Both "museums" are mired in political correctness...
the great bureacratic fear of the 21st century.

--
Melinda C. P. Skinner
Richmond, VA


 -------------- Original message ----------------------
From: Sunshine49 <[log in to unmask]>
> Very interesting, thanks for posting this. I mostly agree. History  
> had to be broadened and made more equitable [I shake my head at some  
> of the things we were taught in Richmond Public Schools] , but it  
> seems that in many ways it has gone too far. I can willingly  
> acknowledge my many failing to my fellow humans, the times I've been  
> stupid and careless, those I have hurt, but please, can I celebrate  
> my birthday without carrying around a total guilt package? I am more  
> than the compendium of my sins. As are we all. Hair shirts are never  
> productive garments to wear 24/7.
> 
> Nancy
> 
> -------
> I was never lost, but I was bewildered once for three days.
> 
> --Daniel Boone
> 
> 
> 
> On Mar 2, 2007, at 4:32 PM, Jurretta J. Heckscher wrote:
> 
> > From another listserv. . . .
> >
> >
> >
> > EDWARD ROTHSTEIN  |  Exhibition Review  The New York Times, Mar. 2,  
> > 2007
> >
> > Captain Smith, the Tides Are Shifting on the James
> >
> >
> > JAMESTOWN, Va. - At the banks of the James River here, not far from  
> > where an
> > archaeological dig has found pottery shards and remains of settlers  
> > from 400
> > years ago, a proud Capt.  John Smith faces the waters and the  
> > setting sun. A
> > wooden stockade extends near the shoreline - the water has moved  
> > inland over
> > the centuries - showing where his frail fort once stood. But Smith  
> > stands
> > heroically tall, his bronze cape seeming to ripple in the brisk winter
> > winds. Even the inscription proclaims his importance: "Governor of  
> > Virginia,
> > 1608."
> >
> >
> >
> > Governor? Virginia? At the time Jamestown consisted of a paltry  
> > isolated
> > settlement of several dozen souls, with disease, starvation and  
> > battles with
> > local Indian tribes regularly claiming almost as many lives as    
> > Virginia
> > Company could send in delayed relief ships from England, the funds  
> > raised
> > from wary investors. But the Smith statue does give an accurate  
> > sense of the
> > scale of the leadership, strategic thinking, ruthlessness and  
> > courage Smith
> > demonstrated during the brief period (not even two years) he led  
> > that first
> >   English  colony in the Americas - qualities reflected in his own  
> > memoirs
> > and other accounts (many of which are about to be republished by  
> > the Library
> > of America). Nearby, offering further testimony to Jamestown's  
> > grandeur, a
> > giant obelisk stands, erected, like   the statue, a century ago, as  
> > part of
> > the tercentennial celebrations of the founding.
> >
> >
> >
> > But now, two months before the 400th anniversary festivities  
> > begin , the
> > monumental hardly matters anymore, and neither, it seems, does John  
> > Smith.
> > Other kinds of commemoration have been prepared. It isn't that  
> > Jamestown is
> > being treated as less important: it is still regarded as the place  
> > where the
> > DNA of a  nation was first laid out, where, in 1607, England  
> > established an
> > early beachhead against the expanding empires of Spain and Portugal  
> > and so
> > determined the main language we  speak and many of the ideas we share.
> >
> >
> >
> > But a different understanding is made explicit here in the two  
> > historical
> > museums and outdoor facilities devoted to the Jamestown theme.  
> > Jamestown
> > Settlement, run by the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation (a state  
> > agency), was
> > established in 1957   just before the 350th anniversary so the nearby
> > historical site would not be disrupted with the Settlement's outdoor
> > "living-history" demonstrations, costumed guides, period crafts and
> > reproductions of the Jamestown fort, an Indian village and the  
> > three ships
> > that brought the first group of 104 men and boys to these shores. In
> > October, Jamestown Settlement added a major 30,000-square-foot  
> > exhibition
> > hall  to its  new visitors' center, telling  an unusually detailed  
> > history
> > of the area through the 17th century.
> >
> >
> >
> > Meanwhile the original site, now called Historic Jamestowne, is  
> > part of the
> > Colonial National Historical Park and jointly run by the National Park
> > Service and the Association for the Preservation of Virginia  
> > Antiquities. It
> > incorporates the monuments of past tributes  -  the statue, the  
> > obelisk, a
> > memorial church  -  but has just added a modest historical  
> > exhibition in its
> > visitors' center, and, last spring, opened a 7,500-square-foot  
> > museum  -
> > the Archaearium  -  devoted to the Jamestown artifacts unearthed by  
> > the
> > on-site excavations, ranging from cooking utensils and weapons to  
> > bones and
> > coins.
> >
> >
> >
> > These exhibitions are ambitious and often informative, particularly  
> > the
> > Settlement's, and provide much of the detail needed to begin to  
> > understand
> > Jamestown. Yet a price is paid for the latest in museumware and  
> > historical
> > thinking:   One isn't quite sure what is being celebrated or why,  
> > or whether
> > in fact a celebration is even occurring.
> >
> >
> >
> > The exhibition created by the Park Service, for example, repeats  
> > the classic
> > tribute: "Jamestown's notable legacies include the introduction of
> > representative government, English culture and heritage, and  
> > Protestant
> > religion,"    all of which had an impact on the evolution of  
> > Virginia and
> > the other colonies. But those legacies also include conflicts with  
> > Indians
> > and the introduction of "race-based slavery."  These   matters, once
> > considered secondary,   have become central.  Now Jamestown is seen  
> > as the
> > precursor  to  "a multicultural society grappling with a legacy of  
> > slavery
> > and racism."
> >
> > Another panel emphasizes the point:
> >
> >
> >
> > "Past Jamestown anniversaries were referred to as 'celebrations.'  
> > Because
> > many facets of Jamestown's history are not cause for celebration,  
> > like human
> > bondage and the displacement of Virginia Indians, the Jamestown 400th
> > Anniversary is referred to as the Jamestown 2007 Commemoration."  
> > Throughout
> > this introductory exhibition Jamestown is not the beleaguered  
> > settlement
> > cheered on against all odds, but is a hothouse laboratory for  
> > conflict,
> > oppression and perhaps accommodation.
> >
> >
> >
> > A similar, though slightly less polemical, vision suffuses the major
> > Settlement exhibition, with its artifacts, textual panels, statues and
> > dioramas. (Thomas E. Davidson was the curator and Gallagher &  
> > Associates the
> > designers. ) When the institution was founded 50 years ago,  
> > accompanying
> > exhibitions were about Virginia's British heritage and great  
> > achievements by
> > Virginians. Now the theme is: "Three Cultures, One Century: America's
> > Story." Jamestown becomes archetypal not because it laid the  
> > foundations for
> > British influence on American political culture, eventually enshrining
> > notions of rights and representation, but because it established a  
> > pattern
> > of conflict with Indians and enslavement of Africans  -  something  
> > that is
> > here homogenized into a more vague multicultural interaction.
> >
> >
> >
> > The first major galleries are devoted to the three cultures. They  
> > include
> > descriptions of local Indian tribes (largely based on Smith's  
> > writings)
> > accompanying a life-size diorama of a forest hunt; a depiction of West
> > Central African ways of life with a diorama  showing a man smoking  
> > outside a
> >  hut,  a world from which the first blacks in Virginia had been  
> > wrested; and
> > a depiction of an Elizabethan-era London street. The Indians, we  
> > read, were
> > "in harmony with the land that sustained them" and formed an  
> > "advanced,
> > complex society of families and tribes." English society  -  the  
> > society
> > that gave us the King James Bible and Shakespeare along with  
> > stirrings of
> > democratic argument  -  is described as offering "limited  
> > opportunity" in
> > which a "small elite" were landowners; in London, we are told,  
> > "life was
> > difficult," with social dislocation, low wages, unemployment, etc.
> >
> >
> >
> > True enough about England, except for the lack of perspective and  
> > the whiffs
> > of implied equivalence between vastly different universes. Less  
> > true with
> > its idea of an "advanced complex society" of Powhatans: all human  
> > societies,
> > even agrarian ones, are complex in their methods of organization;  
> > in this
> > case there is little information to suggest much more among these  
> > 30 warring
> > tribes bound by a strong ruler's conquest. The overall impact of this
> > three-culture mélange is only to diminish a visitor's sense of  
> > English culture.
> >
> >
> >
> > But finally the depiction of the three cultures begins to seem  
> > irrelevant,
> > because it is never really shown that "it is from the interaction  
> > of these
> > different cultural traditions that 17th century Virginia society  
> > was born."
> >
> > In what way, for example, apart from name places and types of food,  
> > was
> > Powhatan culture a major influence on Virginia society? The  
> > continued state
> > of conflict with the Indians was a major influence, in which  
> > negotiations,
> > accommodations and episodes of trade were punctuated with battle. That
> > conflict was not a simple matter. It was a confrontation between  
> > alien and
> > opposing cultures possessing unequal powers,  a conflict that has
> > accompanied most cultures' migratory histories, from ancient times  
> > to our own.
> >
> >
> >
> > As for the influence of West Central African culture, with its  
> > described
> > political hierarchies, and its own internal history of enslavement  
> > through
> > conquest (referred to in the exhibition's text), it is also  
> > difficult to see
> > just how Angolan or Kongo culture shaped  early-17th-century  
> > Virginia. Even
> > in later years the cultures created by American slaves are not  
> > replications
> > of African cultures but distant echoes of it,  something hinted at  
> > in one of
> > the exhibition's later galleries.
> >
> >
> >
> > During the entire formative period of Jamestown  -  from 1607  
> > through 1619,
> > when the nature of the settlement was established and its economy  
> > finally
> > began to find a footing with the growing of tobacco  -  there were no
> > Africans in Virginia at all. The first black chattel servants were  
> > brought
> > to Jamestown during that latter year almost by accident, just as
> > representative democracy was also being established. These unfortunate
> > 20-some prisoners were looted during a piratical English attack on a
> > Portuguese slave ship. Systematic slavery doesn't appear to begin in
> > Virginia for decades.
> >
> >
> >
> > So the idea of mutual interaction is not too convincing. Still,  
> > there is
> > much to learn in the exhibition's unfolding: it touches on the  
> > European
> > drive for colonial power, on sea navigation, the establishment of  
> > Jamestown,
> > the story of Pocahontas, conflicts with Indians, the discovery of  
> > tobacco as
> > a major source of income leading to the development of Virginia's  
> > gentlemen
> > farmers (and the drive toward the importation of slaves), the  
> > evolution of
> > Virginia's legislature. But John Smith's extraordinary interactions  
> > with the
> > Powhatan chief  -  matching him as a wary warrior and negotiator   
> > -  are not
> > explored. The dominant statues in the exhibition galleries are of the
> > Powhatan rulers, Wahunsonacock and Opechancanough, along with the  
> > African
> > Ndongo ruler, Queen Njinga, who fought against the Portuguese and  
> > from whose
> > lands the first blacks brought to America were pulled.
> >
> >
> >
> > So what exactly is being celebrated here? A closing gallery makes some
> > suggestions: "Principles of Law and Justice," "Exploration and  
> > Discovery,"
> > "Representative Government." But also "Displacement of Indigenous  
> > People"
> > and "Servitude and Injustice." What a change from the Tercentennial  
> > when
> > Jamestown was the symbol of America's birth and President Theodore
> > Roosevelt, Mark Twain and Booker T. Washington spoke. On the 350th
> > anniversary Queen Elizabeth II made her first royal trip to the United
> > States,  and she is expected to come this time as well. But what  
> > will she
> > find? Not the triumph of British influence, but the triumph of  
> > ambiguity,
> > discomfort and vague multiculturalism.
> >
> >
> >
> > Of course much has changed in 50 years; much had to. Those 1957  
> > celebrations
> > themselves provided evidence of the sins of the past: the Virginia  
> > Chamber
> > of Commerce withdrew some invitations to festivities after it found  
> > out they
> > were sent to distinguished Virginians who happened to be black.   
> > Clearly too
> > it is impossible to understand Jamestown without understanding the  
> > fate of
> > Indian tribes. And, despite its flaws, the Settlement's exhibition  
> > does much
> > to spur a greater understanding of Jamestown.
> >
> >
> >
> > But the impulse to commemorate rather than celebrate is a sign of how
> > rigidly the Jamestown affair and its aftermath are now being  
> > seen.   And
> > unfortunately an  extraordinary culture  unable to celebrate itself  
> > and its
> > past,  with all  its  imperfections and failings,   is not  likely  
> > to have a
> > clear vision of the present and future.
> >
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