The whole of Jamestown project<\/em> by Kupperman is dedicated to talking about aspects of the lives of the colony and some background information about it. It goes into why the groups struggled as well as talking about the way in which these colonies would function. Somethings that are discussed include relations with native peoples, why people would go to the colony, and the social structure of the colony. The concept of having difficulty surviving in a region is shared by the article Ecological perspectives on Mande populations movements <\/em>by Brooks which deals with the Mande people and their survival in the harsh African environments while also talking about their history. The concept of having to fight and somewhat adapt was brought up by Matthew Liivoja <\/a>who made a similar point about these settlements not having an easy time, though he went a somewhat different course with his discussion.<\/p>\n One observation that I found that I thought was interesting was the various push and pull factors that influenced people to go to Jamestown. Like for instance, the obvious religious freedom or escape from persecution. Another factor was just the decade of the 1620’s which saw things not going well in England with failed harvests, poor economy, and growth in population (Kupperman, 292). This topic piqued my interest as in my background regarding this topic it has always been overly emphasized that people came to the Americas from England in an effort to have freedom of religion while possibly hinting at the possibility of there being other factors for people emigrating. This ties into the idea that in the Atlantic world there was a number of reason why a person would try to leave England for wealth, glory, religion people had a plethora of reasons for leaving.<\/p>\n Overall I liked both of these readings because they talked about topics that I’ve personally not seen too much of in my academic career. My only gripe is that the Kupperman reading was a bit long and it covered a lot of different points that it made it a tiny bit difficult to stay focused.<\/p>\n