooth, and four out of five of the colonists perished during the "starving time" before the leaders and some of the supplies which had been aboard the ill-fated flagship Sea Venture finally arrived in Virginia, ten months later than expected. Even then, the salvation of the colony only came with the timely arrival of Lord Delaware and another supply mission a few weeks later.
The Third Supply Mission from England to Jamestown consisted of five to six hundred people, in a fleet of eight ships, with Admiral Sir George Somers, Samuel Jordan and Sir Thomas Gates. All of these were on the new flagship of the Virginia Company, the Sea Venture.
The ships ran into a massive three-day storm believed to have been a hurricane. The Sea Venture became separated from the others. Taking on water through her new caulking, she was deliberately run aground on Bermuda. Admiral Somers and his officers managed to land everyone safely from the wreck. The rest of the fleet continued on to Jamestown, not knowing of the fate of the Sea Venture.
Over a period of nine months, the survivors on Bermuda built two new ships — Patience and Deliverance — using Bermuda cedar and hardware salvaged from the Sea Venture. Their struggle to survive may have been the inspiration for Shakespeare's play, The Tempest.[1]
Without the leadership, and most of the supplies, all of which had been aboard the Sea Venture, the rest of the group which arrived at Jamestown on the other ships and those already there were ill-prepared to survive, resulting in the "starving time" of 1609-1610 when over 80 per cent of the colonists perished.
The fate of Jamestown and the surrounding colony only turned when the officers showed up less than a year later in their replacement vessels, and were resupplied by yet another supply mission from England headed by Lord Delaware.
John Rolfe was one of the surviving colonists who had been shipwrecked with the Sea Venture. Despite the death of his wife and young son in Bermuda, he went on to Virginia, and in 1611, successfully cultivated new strains of tobacco, providing a critical cash crop for the colonists to grow and export beginning in 1612. Rolfe later married Matoaka (Pocahontas), Chief Powhatan's daughter. Reverend Richard Bucke of Wymondham officiated the wedding. Reverend Alexander Whitaker converted Pocahontas to Christianity. He renamed her "Rebecca" when she had her baptism. Through their son, Thomas Rolfe, many of the First Families of Virginia trace both English and Native American heritage roots.