Advice on Supplies

In 1624, Captain John Smith published his General Historie of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles, and included a list "of such necessaries as either private families, or single persons, shall have cause to provide to goe to Virginia, whereby greater numbers may in part conceive the better how to provide for themselves."  In 1630, a similar list of "Provisions needfull for such as intend to plant themselves in New England, for one whole yeare," was published by the Massachusetts Bay "Adventurers" (that is to say, those who had bought into the joint-stock Mass Bay Co.) "with the advice of the Planters."

For EXTRA CREDIT, comment on which of the items on the list made sense to you, and which left you scratching your head (you're encouraged to do some sleuthing to figure out what unfamiliar terms are).  Also, explain how two items (one from each list) help describe the differences or similarities between settlement goals in each colony.

Famine and Failure in French Florida

In 1564, long before any English settlements had been planted on the North American continent, René de Laudonnière and 300 other French settlers, soldiers and craftsmen traveled to “La Florida,” to a settlement near modern-day Jacksonville along the St. Johns River. The group charged with replenishing the fort built by Jean Ribault and to establish a profitable trade with nearby Indian groups. One of those who came along on the journey was Jacques Le Moyne, a cartographer and official “artist” to the expedition. He and a few other French settlers barely escaped with their lives when the Spanish attacked the settlement fifteen months later. This interview, in addition to telling another great adventure story, imagines what Le Moyne’s perspective might have been regarding the Timucua Indians and other nearby groups, as well as the potential value of “failed” colonies—topics we have been examining the last two weeks.

Q: The last we heard of the French settlement in Florida was when Sir John Hawkins returned from his latest West Indian voyage in 1565. He told us that your group was poorly off, hungry and mutinous, but that he refreshed your food coffers and left a ship behind for your use. I’m so glad that Sir John was able to help out fellow Protestant adventurers. But tell us, what brings you back to Europe? Readers have been anxiously awaiting further news of this story.
Jacques Le Moyne: Well, it is sad news indeed that I bear. Our colony is lost.

Q: Oh, no! These are terrible tidings! What happened?
JLM: Well, our tale of woe began even before Hawkins sailed away. We had been left alone for months, and the Indians began to refuse us food, robbing us blind when we tried to barter with the little we still had—axes, knives, mirrors and combs were all they would take in exchange for a small supply of corn and beans. Everyone was sick to death of having to struggle every day just to survive. Some men deserted, and others mutinied. They even imprisoned capitaine Laudonnière in his own fort! When we spotted Sir John’s ships, everyone rejoiced. Finally, we had food, supplies, and a well-built ship at our disposal. The decision was almost unanimous after he made sail for England—we, too, would sail back for France. This was not what we had bargained for.

Q: I can’t imagine the hardship! But did you intend to leave for good?
JLM: No, we had captured some Indian youths, and were planning to bring them back to France with us so they might help us communicate and make stronger alliances with the Timucuan chieftains once we returned. But capitaine Ribault returned with his fleet by the end of the month, and we were once again happy to stay in a land where even if we had to struggle to survive, we were sheltered from the ugliness of war with our Catholic countrymen. But Ribault’s return meant that we suffered a fate worse than death at sea. Our settlement was snatched from us by our old Spanish rivals, our men massacred in a cruel attack led by Admiral Pedro Menéndez de Aviles, the same man who destroyed Charlesfort in the Carolina land (praise God they escaped with their lives).

Q: I heard about those soldiers left behind at Charlesfort! Didn’t they wrestle with alligators crossing the river to find food with the Indians, and then abandon their posts and try to return to France in a rowboat? I heard they resorted to cannibalism during the trans-Atlantic voyage—is it true?
JLM: Well, yes, but… ahem… let me tell you more about that butcher Menéndez. We heard from Ribault’s spies at court that the King of Spain had ordered Menéndez to sail with his guardacosta to Florida to wipe us out. So when we heard that he had set up camp with the Seloy Indians to the south, capitaine Ribault sailed down the coast with 600 of our bravest men, but they were shipwrecked by a great storm, and that evil man Menéndez marched with his men overland through the driving rain, raiding the fort at dawn. Only about 50 of us escaped—myself, capitaine Laudonnière, and some others—but more than 100 colonists were killed, and the women and children captured. To add to the outrage, when the half-starved hurricane survivors returned to the fort and surrendered, Menéndez ordered them executed (all except those who claimed to be Catholic)! He said that he had orders not to leave any heretic alive to challenge the Spanish King’s claim to those western lands.

Q: What despicable villainy! Those Spanish will be the lords of all of us if good Protestant princes cannot challenge them in these rich lands! What is your advice on how to repair the damage?
JLM: Well, thanks to God’s providence not all is lost—I still have my maps and my drawings, which will prove to anyone who can see that there is still much to be gained in America. The Indians told us of a land to the north flowing with gold, a mountainous region they call Apalatchi. I made a map to lead us there the next time, and a drawing of how they draw the gold from riverbeds. Would you like to see?

JLM: (continues) I have high hopes for our next voyage. We have already learned much from les savauges of Florida and are beginning to better learn their Timucua tongue—we have even made some friends among them. Capitaine Laudonnière became friends with one chief of the Saturina, and with Chief Outina, helping them to attack their arch-enemy the Potano Indians. Is this not the way that Cortés finally felled the great Montezuma, through friendship with his enemies? Perhaps we shall best the Spanish yet—it was the Utina who told us of the golden mountains of Apalatchi to the north.

Q: But can those savages, as you yourself call them, be trusted? We have heard many tales of their devil worship and barbaric customs.
JLM: You speak true—before their battles, as is custom, they consult with fearsome and ugly sorcerers, who twist and turn as if possessed by the Devil himself. Their customs are most fearsome, as they demonstrated to us by bashing in the heads of each Indian woman’s first-born child, as they say to be a sacrifice to their leader, who is revered as if a god. It's enough to make a Christian’s blood run cold.

Q: I would say. Is there any Christian who could survive among them?
JLM: Well, actually, there was one Frenchman who somehow managed to make his way into the Indian’s good graces, learning the language to a certain point, even marrying the daughter of a chief! This man, Pierre Gambiè, made a fortune trading with his new relatives. He was a scoundrel, I say, hardly a Christian. But they, too, saw that he was very greedy and one day his own guides killed him, probably stealing his trade goods for themselves. But you know, now that I think about it, he was on to something. It’s not enough to sit in our forts and condemn the Indians—if we really want to profit from our colonies, more men would do well to follow Gambiè’s example and marry Indian women. It seems the only way to make our dreams of trade come to fruition. Perhaps then, too, we can begin to understand the inner workings of the Indian mind. I’ll suggest it to some of my friends, who are trying to gather support for an expedition to search for a passage to China, following some rivers to the north, far away from the reach of the Spanish fleets.

Q: Thank you for your time, and godspeed!

Sources:
- "Le Moyne Engravings." In Exploring Florida: A Social Studies Resource for Students and Teachers. Produced by the Florida Center for Instructional Technology, College of Education, University of South Florida, 2001. http://fcit.usf.edu/florida/photos/native/lemoyne/lemoyne.htm>

- Milanich, Jerald T. Florida Indians and the Invasion from Europe. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1995. Pp. 143-63.

- Worth, John E. The Timucuan Chiefdoms of Spanish Florida. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1998. Available on Google Books, http://books.google.com/books?id=kpJXNqqceacC>

National Humanities Center. "American Beginnings, 1492-1690: Illustrating the New World II." Toolbox Library: Primary Resources in U.S. History and Literature, 2006. http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/amerbegin/exploration/text4/text4read.htm>

The Pamunkey Indians (the group that remained of the once-powerful Powhatan nation) seem to have celebrated the Pocahontas and John Smith myth in the early 20th century. Why would they participate in the retelling of this fictitious story? First, take a look at this chapter on the challenges faced by the Pamunkey during the 19th century, and then consider that in 1932, during the Great Depression, the State of Virginia aided the Pamunkey in establishing a pottery school that could produce items for the tourist trade.

Click here for a short video about the Pamunkey Pottery School and women trying to keep traditional crafts alive.

How to Make Friends and Influence People: Virginia Edition

Our interview today is with John White, a newly-arrived visitor from Her Majesty's colony in Roanoke, Virginia, where he was briefly governor.  He also served as artist and map-maker in residence for Sir Walter Raleigh in 1585, and is the proud grandfather of the first child borne to English parents in the New World. We wanted to talk with him about the topic of how visitors like him tried to make friends in Virginia, and how he posed his Indian subjects for the watercolors he was commissioned to complete on his first voyage.

Q. Just what did you think you would find during your travels?  How did you prepare to meet the dark savages of the New World?
White: Well, I admit to some trepidation, but I tried not to think of them as all that different from you and I--aren't we all God's creatures?  I had several enlightening conversations with the linguist and scientist Mr. (Thomas) Hariot on our voyage over, and he told me that the science of their skin color is on account of nothing more than their different humors, and I think it may be true--their children grow more tawny over the years.  I also observed that the colors added by the juice of walnuts or other dyes colors their skin so much more than the fair and ruddy complexions common among the English.
Q. Ah, but their maidens mayn't be as fair, or did you find them so?  Doubtless you found their nakedness alluring...
JW: On the contrary: I found their women to be both modest and admirable--you can see here in these two watercolors. My daughter said she was surprised to see "so much presentment of Civility" among them. Despite appearing quite naked by our English standards (at least above the waist, I beg pardon for titillating some of your readers), these women had a modest carriage--not at all lewd as the trollops here (the only we see who bare their breasts in like fashion). I did my best to pose my subjects to show that modesty natural to all women of good comportment.

We also noted that those maidens yet unmarried are marked as such by the dressing of their hair and (as I have heard) by wearing different caps than those of the married women and girls.  The wearing of the hair, as here, tells us much about social rank and age.  But I understand the prejudice here against nakedness, which fills us with shame since the Fall of Adam and Eve.  Their defenses are rather weak, it is true, but perhaps we might improve our English textile manufactures by clothing these poor wretches.  It is a point my friend Mr. Hakluyt has raised in his promotions of these colonies to the Queen.
Q. Are you not afraid to leave your own daughter and friends in Roanoke, knowing they are like to be influenced by the bad habits of their neighbors the Indians?
JW: I confess to some fears.  I found it more shocking that the men laze about all day, some fishing or doing some other light labor.  To me, it seems they pretend to be aristocrats with a day at fox-hunting. Meanwhile, they allow women to work as drudges in building their homes and moving them, and in planting and harvesting from the fields.  It seems as though if their women wished it, they could topple their natural masters, who have become in their idleness and taste for luxury, as our young men here in England, quite unworthy of the title of man. (Have you SEEN the wigs they are wearing on the streets of London today?)  But on the whole, the Indian men, especially those of some authority, are quite noble in their body and gestures.  For effect, I drew one warrior in the same posture as I might any English nobleman sure of his bearing.
 
I trust that our friends amongst the Indians will duly protect our small band of strangers among them, although I fear that the Devil and their conjurers may make evil moves to our God-fearing Englishmen. Their wild dances and feasts do perturb me and remind me of the Devil's power over those parts.

Q. And where are you off to next, brave sir?
JW: Back to Virginia, to bounce my granddaughter on my knee and bring supplies to those we left behind.  With Her Majesty's quarrel with the Spanish, we have been unable to set sail these three years hence. We must pray that English character will prevail against the temptations of the Evil One, although I have seen that without a strong assumption of authority, the English sense of himself as separate and set aside by God might fall away.

Postscript: Raleigh's men have returned from Virginia sooner than it was expected, and it is said that the colonists planted in Roanoke have vanished--White himself is unavailable for comment, but Mr. Hacluyt tells us the poor man could only spend one day searching for his daughter, given badly needed repairs to their ship, and that his last words in a letter described his voyage as "luckless" and "sinister." 

Sources:
"John White Drawings/Theodore de Bry Engravings" on Virtual Jamestown.
Karen Ordahl Kupperman, "Presentment of Civility: English Reading of American Self-Presentation in the Early Years of Colonization," William & Mary Quarterly, 54, no. 1 (1997): 193-228.
Patricia Seed, "Gendering Native Americans: Hunters as Anglo-America's Partial Fiction," Ch. 3 in American Pentimento: The Invention of Indians and the Pursuit of Riches (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2001).
Abigail Tucker, "Sketching the Earliest Views of the New World," Smithsonian Magazine (December 2008).

Back from the Spanish Inquisition

Our first interview is with Job Hortop, one of the sailors left behind in Mexico by Sir John Hawkins after his near-fatal battle with the Spanish at Veracruz in 1568. Miraculously, Hortop survived the ordeal, including a punishing trek across the wilderness to the City of Mexico, two years as a captive of the Spanish who resided there, not to mention prosecution by the Inquisition in Seville, after which served ten years in the galleys and was facing seven more years of labor to pay for his release. We catch up with Job in 1591 as he is ready to release the book based on his adventures, The Travailes of an Englishman.

Q: Tell us Job, how old were you when you first joined Hawkin's crew?
JH: Well, I was 15 years old, but I didn't join so much join as was made to serve--young guys like me wandering about the ports got shipped off like that pretty often. But I didn't mind too much back then--it was an opportunity. I had some experience as an apprentice powder-maker and being a gunner for Capt. Hawkins meant I could offer a lot of "bang" and maybe make a few "bucks." I'm sorry to say, though, that I'm as poor as the day I first left England--unless this book saves my skin.

Q: What happened to all your dreams? We know Hawkins had a lot of successes against the Spanish in the Indies... until Veracruz.
JH: Yes, we had made some good money trading Negro slaves to the Spanish (though of course the King doesn't allow his subjects to trade with us, so we were always dodging Spanish warships). But in our last voyage, Capt. Hawkins lost all his fleet, except for the Minion, which you can imagine was overcrowded with all us sailors wanting to get home and out of enemy territory. But there wasn't a chance all of us would make it in a leaky boat, so myself and about a hundred men decided it would be better to go ashore and throw ourselves on the mercy of the Spanish. Jail would be better than a watery grave.

Q: Did the Spanish come to arrest you right away? Or were you captured by the Indan savages? Please give our readers a sneak peek on what you had to endure in those wild parts.
JH: Well, we had to give up nearly all our clothes to the Indians we met--it seemed the thing they wanted most of us (we can't be certain, but that's what one of our men who spoke a bit of Spanish thought they wanted). But then they sent us in canoes to Mexico, an amazing city with streets of water and earthquakes every year. At first the Spanish treated us fine, on account of some of our men had been raised Catholic and knew their prayers in Latin, and so the priests and the noblemen told their vice-king that he should do us no harm. But they sent a bunch of us lower sort to card wool with the Indian slaves in Tlatlcoco, and some of us put up such a fuss that they sent us back to Mexico. On the journey to Mexico and back to Spain we saw many wonders and mysterious creatures, which I will omit so that readers may buy my book.


Q: So when you got back to Spain, then what?
JH: Well, we were brought to the Inquisition in Seville and had to answer many questions about our religion. At the end of it all, one year later, they brought us all out into the main square and made us all wear matching coats and carry candles in procession. The people wondered, and gazed upon us, some pitying our cases, others saying "Burn those heretics." But burnings are only for those who were stupid enough to say they'd be Protestants 'till they died. My mate John and I were no bloody Catholics, but we weren't high-born, either, so we went along with what they told us to do and were sent to the galleys to row the King of Spain's ships, like drudges.

Q: The Spanish Inquisition is horribly cruel, I hear. Tell us about the tortures and punishments you endured in prison.
JH: Well, I don't really want to talk about it--but really, life there was better than it was in the galleys. You just go along with what they say, talk about how you were raised and where you went to church and what's going on with the Queen (some English sailors heard the Spanish call her the devil's spawn) and then you go back to your cell. But you still get three meals a day, and no work, just sitting around jawing with your cellmates (if they've given you one) and try to figure out what the Spanish guy they've put you with is going to say when he gets called up to talk with the Inquisitor.

Q: Sounds like you're not very committed to your religion--and you call yourself a good Englishman!
JH: (panicked) Hey, the Queen doesn't read this magazine, does she? I'm really hoping to get some kind of reward for my 23 years out there. Really, it's not fair--this guy Tomson, another one taken up by the Inqusition, he got out of prison after 7 months, only had to wear this funny getup for two more years. But then he gets in with one of those English merchants in Seville, and what happens, he married a rich Spanish lady! Life just isn't fair. I guess my name is Job, I've got to be long-suffering like he was, but it's rough--I'm completely broke! But hopefully not for long... go buy my book, and keep your fingers crossed that the Queen reads it, too!

Sources:
- Frank Aydellote, "Elizabethan Seamen in Mexico and Ports of the Spanish Main," The American Historical Review 48,1 (1942): 1-19.
- J[ob] H[ortop], The Travailes of an Englishman. Containing his sundrie Calamities indured by the space of twentie and odd yeres in his absence from his native Country... (London, 1591). Available from the FAU library database, Early English Books Online, http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?ctx_ver=Z39.88-2003&res_id=xri:eebo&rft_id=xri:eebo:citation:99851433