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Life in Jamestown was difficult, but the New World offered the Jamestown settlers enough benefits to entice people to leave Europe and make the voyage across the Atlantic. Most importantly, the New World offered people a new start. Europe offered the lower classes virtually no social or economic mobility; Jamestown and the other colonies offered these people the opportunity to own their own land and improve their economic situation. Even if one could not afford passage to Jamestown, he could work as an indentured servant to earn his passage; once freed, he would be given enough land to start a small farm. Moreover, Jamestown was a defensible location; this was confirmed during the Civil War, when the Confederate army constructed defenses on the site of the first Jamestown settlement.
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