TengAiHui

Back when I was in college, I took a course called American Environmental History. The professor told us that the people of Jamestown went upstream to use the river as a latrine and also went downstream to use the river for bathing and washing clothes. This explained much of the sickness and death in Jamestown. Can anyone confirm or disprove this assertion? Or cite/link any sources that discuss this topic?

Raven45

I haven't heard this before. I'm certain many of the Jamestown settlers became ill & died from drinking saltwater. Jamestown fort was on a marshy area of land with no source of fresh water. The settlers were not quick to dig a well for fresh drinking water.

(Also, once the Indians were angered, it would not have been safe to leave the fort for very long.)

Richard Stanbery

I have heard that they used either open trenches or covered latrines, situated where the runoff from them could easily contaminate thier drinking water. Yes, I rather believe that these stories migth be true?

But, before we judge the colonist too harshly, we might just say that these folks had to worry about attacks as the primary logic for doing anything. And so, the situation of the latrine would be that they wanted to be covered by thier own guards or fortifications whenever they went to relieve themselves.

I dont know how the trench conditions of the WWI soldiers could have been any better. Rats, rotting corpses, and the inevitable human waste was most likely to be found in the trenches of France, and in the 20th century, when they should have known better by then.

The tactical safety of the people there (WWI trenches) dictated the bio-hazzard worthiness of the latrines in the trenches, and so I imagine that it was at Jamestown. They must have lived in siege mentality, and felt like they were under siege conditions even when they werent.