3rd order documents

Drought May Have Doomed the Lost Colony
By WILLIAM K. STEVENS
Published: April 24, 1998
The New York Times.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9504E0DF123FF937A15757C0A96E958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all


The role of climatic and environmental change in shaping human events over the last several hundred years has largely been ignored by historians. ''They tend to assume, and I think wrongly, that conditions haven't changed a lot,'' Mr. Blanton said.
Evidence has mounted in recent years that climatic change played a major role in the rise and fall of ancient civilizations, especially in the Middle East and South America. But scarce attention has been paid to its possible role in more recent centuries.




The latest findings add a dimension to the study of early American history, although the authors of the study do not claim that drought was wholly responsible for the misfortunes of Roanoke and Jamestown. ''We don't want to come across as environmental determinists,'' Mr. Blanton said. ''The stories are complex.'' But the revelation about the super-droughts of the late 16th and early 17th centuries casts a new light on what transpired. It also offers something of a cautionary tale about what type of climatic disasters might strike in the future, either from natural causes or as a result of human alteration of the atmosphere.




In fact, said Dr. David W. Stahle of the University of Arkansas, the chief author of the study on Roanoke and Jamestown, the findings grew out of an effort to reconstruct the past climate of the southeastern United States as an aid in producing a baseline against which any climatic changes caused by the emission of waste industrial gases might be gauged.




Dr. Stahle is a dendrochronologist, one of a breed of scientists who have made a speciality of analyzing tree rings. The rings are regarded as highly accurate gauges of climatic conditions in a given year or even in part of a year, since their thickness and consistency vary with soil moisture, and the year can be pinned precisely by using the most recent year's ring as a benchmark.
In this case, the scientists analyzed the rings of bald cypresses growing along the Blackwater and Nottoway Rivers in Southeastern Virginia, part of the climatic region that includes Jamestown and Roanoke Island. These trees, which commonly live 600 to 800 years and sometimes reach 1,700 years, are the longest-lived trees in eastern North America.




The ring samplings were taken a decade ago, and Mr. Blanton, as part of a reassessment of the Jamestown site sponsored by the National Park Service, suggested using the samples to investigate the climate of the early colonial period.




[The scientists were astounded by the results. Dr. Stahle, said Mr. Blanton, ''called me back and he was just on top of the table, saying, 'Good God! This is incredible.' '' The analysis showed that the most extreme three-year growing-season drought in 800 years coincided exactly with the period in which the Roanoke colony was established and then vanished. The worst single season occurred in 1587, the year of Virginia Dare's birth.]




It also showed that the worst seven-year drought in 700 years coincided precisely with the foundation and early years of Jamestown.




Both sets of colonists would have been highly vulnerable to drought, the experts say, because they were living off the land and, rather than farming, depended for food on trade with the Indians and on gifts of corn from them. An extreme drought would have cut food supplies sharply, wiping out any surplus the Indians had. The Indians themselves may well have been afflicted by famine and reduced to eating roots and berries, as happened in an earlier drought, from 1562 to 1571, documented in the historical account of a Spanish priest.
Several clashes broke out between the Jamestown colonists and the Indians, and Dr. Billings believes that a conflict over food, brought on by the drought of 1606 to 1612, helps explain the hostility. And the new study suggests that almost certainly, the Jamestown drought contributed directly to the colony's high mortality.




Malnutrition was a leading cause of death at Jamestown, and the number of deaths rose during dry years while dropping off in others. In all, 4,800 of 6,000 settlers sent to Jamestown from 1607 to 1625 died.




Drought might also have contributed to the colonists' ill health, since water quality is poorest then. The brackish James River would have become saltier, and a lowered water table would have made it difficult to dig wells. Mr. Blanton says some colonists might have suffered from salt poisoning.




Jamestown's plight became most critical in the winter of 1609, known as the ''starving time.'' The previous summer's drought probably prevented the colonists from saving any food for winter, Mr. Blanton said, and the winter itself was harsh, aggravating the situation. It was after this winter that the Jamestown settlers packed up and headed for home, only to return when succor arrived.




[The end game on Roanoke Island could have played out in any of several ways, the experts say. The colonists could have been wiped out by the local Indians, the Croatans, in a clash over food. They could have left, sailing north to Chesapeake Bay, their original but never-achieved destination, and perished there or on the way. They could have joined forces with the generally friendly Croatans and moved out of the drought-stricken area, farther south, where today some Indians claim that the blood of Roanoke's settlers flows in their veins.
All that is known is that when ships returned to Roanoke in 1590, they found a single word carved on a tree: ''Croatoan.''
The drought may have ultimately doomed the Lost Colony. But exactly what happened to its members, Dr. Billings said, ''will always be one of the great mysteries.'' ]




Correction: April 25, 1998, Saturday A drawing yesterday showing the Roanoke colony in 1590, with an article about the colony's disappearance, carried a misspelled credit. The source was Corbis-Bettmann, not Bettman.





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“What Can You Get By Warre”: Powhatan Exchanges Views With Captain John Smith, 1608" .

http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5838


Captain John Smith was a soldier and adventurer in Europe and Asia before he became involved in the Virginia Company’s plan to establish a settlement in North America. He was aboard one of the three ships that reached Virginia in April 1607. The first settlers, ill prepared for life in the harsh environment, had few useful skills but great expectations of easy profits. They suffered from disease, malnutrition, and frequent attacks by Indians in the early years; over one half died the first winter. Smith took over Jamestown’s government amid this chaos and death; he explored the region and traded for desperately needed supplies with the Indians. Smith recognized the need to establish peaceful relations with the powerful Powhatan Indians of the coastal region, and he traded English manufactured goods for much needed Indian corn. Smith recounted this exchange with the Indian leader Powhatan in his 1624 Historyie.



[Powhatan:]



Captaine Smith, you may understand that I having seene the death of all my people thrice, and not any one living of these three generations but my selfe; I know the difference of Peace and Warre better then any in my Country. But now I am old and ere long must die, my brethren, namely Opitchapam, Opechancanough, and Kekataugh, my two sisters, and their two daughters, are distinctly each others successors. I wish their experience no lesse then mine, and your love to them no lesse then mine to you. But this bruit from Nandsamund, that you are come to destroy my Country, so much affrighteth all my people as they dare not visit you. What will it availe you to take that by force you may quickly have by love, or to destroy them that provide you food. What can you get by warre, when we can hide our provisions and fly to the woods? whereby you must famish by wronging us your friends. And why are you thus jealous of our loves seeing us unarmed, and both doe, and are willing still to feede you, with that you cannot get but by our labours? Thinke you I am so simple, not to know it is better to eate good meate, lye well, and sleepe quietly with my women and children, laugh and be merry with you, have copper, hatchets, or what I want being your friend: then be forced to flie from all, to lie cold in the woods, feede upon Acornes, rootes, and such trash, and be so hunted by you, that I can neither rest, eate, nor sleepe; but my tyred men must watch, and if a twig but breake, every one cryeth there commeth Captaine Smith: then must I fly I know not whether: and thus with miserable feare, end my miserable life, leaving my pleasures to such youths as you, which through your rash unadvisednesse may quickly as miserably end, for want of that, you never know where to finde. Let this therefore assure you of our loves, and every yeare our friendly trade shall furnish you with Corne; and now also, if you would come in friendly manner to see us, and not thus with your guns and swords as to invade your foes. To this subtill discourse, the President thus replyed.



Capt. Smiths Reply:
Seeing you will not rightly conceive of our words, we strive to make you know our thoughts by our deeds; the vow I made you of my love, both my selfe and my men have kept. As for your promise I find it every day violated by some of your subjects: yet we finding your love and kindnesse, our custome is so far from being ungratefull, that for your sake onely, we have curbed our thirsting desire of revenge; els had they knowne as well the crueltie we use to our enemies, as our true love and courtesie to our friends. And I thinke your judgement sufficient to conceive, as well by the adventures we have undertaken, as by the advantage we have (by our Armes) of yours: that had we intended you any hurt, long ere this we could have effected it. Your people comming to James Towne are entertained with their Bowes and Arrowes without any exceptions; we esteeming it with you as it is with us, to weare our armes as our apparell. As for the danger of our enemies, in such warres consist our chiefest pleasure: for your riches we have no use: as for the hiding your provision, or by your flying to the woods, we shall not so unadvisedly starve as you conclude, your friendly care in that behalfe is needlesse, for we have a rule to finde beyond your knowledge.
Many other discourses they had, till at last they began to trade. But the King seeing his will would not be admitted as a law, our guard dispersed, nor our men disarmed, he (sighing) breathed his minde once more in this manner.



Source: John Smith, The Generall Historie of Virginia, New England & The Summer Isles (Glasgow, Scotland: James MacLehose and Sons, 1907), Vol. 1: 158–59.








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Movie: The New World, New Line Cinemas: 2005.