'CSI Jamestown'

The National Academy of Sciences is playing a role in completing the picture of the hardships and tribulations of Jamestown’s earliest settlers in coping with the environment in establishing the new colony. 

In stories ranging from the Academy’s Proceedings to Science News and the Los Angeles Times, researchers from the College of William & Mary; University of California, Davis; and University of South Florida have shown that their studies of oyster shells found in the well debris in the original James Fort add to the understanding that the worst drought in 800 years exacerbated the inadequate planning and provisioning of the Virginia Company.

The recent excavation of the well, which became a trash pit, provided strong evidence of the drought from shells that the settlers had insufficient fresh drinking water and were succumbing from their use of the then-brackish supply from the James River and the well itself.

These findings are very significant in their support of the first evidence of the drought from tree rings and the reports from the colonists themselves.

See the stories at

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/59777/title/Jamestown_settlers_trash_confirms_hard_times

http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-oysters-jamestown-20100605,0,5931702.story

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2010/05/21/1001052107.abstract?sid=a1221b78-01de-4130-990a-2477bb7a6bb2

June 26: Annual Meeting of Jamestowne Society's First California Company

The Jamestowne Society's First California Company will be holding its annual meeting and elections on June 26, 2010 at the Crossings in Carlsbad (North San Diego County). For more details, reservation information and directions go to:

http://www.jamestownecalifornia.org/june2010.php

Dr. Richard Lederer will present Fascinating Facts About Our Presidents, based on his newly updated book, Presidential Trivia: The Feats, Fates, Families, Foibles, and Firsts of Our American Presidents.

Dr. Lederer is an author, speaker, and teacher best known for his books on word play and the English language and his use of oxymorons. His column, Looking at Language, is syndicated in newspapers and magazines throughout the United States.

In 1998, he was a founding co-host of the weekly radio show, A Way with Words, broadcast by KPBS, San Diego Public Radio, and heard worldwide. He retired from the program in October 2006.

He received a Master of Arts in Teaching at Harvard University and taught English and media at St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire for 27 years He earned a Ph.D in Linguistics from the University of New Hampshire.

He has written more than 30 books, and is the father of Howard Lederer and Annie Duke, both world-renowned poker players, and Katy Lederer, an author and poet. He lives with his wife, Simone van Egeren, in San Diego, California.

As adapted from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jamestown Settlement exhibit explores Powhatan's village

From the Newport News Daily Press:

By Mark St. John Erickson, merickson@dailypress.com | 247-4783

May 22, 2010

The first time Lynn Ripley reached down and coaxed a piece of broken pottery from the dirt at her newly purchased York River farm, she just trying to tidy up the grounds.

But as the years passed, the Gloucester woman turned up so many arrowheads and Native American ceramic shards that she and her husband, Bob, felt compelled to share her carefully cataloged garage of finds with archaeologists.

Nearly 15 years after her original discovery, the first public fruits of Ripley's curiosity — and the couple's sense of stewardship — can be seen in a new Jamestown Settlement exhibit.

Titled "Werowocomoco: Seat of Power," it features more than 60 artifacts from the 10,000-year history of what is now known to have been the home village of Powhatan — the powerful chief who ruled some 30 Indian tribes in coastal Virginia when the first English settlers arrived in 1607.

"Werowocomoco is an interesting project in a number of ways. For one thing, it tells you why you need to do archaeology," curator Tom Davidson says.

"It's turned up a page of Virginia's history that we never would have known about from the historical records. Werowocomoco was important before Powhatan came to power — and he came there to reinforce his authority."

Surveyed for the Department of Historic Resources in 2001 by Gloucester archaeologists David Brown and Thane Harpole, the 50-acre site held so many Native American artifacts that College of William and Mary scientists joined a comprehensive, multi-year dig in 2003.

Their most dramatic find was an extensive series of earthworks that dated to 1,300 A.D. — and which defined the highest part of the site as a ceremonial landscape.

Two parallel trench-and-bank features stretched 600 feet — dividing the rise from the rest of the property — while a smaller U-shaped earthwork enclosed an immense native structure 3 times larger than any other found in coastal Virginia.

"These were not palisades. They had no defensive function," Davidson says. "Instead, they had purely symbolic value — expressing power and authority through monumental architectural features."

Initially believed to be colonial in origin because of their size, the 4-foot wide trenches contained only Indian artifacts — and ultimately were dated to about 1,300 A.D. Their discovery marks the first evidence of such significant Native American earthworks in coastal Virginia.

"We know Powhatan was here — and that Werowocomoco functioned as the capital of his chiefdom. We know John Smith was brought here when he was captured — and that the English settlers came here on at least five different occasions to conduct trade negotiations with Powhatan," Davidson says.

"But this recognizes that there was another story behind the story."

Want to go?

What: "Werowocomoco: Seat of Power"

Where: Jamestown Settlement, off Jamestown Road and the Colonial Parkway, James City County

When: Daily through Nov. 15

Cost: $14 adults, $6.50 kids 6-12

Info: 888-593-4682/www.historyisfun.org

Copyright © 2010, Newport News, Va., Daily Press

Learning More About Jamestowne

Apropos of Karen Kupperman’s observation in San Diego (see our 1/10 post) that new lessons have been learned from the million-plus artifacts from the Jamestown Rediscovery dig, there is new word on their website that they are learning another.

The 400-year old heavily marked slate that they discovered during this year’s excavations of an early well at the center of James Fort (John Smith’s?) appears to offer an extraordinary opportunity for the Rediscovery team to collaborate with the Smithsonian Institution’s Museum Conservation Institute, the Folger Shakespeare Library and interested historians to analyze, read and interpret markings that may have important historical implications for Jamestowne.

There is no telling what picture of life in the days of the earliest settlers that this contemporary written artifact may tell us; it may have a profound effect on what we have believed. It could well add the growing realization that much of the pre-colonial settlement’s documentary history we have been given is tainted.

Read more about this at the January 6 posting by clicking on the headline above, or go to:

http://www.historicjamestowne.org/news/2010_dig_conclusion.php

Historic Jamestowne Dig Season Ends as High-Tech Imagery and Handwriting Analysis Continue to Decipher 400-Year-Old Mystery

First California Company Enjoys an Outstanding Jamestowne Program in San Diego

The Jamestowne Society’s First California Company presented a world-class program at its annual meeting yesterday (January 9) in San Diego with speakers Society Governor Carter Branham Snow Furr, Esq., and renowned scholar Dr. Karen Ordahl Kupperman of New York University (and author of The Jamestowne Project).

Before an estimated audience of sixty (including members of DeAnza Chapter of NSDAR), Governor Furr (who, with his wife, enjoyed a respite from the wintry rigors in Norfolk, VA) reported on the state of the Society.

He observed that there are now 36 Society Companies and 200 new members were enrolled last year. He commented on the excellent presentation at the Society’s recent November meeting in Richmond on the archeological dig at Werowomoco (near Jamestowne on the York River). This was the site of the largest village and seat of the Powhatan chiefdom when the first settlers arrived. He suggested visiting the Society’s web site at http://www.jamestowne.org to see the Power Point slides. They include evidence of the residence of the Powhatan’s supreme Chief, where, among other things, John Smith was held after his capture in late 1607 and Admiral Christopher Newport made first official contact with the Chief.

He briefly discussed the various funds that the Society employs to, among other purposes, provide fellowships for graduate students (one of which helped with support for the Werowomoco dig), maintain the headquarters, and support Preservation Virginia (formerly the APVA).

He announced that the Society’s spring 2010 meeting will be held at the Williamsburg Lodge on May 15, with a presentation by Allain Outlaw, who has been working on the excavation of Argalltown, purported to be “Jamestowne’s first suburb” (NOTE: See our posting of Saturday, September 19, 2009: “New Archeological Discoveries Near Jamestowne”). The annual Company Governors’ Roundtable will again be held the preceding day, May 14 (more details at the Society’s website).

Dr. Kupperman gave a compelling, entertaining and informative review of how and why the English undertook New World colonization efforts, the goals, structure and financing of the settling and development of Jamestowne, and new lessons being learned from the million-plus artifacts from the Jamestown Rediscovery digs that belie much of the settlement’s documented history that we now realize has been tainted.

She detailed how the management and governance policies of the Virginia Company changed over Jamestowne’s first decade of existence, and the evolution from a marginally staffed and militarily structured trading post into England’s first planted colony that would generate its profit from production of tobacco – the world’s first mass-marketed consumer product. She further elaborated on the first use of incentives such as land grants (known as “headrights”) to foster emigration and adventure from an over-populated and financially depressed England. She emphasized how the Virginia Company further changed its policy to encourage the emigration of young, well-qualified women to help maintain the colonial quality of life, permanence and stability. The leadership of the Company finally directed the colony to govern its local affairs (especially taxation) by electing a General Assembly; the first of its kind in America.

She concluded by relating how Jamestowne, unlike being the failure as it is often portrayed, became the model for all subsequent English colonial ventures (beginning with the Mayflower’s landing in Massachusetts), largely based on John Smith’s writings (as perceptive an observer as he was an intrepid explorer). These models were then employed worldwide as the foundation for the British Empire.

First California Governor Joanne Howell Murphy chaired the meeting, and the program was arranged and presented by Lieutenant Governor Ginny Gottlieb. The meeting was held at the Fairbanks Ranch Country Club in Rancho Santa Fe, California. For more information about First California Company, please go to http://www.jamestownecalifornia.org/index.php

If You’re Planning to Attend the January 9th Meeting of the Jamestowne Society’s First California Company,…

… you’re in for a real treat. You’ll be hearing from (in my opinion) the world’s most informed early American colonial and Jamestown scholar, Dr. Karen Ordahl Kupperman.

Her 2007 book, The Jamestown Project, is the most illuminating and comprehensive chronicle of the first seventeen years of the first permanent English colony in America; probably the best of the spate of early Jamestown accounts that came out of its Quatercentenary. She cogently and compellingly presents the many factors and reasons for England’s determination to set it as a foothold for its New World presence. She tells you how it became the model for all English colonial efforts that commenced with the 1620 landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth and the foundation for the legendary British Empire that came about in the following century and a half.

She relates the many archeological and archival findings of the past decade that dismiss with authority the myths of the so-called failure of Jamestown. She goes on to catalog the valiant efforts and determination of its settlers in the face of the mismanagement, overwrought optimism and unrealistic expectations of its aristocratic backers, who failed the many common person “adventurers” who, as either small investors or Ancient Planters who ventured their lives and persons, received little to no support in furthering the dangerous and exasperating venture.

Two major features of The Jamestown Project are the underlying threads of the intercultural clashes of Native Americans with the first wave of what became one of history’s major mass human migrations, and the context for those clashes in the extraordinary environmental stresses of the worst droughts in seven centuries of North American history and the Little Ice Age, when the James River froze over (as did the Thames in London). Both contributed the inability of the settlers and natives alike to provide themselves with adequate food supplies.

Finally, she relates John Smith’s role in shaping not only Jamestown’s survival for the short time he was there, but prescribing the formula for the success of all future British colonies that began with New England (the name that he “…coined…[as] one of the great propaganda strokes of American history.”)

While the order period to get copies of The Jamestown Project at the event has expired, there are a few days to make reservations for this once-in-a-lifetime program (First California Company is accepting reservations until 12/29); go to http://www.jamestownecalifornia.org/jan2010.php

Dr. Karen Ordahl Kupperman will present at Jamestowne Society’s First California Company Annual Meeting and Luncheon on January 9

For its annual meeting on Saturday, January 9, the First California Company of the Jamestowne Society will feature one of the most esteemed scholars on Jamestown and early English settlement in North America, Dr. Karen Ordahl Kupperman, the Silver Professor of History, New York University. She will be joined by honored guest, the Governor of the Jamestowne Society, Carter Branham Snow Furr, Esq., of Norfolk, Virginia.

The meeting and luncheon will be held at Fairbanks Ranch Country Club, 15150 San Dieguito Road, Rancho Santa Fe, CA. Reservations are requested by December 15, and more information can be found at http://www.jamestownecalifornia.org/jan2010.php

According to First California Company’s website, “Several First California Company members heard her speak at the Huntington Library’s conference honoring Jamestown’s 400th anniversary. They agreed that she was a very stimulating, accessible speaker who left her audience with new information and a broader perspective. One said she is the best ever heard on Jamestown. Dr. Kupperman has won many prestigious fellowships, memberships, and awards, including the American Historical Association Prize in Atlantic History in 2000 and the AHA’s award for the best book in American history in 1995.”

From her NYU web page, we see that her research interests include the early modern Atlantic world; colonization; Native American history.

It goes on to say, “Karen Ordahl Kupperman's scholarship focuses on the Atlantic world in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, particularly contacts and ventures between Europe and North America and the Caribbean. One part of her work deals with the ways English promoters and settlers wrote about the American Indians, and the ways that both Indians and English tried to interpret the other and to incorporate unprecedented opportunities and challenges. All parties to new relationships tried to fit the others into their own understanding of human nature and society, and to manipulate unprecedented situations in terms of that understanding.

“Another major theme in her work is the difficulties colonial leaders faced in trying to create orderly, functioning societies in America. Colonial founders discovered that none of their assumptions about how to create societies was realistic in the absence of the kinds of sanctions that shaped behavior in Europe. These difficulties forced them to think deeply about how society actually works, and about what might be distinctive about English society. Innovative solutions emerged and distinctive forms were created as a result.

“A third thread of her research deals with the American environment and its impact on early European migrants. The climate in America was far different from their expectations and this posed intellectual and physical problems. For one thing, America's east coast was much colder than comparable latitudes in western Europe's maritime climate and reporters therefore had to explain why New York, for example, is so cold despite being so far south of London. This problem was exacerbated by the severe Little Ice Age conditions that prevailed in the colonial period, and these conditions transformed life for Indians as well as newcomers. Early theories about the human relationship to the environment began to emerge.

“Kupperman's present research is an attempt to reconstruct the climate of the Little Ice Age in America and to analyze Europeans' attempts to make sense of the climatic phenomena they encountered, especially as they competed with Indian leaders for control of the natural world.”

Her recent books include the following:
The Jamestown Project (Cambridge, MA, 2007)
Roanoke: The Abandoned Colony, 2nd edition (Lanham, MD, 2007)
Indians and English: Facing Off in Early America (Ithaca, 2000)
Consulting Editor, CD-ROM of Calendar of State Papers, Colonial: North America and the West Indies, 1574-1739 (Routledge, 2000)
Major Problems in American Colonial History, 2nd ed. (Boston, 2000, 1st ed. 1992)
America in European Consciousness (Chapel Hill, 1995)
Providence Island, 1630-1641: The Other Puritan Colony (Cambridge, 1993)
Captain John Smith: A Select Edition of His Writings (Chapel Hill, 1988)

For answers to questions and other information, contact the First California Company at
http://www.jamestownecalifornia.org/contact.php