Founding of Jamestown, Virginia I’d like to return to the founding of Jamestown, Virginia in order to correct some errors in many American school textbooks—the story that became a Disney love story. That would be the story of Captain John Smith and the Indian princess, Pocahontas; a love story that in reality was a story of betrayal and dashed hopes. On May 14, 1607, the Virginia Company explorers landed on Jamestown Island, to establish the Virginia Colony on the banks of the James River 60 miles from the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. It was a business venture to procure wealth for its investors, in the form of gold and silver. The colonists at most hoped to find iron or copper and a waterway to secure them easy passage to Asia and all of its riches. They may have been forced to land there because of the deep water channel which let their ships ride close to shore (this is not documented) where they could moor their ships to the trees. Recent documented discovery of the exact location of the first settlement indicates that the actual settlement site was in a more secure place, away from the channel, where Spanish ships couldn’t fire point blank into the Fort. Colonists did manage to plant and bare palisadoes to build a small wooden fort and Captain John Smith, an Englishman, ran the settlement in spite of the disease, famine, and continuing attacks from neighboring Algonquian Indians. There were times when the Powhatan Indians, named after their chief, Powhatan, did trade food to the settlers in exchange for copper and iron implements. Captain Smith and several colonists were at one point captured by the Powhatan Indians, the colonists were killed and Smith was taken prisoner to Chief Powhatan. At this point the story goes that Captain Smith was going to be clubbed to death, but the chief’s daughter, Pocahontas begged her father to spare his life. The Indian version of this story is that the clubbing was a ceremonial ritual and that Pocahontas was the child chosen to play the part of the interceding, saving Indian. Regardless of which version of the story is correct, Smith lived to tell his story. One result of the incident, which is most probably correct, is that Captain Smith was spared because he was more valuable alive, as a trade broker between Chief Powhatan, the Indian people, and the English. Nevertheless, Powhatan expected Captain Smith to move the Jamestown settlement to a location within Powhatan’s dominions where he could keep an eye on the English. Smith didn’t do this. Powhatan also expected the colonists to be subordinate to him; they were not. And, Powhatan may have expected intermarriages between the settlers and the Indians in order to secure an interest of keeping peace and ensuring prosperity in the region, but this didn’t happen either. Captain Smith’s return from the Indians to the Jamestown settlement didn’t set up relations between the colonists and the Powhatan Indians, although it did set up a basis for trade relations. His return; however, gets him placed in jail for mismanagement of the Virginia Colony business venture. The leaders of Jamestown suspected that Captain Smith was trying to set himself up as the colony leader, through his alliance with Powhatan. The English leadership also thought that Smith would try to become dictator of Jamestown with the backing of the Indian military strength. Now, were Captain John Smith and Pocahontas romantically linked? Well, no one knows for sure. She did serve as a representative between her father, Powhatan, and the fort. We do know that she accompanied and headed Indian delegations to the English. She was very, very intelligent; beautiful; and intercultural relations savvy. It is known that Pocahontas was at one time married to an Indian warrior and then to John Rolfe, an English colonist, but there is no documentation proving that she was married or kept company with Captain Smith. Over the next few years, trade between the colonists and the Indians became strained and colonists who were starving began to steal food and burning Indian villages. At one point a keg of gunpowder explodes between Captain Smith’s legs. (There are stories that the explosion was accidental and stories that it was intentional.) If it was intentional, it was due to Smith becoming too aggressive at dictating English/Indian policy. As a result of the keg exploding, Captain Smith was forced to return to England to recover. Instead of telling Pocahontas that Captain Smith was returning to England, she was told that Captain Smith was dead. In April of 1613, Pocahontas was taken prisoner by the English and they used her to try to secure peace with the Powhatan Indians. Her father, Chief Powhatan, only rebuffed the English; however, Pocahontas’ marriage to colonist John Rolfe served to establish an uneasy truce. Some years later Pocahontas traveled to England with her husband, John Rolfe where she ran into Captain Smith. The realization that Smith was alive, not dead, crushes Pocahontas. She couldn’t comprehend why Captain Smith never tried to contact her or her people; especially her father, Powhatan, who had called Smith “son.” In spite of Pocahontas’ feelings about Smith, she went to him and told him she felt he could have made a difference in the Indian/English warfare if he had come back to America and interceded between the English and the Indians. The Pocahontas story, the Pocahontas myth, has traditionally been told to make Americans feel better about the evils of colonization. Pocahontas seemed to acquiesce to English colonization, to willingly adopt Christianity and “civility.” But the larger lesson of Pocahontas’s life and her experience with Captain Smith and the English is that there was a potential in the early relationships between Indians and colonists to set up something mutual. To set up, as the Indians would have it, a relationship of kin in which the two peoples help to meet each other’s needs and live as a single people. Those expectations were dashed. They were dashed in the mind of Pocahontas, dashed for the Powhatans, and dashed for the Indian peoples across the continent over the course of three centuries of colonization by European powers in the United States. The reason that I back up and reiterate this tale is because over the course of my teaching history, students have told me that they have seen such-and-such a movie and that my rendition of a historical fact couldn’t be true. Folks, Hollywood producers are out to make money and if history wouldn’t make a big sale; they change it to fit their agenda. Let’s face it, historical fact can be boring. So, the Disney love story of Captain Smith, the young, handsome colonist, and Pocahontas, the beautiful Indian princess, sells good; however, it isn’t exactly true.

We've been without our internet for a few days. Bad weather took the power and Quest lines out. But, now we're back in business. Another history lesson for tomorrow.

Sunday was our 16th wedding anniversary. I want to wish a happy anniversary to my husband, Allen.

Beware of BookIt.com, they are crooks. They offer you low fares on airlines, but they screw you over. We tried to book tickets to Orlando for the graduation trips that we took in May and the first time we tried it didn't go through. BookIt.com told us there was a problem with our American Express. So, we called American Express and they said our card was okay. BookIt.com assured us they would try to book the flights and would let us know. They didn't let us know, so we tried to book the tickets again online. This time the booking went through. Then we get a bill for both tickets. American Express investigated and tell us that we have to pay for both bookings even though we only used one. DON'T USE BOOKIT.COM UNLESS YOU ARE PREPARED TO PAY FOR THEIR MISTAKES!!

Happy Father's Day to all the fathers and men in our lives!

For anyone interested in joining the American Party, take a look at www.theamericanparty.org. If you're tired of the Republicans and the Democrats take the time to look this over and signup.

I'm waiting for a couple of reference books I need and then I'm going to start my history and political science lessons on this blog. Shouldn't be too long, as Amazon.com is fairly quick. Meanwhile, who do you think Obama is going to choose as a running mate? And, McCain?