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Jamestown & the Starving Times: What the Disney's Movie Didn't Show
56 Plays3 months ago
This week's episode takes us back to the early 1600s as we explore the grim realities faced by the Jamestown settlers during the infamous 'Starving Time.' In this episode, Grace Ardis sheds light on the struggles, survival tactics, and the stark contrast between myth and reality in one of America's first colonies. Discover the untold stories of hardship and resilience that shaped the course of history.
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Transcript
Challenging the Pocahontas Narrative
00:00:16
Speaker
Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of Harlots and Horses. I am your host, Grace Artis. So today's episode, if I'm being completely honest, I have no idea how I stumbled across it I just know that one day I knew about it.
00:00:35
Speaker
So that's how we're getting into it.
Disney vs. Reality of Jamestown
00:00:37
Speaker
So this episode is essentially proving the whole movie Pocahontas wrong in many ways. I mean, gonna lie. I was obsessed with the movie Pocahontas when I was a child. She was one of my favorite Disney princesses.
00:00:51
Speaker
Colors of the Wind. um hit so hard. Grandmother Willow established my love of willow trees. Still to this day, I want to be buried under a willow tree. Can't explain it, but that's what it is.
00:01:04
Speaker
But anyways, besides the whole fact that Pocahontas was not a grown adult and had a whole blown love affair with John Smith, and besides the fact that John Smith was not ah hot man with blonde hair.
00:01:19
Speaker
Besides that whole romanticized version of the story Pocahontas, the whole story of Jamestown was not the cute little Disney picturesque version that happened.
00:01:30
Speaker
What actually happened was a lot more tragic and should I say a lot more cannibalistic in nature. And so if that gives anything away, this episode will be focusing on the starving times that happened.
00:01:46
Speaker
in Jamestown. Specifically the period between 1609 and 1610. And I get why Disney did not do a whole movie on these starving times.
Episode Energy and Enthusiasm
00:02:01
Speaker
That would have been a really depressing movie and i don't think it would have gotten the PG or even G rating. It probably would have gotten rated R and would have never made it to theaters and Don't think you can make any songs or woodland creatures come to that because they were pretty much all eaten by the settlers.
00:02:21
Speaker
So without further ado, let's dive into this episode. I know that was a wild intro, but you know, we're just, we're just going with it. We're just going with it today. not going to lie. I am on my fifth cup of coffee.
00:02:33
Speaker
It is 1040 at night. And the new iced coffee brand I got has like 300 milligrams of caffeine in it. So we're in for a ride.
00:02:44
Speaker
It's a ride. Just like this episode today. so
Key Figures: John Smith & George Percy
00:02:48
Speaker
Let's go. So we are going back all the way to the year 1607 when the colony of Jamestown was founded. And I do want to preface this whole episode by saying historians, specifically when it comes to Jamestown in the starving period, there is still a lot of debate over whether or not actual cannibalism did happen with within the settlers.
00:03:13
Speaker
I'll dive into that later, but I do just want preference that so you can keep it in mind. Now, in order to understand the starving period, the starving time, we do have to understand what led up to it in the events prior that made the starving time just so drastic. And to do that, we have to introduce pretty much two very key characters to start it all off. And just kind of with all these stories that I have been telling and with history itself.
00:03:43
Speaker
And once again, I always, cracks me up when people told me that like... History's so boring. Because it's not. It's so not boring because you have a cast of characters who just always love to talk shit and, you know, outdo each other and enter enter in the picture.
00:04:02
Speaker
olde John Smith, who, like I said, was not a blonde baddie. He was actually more so a, um... kind of like brunette guy, big old beard and mustache. So he's not clean shaven. He was our main, one of our main personas in this. And then we also have George Percy.
00:04:22
Speaker
So those are gonna kind of be our two main focal people of these events and you'll see why because they constantly are pitted against each other and they are constantly trying to show why each other is wrong and why they're better than each other and we'll get to that later but a little bit background on who they are so John Smith, you know, he arrived in Jamestown, 1607. He's one of the first people there with the original 100. So he was a human far farmer's son. he was a mariner and soldier.
00:04:56
Speaker
He was often at odds with the less experienced and higher born colleagues. The reason why we know so much about Jamestown and kind of the series of events that happened and a lot about Virginia is because he did publish from 1608 to 1631. He did publish a lot of works in various accounts of what went down.
Settling Jamestown: Early Interactions
00:05:22
Speaker
And now, it is very, very important to note in these accounts and in his own accounts, which you can find all over the internet, I believe one of the most popular um is, and this one is on one of my favorite websites, Internet Archive. It's Travels and Works of Captain John Smith.
00:05:43
Speaker
That is essentially kind of what Heavily I'm referencing and what a lot of the other historians work reference as well. It is very important to note, this is all coming from John Smith himself. The, say, kind of the original podcast, bro, if I had to put it in, like, layman's terms of why everything he is doing is so great and why he is the best of the best, if you will.
00:06:13
Speaker
and kind of like why Jamestown floundered without him there and why it succeeded when he was there. So just a little things to keep in mind. So that's John Smith. Then we have George Percy. So he also arrived in Jamestown in 1607.
00:06:30
Speaker
Kind of a little bit different than John Smith. You know, he was the son of an Earl of Northumberland. oh He was one of the higher ranking of the colonists there on the social scale.
00:06:41
Speaker
He served as a standing governor during the starving period. um and then he wrote one of the accounts of of the voyage there. and then he also wrote an account of what actually happened during the starving period, which i will reference as well later on.
00:06:58
Speaker
Now, a little bit of going on kind of moving on in like chronological orders. So the 104 English gentlemen, artisans, laborers, and servants, they were all seeking a place to settle in the name of King James. And more important, they were really looking to reap a profit for investors of the Virginia Company. Now, Virginia so far was living up to all of their expectations. It looked very
First Violent Encounters
00:07:27
Speaker
abundant. It was looking like a good place for a permanent English colony. And it was also looking like a place to, you know, they were gonna be able to find gold eventually. They were going to be able to maybe one day
00:07:39
Speaker
seek to find a route to the Orient, which remember this is still part of the age of exploration. They still had the original goal of converting the indigenous people to Christianity. These men were given strict instructions by the Virginia Company when they got there. they were told that they had to settle at least 100 miles from the ocean in a place where the major river narrowed that offered defensive positions on either side of the river from attacking ships.
00:08:11
Speaker
Now, the three ships that were carrying these men, they had made it as far as like stiff... That was in English. As far as 65 miles into the river, but they had found like nothing uninhabitable.
00:08:25
Speaker
And they were given strict instructions by the Virginia Company as well to kind of not engage with the indigenous people there, not wanting to cause any trouble. So none of the places they had found were uninhabited with the right requirements. So the colonists turned back towards the bay.
00:08:41
Speaker
They found, eventually they found Jamestown. It was uninhabited, uninhabited. Although it was only 35 miles from the ocean, so the Spanish could launch an attack.
00:08:53
Speaker
They ultimately decided, you know, it still was defensible because it had a narrow neck. So it was able to be guarded from assault and it was kind of hidden. at a bend in the river so they could make a fort of it and you know at this point was kind of like all they had when they saw jamestown island captain john smith deemed it a very fit place to erect a great city so now every man was put to work so they were cutting down trees pitching tents
00:09:23
Speaker
providing clapboard to relay the ships. And now the men were making gardens, some nets, and the council was now put together to try and design the fort. No exercise at arms or fortification, but kind of putting up now like a brush fort.
00:09:40
Speaker
So the outlies of a ga half moon fort. Now the men were doing exactly what they needed to do for survival. So they were the clearing the land, establishing shelter, and they were preparing to live off of their own gardens and the native fish. And they were fortifying themselves despite instructions not to from the Virginia Company out of fear that it would upset the indigenous people.
00:10:08
Speaker
Percy also writes that they were working to establish military guard of the time to watch and
Disease, Starvation, and Leadership
00:10:14
Speaker
ward and protect them. This was wisely done because soon the settlers were challenged by Pah- ah
00:10:31
Speaker
that was the nearest village. So this happened of May 27th. Captain Gabriel Archer, he described the first battle as a very furious assault of the fort and some 200 of the Paspae warriors They came up and they shot through the tents. The battle endured for about over an ah an hour. And hurting eleven men me reported 17 casualties. So Edward Wingfield, who was one of the men who led the 104 men to Jamestown, he knew that the men would need more than their beards and canvas and brush to stay alive. So he actually ordered that the settlement be immediately and seriously fortified.
00:11:21
Speaker
So now the camp was to be enclosed with logs set side by side in the ground. So this is kind of like when you think of a fort, this is like the classic fort that you think of. So with the big pointy logs that go in. But kind of when you're imagining Pocahontas, once again, to reference Pocahontas, this is when they're kind of like building the fort. This is the fort in that they're building. And the cannons were mounted. and this activity kind of marks the beginning of James' fort. And only 19 days they got it accomplished.
00:11:57
Speaker
And on June 15th, according to Percy, they had built and finished out the fort. Now, kind of in accordance with what will continue to happen where Jamestown.
00:12:09
Speaker
Something really good will happen and then something bad will happen. And then something good will happen and then something bad will happen. So, yay! Something good happened!
00:12:20
Speaker
They built the it Something bad will happen within 10 days, according to Percy. I should not laugh at this. Okay. So...
00:12:31
Speaker
according to Percy, within 10 days. So June 15th, finished the fort. By June 25th, scarcely 10 among them could either go or stand because they were facing extreme weakness or sickness.
00:12:44
Speaker
When they the ships departed, they only had about half a pint of wheat and as much barley for a man a day. And of that of that supply, there was pretty much, he said, as many worms as grains.
00:13:00
Speaker
Their water was River water, so was not the best in quality. And the lodgings were essentially just like in and the air, like so they were sleeping outside. And because that they were so strained and bruised that the heat made them miserable. So in the days that followed, he also says that 24 colonists died following it.
00:13:22
Speaker
And the men were destroyed by cruel diseases such as swelling, fluxes, which is, if I remember correctly, it's like diarrhea and throwing up and vomiting. Pretty much everything just leaving your body, not not being able to hold anything down. And burning fevers, wars, and some departed suddenly.
00:13:42
Speaker
But for the most part, they died by mere famine. Then, according to John Smith, 67 were dead by September. Luckily, of the men that who were sick a lot were able to recover by the Surgeon General Thomas Walton, but a lot didn't get done because all of them were sick. So while they were able to get everything done in the fort by June 15th, pretty much that was it after that because everyone was so sick, nothing else got done. So now essentially if like Smith, John Smith corrections are to be trusted, they're only down to 37, which isn't great.
00:14:23
Speaker
That's less than half. That's like a fourth. They're down to like a fourth of their men. so It was at this point that Captain John Smith completely took over as the colony manager. The reason that he took over, and this was in September of 1607, he took over because President Wingfield, who was the one who ordered the fortification of the camp, he was kind of kicked out because he was impeached, because he was said to have been allegedly hoarding food.
00:14:56
Speaker
which will be an ongoing trend in Jamestown. So John Smith oversaw the building of some thatched houses. And then in the fall of 1607, number of emissaries from from James River Native American tribes, they expressed intentions of peace. And every four or five days, Pocahontas, who is the great chief Pahawton's daughter, who had befriended Smith, brought the men provisions. And this is important to keep in mind.
00:15:25
Speaker
This is all coming from the word of John Smith alone and the man loves to brag. So whether or not this is like all he said because he had actually like wooed and won these men over with his own will, who knows? Or if it came from power and might, we don't know.
00:15:42
Speaker
This is all coming from the word of John Smith, the man who loves to brag and talk good about himself and to make himself seem like hot shit. That's all I'm gonna say. So now flash forward to January So a supply ship and 100 freshmen arrived from England.
00:16:02
Speaker
Great! We love another high. But remember with Jamestown, when a high comes, a low comes after. so yay, we got men and we got food. oh A fire broke out and it it either seriously damaged or it completely destroyed the fort.
00:16:19
Speaker
And then on top of the fire, the winter of 1607 was one of extreme frost. And then the copper, which was one of the colonists' main means of exchange for food with the Native Americans, it was kind of due to the crews and ships.
00:16:38
Speaker
um It had been rendered almost worthless by the crew members of the time. So that winter saw a lot of deaths in which John Smith reports more than half of the settlers died.
00:16:52
Speaker
But despite that, John Smith reports that a rebuilding of Jamestown happened, which included a repairing of the partially burned, including a rebuilding of the like the tree wall that was burned down.
Smith's Departure and Leadership Struggles
00:17:10
Speaker
and then the building if the first substantial church and the building of a stove, which they refer to as the kitchen. Now comes the summer and the summer is when Smith started carrying on his voyages of discovery of Virginia's waterways away from Jamestown because Smith, John Smith was like, okay, I feel good enough to like leave you guys in good hands. The fort is back in order. It has a good kitchen. The fort walls have been rebuilt. You guys have.
00:17:39
Speaker
a church everything should be fine but when john smith came back he saw that everything was essentially in decay and disarray everyone was sick some people were lame some people were bruised and they were all and he said in his exact words He found the town in decay and all the people were all sick, the rest some lame, some bruised, all unable to do anything but complain, many dead, the harvest rotting and nothing done. So John Smith was like, I can't literally leave you guys alone for five seconds to do anything without the whole town falling into Saray. So come September 1608, the council and company elected Smith president and under his new leadership, on further construction happened. They redesigned the fort. Smith redesigned, restored discipline and disorganized the militia. And the town seemed to prosper under Captain John Smith's strict leadership. Smith
00:18:39
Speaker
thought he found enough unspoiled food in the store to make it to a full harvest and he instituted and this is what is very like well known about and one of the things that is very known about john smith and his legacy is the must work or no food policy he put in place to make sure that the laziness wouldn't happen again and to ensure that like there would be food come winter that essentially to these men if you want food, you have to work.
00:19:12
Speaker
There's no more that like, just sit around and it will come to you, which kind of goes to the myth of America and the myth of Virginia that was floating around of like, because there's so much in abundance, you don't have to work.
00:19:26
Speaker
john so John Smith was working against that, saying like, no, you have to put into the work. It won't just come to you. So in three months that like, must-worker no-food policy. What it produced was tar, pitch, soap, ashes. Glass was being made.
00:19:42
Speaker
They were starting to get good quality water again. and they built 20 houses. They recovered the church. They were working with nets, providing wares for fishing, and they built a block house.
00:19:54
Speaker
And all of this was going really good. But remember, with good comes bad. Because in the summer of 1609, they didn't store the corn properly, so it began to rot.
00:20:06
Speaker
The men were also like catching lots of nutritious sturgeon, which Smith said could be devoured more than can be devoured by dog or man. So are they were catching a lot. They transformed it into bread. And they were also harvesting a lot of wild staples, such as roots and fruits.
00:20:23
Speaker
and Smith said they lived very well. That is until seven of a nine ship supply came in from England to revitalize colony. One of those ships also brought in certain gentlemen who didn't want Smith in power anymore. And this is all according to Smith. Now it's autumn.
00:20:42
Speaker
Things are starting to get cooler. Smith, John Smith, happened to get a life-threatening injury by men who wanted to kill him from a wound to his thigh that he was caused it that was caused by as he put it how this happened I'm still I don't understand the logistics of it but if someone accidentally setting fire his powder bag I was in his lap so he had to return to England seeing there was like no one in there who could cure him so much to his disarray he had to put George Percy in charge Now, according to John Smith, and he likes to make this abundantly clear, according to John Smith in his general histories, he likes to say that he left everything as well as he could have left it, that everything was good.
00:21:30
Speaker
Like he left it like there should have been nothing wrong. And he wanted to make his like tenure as president look as positive as possible. So he said he left the men with...
Starving Times: Dire Conditions
00:21:40
Speaker
10 weeks provision in the store.
00:21:42
Speaker
He left them with 24 pieces of ordnance, 300 muskets, snap houses, fire locks, shot powder, match sufficient, currents, pikes, swords, morons, helmets, more than men, 100 well-trained and expert soldiers for fishing, tools of all sorts for work,
00:22:02
Speaker
apparel to supplier once six mares and a horse five to six hundred swine some goats some sheep jamestown was strongly pallidisto'd contained more than fifty or sixty houses he also did say that he was forced to leave behind the seeds of destruction because the people that he left there were poor gentlemen, tradesmen, serving men, libertines who were 10 times more fit to spoil a commonwealth than either to begin one or but help to maintain one. So essentially he was saying, whatever happened, it was not my fault.
00:22:40
Speaker
I did all that I could do. left it. Great. This is what how I left it. Whoever ruined it, it's all their fault. A messy man. Now, the fall of 1609 to 1610, and the winter would become known as the starving time.
00:22:57
Speaker
It was a perfect storm. The conditions were a perfect storm for this to happen because there was inadequate planning, there was overpopulation, there was faltering local leadership. The men did not like each other. that's apparent. and These men liked each other.
00:23:13
Speaker
there was desertion, there were hostile virginian indigenous people, and a drought came into play. And from the onset, since they landed there,
00:23:26
Speaker
The colony faced a food deficit. Their whole plan, once they got there, like from when they landed, they're like, oh, we're just going to depend on the local people for food.
00:23:39
Speaker
And who's, and I know we're looking on this hindsight is 2020, but
00:23:47
Speaker
It's like, you can't go can't camping and your whole plan when you go camping for food is like, oh, I'm just gonna depend on someone. That's like, I'm gonna go camping and I'm gonna just depend on my friend the whole time for food. Like, that's just not a great idea.
00:24:06
Speaker
So so starting from 1607, the colonists could never overcome the original food shortage on their own. From the first summer, they were constantly relying on food supply from the Native Americans and reliance on...
00:24:28
Speaker
The Native Americans was kind of the was the plan from the beginning. Their plan was like, you know, we're just going to trade for food, which I can understand that. We're going be trading iron tools and copper for the Indians' corn.
00:24:41
Speaker
But in reality, Smith, John Smith was like, we're not going to trade. We're just going to take it by force. um there once again gonna reference pocahontas here there was no woeful singing there was no colors of the wind there was no magical moment hi the the waterfall where they suddenly spoke the same language of love and they exchanged food no was pure force it was pure force So, and then come like August 1609. So the ships that were coming in to help bring them like, you know, new food and like replenish their storage. They brought spoiled food supplies.
00:25:25
Speaker
So that already didn't help. And then they're bringing in three, two to 300 more people, women and children and men. But that's more mouths to feed. And Percy, just like Smith said, Percy emphatically refers to them as unruly galleons and swarms of ideal persons who have no means of labor to relieve their misery and do likewise swarm in lewd and naughty practices.
00:25:58
Speaker
And so in a matter of days, the new arrivals proceeded to devour what little corn and food supplies the colonists before them had prepared and had planted.
00:26:09
Speaker
So once again, they're like, already out of food. What little food they had saved, it's pretty much gone. So they' seeing this was like, Fuck, fuck, fuck. We're about to enter winter. We don't really have any food in storage. Guess we have to trade with the Indians. Well, our main main guy who did all of the trading before, he's gone.
00:26:33
Speaker
I guess we're going to have to do it on our own. That went... horribly horribly so first he sent captain john ratliff to the powhatans powhatans to procure the corn and goods yeah the native americans were having none of that shit they i think they kind of finally just like snapped and the percy in his account I- hold on.
00:27:01
Speaker
and This is just a lot. Okay. George Percy sent Captain Ratliff to kind of like negotiate on his behalf to the Powhatan tribe. It was a mistake because in his account he says Captain Ratliff had kept Powhatan's sons and daughters upon his ship.
00:27:23
Speaker
Did not treat them right. The Powhatan king in found out about this, didn't like it. Obvious reasons. So when Ratliff came to negotiate.
00:27:34
Speaker
He took Ratliff and then essentially tortured him in the means
Cannibalism Narratives and Debates
00:27:40
Speaker
of... He bound him into a tree naked with a fire before him and then a woman with like muscle shells scraped the flesh from his bones and then threw the...
00:27:54
Speaker
through the flesh and to the fire. And then he, once that was done, then he moved onto his face. And then that is how Ratliff perished. So they weren't getting food that way.
00:28:05
Speaker
Next, Percy sent Captain West to the Potomac with about 36 men to trade for maize and grain. They had loaded their boat sufficiently. They were coming back, but on their way back, they essentially said,
00:28:24
Speaker
Bye! We're not coming back to Jamestown. And they set course for England. And they left the settlers of Jamestown in misery. And Captain West and his men started decided that they were going to go England and start pirating in the seas and try their luck that way.
00:28:41
Speaker
Two of the ways that he tried to negotiate and get grain didn't work. one of his men was One of his captains was killed and all the men with him executed. The other took the grain and then left him.
00:28:54
Speaker
So then another major cause for the starving time that was beyond human control was drought. So one of the staples in which Jamestown colonists rely upon was sturgeon. And that sturgeon is found heavily in that river that runs along the Jamestown colony and that river is very brackish, which essentially means where freshwater and saltwater collide.
00:29:18
Speaker
And that is very heavily dependent upon rainfall. And that is essentially known in the zone where it forms is a salt ledge. And essentially it can move down river during rainy periods and up river during drought.
00:29:34
Speaker
And so where that relies upon is where the fish are going to be, which is really big.
00:29:42
Speaker
depending on the fish. So as records state that the period between 1606 and 1613 was one of the driest periods in Virginia and Smith reported that the sturgeon failed to appear in the fall of 1609 with the drought probably being the reason and the drought also accounts for the meager Indian corn crop so not only do they not have fish they also do not have corn so all of this accumulates
00:30:15
Speaker
So they don't have corn, they don't have fish. They have a influx of colonists who ate all of their supplies. They tried to get and trade for means of supplies and it's all gone.
00:30:27
Speaker
So what do you do? And now you're set for winter and you have nothing. This is where we get to the topic. of cannibalism. So going to cannibalism itself.
00:30:38
Speaker
So like I said earlier, there are debates if cannibalism actually did take place in Jamestown and for good reason. Going on to the cannibalism itself. So there are debates going on.
00:30:51
Speaker
that historians have had over whether or not cannibalism did take place in Jamestown or not. There are some that say it did because you have five accounts from five men, two of them being John Smith and Percy.
00:31:08
Speaker
ah George Percy, Percy who is actually there, stating that it did. And from these accounts saying like, if Percy was there and he witnessed it, then it must have happened. Then you have others who are stating that, you know, no one was there. this is ah This is all hearsay. We don't have any other accounts that can prove this besides these these two. And these are all coming from after the fact. So because there's no definitive proof, no one can definitively for a doubt say it happened.
00:31:37
Speaker
what historian Rachel Herman argues, what's more important than the act of cannibalism itself is like kind of removing the eating of human flesh and removing that act instead of focusing on the motivation. so Why are these men saying that cannibalism took place? like what is the power dynamics behind that?
00:32:01
Speaker
What are the motivations for these men writing it down? What are these motivations for the men even stating that this happened? And this kind of goes into like a larger dialogue that Rachel Herman breaks out in her book that she publishes later on. That is a whole collection of essays about cannibalism,
00:32:23
Speaker
in the Atlantic world and what that reveals about imperialism, power dynamics, and kind of like what it reveals around the people themselves.
00:32:34
Speaker
And um the people who are reporting on cannibalism, they're reporting it took place, and the whole power dynamics and what it reveals in an interdisciplinary subject. So going back to James Duff. So she argues that the reason cannibalism was brought up in the manner for Smith, Percy, the Virginia Assembly's accounts was twofold. The story following these men was to in ensure, assure colonial investors in London that the Starving Times was a freak disaster that would not occur again. That the publication of these stories during the 1620s, which was when they were published, was to illustrate the extent to which these writers were concerned about, you know, their personal reputation, as well as the colony's well-being. And we'll see this specifically more so with Smith and with Percy. Secondly, the reports modified the concept of abundance and America and the idea that became ubiquitous in the emerging American mythology because before the Starving Times, and I touched based on this a little bit prior, that all of um the writers and kind of those living in Europe had described America in Virginia
00:34:06
Speaker
as an Edenistic paradise where food was plentiful and required little labor. We heard Percy you describing that. But now, thanks to the Starving Times and Percy's accounts along with Smith's accounts, we know that that's not the case. So kind of like Grimm's fairy tales and kind of like a mother's warning, these now memories 1609 1610 of Starving Times through sixteen you know ten of the starving times they kind of acted like a cautionary tale that now shaped Virginia's future, as well as the settler's sense of what to expect when going to a colony. It kind of became the first creation myth, Herman argues. which was a mixture of truth and fiction that chronicled Virginia's failures as well as his triumphs.
00:34:58
Speaker
So, fears the repeat of death and starvation created powerful motivations for developing a successful colony. So, essentially being like, hey, if you work and you don't become lazy, you won't have to eat people. You won't have to turn into cannibals. It's twofold. So,
00:35:21
Speaker
When historians mention the starving times in Jamestown, they traditionally cite about five, five accounts. The two most popular are John Smith's and George Percy's accounts of cannibalism, mainly because those are the two guys who are most associated with Jamestown.
00:35:43
Speaker
There's three others as well that are lesser known, one being Thomas Gates, then the Virginia's Assembly, and then William statues.
00:35:55
Speaker
Thomas Gates, his was published in 1610 and it was actually the first one published. What's really interesting about this is Thomas Gates was not there during the starving times. The only person of those five who was there during the starving times was George Percy. No one else was. It was only George Percy.
00:36:17
Speaker
But what's really interesting is his account was not actually published in his lifetime. And his account was only written as a response to John Smith's account that came out in 1624. And it was kind of as an attempt to refute what John Smith said. So now we're kind of going to get into why each of the men wrote what they did.
00:36:45
Speaker
Okay. Why John Smith may have written cannibalism. So John Smith wrote his and his memories and accounts in 1624. That's when his was first written.
00:36:57
Speaker
Like I said, and as we know, he was not there during the starving times because of his thigh gunpowder energy. injury he was gone and some of his first accounts of jamestown when he was like looking back on it have no mention of cannibalism whatsoever and it wasn't until thomas gates in 1610 that his account the thomas gates one was published in 1610 that's when he wrote his his account his new account and then that's when it started mentioning cannibalism for the first time so that's kind of like sitting off like a little ding ding ding like that's interesting like why are you waiting till someone else mentioned cannibalism for you now to mention cannibalism and
00:37:40
Speaker
For that, I guess you could have two answers. One, like maybe you're ashamed to mention that like the colony stooped to that level to mention it. Or like that's one route. Or you kind of now want to jump in on the legacy.
00:37:54
Speaker
Okay, so. So in his 1624 general history, it strongly emphasized that only in his absence did the colonists fail to feed themselves that winter.
00:38:07
Speaker
This line of argument permitted Smith to assert his own indispensability to Virginia. And kind of that's why he would mention cannibalism is because he was like, if I was there, they wouldn't have stooped to this.
00:38:25
Speaker
If I was there, no one would have had to resort to the savagery that is eating another human. I would have provided. it also would have showed, and by doing so as well, he portrayed Percy, who was president at this time, who took over in a negative light of being like, this is a man that took over that y'all elected. This is what he did.
00:38:50
Speaker
this is the leadership that you elected. And so it's just like another kind of like petty response. And like Herman shows, it's like, it's a motivation, if you will, for like showing. And keep in mind, Smith wasn't there.
00:39:03
Speaker
John Smith wasn't there. he wasn't there now could he have when he come back have heard of accounts absolutely but it's not his first-hand account writing this it would all have been hearsay now why did percy mention it so the reason that percy mentions it is kind of to like just set himself in the clear and to just be like hey i did everything I could. And just to show everyone back home just how desperate things had gotten in the colonies itself. And to show how all the efforts he had put in prior to try and stop things from taking place. And also, as we'll get to,
00:39:50
Speaker
how severely he dealt with rumors of cannibalism and how he dealt with that and how he took it very seriously. And also the reason that he wrote this as well is to A, uphold his honor because he wrote this to refute John Smith, who is saying like, this wouldn't have happened if I were here.
00:40:12
Speaker
um Percy's being like, hey, no, yeah, this probably still would have happened if you were here. Things were bad. things were really bad no one could have stopped this because this is how bad things have gotten and the reason why the assembly wrote it was to honestly just criticize all of the laws back in england of being like you told us not to build fortifications to start we should have started with fortifications because that wounded us.
00:40:40
Speaker
We didn't start off with enough food because you told us we should have started with trading. We should have started off with more food and more provisions. Sent us 300 people without sending us enough food. like it's So it's criticizing the ruling.
00:40:53
Speaker
And then come Thomas Gates, and there's a story that I will get to where Thomas Gates does not believe cannibalism took place at all.
Critique of Colonial Leadership
00:41:03
Speaker
And so that's also a reason that historians believe it didn't happen.
00:41:07
Speaker
Because there is this dead wife story that is occurring through multiple accounts. And Thomas Gates believes that this dead wife story is just an alibium an alibi to cover up a murder, which does have some merit to it.
00:41:24
Speaker
But then... Thomas Gates does lose credibility because then he's like, starvation wasn't that bad. Like, bro. Keep in mind, Thomas Gates was not there. He was not there. He was in Bermuda because he was being, he was not in Jamestown. He was being held up in Bermuda. So he has no idea how bad the starvation was and because he was not there. He arrived in May.
00:41:45
Speaker
to relieve the men. He has no idea. The reason he believes the starvation wasn't that bad is because he went to one man's house and he found in one man's house a collection of oatmeal and grains. And because of that, he's like, you guys weren't starving as much as you said you were. Keep in mind, only 60 of the original 300, about 300 settlers survived. But Thomas Gates is telling them that the starvation is not that bad. Now the reason that Gates is writing this could be is he's being like, he's trying to cover his own butt because he was not in Jamestown. he was, he was in Bermuda. he was trying to kind of cover his own butt in that regard.
00:42:28
Speaker
It's also because he was trying to refute any cannibalism rumors that were going on specifically because there was a spanish letter a letter that was sent to the king of spain and 1610.
00:42:47
Speaker
And it told how the English in Jamestown had, when one of the natives died fighting, they dug him up again two days afterwards to be eaten. Furthermore, because the Indians had killed all of the domestic pigs, the colonists had eaten dogs, cats, and other vile stuff.
00:43:05
Speaker
Thomas Gates, not wanting England to seem weak to the Spanish or to seem vile or this quote-unquote savage to the Spanish is trying to refute all of that to make them seem better than.
00:43:21
Speaker
so that's why he's trying to refute these rumors of cannibalism. So everyone has their own motivations for this. Now I'm going to read you Percy's account of what happened, and this is some trigger warnings. So...
00:43:36
Speaker
This is what Percy has to say during the starving times. Now, all of us at Jamestown began to feel the sharp prick of hunger, which no man truly describes but hath tasted the bitterness thereof.
00:43:48
Speaker
A world of misery ensued as a squill will express unto you so much that some, to satisfy their hunger, have robbed the store for which I have caused them to be executed. They had fed upon our horses and other beasts as long as they have lasted and were glad to make shift with vermin as dogs, cats, rats, and mice as was the fish.
00:44:12
Speaker
that came to net to satisfy our cruel hunger as to eat boots, shoes, or other letter. Some could come by and those being spent and devoured. Some we are forced to search the woods and to feed upon serpents and snakes.
00:44:28
Speaker
and to dig the earth for wild and unknown roots. Many of our men were cut off and slain by the savages, and now famine began to look ghastly and pale in every face, that nothing was spared to maintain life, and to do those things which seem incredible, as to dig up dead corpses out of the grave and to eat them. And some licked up the blood which hath fallen from their weak fellows. And amongst this rest is most lamentable, that one of our calling murdered his wife, ripped the child out of her womb, threw it into the river, and after chopped the mother into pieces, salted her for food, the same not being discovered, for we have eaten part thereof, for which, cruel and unhumane fact, I adjudged him to be executed, acknowledged of the deed, being forged from him, having tortured, hung him by the thumbs with weights at the feet for a quarter of an hour before he would confess.
00:45:22
Speaker
So this is all coming from Percy of being like before we even got to the eating of human flesh, we did everything we could even before that.
00:45:35
Speaker
First started with the eating of regular food. Then we moved on to our, the little horses were even made, because remember they only had six.
00:45:46
Speaker
And then we went on to dogs, cats, vermin, rats. Then we went on to snakes, anything we could find in the the forest.
00:45:57
Speaker
We resorted to eating our own shoes and leather, which was a very common um starvation. in hunger because you can eat leather if you boil it because it is made from cow high and then when that wasn't enough they did move on to those who had already died and then they moved on to those who weren't even dead yet resorting to eating the blood of some had licked the blood which hath fallen from their weak fellows and this is smith's account john smith's account nay so great was our famine that a savage we slew and buried the poorer sort took him up again and eat him and so did divers one another boiled and stewed with roots and herbs and once among the rest did kill his wife powdered her an eaten part of her before it was known for which he was executed and he well deserved
00:46:50
Speaker
now whether she was better roasted boiled or carboned i know not but such a dish as powdered wife i never had that was the time which still to this day we call the starving time so i do just want to point out the tones of The pieces as well.
00:47:07
Speaker
Percy, very remorseful, very sad, kind of like going through this is all we had to do to survive, like kind of like it' a piece of atonement.
00:47:18
Speaker
John Smith, kind of a piece of shit, which is very on par with John Smith. He's making jokes of like, I don't know what's better. Like, no whether issue is roasted, boiled, or carbonado. I don't know.
00:47:32
Speaker
don't like this man. He's not... I'm even gonna say it. So, another thing and which I learned from doing this... is that there is kind of two different words for cannibalism. And this is also coming from Rachel Herman.
00:47:49
Speaker
So first is, um there's cannibalism, and then there's anthropopagy. So a lot of people use the terms interchangeably. but they actually mean two different things.
00:48:03
Speaker
So anthropopagy connotes just eating people, but in the early modern period, so the period in which we're talking about, cannibalism came to mean someone who ate people and was also perceived as a savage,
00:48:20
Speaker
which essentially in this period was someone from the Caribbean indigenous population. So someone who was like, I'm using this in air quotes, because keep in mind, we're coming from a settler's colonialism like mindset. um So someone who is like not colonized yet.
00:48:39
Speaker
So it's kind of interesting that even cannibalism, we can trace that back to colonialism. and imperialism, which is like very interesting. You don't, I've never like thought of it that way, but it is.
00:48:51
Speaker
So that makes this tie like even deeper then because, and it makes it like knowing what we know and now knowing like, this is just why I love history. So like, thus the argument can be made of like, by turning to these desperate means, these colonists were then turning into the very so-called savages that they were trying to save in the first place.
00:49:14
Speaker
and why they were trying so hard and why like Thomas Gates was trying so hard to be like, hey, like we can't say we were eating people because then we're no better than, we are no better than the indigenous people then we're trying to like push out history. Which is why if this whole topic of like the deeper meaning behind cannibalism and like what it reveals and its ties to like imperialism and colonialism and this versus and like us versus them mentality, If this is all like really interesting for you, um there is Rachel Herman, her book, To Feast on Us as Their Prey. Great book.
00:49:55
Speaker
Because it has a whole bunch of different essays that taught like that work and surround that
2012 Discovery: Evidence of Cannibalism
00:50:01
Speaker
topic. Okay. Anyway, I divest. So with all of this going on and all of these accounts, this all leads us now to Jane.
00:50:11
Speaker
The discovery of Jane in the summer of 2012. So in the summer of 2012, a mutilated human skull and a severed leg were both found in a trash deposit that partially filled in early 17th century James Fort cellar kitchen. And the archeological context and forensic science determined that the evidence that this girl who we have now who has now been called Jane, had been cannibalized during the 1609 to 1610 starving winter.
00:50:48
Speaker
So all, and this is all coming from book, Jamestown, The Truth Revealed, which is written by the head archaeologists of this dig, William Kelso. He goes on to say that all indications were telling us that the excavating layers of this cellar were from sixteen eight and ten So they knew it had been abandoned and the other underground room was used as a kitchen. And the reason I was kind of like giving this is because
00:51:25
Speaker
They had found butchered horses and dogs in the debris, as well as broken pottery. And this is what the bones revealed. On the bones, there were two or three chop marks on the back of the skull and four distinct cuts to the forehead, all signs of extreme trauma.
00:51:44
Speaker
Douglas Ozzie, who was the Smithsonian forensic anthropologist, he had... determined that the skull and leg bone had undergone sustained blows, chops, and cuts from several sharp metal implements, reflecting a concentrated effort to separate the brain and soft tissue from the bone. Months of intensive scientific testing, including high magnification technology, stable isotopic tests,
00:52:14
Speaker
had determined that the bones were the remains of a 14-year-old English girl from lower class, probably raised in southern England. And Osley concluded that the cuts to this the post-mortem cuts to the skull and jaw and the leg and the way they were severed were clear evidence of cannibalism. So examination of the girl's skull identified multiple chops and cuts from three different sharp metal implements.
00:52:41
Speaker
such as like a knife, a cleaver, and a small hatchet. And the patterns of the blows and cuts reflected a concentrated effort to remove small, soft tissue and brain. And the foretops to the middle of the forehead represent a tentative attempt and failed attempt to open the cranium.
00:52:59
Speaker
Bone in the back of the head shows a series of deep chops, and these also revealed a fracture in the cranium along the midline. And then there's a bone below the right eye socket that has a series of small fine cuts from a knife and these were made while they guess, while we removing the cheek muscle.
00:53:19
Speaker
And there were numerous knife cuts and punctures in the mandible that reflects attempt to move soft tissue from the bone inside the lower jaw. Now, these two men, so William Kelso is the head anthropologist from the Preservation Virginia, and he, like I said, oversaw the dig at Jamestown, and he helped find the bones. Then there's Douglas Orsall. He's the Smithsonian forensic anthropologist, and he analyze the bones and they both of them say for certain that Jane's bones point towards someone who had been cannibalized and had been eaten.
00:53:56
Speaker
To add credibility, Douglas Orszaw, he analyzed many cannibalized skeletons from ancient history and he also worked with the FBI and he has worked on much more recent cases. One of them actually being the serial killer and cannibal Jeffrey Dahmer. And it's estimated in total that he's examined more than 10,000 bodies during his career.
00:54:20
Speaker
So with all that saying, like he has analyzed a lot of bodies that have been cannibalized. He can recognize the marks of someone who has been eaten. Then again, we go And she still voices ah skepticism. She says that she does think some cannibalism occurred, and but she still thinks it's important to understand the meaning of cannibalism to people rather than proving if it actually happened and during the existence. And she does give credit that the fact that they found Jane's bones in a trash pit where they also found horses bones, snake bones, dog bones, does add credibility that this most likely was the girl who was cannibalized, given that those are the... And it was also found in a kitchen, does add credibility that this was someone who was most likely eaten.
00:55:14
Speaker
However, she um does say that her main concern is that it's difficult to make the jump from proving that someone was murdered and dismembered from then saying it's but she was eaten.
00:55:27
Speaker
And then she also does cite that the only scholarly publication to share has been William Kelso's book, and his book only references the forensic report produced.
00:55:39
Speaker
by Douglas O'Alsey, but it doesn't cite It it cites the like book produced by Colonial Williamsburg in Jamestown, and that hasn't been peer-reviewed, and it's not published, so no one else can review it, which is very problematic because then it's kind of claiming that that's truth when no one else can prove that it's true.
Episode Conclusion and Reflections
00:56:00
Speaker
And then she just goes on to say how it's kind of like cautioning against giving like more weights of forensic evidence versus textual evidence and how shape they should kind of be like weighed the same. There are different fields, forensic anthropology and like like history and and contextual evidence.
00:56:19
Speaker
um I think in all things to consider and looking at it from like an outsider's point of view and granted like I'm not there I haven't and I'm just a girl who has is reading this from a third person's perspective I think you can see both sides of it as a person of like, I think there is more to be done. And Herman does said, did say like, it would be interesting to see if they find any like Native American like remains that can prove it or like any other like man remains as both accounts did show that.
00:56:54
Speaker
The Native American man was the one who was dug up and all accounts did show that. So that would be interesting to see. But I do think it's like there's an ounce of truth in everything. And so I do think finding Jane and with more work that does get done in the future and more work that continues to be done with more tools that get released in the future.
00:57:17
Speaker
And i don't know, like, i I just think it's so interesting. Now we have a person, now we have Jane and her story is brought to life. So even whether or not she was murdered, whether she was murdered or eaten, whether she was dug up and eaten, it's one more person's story who's brought to life and being talked about, which is more than we can.
00:57:36
Speaker
can say 10, 12 years ago when we didn't know about her. And at the end of the day, that's all we can do. And that's all we can ask for is more people's story being brought to life. And so with that, I'm going to end this episode.
00:57:49
Speaker
So thank you so much for listening. Thank you so much for letting me talk about cannibalism, potential cannibalism, and the implications of cannibalism in Jamestown. And if you like this episode, please give it a like, subscribe, rate it review it and let me know.
00:58:09
Speaker
And I will talk to you guys next week. Have a good one.