Image: Jamestown ships
The Jamestown Celebrations, 2007
09.04.07
On 13 May the United States will celebrate the four hundredth anniversary of the first permanent European settlement in what was to become the USA. People have lived on the North American continent for far longer, of course: Europeans were johnny-come-latelies compared with the ancient civilisations of native Americans. The 'Mayflower' settlers near Cape Cod did not arrive until 1620. Spanish and French colonies were created in 1565 (Florida) and 1599 (now Quebec) respectively, but these did not grow into the grouping of colonies that was to become the United States of America. An earlier English attempt at Roanoke (modern North Carolina) in 1585 failed, the colonists disappearing with little trace after a few years.
And so Jamestown, named for the English monarch at the time, is regarded as the first US settlement.
In 1607 three ships, the 'Susan Constant', the 'Godspeed' and the 'Discovery' arrived with 71 male settlers. The colony that they founded survived only thanks to the native Americans living nearby and the determination of the settlers. A fort was established. The men hunted for food and slowly established farm land, again with help from the native people. Relationships were tenuous however. Conflicting attitudes led to fighting, resentment and antagonism although more peaceful approaches helped the colony to get itself onto a self-sustaining footing. Sadly, conflicting attitudes were to be a hallmark of European settlements here as in other parts of the world.
In 1907 the three-hundredth anniversary of the settlement was celebrated, though with a focus on a different part of what had become Virginia. Then in 1957 the 350th anniversary was marked by a Jamestown Festival of events which included the building of replicas of the original colonisers' ships. These are permanently moored at the Festival site a short distance from the archaeologically-sensitive location of the original fort. A reconstruction of the Jamestown settlement now occupies part of the Festival Park, along with a large Visitor Centre. The 2007 celebrations are major events, and have included a visit by Queen Elizabeth II who had toured the 1957 Festival and the replica ships with the Duke of Edinburgh.
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Image: Historic Jamestown
Historic Jamestown: Archaeology and Interpretation
10.04.07
After the end of the eighteenth century Jamestown was abandonned with its inhabitants moving inland to Williamsburg. Farming continued but many traces of the settlement disappeared. Then in the late nineteenth century the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities took an increasing interest in the site. In 1893 the owners of the farm in which it lay gave just over 22 acres containing the remains of a church Jamestown tower of 1636 and whatever else the land was hiding for historic preservation. A sea wall was built to protect it from erosion by the James River, though it was long thought that the remains of the fort had been washed away.
In 1994 the APVA began to excavate the area and in 1996 discovered that only one corner of the triangular settlement had gone. Work continues, as seen in two of the photos above. Interpretive panels have been placed carefully on the site and stockade fencing erected. The church has been partially restored. A museum shows some of the many thousands of archaeological finds discovered over the last decade and more. Costumed interpreters meet visitors and describe the settlement's remains. It is working archaeological project still, however, with only a few additions such as the section of stockade to illustrate a little of the physical history. Much more of the story can be seen at the Jamestown Festival Park a short shuttle-bus ride away.
Click here to visit the Historic Jamestown web site
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Image: Historic Jamestown statues and panels
Stories We Are Told
13.04.07
The site of the original settlement is now referred to as Historic Jamestowne (with a final 'e') while the reconstruction project nearby by is called the Jamestown Festival Park. The main effort at historic interpretation is channelled through the Festival site apart from a few interpretation panels and the costumed interpreter mentioned earlier, plus a new exhibition area called the Archaearium. This exhibition contains artefacts and interpretation of the site in more detail and was opened in 2006.
Historic Jamestown has two statues, of historic figures well known in the media. One is of Captain John Smith, the English popular hero who led the settlers and so has due claim as one of the founding fathers.
The other is the native American known as Pocahontas, another popular - English - hero. Of course she was not English. She was a daughter of the chief of the Powhatan tribe, Wahunsunacock, known generally as Chief Powhatan. Her own more formal names were Matoaka Amonute, 'Pocahontas' being a nickname for 'frolicsome'.
Not much of her early story is known for certain but her later life has become the stuff of myth and legend. This is in sharp contrast to her siblings and half-siblings. The reason is given in an account by John Smith of what happened when, in the erly days of the settlement, he was captured by the Powhatan and about to be executed by having his head crushed as it lay on a stone. Pocahontas threw herself across his body and said she would die, too, if he were executed. Smith's life was spared. Later, Pocahontas was to marry one of the settlers, John Rolfe, and travelled with him to London. She was presented to King James. portraits were painted showing her as an anglicized woman wearing fashionable clothing. Indeed, on her marriage she had been christened as "Lady Rebecca" Rolfe, so that she was being absorbed into English popular culture. After a short stay in London of several weeks the Rolfes took ship from the city for Virginia, but Pocahontas took ill, was taken off the ship at Gravesend, and died there in March 1617. Another life-size statue commemorates her where she is buried in a local church.
Many books, plays and films have been made of episodes in her life. Her name has been given to railway trains, ships, roads and towns, and even apparently by the miners of West Virginia to a rich seam of coal. The Disney film is probably best-known worldwide, and she appears in a more realistic interpretation in Terence Malick's 2006 film "The New World".
Captain John Smith might have captured a settlement on the edge of the American continent. Pocahontas has captured the hearts and minds of the public over almost four centuries. Why? Undoubtedly because of her lively character and place in the story of Jamestown. Almost certainly, too, the struggles of the early settlers needed to be masked in Britain and later in the American colonies by a popular presentation of a romantic hero who died tragically young having exchanged native, "heathen" ways for European civilisation. Whoever she really was, her story was shaped by the mass media of her age and then of ours to fulfill particular needs. The tourists visiting Jamestown for the four hundredth anniversary celebrations will be celebrating and offshoot of a European story as much as a North American one.
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Image: Jamestown Festival Site
The Jamestown Festival Park
06.05.07
Close to the site of the original Jamestown is the Festival Park, named for the 350th anniversary celebrations of the settlement in 1957. The festival held then established reconstructions of the colonists' ships in a harbour close to a reconstruction of their stockade.
Inevitably this kind of replication can only be partly successful. It is not possible to 'step back in time', merely to dip a toe into the running waters of history. Compromises have to be made while many aspects and artefacts have to be omitted. The reconstructors and the visitors are not people of centuries ago. There is no potentially hostile environment to be feared and health and safety regulations must be observed.
The replication has been carried out within a mile or two of the original site, however, so the landscape and climate are fairly close in general terms to that of 1607. The stockade fence, the houses within and the patches of growing food can be seen, touched and smelled. Some of the sounds - an axe chopping wood, birds calling - are to be heard, all in glorious surround-sound, for this is a three dimensional world in which the visitor is moving with all the fresh perspectives that are brought to every sense. There are people looking and sounding much as they might in the early years of the seventeenth century: the clothing might be the product of modern production and the language spoken that of the twenty-first century, but neither cinema nor TV, book or classroom lesson can get near to this immersion in a sense of place and a sense of time. On a scale of 1 to 10, this approach to understanding history must be around 7 or 8.
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