Pocahontas

                                    History is His Story

Why did British, not French nor Spanish come to dominate N. America?  Agriculture, faith and a love story are why.

            In 1415, the Portuguese began to venture on the seas and discovered many volcanic islands west of Africa. What crop to grow there?  They found the answer further south in Africa.  African agriculture’s only carbohydrate was sugar cane grown under hot, backbreaking conditions by slaves.  Slavery was long gone from Europe, but the Portuguese began to adopt it, and grew instantly rich as Europe became addicted to sugar--only had honey prior.  Spain came to the new world but struggled to establish a colony for 30 years in Hispanola.  Then Cortez had a bold defeat of the Aztecs and Pizarro of the Incas.  Their model was to colonize the way they had conquered and occupied Moorish Spain—make serfs of the natives and force them to convert. Native American agriculture had little meat, mostly birds that were hunted.  Spanish had cattle, horses, hogs, sheep and chickens, an enticement for native Indians to join a hacienda (plantation).  But Indians died rapidly of smallpox-- 20 million people from Mexico to Peru became 2 million in 40 years.  Hence the Spanish brought slaves to do the labor. One strange group were the natives of Canary Islands, fair-skinned blondes who were deported to Puerto Rico.  Hence there are dark- and light-skinned Puerto Ricans today.

            France was totally absorbed in civil war between Catholics and Calvinists until 1590.  They realized that they needed to grab a portion of N. America before the Spanish owned it all. Indians in what we call the Deep South had some corn/beans agriculture, but were mostly hunter-gatherers among a population of 2 to 5 million north of  Mexico.  France founded 2 forts in Florida that the watchful Spanish destroyed.  Champlain, recognizing the value of fishing and furs established a foothold in Acadia and Quebec. 

            But if common men will risk everything to go to a new place, they must feel that somehow God calls them to go to the wilderness to ply their humble trades, like farming or trapping.  The Spanish brought priests and built churches but the contingent was mostly soldiers.  Likewise the French neglected farming.  The first two British settlements Roanoke and Jamestown, were also soldiers and adventurers with very secular leadership.  They too failed or languished. There were other failed English settlements you’ve probably never heard of, like Sagadahoc in Maine. The English had no cash crop.

            Post Reformation Britain developed a popular myth that England was a Chosen Race, the new Israel. Fox’s Book of Martyrs, a book of stories about Protestants resisting Bloody Mary’s attempt at Catholic restoration was the popular read.  Wycliffe begat Hus begat Luther begat Cranmer, Brits reasoned. The Sea Dog pirates and merchants of England adopted strict Protestantism in their codes of bravery and had a reason to raid Spanish shipping. “God is English.  For you fight not only in the quarrell of your country, but also chiefly in defence of His true religion.” --Queen Elizabeth. Converting Indians was a goal of both Jamestown and Plymouth as they settled colonies but Jamestown was mostly soldiers.  It would have died-off had not Capt. John Smith arrived in 1608 to find 53 survivors.  He organized military discipline, negotiated with the tribes to get enough food to last the winter, and got no thanks for his efforts as he left. The colony again nearly collapsed but a teenage Indian girl, daughter of the chief, befriended the settlers.  But war broke out and Pocahontas was taken hostage by the colonists.  Nonetheless, Pastor Whitaker taught her Christianity and she was baptized in January 1614. (Anglican theology) A truce was put in place, but Pocahantas wanted to stay with the Christians. And later (February?) she fell in love with John Rolfe. Pocahontas and Rolfe married and produced children, thus endearing the Powhattans who showed Rolfe how to grow tobacco. Suddenly 60 settlers in Virginia had a cash crop. In 1619 the British crown hit upon the idea that they could exile convicts to Jamestown. Many had mental problems but others were determined to turn their lives around with faith and farming.  A ship of poor women arrived as well, available for the price of 125 pounds of tobacco. Settler-families started to emerge.  And on July 30, 1619, the first General Assembly of Virginia met in the Jamestown Church.  The colony designed a miniature parliament.  There was nothing like it in all the Americas, the first popular legislature.  At a time when Virginia’s progenitor, Sir Walter Raleigh, was executed by James I over the issue of divine right of kings, this was a significant portent of America’s future.  And by the way, proud Rolfe descendants are numerous in Virginia today.