How many settlers were in America in 1619? Just 2,000. (Though they were 500,000 Indians, according to this book I'm reading...)

And three interesting things happened in Virginia in 1619....

1. America's first legislative assembly met in Jamestown -- a governor, six councilors, and two burgesses from the 10 plantations.

2. A Dutch ship sold the settlers 20 slaves

3. A boat arrived with 90 women "who were to be given as wives to those settlers who would pay 120 pounds of tobacco for their transportation"

 
The pilgrims at Plymouth Rock arrived 13 years after the first Jamestown settlers. They hailed from an English village called Scrooby (though they'd first fled to Holland). But they'd gone from European civilization to the most primitive of wildernesses...

William Bradford kept a journal which gives a fascinating perspective on life in the two worlds. It's almost like a poem about the things Pilgrims missed in Massachusetts.

...they had now no friends to welcome them
nor inns to entertain
or refresh their weatherbeaten bodies,
no houses or much less towns to repair to, to seek for succor...

Plus, the pilgrims foolishly arrived at Plymouth Rock in the middle of December. Exploring the coast was pointless, Bradford wrote, because "what could they see but a hideous and desolate wilderness full of wild beasts and wild men?"