Sir Walter Ralegh's Indian Interpreters, 1584–1618

SEVERAL Native Americans who journeyed to England during the colonial era have enjoyed scholarly and even popular attention: Manteo, the Roanoke colonists' interpreter-guide; Squanto, the Pilgrims' "spetiall instrument"; Pocahontas, the Virginia colony's fabled and often fictionalized Powhatan princess; and several well-publicized eighteenth-century diplomatic delegates to London, including Tomochichi of the Yamacraws and Thayendanegea (Joseph Brant) of the Mohawks. 1 Almost entirely overlooked are many other Indian voyagers to the east, including those from North and South America who crossed the Atlantic between 1584 and 1618 under the direct or indirect aegis of Sir Walter Ralegh. During those thirty-five years, perhaps twenty American natives under his sponsorship were in England to receive instruction in the English language and to impart knowledge useful for colonial enterprises. Most of Ralegh's Indian recruits sooner or later returned to their homelands, where many played key roles in England's early overseas ventures. 1

Because the historical records of late Tudor-early Stuart England are woefully incomplete, sometimes confusing, and occasionally contradictory, no precise enumeration of the Indians under Ralegh's nominal control who traveled to England is possible. A tentative roster includes six or more from Roanoke Island and the lower Chesapeake Bay between1584 and 1603 , of whom only Manteo has received much attention. The stories of twelve or more natives of Guiana and Trinidad who made the journey between1594 and 1618 are barely known, although these diverse and generally long-lived travelers must have been more visible and notable in England than many of the Indians who attract greater historical attention. At least three of the South American natives were from ruling families; one returned home to assume the tribe's leadership at his father's death. Several had extensive stays in London--the longest for fourteen years--often lodging in Ralegh's mansion on the Thames. After returning to their homelands, several English-trained Indians provided crucial aid to later expeditions into Guiana, sometimes saving Englishmen, including Ralegh, from almost certain death. After his incarceration in1603 , two or more Guiana natives attended Ralegh in the Tower of London. The last of the Guianans he took to England witnessed his beheading. By the time King James contrived Ralegh's execution, that swashbuckling knight--far better known to posterity for battling Irishmen and Spaniards than for educating and employing Indians--had initiated and fostered the practice of transporting American natives to England, training them to speak English, introducing them to Anglican Christianity, assuring their return to America, and reaping tangible benefits from their support of England's imperial ventures. 2

Language, Ralegh seems to have recognized from the outset, was an essential instrument of empire.2 Without communication between his explorers and colonists, on the one hand, and the natives of Roanoke and Guiana, on the other, viable English outposts would be difficult, perhaps impossible, to maintain, as would be effective exploration and exploitation of native territory. Ralegh and his linguistically talented friend Thomas Hariot accordingly implemented indoctrination in English speech and customs gentle enough for most of his interpreter-guides to develop lasting loyalty to Sir Walter and his nation. Roanoke native Wanchese excepted, they were not Calibans whose profit from language instruction was knowing how to curse or whose maltreatment inspired rebellion; rather, in both Carolina and Guiana, Ralegh's Indians appear to have been conscientious translators and staunch allies to his own and his agents' subsequent expeditions. Even if, like most adult learners of a second language, his repatriated Indians' facility in English often faded in the absence of opportunities to speak it, they frequently aided the monolingual explorers who later visited their lands. Ralegh and Hariot were proficient schoolmasters.3

Alden T. Vaughan, "Sir Walter Ralegh's Indian Interpreters, 1584–1618," The William and Mary Quarterly April 2002 (22 Feb. 2009).
William and Mary Quarterly

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The Secrets of Lincoln's DNA

by Janet Crain

Those who are serious Lincoln scholars probably already knew and the rest of us who watched "The Plot to Steal Lincoln's Body" last night on the History Channel now know that Lincoln's body is buried under 10 feet of concrete. This was done after a serious attempt to steal his body which could have succeeded and following many years of subsequent paranoia and anxiousness on the part of the custodians of his remains. Therefore one would assume that his DNA is safe from a prying public whose inquiring minds want to know. But that is not the case. Not all of Lincoln's earthly remains lie under those tons of concrete.

Quite a bit of Abraham Lincoln's DNA was left behind if it can only be retrieved. There is blood, hair and bone fragments capable of yielding their secrets if approached in the right way. And if today's technology isn't up to the job, tomorrow's probably will be. Of equal importance to learning whether or not Lincoln actually suffered from one or more of the three serious genetic diseases long suspected, is the possible answer to two other enigmas. What was his ethnic origin and who really was his father? Many have refused to believed a lowly uneducated farmer such as Thomas Lincoln could be his biological father. While others have speculated that the Lincoln surname and his grandfather's given name, Abraham, suggest the paternal line was Jewish. Maybe the questions will all be answered in the future, if not soon, then later.

---

The Secrets of Lincoln's DNA

Come along with me, past all the bicentennial hoopla, to a quiet place north of the White House. Here, at the National Museum of Health and Medicine, you'll find a glass case housing the most incredible Lincoln memorabilia on the planet: the man himself. His blood on the cuff of a surgeon's shirt. Snippets of his chocolate brown hair. A handful of bone fragments removed from his skull.

Yes, Lincoln! Guess what that might mean? Lincoln's DNA! Scientists have been speculating about the president's health for decades. It's believed he had malaria, smallpox and depression. Syphilis has been debated. And there are hypotheses about three rare genetic disorders—Marfan syndrome, spinocerebellar ataxia 5 and multiple endocrine neoplasia 2B (MEN 2B). If scientists had access to Lincoln's DNA, might they be able to clarify the medical history of one of the world's greatest historical figures? Could they also sequence his entire genome, and perhaps trace his genealogical roots back to their origins? Should the 16th president's mortal remains be put to the test?

I'm not the first person to ask this question nor am I the first to think it's a very intriguing idea. As far back as 1991, a panel of experts gave scientists a "qualified green light" to test Lincoln's DNA for Marfan syndrome—decades after a physician proposed that the president might have had it. At the time, researchers decided it wasn't technically feasible to move forward, but genetic testing is far more sophisticated today.

Experts say it might be possible to extract chopped-up bits of DNA from these museum remnants, assemble them into the gene they're looking for, then make a diagnosis. There are, of course, considerable challenges: nobody knows whether there's enough DNA in good enough condition to do a gene test, or to do one conclusively. As for sequencing Lincoln's entire genome, "I don't think it's doable," says Dr. Philip Reilly, author of "Abraham Lincoln's DNA," because there are such small pieces left and there would likely be large gaps.

If Lincoln had ataxia 5, a neurological disorder, he'd have something in common with 90 relatives descended from his paternal aunt and uncle. University of Minnesotagenetics professor Laura Ranum says there's a 25 percent chance. If so, the president would be a great example of somebody overcoming physical challenges to achieve greatness, she says. She'd love to see a test. So would Josephine Grima, of the National Marfan Foundation. "It would help raise awareness exponentially," she says. "Like what Roosevelt did for polio."

Cont. here:

http://www.newsweek.com/id/184812

Cross Posted Here:
http://historical-melungeons.blogspot.com/2009/02/secrets-of-lincolns-dna.html




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Captain John Smith Set Out to Find the Lost Colonists

Captain John Smith

Only 27 when he explored Chesapeake Bay, John Smith proved
himself an energetic and resourceful leader.

"There is but one entrance by sea into this country, and that is at the mouth of a very goodly bay, 18 or 20 miles broad. The cape on the south is called Cape Henry, in honor of our most noble Prince. The land, white hilly sands like unto the Downs, and all along the shores rest plenty of pines and firs ... Within is a country that may have the prerogative over the most pleasant places known, for large and pleasant navigable rivers, heaven and earth never agreed better to frame a place for man's habitation..."

- Captain John Smith, 1612 Smith's Journey

The real Captain (a military rather than maritime title) John Smith arrived at the mouth of the Bay in 1607 after a lengthy and rather miserable voyage across the Atlantic. Taken prisoner under mutiny charges during the trip, he discovered that the King of England had designated Smith a member of the newly formed governing council of Jamestown. The first summer in Jamestown was dreadful, as many men died from disease and malnutrition. To escape the rivalries of the colony, find passage to the western ocean, discover gold and locate the colonists of the Lost Colony of Roanoke, Smith gathered 14 men for a voyage up the Chesapeake. Using only a "two to three tons burden" knock-down boat brought from England, the men set out on June 2, 1608

Cont. here:

http://www.chesapeakebay.net/captainjohnsmith.aspx?menuitem=19591

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Oral History Interviews with Family Members

Family Oral History Projects

August 18, 2008

I have been lecturing recently on the topic of “Oral History for the Genealogist.” When I get the opportunity, I like to ask my audience to give me their definition for “oral history.” I explain that lexicographers (dictionary compilers) generally create definitions from how the word is used in speech and writing. So, I tell the audience, they either can offer up a dictionary-like definition or give me an example of a genealogist, like themselves, engaging in “family oral history.” In social science research, this kind of definition is called an operational definition. Whether or not formally stated (such as in my little exercise), operational definitions greatly influence how we interpret our sources and our data.

I have received a variety of definitions, one which I want to discuss here. This definition is simply stated as: “Oral history is what you get from family when you ask them to tell you about your ancestors. It helps you find records.” What is interesting about this definition is the embedded assumption that family “oral history” is part of your early research, but has little additional value as your research matures into looking at written records.

I hope to correct a misconception about the “starting with family” advice given to most beginner genealogists. It’s not that I disagree with that advice. I support approaching family early in your research. However, the manner in which this advice is communicated suggests that once you have visited mom, Grandpa Jones or Aunt Mayzie—once you’ve gotten elders tell you the names and vitals of all the ancestors that they can recall—you can contentedly consign your living relatives back to holiday visits and the periodic phone call to catch up on current events. The fact that they might know more about the family genealogy than they initially provided just does not get the attention that I am convinced is warranted.

Cont. here:

http://sfgayle.wordpress.com/


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A Novel of America

Errol Lincoln Uys, author of A Novel of America is writing his novel online.
On The Bridge, Mr. Uys' blog, "writing in public, a draft manuscript with working notes," he includes several Roanoke links and has our blog listed:
ROANOKE WEB LINK

You can explore his site map on his website.

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The Elizabethan Age - The Spanish Armada

The Spanish Armada was very important to the fate of the colonists because it was at least the reason given as to why John White could not return for three long years to his colony and his family. JC


The Elizabethan Age - The Spanish Armada

On Sunday 7th August 1588 the fleet of the Spanish Armada lay in the English Channel, close to the cliffs of Calais. The Spanish fleet intended to mount the invasion and conquest of England by the Catholic King Philip II of Spain. The success of the Spanish Armada would mean that Queen Elizabeth, viewed as a Protestant heretic, would be deposed and the English people subjugated to Spanish rule and forcibly converted to Catholicism. The English were fighting for their lives, their freedom and their way of life.

The Spanish Armada

The Spanish Commander was the Duke of Medina Sidonia who led 19,000 fighting men. The English were led by Lord Charles Howard of Effingham the Lord High Admiral of England with men such as Lord Sheffield, Sir Richard Grenville, John Hawkins, Martin Frobisher and, of course, Francis Drake. These supremely important people and events have been detailed in the Spanish Armada section of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Ten Great Events in History, by James Johonnot. The story of the English battle against the might of Spain and the Spanish Armada has been told in colorful detail under the following easy-to-read sections:

Elizabethan Dictionary

http://www.elizabethan-era.org.uk/the-spanish-armada.htm

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Let's All Get Organized; Finally!!!

Dear Myrtle's Organization Check List for February

I love her comment: " Maybe we should all be committed!"

You can print out this pdf file, but Myrtle recommends viewing online. So the hyperlinks work.

http://www.dearmyrtle.com/09/2009FebruaryOrganizationChecklist.pdf

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The Basques Were Here

In arctic Canada, a Smithsonian researcher discovers evidence of Basque trading with North America

• By Anika Gupta
• Smithsonian magazine, February 2009
  
  

Photo Gallery

1. Requiem for the Redhead
2. The Vineyard in Winter
3. Up Close at Trinidad's Carnival
4. Wolves and the Balance of Nature in the Rockies
5. Steering Ships Through a Treacherous Waterway
6. What Darwin Didn't Know
7. Cats as Pets and Predators
8. How Lincoln and Darwin Shaped the Modern World
9. Gene Therapy in a New Light
10. The White House’s First Celebrity Dog

Bill Fitzhugh knew he'd found something when he stepped off his research boat in the summer of 2001 at Quebec's Hare Harbor and saw red tiles beneath wet moss.

Fitzhugh, director of the Smithsonian's Arctic Studies Center at the National Museum of Natural History, had sailed up Canada's coast in search of Basque sites. The curved red tiles caught his eye because they were unique to Basque buildings. For the next seven summers Fitzhugh returned to the same spot to lead an archaeological dig.

Though the Basques were a major presence in Canada and South America from the 16th to the 18th centuries, physical evidence of their activities has been scant—and that's what Fitzhugh has been after. An independent people, the Basques originated in the mountainous region of southwest France and northwest Spain. They were master mariners and some of the first to ply the waters between Europe and the New World. Basque traders set up summertime camps on Canada's east coast. They fished cod and hunted whales, harvesting the meat and oil to sell in Europe. Historians have frequently overlooked the Basques because unlike later British, French and Dutch explorers, the Basque interest in the New World was purely commercial.

"The Basques didn't go around planting flags. They just made money and weren't really interested in anything else," says Mark Kurlansky, author of The Basque History of the World.

Previous archaeologists had found evidence of Basque outposts at Red Bay on the Strait of Belle Isle in New Foundland, where the Basque harvested whales well into the late 16th century. When Fitzhugh began excavations at Hare Harbor, 150 miles west of Red Bay, he assumed he'd find remnants from the same period.

But Fitzhugh's work has unearthed two surprises. In early excavations at the site, he found colorful glass trade beads mixed in with distinctive Basque iron implements. Trade beads were used as currency by the Basque and other Europeans in their dealings with indigenous tribes. Lab studies revealed that these beads had been manufactured between 1680 and 1720—the first archaeological evidence that the Basques had continued to travel to Canada into the early 18th century.

The second surprise surfaced this past summer. The team began excavating what they thought was a midden, a pile of trash left behind when a settlement or camp is abandoned. Instead, they found a Basque blacksmith shop. The floors and walls were charred, suggesting there had been a fire. Then, when Fitzhugh lifted up the floor's stone paving slabs, he found another charred wooden floor. Scattered about were toys carved from soapstone, a form of Inuit handiwork. "That's when we knew we had an Inuit family at the site," Fitzhugh says.

Cont. here:

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/Joint-Effort.html#


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Persons of Mean and Vile Condition pt. 1

By Janet Crain

Many people do not know what it really meant to be an indentured servant when this country was a British colony. They imagine an agreement was made between two adults that in return for the cost of transportation here, the indentured servant would work a period of time, usually 7 years, in return for his or her debt. At first a small acreage was even awarded along with a sum of money and suit of clothes. That was soon phased out. There were many opportunities for the exploitation of this system and most were employed. It became common for people including children to be kidnapped (kid nabbed). The courts sent many persons convicted of crimes large and small to the colonies. Poor children were sent so that they not be a burden on the government. Young women and men were tricked aboard or knocked in the head and carried on board. It made no difference once the ship set sail. They were cut off forever from their friends and families.

Conditions on board were terrible. The ship's captains transported as many as possible, as cheaply as possible, and sold their indentureships once in the colonies. No attempt was made to keep families together. Conditions in the new country were so horrible that as many as 4 out of 5 soon died.

Eventually conditions became so bad that some of these people banded together and rebelled. It was called "Bacon's Rebellion".

Some call this the first stirrings of the eventual American Revolution.

Persons of Mean and Vile Condition

by Howard Zinn

In 1676, seventy years after Virginia was founded, a hundred years before it supplied leadership for the American Revolution, that colony faced a rebellion of white frontiersmen, joined by slaves and servants, a rebellion so threatening that the governor had to flee the burning capital of Jamestown, and England decided to send a thousand soldiers across the Atlantic, hoping to maintain order among forty thousand colonists. This was Bacon's Rebellion. After the uprising was suppressed, its leader, Nathaniel Bacon, dead, and his associates hanged, Bacon was described in a Royal Commission report:

He was said to be about four or five and thirty years of age, indifferent tall but slender, black-hair'd and of an ominous, pensive, melancholly Aspect, of a pestilent and prevalent Logical discourse tending to atheisme... . He seduced the Vulgar and most ignorant people to believe (two thirds of each county being of that Sort) Soc that their whole hearts and hopes were set now upon Bacon. Next he charges the Governour as negligent and wicked, treacherous and incapable, the Lawes and Taxes as unjust and oppressive and cryes up absolute necessity of redress. Thus Bacon encouraged the Tumult and as the unquiet crowd follow and adhere to him, he listeth them as they come in upon a large paper, writing their name circular wise, that their Ringleaders might not be found out. Having connur'd them into this circle, given them Brandy to wind up the charme, and enjoyned them by an oath to stick fast together and to him and the oath being administered, he went and infected New Kent County ripe for Rebellion.

Bacon's Rebellion began with conflict over how to deal with the Indians, who were close by, on the western frontier, constantly threatening. Whites who had been ignored when huge land grants around Jamestown were given away had gone west to find land, and there they encountered Indians. Were those frontier Virginians resentful that the politicos and landed aristocrats who controlled the colony's government in Jamestown first pushed them westward into Indian territory, and then seemed indecisive in fighting the Indians? That might explain the character of their rebellion, not easily classifiable as either antiaristocrat or anti-Indian, because it was both.

And the governor, William Berkeley, and his Jamestown crowd-were they more conciliatory to the Indians (they wooed certain of them as spies and allies) now that they had monopolized the land in the East, could use frontier whites as a buffer, and needed peace? The desperation of the government in suppressing the rebellion seemed to have a double motive: developing an Indian policy which would divide Indians in order to control them (in New England at this very time, Massasoit's son Metacom was threatening to unite Indian tribes, and had done frightening damage to Puritan settlements in "King Philip's War"); and teaching the poor whites of Virginia that rebellion did not pay-by a show of superior force, by calling for troops from England itself, by mass hanging.

Violence had escalated on the frontier before the rebellion. Some Doeg Indians took a few hogs to redress a debt, and whites, retrieving the hogs, murdered two Indians. The Doegs then sent out a war party to kill a white herdsman, after which a white militia company killed twenty-four Indians. This led to a series of Indian raids, with the Indians, outnumbered, turning to guerrilla warfare. The House of Burgesses in Jamestown declared war on the Indians, but proposed to exempt those Indians who cooperated. This seemed to anger the frontiers people, who wanted total war but also resented the high taxes assessed to pay for the war.

Times were hard in 1676. "There was genuine distress, genuine poverty.... All contemporary sources speak of the great mass of people as living in severe economic straits," writes Wilcomb Washburn, who, using British colonial records, has done an exhaustive study of Bacon's Rebellion. It was a dry summer, ruining the corn crop, which was needed for food, and the tobacco crop, needed for export. Governor Berkeley, in his seventies, tired of holding office, wrote wearily about his situation: "How miserable that man is that Governes a People where six parts of seaven at least are Poore Endebted Discontented and Armed."

His phrase "six parts of seaven" suggests the existence of an upper class not so impoverished. In fact, there was such a class already developed in Virginia. Bacon himself came from this class, had a good bit of land, and was probably more enthusiastic about killing Indians than about redressing the grievances of the poor. But he became a symbol of mass resentment against the Virginia establishment, and was elected in the spring of 1676 to the House of Burgesses. When he insisted on organizing armed detachments to fight the Indians, outside official control, Berkeley proclaimed him a rebel and had him captured, whereupon two thousand Virginians marched into Jamestown to support him. Berkeley let Bacon go, in return for an apology, but Bacon went off, gathered his militia, and began raiding the Indians.

Bacon's "Declaration of the People" of July 1676 shows a mixture of populist resentment against the rich and frontier hatred of the Indians. It indicted the Berkeley administration for unjust taxes, for putting favorites in high positions, for monopolizing the beaver trade, and for not protecting the western formers from the Indians. Then Bacon went out to attack the friendly Pamunkey Indians, killing eight, taking others prisoner, plundering their possessions.
There is evidence that the rank and file of both Bacon's rebel army and Berkeley's official army were not as enthusiastic as their leaders. There were mass desertions on both sides, according to Washburn. In the fall, Bacon, aged twenty-nine, fell sick and died, because of, as a contemporary put it, "swarmes of Vermyn that bred in his body." A minister, apparently not a sympathizer, wrote this epitaph:

Bacon is Dead I am sorry at my heart,
That lice and flux should take the hangmans part.

The rebellion didn't last long after that. A ship armed with thirty guns, cruising the York River, became the base for securing order, and its captain, Thomas Grantham, used force and deception to disarm the last rebel forces. Coming upon the chief garrison of the rebellion, he found four hundred armed Englishmen and Negroes, a mixture of free men, servants, and slaves. He promised to pardon everyone, to give freedom to slaves and servants, whereupon they surrendered their arms and dispersed, except for eighty Negroes and twenty English who insisted on keeping their arms. Grantham promised to take them to a garrison down the river, but when they got into the boat, he trained his big guns on them, disarmed them, and eventually delivered the slaves and servants to their masters. The remaining garrisons were overcome one by one. Twenty-three rebel leaders were hanged.

To be Cont.

http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/zinnvil3.html


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