John,

  You make some good points, and I agree we need to accept --and report-- our ancestors as they were.  This would include not being afraid to mention that
  as John Smith recounted, there were ongoing wars between the tribes long before
  the Europeans arrived.

   In his A Land As God Made It: Jamestown and the Birth of America, James Horn writes, "At about the time the English arrived, the Chesapeakes...were destroyed in an attack that resulted in the slaughter of men, women and children.  In other attacks, such as that suffered by the Kecoughtans who lived at the mouth of the James River, entire peoples were uprooted and moved to different locations to strenthen the Powhatan's control...."

  All of us could quote other books, including John Smith's, but we seem to be hesitant to mention that people in America were not all sweetness and sugar plums before the arrival of the White man.  By the way, Horn's book (pub. 2005) was recommended by someone on this list and rightly so; it's a good read and well done.  Would make a great movie... accept the producers would no doubt distort it just as they did Jamestown Live.

  Joanne



John Frederick Fausz <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
  Did anyone view the webcast of JAMESTOWN LIVE! yesterday 11/9?

They should have called it "MTV-Chesapeake" because the singing
and dancing sure received more attention than the historical content,
which was rather simplistic, shallow, and bland even for an elementary
and middle school audience. Emphasizing cultural diversity is admira-
ble and long overdue, of course, but it is wrong to talk about the "culture"
(singular) of Europe (or even Britain), Indian America, or Africa. Diversity
was the norm on all three continents, not just between continents.

Especially erroneous was the song about the first slaves (sic) who came
from the "African nation" in 1619 and anachronistic mention of the 3/5ths
compromise that early.

The explanation of indentured servitude confused that system of agricultural
labor with "apprenticeship" to craftsmen, as in England.

Chief Adkins didn't even mention that his own Chickahominies were inde-
pendent of Tsenacommacah under "Powhatan," and he expanded that
paramount chief's domain to "35 to 40" tribes, which no scholar could defend.


The "Virginia Company was [NOT] here to stay," and if I heard it right, the
wrong date was given for the Laws Divine, Moral, and Martial.

Aside from two brief references to "occasional warfare" between the Powha-
tans and the English, most of the expert commentators carefully skirted the
issue of prolonged, frequent, and intense intercultural violence. Such myth-
ical FEELGOODISM and Sanitized history is deceptive. Even young children
should not be lied to, or they'll grow up to be as ignorant and complacent as
Rush Limbaugh, who once talked about the "so-called trail of tears."

Like it or not, the European colonization of America was an exceedingly
violent and disruptive invasion--representing a more universal characteristic

of cultural expansionism and territorial invasion than multiethnic toleration
or "democracy" (can you spell, IRAQ?) Let's not be hypocritical about our
heritage, since our homesteads and mortgages are grounded in inventions
of the conquering invaders, facilitated by centuries of exploiting Indian
lands
and African labor. If we hope that history will help explain the present and
give us a glimpse into the future, we must tell the whole story of our
ancestors. That may not be very popular, but it is at least honest.

Fred Fausz
St. Louis

To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe, please see the instructions
at http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html


 __________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com

To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe, please see the instructions
at http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html