England planted its first successful North American colony at Jamestown inbut settlers fought Indians and disease, and the colony grew slowly. By the end of the seventeenth century, Virginia had established tobacco as its main crop, a representative government, and slavery as a dominant system of labor. Ina group of wealthy London businessmen petitioned King James I for a charter to establish a colony in the New World. They formed the Virginia Company and set out to establish a permanent English settlement in the Americas. The British were in competition with the Spanish who had established colonies in central and South America and had stolen vast amounts of treasure and wealth from the native inhabitants. The English were eager to find similar wealth in the northern part of the Americas. They also wanted to establish permanent towns in the New World to stake a claim for the British government.