Pocahontas Revealed

[PappyDick]

Looks like there's a show on PBS tonight that would interest many of us:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/08/arts/television/08poca.html?ex=1336276800&en=b006762f61f8f3ba&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

[sammarroq]

Thanks Pappy for posting this; I will be tuning in. :)

[PappyDick]

We watched it, thought it was actually pretty good. More about archaeology than I had expected.

[Coharie Roy]

Thanks PappyDick for the heads up about the show. I liked it. Very informative; especially the archaeology. It was interesting to note the surname of one of the persons interviewed... a Chickahominy woman named Wynn. The Wynn surname is found among the Coharie also. I also noted the surname of Richardson as one of the female (Chickahominy ?) chiefs. The surname Richardson is also quite prevalent among the Haliwa-Saponi.

[DAJ42]

Thanks, PappyDick. I'd forgotten when this was on. Thanks to your post I was able to watch this very informative program.

[dovelady]

I thought it was quite interesting. And found it very interesting that there were sometimes women chiefs, and that indeed, there is a current woman chief.
I also found it interesting that in just a very quick blip it showed a woman who had what looked like her face was tattooed. The blip was only about a second or so. Can't remember right now if it was a character in the show or a picture. Think it was a picture. Anyway. It is of special interest to me because one of our female relatives had face tattoos back in the 1800's. :)

I taped it, but I hope someone didn't tape over it. I'll have to watch it again when I can take more time to really look at it.

[sammarroq]

I really liked the achaeology...how they took Smith's writings and tied it into their findings. For an hour long program, it was well done.

[PappyDick]

Did anybody notice the throw-away line that there were an "estimated" (didn't say by whom) fifty Indian women living with the (all male) Jamestown colonists? Of whom I think there were just 104 -- some being boys, and many being soon dead. Sounds like almost every straight adult English male left was cohabiting, the first year. Plecker would just hate that.

The fifty may have been over a longer period, in which case there were more than 104 colonists -- but, still.

[sammarroq]

Did anybody notice the throw-away line that there were an "estimated" (didn't say by whom) fifty Indian women living with the (all male) Jamestown colonists? Of whom I think there were just 104 -- some being boys, and many being soon dead. Sounds like almost every straight adult English male left was cohabiting, the first year. Plecker would just hate that.

The fifty may have been over a longer period, in which case there were more than 104 colonists -- but, still.


...Imagine how many mixed bloods came from those relationships...:)

[collins]

Yes, and there was a letter of complaint sent to the King asking to send English women because of the high rate of intermarriage/cohabiting.

[DAJ42]

Did anybody notice the throw-away line that there were an "estimated" (didn't say by whom) fifty Indian women living with the (all male) Jamestown colonists?


Oh yeah, that comment jumped out. Makes one wonder how many of the next 2 or 3 Jamestown inhabitants DIDN'T have Indian blood.

[PappyDick]

I was thinking about the FFVs. First Families of Virginia. That's an organization, persons nominally of English colonial descent -- but, don't capitalize it, and just look at the words: if the first English colonists to Virginia were all guys, and their womenfolk were all Indians, then the first "families" were all mixed race.

(This of course still falls back on the debatable notion that the arrival of Europeans is the dawn of time.)

[spilleddi]

I remember reading that quote somewhere on the internet and didn't have the sense enough to write it down, now I can't find it. I also recall something being said about some English women living in a nearby Indian village and being treated well. Did the documetary say what year this quote was atributed to, since English women came some years after the men.

I'm also wondering if the mixed race children married back within colonial society, if these kids were batized and raised christain, they would have had only English names in the records. The pattern of early colonial settlers having kids with (not necessarily legaly marrying) indians was followed through out the west, many descendents of early settlers in the northwest and British columbia trace to native blood, the big difference between here and Jamestown is that many more of the records survive to proove it.

One of my ancestors born in VA in the 1830's told all her kids and grandkids that her Indian people met the first boats, maybe she wasn't exagerating.

[DAJ42]

I'm also wondering if the mixed race children married back within colonial society, if these kids were batized and raised christain, they would have had only English names in the records.

This, of course, is what makes genealogy in early Virginia and the Carolinas such a challenge.

[sammarroq]

This, of course, is what makes genealogy in early Virginia and the Carolinas such a challenge.


What would make the genealogical search even more interesting if not impossible is if the Jamestown male joined the tribal unit, taking another name. Moreover, say this cohabitation did not end in marriage...the various possibilities are numerous.

Shirley

[Tom]

Well I didn't see the show.. so BARB.....
Re. the intermarriage, there was a law against out marriage passed in the James town era.
Really think about it no more girdles, garters and tights, what a relief!
I once wrote here several years ago that after the colonists got bored of sex they probably found religion!
I really think that is the case, after thier new found freedom the church and state had to step in and take charge to control the mass's, or the whole effort to colonize America would have been lost like earlier "projects".
Can you imagine, the thought of being hung for stealing a thrown out crust of bread to feed your starving children and then going to America where there were no laws except what one of the "locals" was trying to push.
As for the children of these marriages, many may have been sent back to England or else where for an education, I think that mixed blood children would have been as much of a curiousity as the full bloods would have been.
I have heard of scottish people coming back to Canada to rediscover thier Indian ID and many of them were atleast half Indian, the children and grandchildren of scottish and native women from the fur trade in Canada.

[Wachinika]

We..."You Guys" are so "With It"!:) :) :D!!!

[blackindiangirl]

Referring back to the First Families of VA that Pappydick brought up, I remember looking through that list of names. I recall somewhere that when the Sally Hemmings story came out, that the President warned his closest friends (the 5 other VA Signers of the DOI) to be very careful "not to make public their business" as he did just before he died. Which indicates to me that some or all most likely had non-white mistresses and children on the side..

That's why I'm still trying to connect my 1st gen. (ndn+?) George BRAXTONs w/(Signer) Carter Braxton's family (whose ancestor was a settler), and my 2nd gen. W.R. WALLER (bl/ndn+cau) with the first WALLER settler, and quite a few other of my families. Somebody mentioned RICHARDSON surname...that's one of mine on both sides of my family......

Too bad I didn't get to see the Pocahontas show.:(

[dovelady]

Hi Tom,

Here's a link to the PBS site where they recap the information. There were a images that were similar in the show to the ones that are on the Virtual Jamestown site that I just posted.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/pocahontas/

I just goofed around on the PBS site and found the transcript of the show that you can view online here:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/transcripts/3407_pocahont.html

I don't know if I still have the tape or if it got taped over. But they had the show on again a couple nights ago and it was already half way through before I clicked onto the channel. I'll keep a watch to see if it comes on again and try to tape it again if it does.

Do you get PBS up there in Canada?

[DAJ42]

Do you get PBS up there in Canada?

I'm not trying to answer for Tom, but my local PBS station, KSPS in Spokane, has more viewers in Calgary and Edmonton than in the Spokane area. More donations from Alberta, too.

[dovelady]

Thanks. :) That's good to know.

[Mousini78]

We taped the show and watched it this weekend. It was cool to see dancers that we know acting in the movie. And it makes sense that men coming to the New World would take ndn wives...they knew how to cook, garden, preserve meat, and provide warm clothing for the winter.

The only thing I question in the show was the reference to the two ditches separating the main village and the longhouse. To my "common sense mind" it looks more like that would provide drainage or a diversion of water should the river flood and wash out the main village...and that the big longhouse would be a shelter for the whole village in the event of a storm or flood. Did anyone else think their explanation of that was kinda odd? Some times you just have to use common sense and not get too elaborate.

I did enjoy the film and thought it an honest portrayal. And they did use Virginia ndns in it...and with Helen's additional comments, I thought it was well done. I hope we can get up there and see the things that they are excavating from the Jamestown site.
Becky

[sammarroq]

PBS ran the program again last night...I watched... again. For those who missed it, you may want to check their (PBS) listings as they may continue running for a while.:)

[dovelady]

Hi Becky,

I thought that was odd too. There could be a lot of explanations as to why the ditches were there. And they could be jumping ahead of themselves saying that they 'might' be in the shape of a double 'D'. IMHO it didn't really add to or take away from the show. It was just kind of an odd thing to focus in on. I am just taking a 'wait and see' attitude about it.

[spilleddi]

I have worked in archaeology for a time, and although scientists can learn an amazing amount of stuff from just a few artifacts, there is still an element of guess work in interpretation.

I would sugget reading Motel of the Mysteries by David Macaulay. Its about a twentieth-century motel mistaken for a burial chamber by forty-first century archaeologists, and provides an hilarious example of archaeological misinterpretation.

[sammarroq]

Hi Becky,

I thought that was odd too. There could be a lot of explanations as to why the ditches were there. And they could be jumping ahead of themselves saying that they 'might' be in the shape of a double 'D'. IMHO it didn't really add to or take away from the show. It was just kind of an odd thing to focus in on. I am just taking a 'wait and see' attitude about it.

Hi Barb,

When I think back to the program, it seems they were trying to tie Smith's writings/drawings to the actual site and since he had this double D shape around the camp...well, I think they were just speculating (guessing) that would be as Smith had drawn it. I think it will be a wait and see and it will be interesting to see what else they uncover.:)

[Tom]

These "ditches" are also placedaround individual houses to remove rain etc from the homes, but I wonder how much they were also used as a place to dump waste materials.
In the camps there would be little area for rain to go so it must have run down well beaten paths, but then where, no doubt to larger deeper areas.
i have been in well attended camps for about 2 weeks and I can tell you I understand why people moved on, after that length of time it would become dangerous to your health to stay there if you did not adress the issues most at hand.!

[Steve-o]

That is interesting as to why no one ever touches on where the colonists went when they had to go. I would believe that there would have had to be some sort of system for that. But perhaps it just doesn't make good conversation on documentary.

According to the archealogical information I have read about the intermarriage, they were talking about the 1st 100 + colonists who established Jamestown. There are a few reports online that were made before the PBS documentary came about on this subject. Which makes perfect sense to me because they certainly would not have all lived like monks upon arrival. I think they were just romanticized over the course of history. There numbers however were smaller in the reports and closer to 40, as the cap off, of the marriages to the natives based on the original 100+ colonists that came first to the new world. Perhaps more eveidence was found and the numbers changed a bit. But still it was quite a large percentage, even if 40 out of 100, which equals to 40% (rough estimate) of the population marrying the natives. And 50% if the PBS report is correct.

[Tom]

The one real issue that is always side stepped with early American history wether it is in the USA or in Canada is that there was several large populations of Euro's to the north very early and the James Town ship(s) stopped in what is now New Found Land Canada to replenish fresh water supplies before heading south.!
If those people did disapear it would have been back into other European populations, atleast for some of them.