By the time the English arrived at Jamestown Island in May of 1607, Native Americans had been living in eastern Virginia for over 10,000 years. Even though the Powhatan people and their ancestors had altered the landscape, albeit less drastically than the English would, it still must have seemed like a vast wilderness to the settlers. The colonists wasted no time pushing the frontier into that wilderness. James Fort was completed by June of 1607 and three additional fortifications were established on the James river by the summer of 1608.The next six years would see thirteen more sites along the James river settled with either forts or plantations. A policy change in 1617 allowing privately held plantations and the beginning of tobacco cultivation caused an explosion of settlement from the opening of the James river, to the fall line near modern day Richmond. Between 1617 and 1624 forty-nine new plantations were established. The colony was growing at a tremendous rate and to keep pace as the colonial capital, Jamestown grew as well. In 1623 William Claiborne was hired to survey streets heading east from the fort. Newtown was born and buildings sprang up along the newly formed roads.

As the capitol grew, the area around the fort escaped development. With the exception of the church all of the features found within the fort perimeter are contemporary with the fort. It is possible that the area around the fort was kept as public land and therefore never divided up into privately owned lots. The majority of James Fort has yet to be excavated, however based on the archaeology to date, very little happened on the site until the construction of the Confederate earthwork in 1861.