Colonial Period

In my effort to better understand my heritage I read a wide range of book styles and lengths, and I always appreciate a fast, to-the-point, concise read.

Love and Hate in Jamestown: John Smith, Pocahontas, and the Start of a New Nation by David A. Price fits the bill perfectly. Although I am familiar with the Jamestown story at a bare-bones level, after reading the book I have a much better understanding of all the key players in the British American settlement.

Price examines the major disagreements and episodes that defined – and at times – almost destroyed the colony. Jamestown’s history is often romanticized as is Captain John Smith’s rescue by Pocahontas – but Price effectively bypasses this approach and gets down to the essentials.

Individualism Is Born

One trait often equated with ‘being American’ is individualism. Ralph Waldo Emerson highlights the trait in Self Reliance. But as Price shows through the various events of Smith’s life, plenty of labels could be attached to Smith. He was a soldier, a planner, an instigator, to name a few, but his most enduring trait was his individualism. This ability to rely on his own skills and intellect led him to the brink of death several times, but it also carved out his rightful place in history.

Do What Needs To Be Done

Smith was pragmatic and not idealistic. During the Colony’s era that was grimly named the Starving Time, Smith details his irritation and disdain for the gentlemen class – the bulk of the colonists – by blandly noting the men had resigned themselves to their fate (death) instead of working to survive. This underscores why Smith butts heads with investors back home in London. He quickly tired of the Company’s protocol of sending gentlemen to the colony instead of skilled and unskilled laborers. The colony almost died out because of this policy. Smith not only engaged in manual labor, he went on expeditions, mingled with the natives — learning their languages and customs at a rudimentary level. It was largely through his efforts that the colony survived those first few years.

Colonial Myth

Long ago I tired of the argument that the Founding Fathers believed this or that — or the Constitution says this or that, because the words seem to come from people who have neither read the Constitution nor could name 10 Founding Fathers. Books like Love & Hate – and Albion’s Seed — provide a clearer understanding of America’s beginning. Despite modern politicians and their followers assertions that America was founded on (fill in the blank), in the beginning the British American colonies were filled with a plethora of ideas, philosophies and often contradictory agendas.

In Jamestown, the goal of the Virginia Company was gold. It was not religious freedom or democracy. It was simply a business venture complete with advertising and marketing materials that highlighted the good and omitted the bad. When the venture failed to produce a profit and investors were no longer supplying money — the Company began a lottery.

John Smith’s Legacy

Oddly enough, the Jamestown experience was a small blip in Smith’s life – although one he always cherished. After he left the colony in 1609, Smith returned to Britain and over the course of several decades wrote numerous books about New England. He never lost his love for the region – always promoting its merits. His last attempt to come back to North America in 1617 was thwarted by bad weather.

He died fourteen years later, in 1631, at the age of 51.

Rated 5 out of 5. This is a nice, quick read filled with the significant episodes of Jamestown’s history. Although the book is heavily researched, the footnotes are not intrusive, and the author includes several pages at the end explaining — and often dispelling — common theories about the Colony.

Trivia

Smith never married and he had no children.

Note: This is the second in four entries about Albion’s Seed: Four British Folkways in America by David Hackett Fischer. As I mentioned in the first post, since this is a large book (900+ pages) I did not want to write a single review. Instead I am writing about each of the four British American colonies Fischer examines. If you have not read his book, and are interested in the American Colonial Era, I highly recommend it. Click here to access all the posts in this series.

In this post, I’ll examine the same three folkways I did with the Puritans: Sex, Recreation and Money.

Although, I’ve never been able to conclusively determine the very first Clavell/Claywell to land on North American soil, some records show that a Peter Clavell died in Accomack, Virginia in 1692. Peter is a forefather of Shadrach Claywell. Shadrach is often the beginning point for U.S. Claywell genealogy. He was born in Bedford County, Va. So, it does appears the Claywell line landed in Virginia, which would also support the reasoning that they are English (and at least one of Shadrach’s children was described by his widow as English).

If Peter was, in fact, an indentured servant it was a rough start for a new beginning in a new land.

Different Approach To Colonization

Unlike the Puritan colonies to the north — a region populated by extended family units, educated individuals, and a more socially and financially equal society — the Virginia colonies were established in a nearly opposite manner. British royalists became the governing class and then through controlled immigration policies populated the colony with illiterate, unattached individuals. Sixty percent or more of the Virginia colony was illiterate — compared to 30 percent or less in the Puritan Colony.

This approach to cultivating a colony led to a highly stratified society with very defined social classes. The high illiteracy rate kept the impoverished class oppressed since they were ill equipped to improve their lot in an ever increasing literate world.

Money Flows To The Top

In 1641 Sir William Berkeley began his 20+ year reign as governor and under his leadership the colony grew from 8,000 to 40,000 inhabitants. During his reign and for centuries beyond, the region remained divided into two distinct groups: the haves and have-nots. According to Fischer, about 10 percent of the population controlled up to 75 percent of the usable land. This was a stark contrast to the northern Puritan colony where the division of wealth was closely regulated and the hedonistic pursuit of wealth was discouraged.

Fischer reports that 70 percent of the Virginia population owned no land while another 20 percent was slightly better off — owning small parcels.

In Virginia, a significant portion of the laborers, like Peter Clavell, were indentured servants. This meant, among other things, that they worked without wages for about seven years. But since the laws were slanted in favor of the property owners these servants, already the working poor, were at an even deeper disadvantage should a dispute concerning their contractual agreement surface. Simply put, the indentured servants were at the mercy of the ruling class so the poor became poorer and the wealthy expanded their holdings.

Killin’ Time Is Killin’ Me

The Virginia Colony phrase ‘killing time’ has its beginning in south England where most of the original laborers emigrated from — and it was a stark contrast to the Puritan concept of improving time. Recreation included significantly different activities in the Puritan and Virginia colonies. The Puritans enjoyed ice skating and games that were the forerunners of baseball and football. They saw recreation as necessary for the development of the Christian character whereas the Virginia colonies saw absolutely no value in any ball-centric sport.

By and large, the Virginia colony residents preferred blood sports. Some of the games were bizarre, like muzzling the sparrow, while others were more pragmatic and practical, like hunting game. But one of the most popular, festive blood sports of Virginia Colony farmers was a tortuous game that required dexterity, horse riding skills, and included the possibility of losing a finger to an angry gander.

Here is how Fischer describes the sport of ganderpulling.

An old male goose was suspended upside-down by his feet from the branch of a tree, and the neck of the bird was lathered with grease. The contestants mounted their horses and galloped past the goose, endeavoring to tear off the bird’s head by brute force as they rode by…. The scene was a lively one — shouting crowds, a swirl of violence, the goose twisting in agony, dismounted riders rolling in the dust, and finally the climax when the carotid artery gave way and the winner rode in triumph through a shower of crimson gore.

Barefoot And Pregnant

Although the roles of men and women were not equal in the Puritan colonies, whenever sexual crimes were committed, like adultery or fornication, the Puritans tended to punish both genders equally, Fischer writes. In Virginia, it was a much different approach.

First, men were allowed, and even expected, to engage in sexual activity with willing, and often, unwilling participants. The punishment for rape was sometimes less than the punishment for petty theft. This was because women, even in the upper, Royal class, were seen as breeders. They were ‘cursed’ with the sin of Eve and their only real purpose was to bear children for their husband (but this did not exclude women from all the hard, manual labor associated with farm work).

This mindset led to several unique laws. Women — and not men — were punished in adultery cases. Although, not a capital crime as in the Puritan colony, adultery was dealt with harshly. A convicted female was either flogged or dragged behind a boat until nearly drowned. The same harshness applied to an unmarried woman bearing a child. This too was a very serious offense in Virginia — but not because it was a sexual sin.

As Fischer writes the offense was punishable,

… because it threatened to place a burden of support on the parish poor rolls, and to deprive a master of work that was thought due him….When an unmarried woman gave birth outside of wedlock, a heavy fine was levied upon her. If the fine could not be paid (which was often the case), she was trussed up like an animal, her dress was ripped open to the waist, and she was publically whipped in the sight of a shouting mob until the blood flowed…

Where They Came From

Most of the immigrants inside the Virginia Colony were transported from the south and west regions of England. About 30 percent were skilled laborers or artisans — compared to 60 percent in the Puritan colony. Women outnumbered men by as much as 6-1 in the early years, but few came of their own free will. Seventy-five percent of the servant-immigrant males were between the ages of 15 and 24. Even younger children were stolen from England and transported to Virginia.

Eventually black slaves would be imported to the area, and the institution of slavery would be born. Some historians argue that slavery took hold here instead of in New England because of the hierarchy that already existed in Virginia. Even poor white settlers benefitted from slavery since it meant there was a class of people ‘beneath’ them in the social hierarchy (I may be poor, but at least I’m not a slave.)

Oddest Thing I Learned: Do You Believe In Magic?

Since many of the underlying beliefs — like a women’s subservient role, blood sport, and religious intolerance (the colony drove out Puritans and Quakers) — I have seen firsthand, none of those customs were shocking to me. But, I did find several customs intriguing. For example, I learned that the southern way of speaking was mostly imported from south England. The colonists’ term for coitus — rogering — I also found a bit unusual, but the oddest thing was the colony’s — rich and poor alike — obsession with magic. They were not concerned, like their neighbors to the north about witches. No one was ever executed in the Virginia colony for witchcraft.

As a colony, people accepted their position on the social ladder because of their belief in luck or magic. This singular core belief went a long way in preventing any significant upward mobility for the indentured class — or any decline in status for the wealthy. The belief minimized any sense of responsibility for determining the direction of their lives or controlling their own fate.

On the whole, they believed that ‘God’ had placed them in their appropriate place on the social ladder.