Though, personally, I regard Carville Earle's argument for the effects of
salt-poisoning from the shallow wells in a time (as Dennis Blanton's team
has demonstrated more strongly since Earl published in the Tate and
Ammerman volume of Chesapeake essays) of the worst drought in 500 years as
a somewhat more persuasive corrective to a solely psychological
explanation of the seemingly pathological behaviour....
Jon Kukla

> The best explanation for the "starving time" is : Kupperman, Karen
> Ordahl. "Apathy and Death in Early Jamestown." Journal of American
> History 66, no. 1 (1979): 24-40.  She links the failure of will to live
> in part to the "alien-ness" of America, and the traumatizing conditions
> of being trapped among enemies.
>
> David Kiracofe
>
> David Kiracofe
> History
> Tidewater Community College
> Chesapeake Campus
> 1428 Cedar Road
> Chesapeake, Va 23322
>>>> [log in to unmask] 12/03/05 10:09 AM >>>
> I can't remember the citations but years ago I read an article that
> compared
> the "starving time" in colonial Virginia with the strange atrophy of US
> prisoners of war in Korea circa 1950-1953.  The thesis of the article
> was
> that cultural alienation produced a psychological lethargy that
> literally
> killed the settlers and prisoners.  For the Korea situation I have
> gathered
> plenty of anecdotal evidence, because many of my teachers from grade
> school
> to college where Korean War vets.  The one that is most memorable was
> told
> to me by an older student, a Cherokee who joined the Marines, was
> seriously
> wounded in Korea and captured by the Chinese.  He told me that he had
> three
> bullets in him and had perotenitus (sp?) and swore that he would stay
> alive,
> accept Chinese medical aid, and just keep his mind focused on staying
> alert
> and alive.  And as he healed he noticed that all around him his
> unwounded
> comrades began to fade, stop eating, and thus die.
>     Edmund Morgan more than suggests (in American Slavery, American
> Freedom)
> that the colonists, unsophisticated in intercultural relations,
> similarly
> atrophied, at least until they discovered the commerical value of
> tobacco
> and focused on getting rich.
>
> Harold S. Forsythe
> Visiting Fellow (2005-2006)
> Program in Agrarian Studies
> Yale University
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Friday, December 02, 2005 11:31 PM
> Subject: Re: northern bias
>
>
>> HELLO,
>> COULD YOU GIVE THE TITLE OF THE BOOK ON JAMESTOWN THAT SHORTO WAS
>> REVIEWING?
>> THANKS.
>> DFM
>> PS.
>> WHILST ON THE SUBJECT OF COLONIAL VIRGINIA AND JAMESTOWN, I WOULD
> LOOOOVE
>> TO
>> SEE A DISCUSSION ON THE STARVING TIME. THERE SEEM TO BE SEVERAL
> DIFFERENT
>> IDEAS EMERGING ABOUT WHAT ACTUALLY KILLED ALL THOSE POOR SOULS....I'VE
>> LONG
>> WONDERED HOW ON EARTH ALL THOSE FOLKS COULD HAVE DIED OF STARVATION
> WHEN
>> THE
>> WOODS AND WATERS AROUND JAMESTOWN WERE TEEMNG WITH WILDLIFE. YES, THE
>> INDIANS WERE LURKING, PERHAPS, READY TO PICK THEM OFF IF THEY LEFT THE
>> SECURITY OF THE FORT BUT SURELY A DEATH BY INDIAN ATTACK WOULD HAVE
> BEEN
>> PREFERABLE TO DEATH BY STARVATION.
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Louise Bernikow" <[log in to unmask]>
>> To: <>
>> Sent: Friday, December 02, 2005 12:32 PM
>> Subject: northern bias
>>
>>
>>> i take it from the discussion so far that no one saw Russell Shorto's
>> review
>>> of a book about Jamestown some weeks ago in the NYTimes Book Review.
>> Shorto
>>> says the bias that has made "colonial American history" synonymous
> with
>> New
>>> England for so long arose because NE is "easier to sanitize" and fits
>>> more
>> neatly
>>> the myth of America's founding. I agree and have been provoked by the
>>> "sanitizing" to work on a historical fiction about tobacco brides and
> the
>> 17th
>>> century= for which I have fruitfully been picking all your brains for
>>> some
>> time now,
>>> gratefully. Louise Bernikow
>>>
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>


Dr. Jon Kukla, Executive Vice-President
Red Hill - The Patrick Henry National Memorial
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