John Smith's Virginia Village (cont.)

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John Smith's Virginia Village (cont.)
A Bleak Future for the Early Settlers

Jamestown’s reconstructed Indian village includes several typical Powhatan dwellings and recreates their standard of living and the state of their crafts. Based on contemporary drawings, the setup is pretty accurate. The culture was more sophisticated than most Englishmen believed. And, though not technologically equal to the Europeans, the Indians certainly employed their resources more intelligently. The English settlement probably would not have survived without Indian altruism. Time and time again, the colonists had food to eat only because of the Powhatans’ willingness to trade food for tools, or to simply give the settlers what they needed.

In a place associated with many firsts, this might be regarded as America’s original welfare program. And it was vital; when relations with the Powhatans soured, as they did in the winter of 1609-10, Englishmen starved by the hundreds.

The replica Powhatan village sits in a grove a short walk from the James River; the few steps it takes to reach the water represent the vast gulf between two cultures. Docked near the riverbank are three almost absurdly small sailing ships that are full-scale reproductions of the Susan Constant, Godspeed, and Discovery, which carried 104 colonists from England.

It takes only a few minutes to explore even the largest, the 100-ton Susan Constant, bow to stern. This simple fact says much about the misery of the four-month voyage to the New World. A tour of a ship requiring five, or ten, fascinating minutes would become painfully tedious after an hour. The passage across the Atlantic, tossed around the cargo hold of the 20-ton Discovery, had to be rugged. Remarkably, only one passenger died en route to America, and that was during a stopover in the Canary Islands.

The Indians probably didn’t laugh when the English disembarked on Jamestown Island, but it wouldn’t have been entirely inappropriate.

All three vessels docked at Jamestown today are replacements of models built in the 1950s and incorporate the latest ideas about the originals’ exact appearance. All are seaworthy and go out under sail from time to time. The Godspeed actually made a transatlantic crossing under its own power. But the ship display is something of a work in progress; 17th-century shipbuilders apparently followed no plans other than those kept in their heads. Documentary design evidence is scarce. The authenticity of the replica Susan Constant, for instance, owes a lot to finding out about an old accident. Centuries ago the original collided with another merchant vessel. The incident produced court records, including a detailed description of the Susan Constant.

About 100 yards inland, overlooking the ships is James Fort, a replica of the original palisaded town the settlers built soon after landing. The spot the settlers chose for the original was picked for all the wrong reasons. Two concerns preoccupied the colonists: the site must be far enough inland to avoid drawing the attention of Spanish ships coming up the Atlantic Coast from their own colonial outposts, and there must be a deep water anchorage immediately offshore so ships could come in close for resupply or, if need be, to evacuate the settlement. Jamestown Island satisfied these requirements admirably. It also had another advantage — no Indians lived close by.

The absence of Indian dwellings should have been a tip-off; this was not prime real estate. Then as now, most of Jamestown Island is swamp. The Visitor Center, the Old and New Towne sites, and the land immediately adjacent to portions of a scenic road forming a 5-mile loop through the interior use nearly all the dry, firm ground on the island. Even today, the historic area can be reached only by crossing a wooden causeway over the evocatively named “Pitch and Tar Swamp.”

Mosquitos plagued the colonists. Worse, though the island was almost completely awash, all the water was brackish and unfit to drink. Both conditions contributed to rampant disease. The Indians probably didn’t laugh when the English disembarked on Jamestown Island, but it wouldn’t have been entirely inappropriate.

John Smith, a professional soldier, was in charge of Jamestown’s defense, but he didn’t make policy decisions. Edward Wingfield, president of the colony’s resident council, at first wouldn’t allow a fort to be built, fearing it would tip off the Indians that the Englishmen had come to conquer. This was naive; the Indians assumed as much the first time they saw the colonists, and they attacked the weakly defended settlement shortly after the English arrived. Only the terrifying impression European cannon made upon them saved the settlement from early disaster.

The original site of James Fort is not positively identified. There are no archaeological clues. Old descriptions say only the fort “was triangle wise, having three Bulwarks at every corner like a halfe Moone, and foure or five pieces of Artillerie mounted in them.”

What visitors see today at Jamestown Settlement is what James Fort may have looked like around 1610 to 1614. The replica incorporates knowledge of contemporary designs and methods based on general studies and research at other sites. The result is a more refined structure than you might expect, looking like a fort that might have defended the Western frontier 200 years later.

Inside the triangular wood palisade, several buildings — private residences, a storehouse, a forge, a guardhouse and a church — are all made of wattle and daub, framing and walls constructed of poles woven through with sticks and vines (wattle) and slathered over with mud plaster (daub).

Guides insist the mud walls actually provided adequate insulation against heat and cold. But keeping these buildings in a state of repair must have been a ceaseless chore. On a recent visit, we noticed the daub was missing from walls, exposing the wattle underneath. Asked whether this was a result of normal decay or an attempt to show visitors the manner of construction, one interpreter considered the answer a few seconds, then said with a trace of a smile, “It’s partly intentional.”

This part of the state is called Tidewater Virginia. Except for some muck around James Island and the coast, it’s not inhospitable. The Powhatans lived there almost 200 years without help from supply ships from anywhere. Up north, the French settled frosty Quebec in 1608, thriving and prospering there. Earlier, the Spanish settled harsh tropical spots in Central and South America and managed to send marketable goods back to Europe. So why was the Jamestown colony always so close to failure? In all, Virginia was a land any good, decent fellow accustomed to an honest day’s labor should have tamed.

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