Colonial Survival and Historical Memory

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I am often considered to be one of the most famous and sought after gemstones Aura is linked to the mysteries of my origin I am the coloran diamond om far the stretches of the universe, to the depths of the Eth Let me tell you about my remarkable journey Listen now to Voice of Jules podcast by Lick Cole, School of Jewelry Arts, supported by Ven Klefinar Pales I'rofess Susanna Lipbskom and welcome to not just the Tudors from History Hood podcast in which we explore everything from Anne Boleyn to the Aztecs, fromom Holbein to the Huguenotos, from Shakespeare to Samurise. relelieved by regular doses of murdder, espionage and witchcraud Not in other words, just the tutors But most definitely also the tudors All this month on not just the Tudors, we're telling the stories of Britain's encounters with and presence in America in the run up to the two hundred fifteth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, which was signed on the fourth of july seventeen seventy six In the last two episodes, we've discussed how Elizabethan explorers journeyed westward in search of land, influence and advantage, followed by the creation of the Virginia Company and the founding of Jamestown Today, we arrive at the winter of sixteen oh nine to ten when the settlers of Jamestown starved According to some accounts, colonists ate horses, rats, and dogs boil shoe leather to make it soft enough to chew even consumed Human flesh In fact, it was not long after that The Spanish ammbassador Don Alonso de Vallesco wrote to the King of Spain, Philip III tellelling him that the crown should send a few ships to finish what might be left As the vast majority of English colonists had died from sheer misery and hunger Molesco detailed how the survivors were driven to eating dogs, catskins and other vile things, specifically the flesh of the dead Whenver the time was ripe for a Spanish attack to repower what was regarded as an illegal intrusion on territory they claimed as theirs, it was now. What had started as a colony of around five hundred settlers had been reduced to fewer than sixty people within months This brutal winter came to be known as the starving Time, a phrase first published in accounts written by leaders of the colony. Captain John Smith and Governor George Percy. published in the sixteen twenties Since this time, the stories of this episode have occupied a dark corner England's colonial past, a cautionary tale of desperation at the edge of survival How do we explain what happens Eidence is there to support that human flesh and other taboo foods were indeed eaten. How did contemporaries react to the stories emerging from Jamestown and how did the colony develop from that darkest of times? What if we've been asking the wrong questions? My guest today argues that the Jamestown famine was the result of complex environmental, political, economic and cultural causes and that both written and archaeological evidence supports instidance of cannibalism posits however, to understand the starving time, our question should not be did cannibism take place, but rather How do we explain it? And she challenges us to move beyond disgust or horror at eating the inedible. Wh? Well, Put simply, the early modern settlers's ideas about food, medicine and survival different from our own animals and foodstuffs we might recoil from today and from which they too might have recoiled, could in times of need be understood as medicinal and restorative On top of this, there were significant political currents that shaped the accounts we rely on today about colonist cannibalism. That is not to say we shouldn't trust them, but we need to read them with respect to the tides of the time where contempt could be replaced with compassion So prepare to be fascinated. With a dissection of archaeological evidence and contemporary accounts today, we will hear that eating the inedible, the disgusting, or horrific, be that catskin or human flesh, was something far more culturally complex and historically contingent than we might have considered until now Welcome, Dr. Rachel Winchcom, lecturer in early modern History at the University of Manchester I'm professor Susann Litzkom This is not just the tutors from History doror Winskom is lovely to have you on the podcast. Thank you. I'm delighted to be here. So we're going to be talking today about events in Jamestown, an English settlement in Virginia in North America Can you Tell us a bit about this place, when the colony was established, by whom and why So I guess the official history of The Jamestown colony begins in sixteen oh six when the Virginia Company receives its royal charter. So this is when the English crown give the Virginia Company the right to explore and settle in the region of North America along the North American coast in particular And they set sail at the end of sixteen oh six and they arrive in the Chesapete Bay in april sixteen oh seven Now they're going to Virginia in the first place to see their fortunes. This is a profit driven enterprise. So the Virginia compompany is a joint stock company. It's made up of several investors who have pullred their resources If the colony turns a profit, that profit will be shared amongst the investors. So this is a way of financing extremely expensive overseas projects without having to foot the bill with just a few investors So they set sail in sixteen oh six. They arrive in april sixteen oh seven in the Chesapeake Bay and they find a place to establish their colony on becomes known as Jamestown Island And it's a really awful place for a colony is probably the worst place they could have chosen So the thing to remember about the Virginia project is that there's two things that are motivating. the expedition. The first is the profit for the Virginia compompany, but the second is that the crown wants a military presence in North America to make sure The English have a presence in North America, that they're able to establish their own territories there so that they can compete on the international stage with Spain, with Portugal, with France, who have all already established colonies in the region And I think it's important to think of it as a military outpost because that helps explain why they choose Jamestown Island because it's an island, it's easy to defend. But apart from that, it's a terrible place for a settlement. and that's because there's no fresh water supply. The water that's in the river is extremely brackish. so it's a mixture of river water and sea water. So when the colonists drink it, they get incredibly dehydrated. They're not refreshed at all. The land of the Jamestown Island is marshy. It's riddled with mosquitoes. is forgot very poor drainage. So any of the sewerage from the colony seeps up into the land And the land itself is not agricultural land. That's why the Powatan, the local indndigenous group has not settled there because it doesn't you can't establish agriculture there So they're already out a Huge disadvantage in terms of where they've located the colony. There's no freshwater. they can't grow anything particularly well and disease is rife It sounds pretty awful give a picture of those early days of its settlement. I mean, if you imagine When they arrive, there was nothing there There's no infrastructure You know, this is This is the first presence in this area. There are indigenous groups surrounding Jamestown Island. So this is the era of the Powatown Confederacy. It's headed by Wahazanakar, who is the Maminatoic. He's the paramount chief. and he presides over a group of around thirty indigenous tribes who paid tribute to him. So the English arrive in this area, Seneal Mcar is a very politically complex location. They arrive in this place, but there is no infrastructure. They have to build houses, they try and erect a church, that they erect a cross when they get there But there's nothing there and there's no food. so they have to rely on the food that they've brought with them. which is obviously in low supply. and very quickly they become incredibly reliant on the power ton for supplies of food So the good grace of Wahasanakar to gift food to the English. And in fact, only a few months after they arrived, a colonist later writes that they were on the brink of starvation already in sixteen oh seven, just a few months after arrival because their supplies are already dwindling And in the Virginia compompany's instructions to the first colonists, they even say,, make sure You treat the indigenous population well because you will probably need to rely on them for food in the first instance. You will need to trade with them for food unt so you can get agriculture set up. So it's very precarious immediately in terms of food And what do we know about the relationship between the indndigenous people and the colonists in the years leading up to sixteen nine to ten. So it's very changeable to begin with, it's fairly positive, and that's because what Hasanakkar allows it to be. So if you can imagine it from his perspective this is a small group of strangers who have arrived in his territory They've chosen a location that is not desirable for his settlement. So it's indigenous hunting lands, but it's not prime fertile Powatan land So he's happy for them. to establish a settlement there He sees them as kind of potentially useful in that he hopes that they will ally with him so that he can maintain his authority in the region. It would just be another sort of tributary his wid of his wider power So to begin with, relationships are fairly positive. Wasenekai is happy to giveift food to the English. Part of that is a projection of his authority in the region, but I think it's also to do with Indigenous codes of hospitality, of obligation. They are happy to share food because food is considered a communal resource. It's not something that you should hoard. It's not something that you should keep for yourself, It's something that should be shared amongst the community And in this instance it includes the English because he sees how desperately hungry they are and in need. The English, however, have a very kind of different understanding of that relationship So from the Pan side, it's almost like food aid almost immediately. They see that the English are starving, they provide them food to alleviate their suffering. For the English, they try and reconceptualize this as mutually beneficial trade and exchange. So they freely admitt in their writings that they're in receipt of huge quantities of indigenous food, whether that be maize or venison, all sorts of things that the indigenous population are gifting to them. But they say they give things in return, things that the indigenous population are interested in so. beads, glass beads, pieces of copper, things that have real prestige within you know the powerim and cultural world those kinds of mutually beneficial reciprocal exchanges begin to disappear the English become a lot more belligerent in their encounters with Jahas Seneca and the other chiefs of the Powatan Confederacy. And John Smith is really the orchestrator of this. So you mentioned John Smith He's the one time governor of Jamestown. He's also one of the people that has given us the most prolific amounts of writing on the early colony And he is very spicious of Wahasanaka and his motivations So he thinks that the English should not be following the Virginia Company's instructions of making friends with the indigenous population. He thinks that they should be much firmer and much harsher in their dealings. And this is the kind of approach that he takes in the run up to the starving time you know, there's accounts and he writes of this himself. This is not peopleeople writing about John Smith, he says, you know, I held a pistol to an Indigenous chief's head and told him, either you trade with us, either you give us food or, you know, your people will leave Her' corpses Of course, in that instance, the indigenous population give them food. What else can they do? The English have guns and there's not there's not much else they can do but say, okay, here is here is the food and then You know, John Smith will throw some beads at the feet of of the chief to say, and here is what we give you in return So John Smith is much more belligerent and increasingly violent in his interactions. And so it becomes less an exchange of gifts or even less of a trade of goods and it becomes more a theft of food or a coerced trade of food at the best So let's talk then about this winter of six nine to ten You write of the people of Jamestown experiencing a harrowing and desperate time. Can you outline What happened and how the settlers responded. and obviously we should probably warn listeners that some of what we're going to say is going be rather unsettling Yeah, so There's a few things that happen in the run up to that winter that lead to the events that we'll discuss Because I guess the question is, why does it happen in sixteen oh nine? Why does it not happen in the first winter? Why does it not happen in sixteen oho eight? So there's a few things that happen. that make that winter in particular devastating So the first important thing is that a supply ship from England doesn't arrive So up until this point, the English have been relying on shipments coming from England to replenish provisions as well as the indigenous gifts which I'll talk about more in a minute And this ship doesn't arve, this set of ship doesn't arrive because it actually gets shipwrecked in Bermuda And it takes them ten months while they're in Bermuda to repair their ships to become seaworthy again so that they can then travel to Virginia. So that's a real blow to the colonists. They don't have that resupply, they don't have those provisions, and they're already low on food as it is. So that's the first thing The second thing is in relation to that more kind of hostile interaction with P Tang groups is that W Senekai increasingly retracts gifts of food. He tells his people don't give the English any more food. they can't be trusted. they don't keep their word They're violent, they say they're our friends, but then their actions tell a very different story. So that's the second really important thing that happens is that the English can no longer rely on those really extensive gifts of food from the power timeam And I think the other thing that's behind that lack of gifting is the climactic conditions that North America is experiencing in this time. So some of this is down to the colonists behavior, but some of it really is outside of their control. So this is the period of the Little ice Age. and this is a global phenomenon in the seventeenth century. It's a period of climactic cooling. and in North America It's led to a period of severe drought and excessive cold So for the Powatant, they probably also don't have a surplus of food either. So they're even less likely to give food to the English. And that's also another reason why it's so hard for the English to get agricultural projects underway because they just really don't understand the climate of Virginia, especially in this moment of climactic change So we've got the kind of environmental conditions, we've got the lack of the supply ship arriving and the retraction of indndigenous gift foods. All this come together in the winter of sixteen oh nine. And essentially what happens is The English begin to starve to death They can't leave the fort because Wahasanakkar has all but besieged James fort If the colonists leave to try and hunt, try and find food, they're met with. Indigenous bow and arrow, essentially. So it's increasingly dangerous for them to leave the form They don't have any food remaining And then that's why we get this pivot towards eating anything that they can get their hands on And in the written accounts, we have a very clear sort of hierarchy of food that the colonists make their way through So they eat all the supplies of any grain that they have any wild food that they can capture And then they have to turn their attention to foods that wouldn't normally be part of an English diet So they talk about eating snakes, rats Horse meat and we can cook more if you want about why horse meat is particularly problematic for the English then when that kind of food has all been eaten They get increasingly desperate. So they eat leather goods. anything that of would have any sort of nutrition or value. And then when things get really desperate They turn to not only their fellow colonists, but any indigenous people that died, have been killed by the colonists. they become essentially becausecause they are so desperate. There is no food left There is no hope of any provision coming from England. it's been months and it went since they expected that resupply ship and all they are left with other starved emacated bodies of their fellow colunists ness me. So given us an idea of some of the foods that would have been considered taboo before S starving time and you mentioned horse meeat in particular. can you go through those a little bit because I mean, I want us to sort of contend with a central idea in your work, which is that disgust is historically flexible. And I think the idea of taboo as well is that I wouldn't say any of those foods are taboo in the sense that There are situations when all of those foods are deemed absolutely acceptable to eat So the idea of disgust is It is a lot more flexible in this period because Moments of famine, moments of need, moments of death are just more commonplace for more people in this period So if you taste something like horse meat, It's not something that is a desirable form of me and there's a few different reasons for that. Probably the most important reason is that your horse is something that helps you in your everyday life is a work animal and you don't want to eat your work anymore. So horse meat doesn't become part of the English diet The other thing is that is not seen as particularly healthy in the health regimens of the period So if you eat horse, it's not going to give you the correct kind of nourishment that you're after. It's too hard to digest. It's probably because again, this is probably tied to the fact that it is a work animal And therefore, you don't want to be eating it in the first place. So these kind of medical ideas about it grow up alongside that So it's not that People think it's a disgusting thing to eat or they think it's sinful to eat in some way is that there are a lot more more desirable foods that in a normally functioning society you would eat instead. And that's the same if we think about things like rats or dogs or cats. So in this period, they're all considered vermin So dogs have not become sort of like pets by this period. So they're considered kind of akin to vermin. And again, this is something that you wouldn't want to eat on a regular basis because In the early modern imagination, vermin is linked with infection, it's linked with disease becausecause they eat like, you know scraps of food from the household, from waste products that have been left in the street. So again, it's because they're not seen as healthy. They're seen as dirty in some ways, infectious in other ways So again, it's not that If you ate those things, it was seen as a real taboo is that you would always eat other things first But even in the early modern period in Europe, we have lots of accounts of things like sieges and battles where peopleeople are forced to eat these things and it wouldn't have been entirely unusual to read accounts like that of people eating vermin, of people eating horse meat when they needed to, when there was nothing else available Yes, I mean, similar stories come out of the accounts of the siege of Sain Cres in the fifteen seventies, don't they? cannibalism. I'd like to talk about the possibility that this took place during that awful winter. Tell me about the archaeological discoveries and the contemporary written accounts and how they work together. Okay, so if we start with the written accounts, because basically all of them mention cannibalism Some of the accounts say it didn't happen. So there are some accounts that say that winter was not as bad as everybody says. But I think the problem with those reports is that they are very much written to promote the Virginia colony. So of course, they're going to downplay any suggestion of cannibalism, any suggestion of this being a place that doesn't support human life The most important written accounts of the starving timeime come from John Smith and from George Percy, as you mentioned. So John Smith actually didn't experience the starving time He returned to England just prior to that winter. So he had an accident basically where his gunpowder bag exploded and he went back to England to receive treatment for that injury. So he is not in Virginia during that winter And his account is very critical of George Percy's governorship. So he's governor during the starving time And John Smith basically lays the blame for that winter at the feet of George Pering. So that's one of the accounts. And then George Percy's account is written in response to Smith So basically to say what John Smith has said about my leadership is unfair. These are the circumstances of that winter. and this is why these terrible things happen So in each of those accounts, they talk about cannibalism and they talk about cannibalism in different ways So we have accounts, for example, of colonists drink in the blood of other colonists that had died to survive. We have accounts of colonists eating the flesh of an indigenous man whom doesn't seem like they killed him, died in some other way, and they ate his body. And then we have one other account of cannibalism, which is a colonist who is said to have murdered his wife eaten her and preserved her flesh for consumption later. So they're kind of three different stories of cannibalism and they do different work and the archaeological evidence for those different forms of cannibalism is patchy. So archaeologists at Jamestown have found evidence of survival cannibalism Jamestown for that period So they found a deposit that can be dated to that winter and that is associated with food preparation. So in that deposit, they have lots of other foraun or remains, the remains of animals that have been processed for food And within that deposit, they found the bones of a fourteen year old girl So they did sort of isopic analysis on the bones and on her teeth to work out how old she would have been? so she was around fourteen and on her bones, on the leg bone and on the skull They found evidence of butchery So these are things that are done to the body post mortem. So they're not the cause of her death You know, she wasn't she wasn't stabbed, she wasn't killed with a sword or anything like that. These look like butchery mars. It looks like the flesh has been carefully removed from the bones. So archaeologists at Jamestown are convinced that this is evidence of cannibalism taking place during that winter. So these are not just stories that are meant to either vilified the leadership of George Percy, according to Jon Smith or to defend Percy's leadership by showing how absolutely awful the conditions in the colony were that winter. This is something that archaeologists have found evidence for alongside evidence of eating those other foods that those accounts mention so the vermin, the horse meat. thingsings like them ACAS powers the world's best podcasts Here's a show that we recommend What if you laughed all through your commute, or if you heard the funniest story while at the gym Well, now you can. I'm Jamita Jramill and guests on my new podcast, Wrong Turns share their most mortifying and hilarious disaster stories. I'm talking people like May Martin, Bob the Drag Queen, Catherine Ryan, Jake Johnson, Margaret Cho, Simon Pegg, Penn Badgeley, and so many more. So listen wherever you get your podcast, Wrong Turns Dignity goes to die A cast helps creators launch, grow, and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Acast. com You want to get your backyard summer ready, but you don't want to break the bank? Wayfare gets it. Pning on dining alfresco or relaxing poolside Wayfair has everything you need to prep your space. Shop now and save up to seventy percent off during Wayfare's Fourth of July clearance. Score huge deals on outdoor furniture, area rugs, and more. We're talking thousands of products for every style and budget. Plus, surprise Flash Deals july sixth. Don't wait. Shop Wayfare's Fourth of July clearance now through july sixth at wayfare dot com d Pay fair, every style, every home. My name is Perido I'm a transparent green gemstone I was discovered by chance in the center of Patagonia. Wh mostost stones are born in the Earth's crust, my origin is rather different B and extraterrestrial Listen now to Voice of Jewels, a podcast by Le Cole School of Jewelry Arts, supported by Ven Clefandrpes Ever wondered what it feels like to be a gladiator, facing a roaring crowd and potential death in the Colosseum? Find out on the ancient podcast from History Hit. Twice a week, join me, Tristan Hughes, as I hear exciting new research about people living thousands of years ago, from the Babylonians, to the Celts, to the Romans, and visit the ancient sites which reveal who and just how amazing our distant ancestors were That's the ancients from History Hit So it seems indisputable, really that it happened. talkal about the attitudes that we see in the accounts because it seems that some of the written accounts make the colonist' actions look like justifiable cannibis, no moral judgment, no disgust But on the other hand, that instance you mentioned of a man allegedly murdering and eating his wife is widely reviled. talk about the sort of disiscrepancies in reaction here to the idea of cannibalism Yeah, so I think when we say cannibalism It can mean lots of different things And I think that's true now as well. So if we think about cannibalism, we usually think of the consumption of a human body. but I can look that can be viewed in very different ways. So if we think of something like a blood transfusion today That is the takaking in of a substance from one human body into another human body We don't consider that cannibalism because it's medically necessary, it's therapeutic. And I think it's also because it's not consumed as food. So we don't see that as cannibalism And those same kinds of nuances apply in the early modern period. So those behaviourors that we see are not all considered what we might think of as cannibalism. Some of them are seen as medically appropriate, medically acceptable, and others are seen as sinful and morally repugnant and there's reasons behind all of that. So if if we go back to one of the examples that I mentioned and that was the colonists drinking the blood. of other colonists. Now that might seem like a really shocking thing to our eyes today the idea of people you know sucking the blood from a fellow human beings comp vampiric resonances to it But in that period, I don't think that would have been shocking at all because human blood is seen as this really medically important substance. They're kind of amazed by the properties of human blood We've got accounts of people taking cups, for example, to public executions to try and catch the blood of executed criminals so that they can then drink it and impart some of that kind of vitality and health giving properties from that blood You know, we've got people like Robert Boyle, the father of modern science, making experiments on human blood, trying to distill it to its very essence so that it can be used as a medical treatment So the idea of consuming human blood as a form of Medicine It was not all that shocking in the early modern period. So I think when people read those accounts, they would have had a great deal of sympathy for those colonists. and they would have recognized that they were trying to use a well known medical remedy for if you're starving. okay? The blood would nourish the body, it would provide you with health giving properties that would restore your energy, that would restore your vitality So I think in an early modern sense, that's not that unusual Now if we go back to Jane, so the name of the girl that was discovered by the archaeologist was given the name Jane. If we go back to her, and where a lot of these Marks are found Again, I think we can unpick some of that nuance about what is considered appropriate consumption of a human body and what is a. So a lot of the markings are on her skull So that seems to be where most of the flesh is taken from, although it's important to say that they haven't found her entire skeleton. So we don't know if other parts of the body were also cannibalized Now the human skull is again, something that has really important medical properties in the early modern period. And you can go to recipe collections in early modern England, so recipe books belonging to gentlewomen to really establish families. And in those recipe books, you will find medicinal recipes that use Howowded human skull? in them You know, it's seen as a really important ingredient for really sort of Terrifying diseases of the period And again, it's something that you could buy in your apotetade. Now whether it was really ground Human S is another question, but it's something that people were happy to write down in their recipe books as being part of these And again, it's to do with and the vitality of the human body and where that resides at death So again, it's the skulls of executed criminals that are most highly sought after because they have a sudden death when they're executed, all that vitality, all that life force remains in the brain and is therefore imparted into the skull. So I think that's probably why we see those markings on Jane's school because this is a recognized, again, medical use of the human body. So it's the colonist way, I think, of saying, okay, we're in desperate situation. We have to make this choice How do we do it in the most medically appropriate way We start with blood This is something that's used therapeutically in Europe And we start with the school So they're very much, those are parts of the human body that are very much embedded. in European medical ideas of the period. They're not that unusual Is there a distinction here about intention as well? Is the story of the man murdering his wife to eat her problematic as opposed to someone who has died and therefore it's a survival cannibalism Yeah, definitely. because We have people like Francis Bacon, for example, who, in his natural history, he writes about cannibalism and he says What makes cannibalism sinful? is the fact that you murder somebody in order to eat their body. So he also talks about the therapeutic power of human blood and how soldiers have used it you to survive on the battlefield by sucking the blood out of the vein of their fallen compatriots But he says the distinguishing feature, what makes Some forms of cannibalism siminful is that it involves murder. and this is what we see with that colonist. So He murders his wife. he chooses to do that in order to consume her body. So he's committed a a grave in murder there's no escape in that. The other thing that he reportedly does preserve her flesh for consumption later. So it's not just a momentary act of desperation is something that he intends to do again. And this in the minds of English readers would have conjured images of Native American cannibals that had peard accounts of Spanish colonization in South America. This idea that some people eat human flesh because they enjoy it. Of course this is all part of the Spanish colonial imagination But that would have conjured those same images, I think for English readers. This idea that he's not just doing it out of desperation. He wanted to murder his wife and then he's chosen to preserve her flesh so that he can eat it again later. So there's an element of pleasure taken in that form of cannibalism And that's what makes that so sinful. And that's why George Percy in his account is very clear they has that man executed immediately because that is a sin That's not deemed acceptable in any sort of English dietary regime Do we know anything about the reaction of people back home in England, or not at least the Virginia Company and the king to the stories there were coming out of Jamestown In terms of the reactions, we don't have any written accounts of English reactions. All we can do really piece together what happened and what the response might have been. I think the fact that they're writing this down at all suggests that they don't expect readers to react in horror. Be otherwise, why write about it in the first place? Why say it happened if you think people are going react badly to it. That's fascinating So one might have argued the opposite that there's something politicised about writing it and denigrating these colonists, but you're arguing that presence of cannibalism in the records to a lack of horror I think so because the people that are writing about it people that were part of this venture George Percy is there at the time. He suffered through this winter. He doesn't gain anything, I don't think by saying that cannibalism took place if it didn't. I think he expects a level of sympathy, and that's why he writes in the way that he does. He wants to expose for his readers how absolutely awful that winter was and what could be more awful than having to consume the flesh of your fellow colonists. And I think that's why the other story is included, the story of the colonist murdering his wife. because it shows that there is a line, there is a red line that cannot be crossed So it shows that even though a lot of what we might consider normative social behavior breaks down in that winter in Jamestown It doesn't break down completely and Percy makes sure that it doesn't break down by having him executed So I think fact that they include these stories and they include these kind of different differentnt stories of cannibalism is really important. I think if they sa people were going to react in disgust They wouldn't have included the accounts of the poor colonists sucking the blood or those ones that they thought would elicit sympathy. And even in John Smith's telling He says, you know, he has incredible sympathy for those at the bottom of the social spectrum He says they've been incredibly let down by the colonial leadership, and this is all that they could do to survive So his reaction is sympathetic And I think he expects his reader's reaction to be sympathetic as well And he almost makes a joke about the colonists who murdered his wife I think he doesn't necessarily believe that story took place So Even in the written accounts, you see these very different reactions different forms of what we might consider cannibalistic behavior. And I think the fact that they're included houses that The writers of these accounts don't expect to elicit disgust in the readers of these accounts Although there's no evidence of cannibalism, after the starving time, as I understand it. does continue to be a contentious issue in Jamestown. can you tell us about the First Table Maser of sixteen twenty two and the pooisoned Sack wine event of sixteen twenty three. Okay, so they nearly all start to death. A lot of people die in that winter, but they're saved in the nick of time basically by that shipwreck ship in the Bermudas, that supp supply mission finally arrives in Virginia just as the final colonisties are about to expire and they bring enough food But they are planning to desert the colony even after that And then another expedition arrives from England and they're forced to turn around and go right back to Jamestown and resettle So the colony is really nearly abandoned after the starving time. That's how bad things have gotten. The survivors do not wish to stay there. They' incredibly weak they're obviously traumatized by what they've experienced But the colony does survive Just And the colony's fortunes begin to turn a little bit with the introduction of tobacco cultivation. So in sixteen twelve, John Rolf introduces a new strain of tobacco to the colony, which is sweeter, which is more palatable for European consumers. And this is kind of where the English then put their attention. and they put their attention on tobacco at the expense of producing food. Now you'd think they would have learnnt their lesson from the starving time, but I guess this is a new group of settlers Those with the memory of the starving time, they're few and far between now most of them perished during that winter So we've got this kind of exclusive focus on tobacco cultivation, which means that food supplies remain incredibly precarious In sixteen fourteen, John Rolf marries Pocahontas who is the daughter of Wahasanakar. You know, there's a big story there about how she is kidnapped by the English, how she's coerced into converting to Christianity. She's married to John Rolf. She becomes like this bargaining chip for the English. They know she's the favorite daughter of Wahasaneka. They know he won't attack while she is in the settlement So she marries John Rolf and we get kind of an uneasy peiece between the Powatan Confederacy and the English colonists And with that piece Trade in food is established again So for a few years The colony is takaking along fairly competently. They're exporting tobacco, they're able to import food they're able to Start growing mize. for themselves using indigenous techniques, they're still being gifted. supplies of food from the Patan during this kind of era of I say peace, it's a very uneasy peace though. I wouldn't say it's friendly relations. it's definitely not how it was in the first few months of English settlement I am And that that is the case up until Wahasenekar dies Now after he dies, his brother up in Kananoo inherits the chiefdom. He becomes the Mamanatoic and he is much more negative towards the English colonists than his brother You know, he doesn't see them as a group of people that the English can coexist with, especially because as tobacco cultivation grows and grows, the English sees ever more Powatan lands. And these are incredibly fertile Powatan lands that have been worked for generations by indndigenous women to make them extremely productive in terms of food supplies and So a lot of that gets taken and is given over to tobacco cultivation, which exhaust the soil, which makes it extremely unproductive for any other forms of agriculture So that's the context of What happens in sixteen twenty two So this has been something that's been brewing over a number of years, as indigenous lands are taken, as indigenous ecological stewardship of that region is undermined by the English presence up in K Coe decides that he needs to push the English back to the vicinity of Jamestown That's where they had their settlements to begin with. That's why his brother allowed them to settle, and that's where they should be staying. They shouldn't be expanding outwards to expand their tobacco cultivation So in sixteen twenty two, he launches an attack on the colonists and it completely catches the English colonists off guard. So up until this point Indigenous peoples have been into English homes, they' shared food, this key active hospitality, both for indigenous communities and in English society, this idea of commonality that before you trade for goods, you might share a meal before you do so So the indigenous peoples who are visiting the colonists start that day in March, sixteen twenty two, like they did any other day come into the colonist's home. This is according to English accounts. The colonists put down their weapons They begin to eat and then quite suddenly and The Paratan launched their attack And it's indiscriminate. Hundreds of colonists are killed in that one day And just like with the starving time, the population The Virginia colony is decimated Again, it's all around food. And I think it's really telling that Op and Cananu decided to launch this attack at the breakfast table at the dining table of the English colonists He knew that this would have struck a chord with them. He recognized that they too understood commonality as something that was necessary for strong social bonds. That was the case for the English. It was the case for the Powatan as well. So by launching ab attack there He was very clear and saying to the English coloners, You have undermined this relationship through years and years of taking and taking and not reciprocating Well the First his brother gave them. And then he continued for a short time So it was really shocking for the colonists. And again, it exposed their dependency, it exposed their weakness because they have no way of defending themselves and because they let them into the settlements they'd let them in with their weapons. and The result was Devastating devastating You want to get your backyard summer ready, but you don't want to break the bank? Wayfare gets it, planning on dining alfresco or relaxing poolside Wayfair has everything you need to prep your space. Shop now and save up to seventy percent off during Wayfare's fourth of July clearance. sccore huge deals on outdoor furniture, area rugs, and more. We're talking thousands of products for every style and budget. Plus, sururprise Flash Deals July sixth. Don't wait. Shop Wayfareair's fourth of July clearance now through july six at wayfare dot com d Pay fair, every style, every home. I am often considered to be one of the most famous and sought after gemstones My aura is linked to the mysteries of my origin. I am the Canan diamond The far the stretches of the universe, to the depths of the Eth Let me tell you about my remarkable journey Listen now to Voice of Jewels, a podcast by Lick Cole, School of Jewelry Arts, supported by Ven Clevenar Pelles and foollowing year we have toys and sex wine event And I suppose the context here is that we're in another famine. in sixteen, twenty two to twenty three killing hundreds So perhaps we should ought to talk about that first. What are people's emotional responses to food Are they different from what had happened in the starving time How should we understand this event So the same thing happens after the sixteen twenty two attack in that The English don't have enough food supplies to support themselves. and again, they're now in a period of open warfare with the Powatan Confederacy And what the English do in response to that attack is brutal So This is the very end of any form of coexistence between the Powatan and the English. In response to that attack, the English colonists are out for revenge. So they burn down indigenous settlements, they destroy indigenous harvests, they steal food where they can because they haven't got any for themselves. And again, that would have been really shocking for indigenous groups this kind of indiscriminate destruction of that food supplies. it would have been seen as incredibly wasteful to destroy that food rather than just take it. So they burnt their fields to the ground So after that, you've got no kind of coexistence The indigenous population are not going to be gifting food to the English any longer after that. And then of course we get a period again of hunger. And this is exacerbated by the fact that the Virginia Company continue to send new settlers to the colony. So they keep sending people over And the colonists who were already in Virginia K keep saying to the Virginia compompany, you need to send people who are better prepared because they just become extra mounds to feed I've got really clear lists of what food cololonists in Virginia say newcomers should bring with them. They should bring enough food to be self sufficient for the first eighteen months. That's how long they think it will take for them to establish their own plot of maize, to establish any sort of farming for themselves But that doesn't happen. People keep turning up with very little provisions. And in that situation What happens is that the colonists who are already in Virginia Steal the food from the newcomers who arrive I And then you've got not only the breakdown of social relations between the colonists and the indigenous population, but you've also got the breakdown of relationships within the colony itself You have people stealing food, you have people eating what they can They don't want to share food. There are bodies lying dead in the streets, unburied because people are too weak, people are too apathetic, because they're so hungry, they have nothing to eat. And we've got these really devastating letters written home that the Virginia Company preserve as kind of proof of the mismanagement of the colony to be used against people later. So that's why we have these records, the Virginia compompany decides what to keep on what to destroy. so it's a partial record of this period for sure. But we have the letters of, for example, Richard Fraythorne, who is a young indentured servant. He arrives in Virginia just after the attack of sixteen twenty two And he's about twelve years old at the time. so really young And he writes home begging his parents to redeem his indenture basically to pay for him to come home because he says you know, it's absolutely horrendous in Virginia. There's no food He's scared. He's scared of the indigenous population and what they might do. He's situated at a settlement called Martin's Hundred, which is quite a distance from Jamestown. So he feels very vulnerable, very isolated He says there's nothing to eat but lob lolly, which is kind of a water gruel. He also talks about how You know, he was promised things like venison and fowl. He was told those things were abundant in Virginia. and he's not seen any of that since his arrival. He talks about how when he arrived, the other colonists who were already there stole his provisions, stole his clothes, so he has nothing left And he's writing home begging and begging for his parents So if they can't redeem his indenture, if they can't bring him home, at least send him a little cheese, a little butter, a little bit of beef of these comforting food from home that he hopes will get him through this Asolutely horrendous time Richard doesn't return home. He doesn't receive any of those food supplies and he he's in a list of the dead just a couple of years later. So he doesn't survive very long at all And his letters are a real stark reminder of what it must have been like for a newcomer arriving in the wake of that attack No food, no compassion from any of the colonists who were there because everybody is experiencing a really, really awful time It' very upsetting story. you know, this is a boy by our standards and even by theirs. and here he is starving to death too begin to draw our discussion to a close Should we regard The starving time, the stories of cannibism, the events of the sixteen twenties As evidence at the Coneer experiment seemed to be doomed Yeah, I mean, it's kind of remarkable that it doesn't collapse. And I think the important thing to remember and I think about this a lot when I'm researching this is that I think part of the reason why they carry on is because there's no consistent memory of these events because so many people die So if we think about the colonial population in Virginia, although it might not have fluctuate that much across this period,'s because they're sending so many new people So it's not that The from a hundred people that arrive in sixteen oh seven, all of those people are still living in the sixteen twenties. That's not the case at all. Most of them have died So it's almost like the Virginia comppany is sending a conveyor belt of people to this colony just to keep it going, just so that they can hang on until their tobacco crop becomes profitable. And so these people become kind of expendable to the Virginia comppany And other people have written about the fact that a lot of people that are sent to Virginia early on are compelled to do so. So poor Richard Fraythorne, he doesn't choose to go to America. He's likely sent by his parish.'s poor child of a parish in London, and he's probably sent there so that he can work for a master They will be responsible for his care And he has no choice in the mattern. that's the case for many people that went to Virginia So I think that's part of the reason why it doesn't collapse completely because they just keep sending new people And there's none of that I mean, we do get the memory of these events. So people, of course write about the starving time again in the sixteen twenties. when this renewed famine is emerging, because they say, oh, we've been through this before. Remember when this happened before. But even when they're writing about it, it's often for point scoring within the Virginia Company, within the colony's governance. It's a way of denigrating the leadership of one particular faction, of promoting the leadership of somebody else So those colonists that are on the kind of front line of those experiences, those who are really suffering They're kind of forgotten in these narratives. They're not important. And I think that's the reason why they keep going is because there's none of that memory. and then when tobacco is cultivated, they think if we can hang on long en This is going to make us enough profit and that will secure