Question

What does the fact that many of the men the Virginia Company recruited to sail to North America in the early seventeenth century were gentlemen and skilled artisans show about the Company's original goals?

Answer 1

The initial goal of the Virginia Company was to establish an artisan colony, not an agricultural colony.

The idea was to trade with the local Native Americans for food in exchange for products such as tools or clothing, that were to be elaborated by the skilled tradesmen sent to the colony.

The plan utterly failed because when Jamestown was established, the Cheasepeake Bay Area was going through severe drought, and the local tribes did not have the will, or the food surplus, to engage in trade. Besides, the lack of agricultural skills of the colonists only worsened the famine, and a large percentage of them died of starvation.