THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, September 25, 1994 TAG: 9409240154
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J2 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Book Review
SOURCE: BY GEORGE H. TUCKER
LENGTH: Long : 119 lines
THE VIRGINIA ADVENTURE
ROANOKE TO JAMES TOWNE
An Archaeological and Historical Odyssey
IVOR NOEL HUME
Alfred A. Knopf. 491 pp. $35.
Ivor Noel Hume, the witty British-born doyen of Tidewater archaeologists, has written the seminal work on which any future accounts of the first years of Jamestown and the abortive attempts to colonize North Carolina's Roanoke Island will be based.
Because many earlier books on the same subject have already appeared, this might seem a frivolous statement. Even so, the greater number of these previous works have been so romanticized that the results have been swashbuckling rather than truthful. Using a no-nonsense approach, Hume has delineated in horrifying detail the struggle between predatory colonials and Tidewater Indians that resulted in the almost complete annihilation of the latter.
Hume's account in The Virginia Adventure: Roanoke to James Towne is a bitter reminder of what Catholic Spain had already done in the West Indies, Mexico and South America. That ``Christ is our victory!'' was the ironic battle cry that launched the British takeover at Roanoke Island proves that the English were no better than the Spanish, whose New World conquests began a century before the Elizabethans attempted to establish an overseas empire.
In his attempt to present a well-rounded picture, Hume, whose knowledge of surviving sources is astounding, has chosen a more honest approach than that taken by his less scholarly predecessors. Using the findings of countless British and American historical, archaeological and anthropological specialists, he also draws on his own professional expertise to reinterpret the mixed emotions that characterized England's earliest attempts to secure a toehold in the New World.
A born historian and elegant prose stylist, with a boyish delight in sharing his enthusiasms with others, Hume has not been content to reiterate oft-repeated data, much of it erroneous or blatantly jingoistic. Using archaeology, his first love, as a basis, he has founded his narrative on his previous as well as ongoing digs at both Roanoke Island and Jamestown to support his historical speculations.
Before embarking on these projects, Hume cut his American archaeological teeth as the chief archaeologist at Colonial Williamsburg. This led to his internationally recognized work at Wolstenholme Town, a James River site contemporary with early Jamestown that was wiped out during the 1622 massacre. It also resulted in national television coverage and Hume's best-selling Martin's Hundred.
The chronology of Sir Walter Raleigh's several attempts to establish colonies in America is well-known, even though the fate of the Lost Colonists is still a mystery. Hume, however, includes many tantalizing suggestions concerning the fate of these unfortunate people. Notable among his revelations is the fact that Powhatan, the ruler of the Tidewater Indians, was present ``at the murther of that Colonie'' and showed Capt. John Smith artifacts he had acquired after the slaughter. That there were a few survivors is also given credence by Hume's report that an early Jamestown colonist was told by an Indian that four men, two boys and ``one young maide'' escaped and were absorbed into Indian tribes living south of the James River.
Recent archaeological findings at Roanoke Island have revealed the remains of a workshop operated by Joachim Gans, one of the most celebrated metallurgists of his time, who accompanied Raleigh's earlier colony to ascertain if gold or silver could be found in the Roanoke Island area. That Gans, the first known Jew to visit what is now English-speaking America, did not turn up any precious metals, is well-known. But that did not prevent the English from believing that further efforts would gain them the fabled treasures of El Dorado.
The fact remains that the discovery of quickly exploited riches was uppermost in the minds of most of the rapacious gallants who founded Jamestown in 1607. Ironically, it was tobacco, not gold, that eventually brought wealth to the colony, but that did not take place until just before the crown took over the Virginia settlement from the inept Virginia Company in 1624. Meanwhile, the struggling colony had experienced gruesome growing pains, all of which Hume graphically describes with supporting quotes from contemporary documents.
Contrary to the prettified and sanctified accounts that most earlier Virginia chroniclers have given us, the colony's first 17 years - the period covered by Hume's book - were a living hell. Then came the Starving Time of 1609-10, when cannibalism became a means of survival. Even so, harder times were on the way. When the Calvinistic Sir Thomas Dale arrived as acting governor in 1611, martial law was so strictly enforced for four years that settlers were burned alive, hanged, broken on the wheel or tied to trees to starve to death for the slightest infractions.
In the meantime, as more settlers, many of them ``unrully gallants, packed thither by their friends, to escape il destinies,'' were sent out by the Virginia Company, relations with the Indians worsened. Hume's descriptions of some of the predatory acts against the people who had occupied Tidewater for well over a thousand years are so revolting they send chills down one's spine. That these barbarities were perpetrated in the name of religion and a complete contempt for the victims makes them even more reprehensible.
But it was the age-old story. Technology, crass insensibility and the firm belief that Jehovah was on their side eventually resulted in the triumph of oppression over a people who were a thousand years behind the so-called civilization of their conquerors. True, the Indians struck back during the 1622 and 1644 massacres, but these bloody retaliations were too late. The English had gained the upper hand. Hume's accounts of the massacres are gripping, but being a pragmatist, he realizes at a distance of more than 300 years that a destiny of sorts was being worked out in Virginia and that eventually some good would evolve from so much anguish.
Hume's book also includes a full account of the archaeological investigations that have been carried out for some time at Roanoke Island and Jamestown. Some of these details are a bit too technical for the average reader. But that is a very minor criticism, for the greater part of Hume's book - a real page-turner - will greatly reward anyone with an honest approach to the formative years of North Carolina and the Old Dominion. MEMO: George H. Tucker is a columnist for The Virginian-Pilot and The
Ledger-Star. ILLUSTRATION: Jacket photograph from the Northampton Mercury, 1711
Jacket design by CHIP KIDD
by CNB