When a group of English men and boys arrived in Chesapeake Bay in April 1607, starvation and disease awaited them. Now, the site of their arrival—and the first successful English colony in North America—is under threat. Thanks to sea level rise and climate change, much of the colony’s rich and varied history is now being subsumed by the swamp on which it was built.
That’s the assessment of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which has included the site of the historic colony on its 2022 list of America’s most endangered places.
Experts tell the Washington Post’s Michael E. Ruane that due to climate change and rising waters, they only have roughly five years left to protect the site, home to thousands of years of history and a treasured archaeological dig that tells the story of the early days of English colonists in America, from flooding.
