Events of Wednesday, December 22, 2010

          Lowe’s has a very nice parking lot. It was quiet, isolated, and dark—until the sun rose. Then it was time to get up and moving. We hustled through breakfast, visited Walmart for a few necessities, and then zoomed off toward Jamestown Settlement. After an easy check-in with our week passes, we headed in the museum to learn the 400-year-old story.

          We only saw the first bit of the museum at this time, but I liked what I saw. The museum did a great job introducing the cultures involved in the colony: the English, the Powhatan, and the Angolan. It showed life-size dioramas and detailed the historical, economical, social, and religious structure of each society. But before we got too far in the exhibit, we headed out to view the museum’s movie, 1607: A Nation Takes Root.

          This informational movie details the entire story of the Jamestown Settlement. About a mile from where we were sitting, some 104 English men and boys landed in May of 1607. Spanish rumors told a land overflowing with so many precious metals that the Indians crowned their chief with gold. These seemingly abundant riches drew the attention of many businessmen. Sponsored by the Virginia Company of London, they received a charter to settle in the region known as Virginia. At the time, Virginia stretched from Spanish Florida all the way to France’s Canada. As with most business ventures, this colony was formed to make a profit in any way possible. Their primary goals were to find the endless treasure, find a route to the Orient, and convert the natives to the Anglican Church. Due to shortage of rations, tense relationships with the Powhatan tribe, a shockingly different climate, brackish water, and a serious drought, only 60 of the original settlers survived.

          This endeavor for profit turned to a struggle for life. Luckily for American history, peace was made with the natives and more settlers arrived to ensure the company’s continued existence. John Smith, the colony’s leader, oriented the colony to work for survival. Settlers tried a number of small industries, including glassmaking, wood production, and pitch and tar and potash manufacture. However, until John Rolfe’s introduction of tobacco as a cash crop, none of their endeavors were successful.

          Before the outpost was declared a royal colony, it underwent a period from 1610 to 1619 under martial law. At this time, soldiers and a governor were in authority of production and maintaining order. In 1619, all hopes of making a profit from the colony failed, so the King dissolved the Virginia Company. Since they didn’t have profits to share, the settlers were given land and were more interested in working their own land than working for the company. The King then issued a charter for the royal colony of Virginia. In addition to land and no obligation to any Company, the charter also gave the colonists the rights to establish their own representative government—the first of its kind in America. Another important event occurred in 1619: the arrival of African slaves. Taken from a Portuguese slave ship en route to Florida, these slaves were probably treated like indentured servants. Soon, this new idea of slavery became the primary source of labor until the Civil War.

          We headed back to the exhibits for another 15 minutes before heading upstairs to a movie about Christmas in Jamestown. Since there is no record of having Christmas being celebrated in Jamestown, it really just told us about the way Druid pagan and Anglican practices combined to create the 17th century English version of Christmas. These traditions include celebrations of the 12 days of Christmas, Epiphany, a “Lord of Misrule”, and a whole lot of drinking, feasting, partying, and gambling.

          We decided to have a quick lunch out in the RV before heading out to the reenactment area. Half an hour after our decision, we were reading some more exhibits while waiting for a 1:00 guided tour of the historical region. Our first guide was dressed in leather and skins and took us through the Powhatan village. He took us into a large hut, even larger than those at Plymouth, where we got warm and learned about the native culture. The hut was so smoky from the small fire that you could see a line between the lower, clear air and the upper, smoky air.

          We then were taken to James Fort, where we met our English guide. This reconstructed fort is reproduced very similarly to the original, which has been under archaeological excavation since 1994. They now know the exact locations of most buildings and their probable use in 1614. Our guide took us into the church, which was very interesting. Since Virginia was English in the 1600s, this was an Anglican Church. It was required by martial law that all soldiers and civilians in the fort had to attend church 15 times a week—twice a day Monday-Saturday, three times on Sunday. In addition to forcing religious accountability, this also was a way to take attendance as a captain needs to know where his men are at all times in case of attack.

          We were hustled on toward the pier, where we saw replicas of the three ships that made the trans-Atlantic voyage: the Susan Constant, Discovery, and Godspeed. Despite the name of the third ship, it was the one thing severely lacking from the voyage. The trip took five months. And they had it worse than us and our RV. Would you like to make this adventurous journey? To qualify to cross, you must accept all these criteria:

1.       You like dark, wet spaces.

2.       You like sleeping on barrels and crates.

3.       You don’t mind having only three feet between floor and ceiling.

4.       You have no problems with weeks of storm after storm after storm.

5.       You never get seasick.

6.       You don’t mind everyone around you barfing.

7.       You don’t care about hygiene at all.

8.       You want to be stuck in all the aforementioned conditions with 71 other people who hate you.

9.       You will get, at a maximum, only one hour a day in the sun—but only if there’s good weather.

10.    You enjoy a diet of salt pork, salt cod, and a rock-hard biscuit made from water and flour.

11.    Fresh water isn’t a priority for you.

12.    Capture or murder by the Spanish or pirates doesn’t scare you.

13.    If you make it to the New World alive, you will be stuck there for at least a year with savage Indians, little food, no family, almost no contact with England, and lots of diseases.

Anyone signing on?

          We explored the two boats that were open and learned a lot about naval capabilities in the 1600s. As I figured out how a breech-loading cannon worked, the girls occupied themselves with finding where holes, windows, and doors led. But since it was almost 2:30, it was time to leave our fun to learn about the Lord of Misrule.

          A note to the reader: read this section aloud. You won’t get half the jokes if you don’t. This program was by no means expected. There were three reenactors dressed up in almost idiotic costumes to represent the Lord of Misrule (actually, a lady in this case), Sir Rhosis of Liverpool, and a Fool. They started with some history of the Christmas tradition and the job of the Lord of Misrule. The Lord of Misrule is elected by his friends and neighbors on All Hallows Eve (Halloween) and is responsible for planning the entertainment and mischief of Christmastime. When they began to tell jokes and do the gambling, the fun began.

LORD OF MISRULE: A joke! A joke! But who about?

SIR RHOSIS OF LIVERPOOL: A joke about the King!

LORD OF MISRULE: No, no, the King is not a subject.

CROWD: (muffled laughter, as if they wished the joke were funny enough for a real laugh)

 

Later…

 

LORD OF MISRULE: Does anyone have two dice?

THE FOOL: I think so…where are they? I knew I had them a minute ago!

LORD OF MISRULE: Pair o’ dice lost.

 

When a man was chosen from the crowd to participate in the gambling, the Lord’s scepter had to be held by a knight. Since Sir Rhosis was occupied, Abby was knighted Sir Loin of Beef. Back to the gambling: Since the stakes were high and the visitor had no English money, he had to wager his wife. He rolled his die (which had been found) on the ground. It was a one. The Lord of Misrule said, “A low cast, a very low cast indeed”. The Lord then proceeded to toss her die up in the air and catch it above her head, shouting, “A high cast!” It was all really funny, but the man’s response was great, “Three days and I’ve already lost her!” If you didn’t get any of these jokes, you are an uncultured swine.

          After having ourselves a nice chuckle, we headed to the weapons demonstration. Since Jamestown was in the early 1600s, the flintlock had not yet been invented. Instead, we saw a matchlock firing. Like a flintlock, it used raw black powder poured down the muzzle, from premeasured small wooden flasks carried on a belt across the chest – a bandolier. But unlike a flintlock, the spark already existed in the form of a slow-burning rope held to the gun by a clamp. (But when not being used in the gun, this rope with both ends smoldering was held in between the fingers. So gun in right and smoldering in left was a key instruction to remember.) When the trigger was pulled, the match lit the powder in the pan, which lit the powder in the barrel, which went BOOM! It has been very interesting learning about differences between 17th and 18th century firearms.

          We briefly joined another tour of the fort before finishing our self-guided tour of the fort. We then headed back to the Indian village to meet more interpreters. We peeked inside the huts, each of which was designed in a slightly different style. I guess the family built the hut to fit their needs, so each slightly deviates from a general design. We talked to an English trader and then tried our hand at scraping leather hides. It was hard work because you had to get rid of two layers of hair and a tight membrane with just an oyster shell.

          It was nearing 5 o’ clock and the settlement began to shut down, so we walked through the near-empty parking lot to the RV. Dad had found a campground, the American Heritage RV Park that became our destination. Exhausted by the history we had learned, we ate a quick dinner, finished our movie from last night, and then headed to bed with visions of sugarplums dancing in our heads.