Historical Triangle - Jamestown

Memorial Church at old Ft. in Jamestown

Today we are heading out to Jamestown, with our first stop being at historical Jamestown where three major themes of American History had their beginnings -English colonization, growth of representative government, and questions concerning African Americans, slavery and American Indians.

George & John Smith

This story began in December, 1606, when ships carrying 104 men and boys left London, a voyage that took five months, and anchored in the James River to establish the colony of Virginia, with Jamestown as its capital under a charter granted by James I to the Virginia Company of London. For the Virginia Company, this was a business venture to exploit Virginia's natural resources. Virginia at this time, encompassed an area that today stretches from Maine to North Carolina.

The colonists described Virginia an excellent place to live, rich in gold and copper, wood, sassafras, and pearls. All the things the Virginia Company hoped to market. The Powhatan Indians welcomed them and trade was immediately set up between thse colonists and the Powhatans. A triangle fort was built to protect them from Indian attack as well as possible attacks from the Spanish.

In 1608, Pocahontas, daughter of the chief of the Powhatans, made regular and frequent visits to Jamestown. Captain John Smith believed she saved his life several times during the colony's first years.

Statue of Pocahontas (the one on the left)

During the winter of 1609, the Powhatans became disenchanted with the colonists and felt they were infringing on too much of their land. They waged a war and the colonists were afraid to come outside the fort to hunt for food for fear of being murdered by the Indians. They began starving and at the time that Lord de la War arrived with supplies and new settlers in 1610, only 90 of the colonists have survived.

In 1613, Captain Argall kidnapped Pocahontas and brought her to Jamestown. While a hostage, she received lessons in Christianity, converted and was baptized. Her marriage to John Rolf in 1614 helped to establish peaceful relations once again with the Powhatans. In 1614, John Rolf began cultivating tobacco plants and became very successful. Pocahontas, Rolfe and their infant son, Thomas, visited England in 1616. The Virginia Company felt that this would show the English nobility how successful the colony had been in helping to spread Christianity to the Indians. Pocahontas died on March 21, 1617 and was buried in Gravesend, England.

In 1619, three very important things happened. Elected burgesses met in the church at Jamestown - the beginning of representative government in the western hemisphere. Secondly, Africans arrived and are traded to the colonists, and thirdly, 90 unmarried women arrive and though men outnumbered women by three to one, in time family life took root.

We took the walking tour of the historic town site which included Old Town and New Town. In the Old Town section was the remains of the fort, the 17th century church tower and Memorial Church. Currently, digging is still going on for artifacts and the sections of log walls stand above archaeological remains of the original palisades. The walls enclosed about one acre in a triangular shaped fortification. There is also an Archaearium where you can see artifacts that tell the story of James Fort. In New Town, brick replicas mark the excavated foundations of the expanded settlement.

Archaeology site at original fort

Having spent all morning here, we decided to travel about a mile down the road to the glass house where artisans demonstrate the craft of 17th century glassblowing. Glassblowing was one of Virginia's first industries, started in 1608 by German and Polish craftsmen. Unfortunately, it was never much of a success due to illness and accidents.

Since 2007 is the 400 year anniversary of the beginning of Jamestown, the glassblowers were making glass bottles to commemorate the event. Glass consists of 60% sand, 15% potash, 15% soda ash, and 10% lime. The natural color of most glass is green because most sand contains iron oxide or rust in it naturally. To change the color, a small amount of metal must be added, e.g. , manganese makes clear, carbon makes brown, tin makes white, cobalt makes blue, silver makes yellow and copper or gold makes red glass. Today the glassblowers use natural gas to melt the sand mixture at 2350 degrees in 7 hours. In 1608, hardwoods were used and it took about two weeks to achieve a hot enough heat to melt the sand mixture.

Our final leg of this journey was to visit Jamestown Settlement which is a living history museum offering a wide range of activities, demonstrations and tours. They had a wonderful 30 minute movie about the colony's first two decades. They also had a fantastic museum, which we didn't get a chance to go thru due to running out of time. Definitely a place to come back too sometime. In addition to this, there was a full scale recreation of the James Fort as they assumed it would have looked, complete with wattle-and-daub houses with thatched roofs. Wattle-and-daub is many thin sticks with mud heavily caked between them.

We saw a Powhatan Indian Village with reed huts and got a glimpse into the daily life of the Powhatans. Yes, we did learn something - how to tan a hide. First you stretch it out in the sun and tediously scrape all the fur off with a clam shell. Once that is done, you use the brains from the animal and mix it with bear grease and let the hide ferment to make it soft and pliable. Finally it is hung in the hut and allowed to cure from the smoke pit, which will then give it the wonderful tan color that we are used to seeing. (Wal-mart seems a lot easier.)

Finally, there were replicas of the three ships, Susan Constant, Godspeed, and Discovery that brought the colonists to Jamestown.

By 4:00 p.m, we were definitely dragging and had more information than we ever thought we could retain so we headed for home. Hope you enjoyed our trip thru history. One final thought, though Jamestown never became the "great city" John Smith envisioned in 1608, this small colonial settlement did enable England to establish a permanent presence in North America and plant a culture that would shape a nation!

Watch for the next blog, we are off to Norfolk and Virginia Beach - George has found a place that bakes pound cakes and we are planning on taking a tour! Sounds pretty yummy!