How would Jamestown’s location have helped the settlers defend against attackers coming up the river from the sea?

Question

How would Jamestown’s location have

helped the settlers defend against attackers coming up the

river from the sea?

How would Jamestown’s location have

helped the settlers defend against attackers coming up the

river from the sea?

Answer 1

Jamestown was settled on what was at the time a peninsula, but almost to the point of being an island, there was a narrow connection to the mainland. It was also several miles inland. They chose this location for many reasons. They wanted to balance accessibility of resources, accessibility to Atlantic trade, fear of potential attack from other European Countries, and fear of attack by Native Americans. The two that are most concerned with attackers coming up river are:

Balancing fear of attack by other European Countries with accessibility of trade

Accessibility of Atlantic trade meant that ideally a port would be on a protected bay right off of the ocean for ease of travel on trade ships.

Fear of attack by other European countries meant they wanted to be far enough inland to have warning of ships coming up the river.

How would having a narrow but deep river have helped balance these two needs/fears?

Why might sailing up a narrow river that curves back and forth with hostile armed people on the banks be dangerous for an enemy ship? (If you have ever played the computer game "Bloons Tower Defense" think of the balloons on the curved paths as the ships)

Why might it be harder for a ship, or especially multiple ships together, to maneuver in a narrow river than in a larger body of water?

The peninsula they built on was shaped kind of like a nose sticking into the river from the right bank. The place where the nostrils would be was downstream and was the smaller waterway that cut off most of the peninsula from the mainland. The main river flowed along the outside and they built the fort up at the very top of the nose on the main river. Because of the depth of the water and the angle of the land it would have been very difficult to fire directly into the fort from the river.

Why would building your settlement on the upriver (farther from the ocean) side of a peninsula that sticks out into the river give you even more warning if enemies were coming by ship?