Less deadly than the "sicknesse", but still greatly to be dreaded, was the hostility of the Indians.[65] The natives, resentful at the attempt of the white men to establish themselves in their midst, proved a constant menace to the colony. Their superstitious awe of the strange newcomers, and their lack of effective weapons alone prevented untiring and open war. Jamestown was but a few days old when it was subjected to a violent assault by the savages. On the twentieth day of May, 1607, the colonists, while at work without their arms in the fields, were attacked by several hundred Indians. In wild dismay they rushed into the fort, while the savages followed at their heels. "They came up allmost into the ffort, shot through the tents, appeared in this Skirmishe (which lasted hott about an hower) a very valient people." The guns of the ships came to the aid of the English and their thunders struck dismay into the hearts of the savages. Yet they retired without panic, taking with them their dead and wounded. Four of the Council, standing in the front ranks, were wounded by the natives, and President Wingfield, while fighting valiently, had an arrow shot through his beard, "yet scaped hurte".[66]
A few days after this event a gentleman named Clovell came running into the fort with six arrows sticking in him, crying, "Arm, arm". He had wandered too far from the town, and the Indians, who were still prowling near, shot him from ambush. Eight days later he died.[67] Thus at the very outset, the English learned the nature of the conflict which they must wage against the Indians. In open fight the savages, with their primitive weapons, were no match for them, but woe to any of their number that strayed far from the fort, or ventured into the long grass of the mainland. So frequently were small parties cut off, that it became unsafe for the English to leave their settlements except in bodies large enough to repel any attack.[68]
The epidemics and the wars with the Indians conspired to bring upon the colony still another horrible scourge. The constant dread of attack in the fields and the almost universal sickness made it impossible for the settlers to raise crops sufficient for their needs. During the summer of 1607 there were at one time scarce five able men at Jamestown, and these found it beyond their power even to nurse the sick and bury the dead. And in later years, when corn was planted in abundance, the stealthy savages often succeeded in cutting it down before it could be harvested. There can be no surprise then that famines came at frequent intervals to add to the misery of the ill-fated colonists. The most terrible of these visited Virginia in the winter of 1609-10. Smith's Historie gives a graphic account of the suffering during those fearful months. Those that escaped starvation were preserved, it says, "for the most part, by roots, herbes, acornes, walnuts, berries, now and then a fish: they that had starch in these extremities, made no small use of it; yea, even the very skinnes of our horses. Nay, so great was our famine, that a Salvage we slew and buried, the poorer sort took him up againe and eat him; and so did divers one another boyled and stewed with roots and herbs: And one amongst the rest did kill his wife, powdered her, and had eaten part of her before it was knowne; for which hee was executed, as hee well deserved.... This was the time, which to this day we call the starving time; it were too vile to say, and scarce to be believed, what we endured."[69]