Jamestown -- first English settlement in America

(Reuters) - The Queen on Friday marked the 400th anniversary of the arrival of three ships bearing 400 settlers at Jamestown Peninsula, in what is now the U.S. state of Virginia, on May 14, 1607.

They created the first successful English settlement in the New World after previous attempts failed.

Here are five facts about Jamestown:

* The area at the time was inhabited by Tsenacomoco Indians, who lived in villages of a few hundred people surrounded by cornfields and fallow land.

* With Indians farming the best land, the colonists moved into a marshy, mosquito-ridden site with no fresh water, naming their village after King James 1. Half of them died within four months, many from typhoid and dysentery. By January 1608, the colony had dwindled to 38 people.

* Despite some new arrivals, the survivors were hit by a harsh winter in 1610 and may have returned home that year but for the arrival of fresh supplies and more colonists.

* While native Virginians grew a little tobacco, the English preferred higher quality Caribbean tobacco. John Rolfe brought Caribbean tobacco seeds to Jamestown and began cultivating it there in 1612.

* Tensions persisted with the Indians, some of it over land that was being overcultivated, especially with tobacco. But in 1614 Rolfe married Pocahontas, the daughter of the Tsenacomoco chief, Powhatan, easing the situation. Jamestown remained the capital of Virginia throughout the 17th century but fell into decay when the capital was moved to Williamsburg in 1698.

Sources: Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities, National Geographic.