INSTEAD OF 1619, TEACH 33

 

INSTEAD OF 1619, TEACH 33. The Americas in 33AD was all hunter-gathers except for a few in Peru experimenting with potatoes and llamas agriculture.  Agriculture allows division of labor, diversified food and food storage.  Hunter societies attain less than 4 people per square mile.  Ag allows hundreds. But America had no cereal grains or lowland animals.  In 33 AD China, the Han Chinese had found wheat and rice culture 2000 years before with chickens and hogs, and swept over most of eastern Asia, genociding the hunters, as is often the case. Ancestor worship and philosophies were the religious practice.  People have unknowns—disease, crop failure, weather, war, death—that leads them to superstitious beliefs in gods, trolls, spells, as a way to explain the unexplainable. India, by 33AD had a pantheon of gods and agriculture.  West African Bantus had just discovered agriculture, were spreading all over the continent killing off most of the other 5 indigenous races. But their only carbs came from sugar cane.  Syrupy cane fields were thick with birds and insects, especially mosquitos bearing deadly disease. Life expectancy for cane workers was only early twenties.  So they were engaged in constant warfare and slave capture to get someone to do the dirty work. Rome & Egypt had lots of slavery and gods, in the following 300 years the slaves got free--not by revolt but by Christian faith.

            Christianity is simple. The Living God comes to you in your miserable life.  Trust Him and Grace grabs you.  Then you are surprised to find God’s Spirit working around you, even within you.  And it dawns on you that you have something nobody can take from you. Slave you may still be, but free as a child of the Almighty God.  This is the simple thing that is being lost in modern America and Europe.  It is why politics, science and government are being sought to fill the unknowns. Which works about as well as the Post Office and 18^th century bleeding therapy of “bad blood”. 

            By 400 AD Western Roman Empire had been overrun by barbaric tribes, lost most education, cities destroyed, familes destroyed. The Tang Dynasty in China had run its course.  251 rulers in 400+ years and some of the bloodiest successions in history.  Then warlords. In the Americas, Mayas were emerging who had periodic famines and so had to perform lots of human sacrifices to placate angry gods.  

            By 1500, Europe had come through a long Dark Age, then the Back Death.  Rulers were seldom good family men, almost all had numerous mistresses and numerous bastard heirs vying for succession. But monks had by this time done practical experiments in a fledgling science/engineering.  Banking, accounting, mathematics had arisen.  And moveable type had been invented to print on paper.  But the Christian church had fallen into bad practices and doctrines and was ripe for Reformation. Sanitation was horrid. Life span was 30 years, less than when Rome ruled. Europeans were backwards compared to the Middle East, India or China.  Islam had nearly conquered Europe, turned back by “not worth it” as much as battles.  India had invented algebra and “Arabic” numbering and was half Muslim.  China’s Ming Dynasty was easily the strongest kingdom on earth. Native Ameicans in Mexico had cornered the market on obsidian, used to make super knives, and rode their success to establish the Aztec empire.  Incas had just conquered and gathered together kingdoms of the Andes. Yet Europe was doing things the others weren't.  Monastic women were being educated.  Universities were established. The town clock became common. And everywhere were free peasants.

            But the Reformation and Arab-Turkish blockage of trade to India, and fear that the Turks would conquer all of Europe caused tiny Portugal to sail the seas looking for safe islands to colonize ahead of the onslaught of Islam. Their success, even in going to India, caused Spain to compete.  Columbus found America and like the rest of the Spanish was a terrible governor.  They enticed the natives into serfdom with beef, demanded they convert, destroyed native culture.  Meanwhile, France and England fished the Grand Banks and France was quick to find fur trading and trapping good in Quebec. Trouble was, few wanted to emigrate to that cold country and the colony languished. Arcadia was equally poor.  As the Spanish encroached in Florida, the English wanted colonies but the crown had no money. So they relied on proprietors to fund fortune-hunters. Finally Jamestown was founded and tobacco found as a cash crop.  But it was the Protestant controversy forcing out Calvinists that caused the Pilgrims to sail.  Storms got them off course and they landed in Massachusetts.  Peacefully trading furs and fishing, this group of redneck farmers founded the first truly successful, self-governing colony.  In 1620 they were a tiny minority.  Their guns were no match for rapid-firing bows and arrows. But a revolution had begun in Northern Europe.  The Protestant system on belief spawned eagerness for discovery in nature.  Astronomy, microscopes, anatomy and blood circulation, mining, farming techniques, weaving, chemistry and physics all exploded in this new thing called science.  The industrial revolution stormed England. Stiff keel-hulled vessels provided transport on the high seas. From 1571, when Brahe disproved the old medieval solar system until the early 1700s flintlock rifles, technology exploded. 

            And then there was free land.  The longing of serfs in England to have their own plot of land and be free was overwhelming.  If the Pilgrims could do it, anyone could.  And since New England had barely 1 person per square mile, the land looked empty and free for the taking.  Here are best demographic historian numbers.  Continental USA area had about 1.5 million natives over 3 million square miles in 1750. Pre-Colombian population, prior to Eurasian diseases, was about 5 million. 2/3 of the 1.5 million lived in what we call the Deep South where 3 Sisters agriculture had taken hold—corn, beans, squash all raised along with weeds together.

            The ship that brought slaves to Jamestown in 1619 was unwanted. It was storm damaged and badly in need of repair.  The boat dumped most of sick slaves when it left and Jamestown residents wrote contracts for indentured servitude with most of the Africans.  But the cold weather took an extreme toll on the Africans and by 3 years later, they had all died out except perhaps for a couple house girls.  Virginians had by that time concluded that Irish would make better tobacco workers and began immigrating them.  When Carolina colony began it had a no-slavery charter, but some Barbados slave owners invaded the low country along with slaves.  Georgia also had a no-slave charter but Carolina slave owners got Georgia land near Savannah.  Remember, people were scattered and governments were loose, so people got away with things. 

            And then George Whitefield came to Charleston and began to preach like Billy Graham.  He traveled up the east coast with his tent and in the aftermath, church attendance tripled by 1742.  Each colony had its own state church, but people were so stunned that their neighbors in another state had reacted the same way to his sermons, they began to think, “We’re one people!” and the phrase United States of America came into use. John Locke’s Two Treatises on Government  was published, and his principles--tolerance, equality, natural law, property rights, liberty, God-given rights, separation of church and state—became the ideas that Americans wanted. And where did Locke get this?  From the guy who died and rose again in 33AD.

Pocahontas, the real story

 This is a result of the best research I can muster about, perhaps the most significant person in American history, who made British colonies possible and USA.

Disney made a great movie about her but much of the legend isn’t true at all. The real story is much better! Her real name wasn’t Pocahontas.  That was a nickname which meant “Little Playful One”. Her real names were Amonute and Matoaka. But she liked Pocahontas. Daughter of Chief Powhattan of the Algonquin Indians’, they lived along the Virginia coast.  In 1607 when she was about 12, English settlers landed at Jamestown. She was curious and visited the new people, learning English.

            Why did the English want to settle in Virginia?  Columbus found America and then some other Spanish warriors-of-fortune conquered two huge Indian empires—the Aztecs and the Incas.  They found gold and silver, beans and corn and shipped it back home to Spain making the country very rich.  Other nations wanted to get rich too, so they tried to settle the Caribbean and North, what is now USA and Canada.  In those northern areas, they fished and traded for furs with the Indians. The first time the British tried to settle in America was Roanoke, a small group of people were left in North Carolina in 1584.  But a few years later, their settlement had disappeared.  The Carolina coast is a bad place to choose because a barrier bar reef island off the shore wrecks ships and hides the rivers necessary to find a settlement.  In 1607 the English tried once more, knowing that if they failed, the Spanish would expand into this area.  They settled  63 on the Virginia coast and claimed land from 35 to 45 degrees latitude.  It was named Jamestown after the king, James I.  Here were the Algonquins and Pocahontas.

            Most Indian women had little gardens where they raised vegetables and berries.  That way they didn’t have to go miles to gather these things.  Women did all the “farming”.  Men hunted and fished. There were no farm animals. But the Algonquin men helped a little with planting corn, squash and beans.  They grew these all together with the beans and squash climbing over the corn, called “3 Sisters” agriculture. The English men did the farming.  When they saw a new plant they dreamed of planting a big field. The Englishmen rotated crops, used manure and had iron tools like axes and hoes. This is a big reason why the Europeans succeeded in taking over much of America.

            Pocahontas was thrilled with what she learned.  The new people had cool stuff.  They had interesting food and clothes that would keep you warm in winter.  Algonquins wore nothing above the waist in summer and in winter wrapped themselves in a blanket.  For two years Pocahontas made new friends and learned English.  But Jamestown had troubles.  Most of the settlers were soldiers who guarded the village and they didn’t think they had to work at farming or building.  Only about 20 men and 6 women actually worked to raise crops or hunt.  A year later, Captain John Smith arrived and found the colony starving and idle.  He got tough and told everybody they must work.  He traded for food with the Algonquins, then left.  There is a myth that Pocahontas saved Smith by laying her head on his when the Indians were going to kill him, but it is unlikely, and wasn’t told until over a hundred years later. John Smith kept an official log and never mentioned it.  However, Pocahontas was a spunky girl who served as Smith’s translator.

            Matoaka disappeared from the settlement for 3 years.  The family’s oral story says she was married to another Indian man and had a baby girl.  The baby died and somehow tragically so did her husband.  In 1612 she suddenly appeared at Jamestown again, befriending the women there.  There were some violent disagreements between the Powhattan Algonquins and the English.  Fights broke out and the Indians took several settlers hostage.  In return, the settlers took Pocahantas hostage.  After almost a year, a peace was agreed to and all hostages were released.  But Pocahontas wanted to stay in Jamestown.  While she was under arrest as a hostage, she was guarded by the chaplain of the soldiers, Reverend Whitaker.  When he shared the gospel, that all people sin and that sin gives us a messed-up life, it resonated with the young widow and she deeply wanted to be a Christian, a believer in Jesus.  And on Jan. 14, 1614, she was baptized and took the Christian name of “Rebecca”.  She was the first native American in the lands north of Spanish America to become a Christian, the first Protestant (Anglican is Luther’s theology). Then she met John Rolfe, a young man who had lost his wife and child just as Rebecca had lost spouse and child.   We know that by about the time of Valentine’s Day, 1614, she and John Rolfe decided to get married.  They were married in April of that year.  And in 1615 she had a baby boy, Thomas. 

            Of course everyone knows what happens when a new baby is born.  The grandparents had to come see the new baby! So Powhattan and his two wives came to Jamestown for a visit.  The settlers put on a big feast and other Indians were invited warmly.  Thus began almost 20 years of peace and goodwill between the two peoples.

            But Jamestown still had a problem.  They had no reason to exist since they couldn’t produce anything of value to sell back home.  No gold, no silver were found. Furs and fish were not very valuable.  Rebecca asked John what they could do.  He told her that tobacco was a pricey trade item back in England.  How to grow it? That was a no-brainer for an Algonquin woman! She showed him how to plant, harvest and cure the leaves.  So Rolfe raised a huge amount of tobacco and shipped it back to England where it brought a profit of 12,500%.  Suddenly Jamestown had something to sell and it saved the colony.  In 3 years John Rolfe and Pocahontas grew rich and others started raising tobacco as well.

            The Rolfes grew famous in England. In 1616 they sailed to Britain and were feated as the wonderful people who had made Jamestown profitable.  They met the king. And for the winter, they lived with Rolfe’s family in England.  The English were very interested in how she became Christian and wanted very much to convert the natives of America.  In March 1617, the Rolfes set sail for America but before they even got to the mouth of the Thames River, Pocahontas became very ill.  They stopped and took her ashore where she died of unknown causes.  She was just 21.  Her dying words were, “I am going to heaven but I still have my husband John and Thomas.” It was the tragic story repeated thousands of times as Indians died of Old World diseases when Europeans came.

            Meanwhile, in Jamestown, many things were happening. In 1619, a slave ship which had endured a terrible storm came floating into the bay.  The Jamestown people didn’t like slavery and helped the sailors repair the boat just so they would leave quickly.  As payment, the ship dumped 20 sick slaves for farm labor.  The settlers signed contracts with the Africans to be indentured servants, that is, someone who agrees to work for free for a time period, like a slave.  But things didn’t go well.  The winters were cold and all the Africans died tragically within a few years. 

            That same year, 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 kings were thought to have divine rights, this was an important telling of America’s future.  And by the way, proud Rolfe descendants are numerous in Virginia today.  Do we know what Pocahontas looked like?  There were no cameras then and no one painted a picture of her.  But there is a picture painted of her niece with her little boy 50 years later.  Everyone said how much her niece looked like Pocahontas.  Here it is.

 

 

 

How Britain became re-Christianized and Civilzed

 

Rome abandoned Britain around 400 AD and the society began to collapse.  The culture was too advanced and complex, too economically interdependent on southern Europe, to continue as it had been and defend itself as Rome had done.  By the time the pagan Saxons, Angles, Danes, Norwegians and Jutes arrived, much had fallen into disarray.  Farming had become subsistence, pottery ceased to be mass produced, brick building disappeared and wouldn’t return until the 14^th century. The invasion by Saxons, et. al. was piecemeal and took place over 200 years. Saxons were illiterate.

            So how did England become literate and Christian again?  A priest at St. Andrews monastery in Rome took the name of Augustine and was commissioned to take a stab at converting Britain. In 601 he was welcomed by Aethelbert, King of Kent, one of the 7 kingdoms (called the Saxon Heptarchy), located in extreme SE England.  Aethelbert had a Christian wife, Bertha, daughter of the king of the Franks. Augustine took up residence in a church that had been vacant for 200 years at Canterbury, was later designated Archbishop. That title comes down to us today. In a short time Aethelbert was baptized and many of his servants. Aethelbert thus became the first Christian English king.

             Augustine failed to gain allegiance of the underground Celtic church but was successful spreading the Gospel. In 625, Edwin, King of Northumbria (far north, next to Scotland), married Aethelbert’s daughter, Ethelburh, who brought along her chaplain, Paulinius. On the day of his first anniversary, Edwin narrowly escaped assassination and Ethelburh gave birth to a daughter.  Sobered by these experiences he promised Paulinius that he would become a Christian if God would give him victory over the West Saxons.  When Edwin won the battle it made him the most powerful king in the Heptarchy. He was baptized in 627 and Northumbria became Christian quickly. The influence of these two kings was compelling for other kings to adopt Christianity. East Anglia lies on the east coast (Suffolk and Norfolk today).  Redwald the king was radically pagan and drove his son, Sigebert, first to Aethelbert’s court and then to exile in France.  In 634 Sigebert returned and took control of the throne.  A devout Christian, he became so involved with the evangelism that in 638 he abdicated (retired) to a monastery and left control to his son. The final kingdom to accept Christianity was Sussex where a deposed king of Northumbria, Wilfrid, worked to bring Saxon nobles to Christ there.

            With the conversion of the Saxons came monasteries, the only place where one could obtain literacy and learning. Culture exploded in England.  In 676, an illiterate herdsman named Caedmon, after an evening of revelry had a vision that commanded him to write poetry for Christ.  In the vision, he recited verses he’d never heard, and to his surprise the following morning he could recite them perfectly. He was introduced to Hilda, abbess of Whitby who verified that he was reciting scripture.  She read him more scripture and he made them into more poetic verses. He spent the rest of his life turning Bible stories into verse, which were memorized and recited all over Dark Age Britain.  Boniface was born in Devonshire  and became a priest with a call to evangelize Europe.  He labored in Frisia (original homeland of the Saxons around present Bremerhaven), Holland and Germany with fearless methods.  He chopped down the sacred oak of Thor and tore down pagan shrines, preached and converted thousands.  He was martyred in Frisia in 754. A monk named Bede at Jarrow wrote The Ecclesiastical History of the English People. It is the primary and sometimes sole source for early English history. Alcuin of York was persuaded by Charlemagne to come teach his French clergy.  He taught Latin, culture, and theology and invented a French style of writing called Caroline Miniscule with small and capital letters that we use today. He taught Charlemagne and most of his court to read and write. He is considered the most significant figure in Western European classical and religious revival that began in the late 700s. The fact that his learning surpassed the Franks shows how fast Old English culture had risen.

Bede

 

Were it not for one book by a monk whom we know only by his nickname, British history would be almost unknown from about 500 to 750 AD.  That was when illiterate barbarians overran the isle, city life almost vanished, and paganism re-established.  The man’s short name was Bede or Bedae, Saxon for ‘commander’.  When he wrote the 5-volume Ecclesiastical History of the English People in 730, he put a brief autobiography in the last chapter. 

            Bede was born on the monastery lands of Monkwearmouth—at the mouths of the Wear and Tyne rivers in Northumberland (far north England)—about 672. His parents put him in the monastery at age 7 where he grew to be the most learned scholar in Europe. In 686, a plague broke out and the monastery was moved to nearby Jarrow.  All the senior priests died.  But Bede, age 14 and his teacher, Ceolfrith, had memorized the liturgy until it could be taught to new monks. Consequently he was awarded the office of deacon, then priest  several years before normal. He wrote 60 books and was a premier translator who made Old English versions of texts of early church fathers from Latin and Greek that helped his fellow monks. He worked out the date for Easter, wrote theology and farming practice, mathematics, and Codex Laudianus (recopied book of Acts in Latin by Bede) which is in the museum at Oxford. He also is an unnamed copier of Codex Amiatinus, the earliest-surviving complete manuscript of the Latin Vulgate Bible (in Florence, Italy).

            So how did Bede fill in English history? “In 409,” he wrote, “the Romans ceased to rule Britain.” They abandoned the province—too far away, not enough troops.  Primitive and pagan Scottish Picts and Irish Celts began to attack the Bretons, now 3 centuries peaceful.  In alarm, Breton leader Vortigern, 449, invited Jutes (from today’s Denmark), Saxons (Elbe River area), and Angles (Schleswig) to help repel the warlike Celts.  Word went back quickly to the German coast that Britain was free for the taking. For a century and a half the Teutonic invaders swarmed in, fought often, until a combined group defeated the Brits at Deorham, 577.  Eventually many Celts fled to the mountains of Wales, Cornwall and across the Channel to Britanny. Unlike the barbarian invasion on the continent, there was little assimilation.  The Germans divided the island.  Jutes were a small group that established Kent (extreme SE England just across from Calais).  Angles formed 3 kingdoms—Northumberland (just south of Scotish border), Mercia (Midlands), and East Anglia (SE).  Saxons had 3 more—Wessex, Essex, and Sussex. Essex surrounds the lower Thames River and included the Roman fort of London. Since it was one of the few cities left, British became known as ‘Saxons’. “Bede”(his nickname) is Saxon, not Northumbrian, and he wrote in Old English which is close to the Frisian-Saxon dialect of German. The Heptarchy, as the 7 kingdoms were called (finally united in 829), was first pagan with German-Norse gods and culture with little experience in agriculture. Bede recounts successions of the kings, wars, and expansion of Christianity as well as telling about the barbarian way of life turned Christian. This differed from the continent because there was little left of Roman Law or methods. Amazingly,1500 years later, many royal titles still reference the Heptarchy.  Harry was Duke of Sussex. There’ll always be an England.

            Re-evangelism started over a century after the Heptarchy with Augustine of Canterbury (599) converting Kent and ended with Wilfrid converting the last of the Saxons about the time of the plague.  It took 87 years and was advanced primarily out of Canterbury on the SE coast and Northumbrians who had been early converts in the north. Irish monasteries and Rome generously provided the texts for the monastery where Bede was educated and worked.  That is how he became such a scholar in such a distant place.

            The man Bede never mentions is Arthur. That comes from a somewhat fanciful history-sermon of St. Gildas, a Welsh monk about 546.  It is thought he may have made up the Celtic character “to break the heathen and uphold the Christ”.  Was there a real Arthur or not? If there was, he was not king of all England nor living in a Camelot palace, but a Celtic warlord from the 500s when they lived in huts, amid recurrent famine. This brings up a salient point.  Bede was, as best we can test, very accurate-- unusual for ancient historians who wrote fibs to laud their kings and heroes. “You will know the truth and the truth shall set you free,” said Jesus of the gospel.  Christians have ever since loved truth and made it the standard for good investigation.  Humble Bede was given an added title of ‘Venerable’ a century after he lived.

The Historic "Frozen" and its lessons for today's partisan politics

 There’s a story from British Royal history, an analogy to “Frozen”, that holds lessons for D’s and R’s today.

Henry VIII fought with the pope over annulment of his marriage to Katharine, and bought support from the nobles by seizing church lands (1/4 the kingdom) then distributing it. They had a daughter, Mary, who quite Catholic like her mother, was put on house arrest. Minions of the king tormented the teenage girl telling her that any minute Henry would have her executed.  Parliament declared her a bastard.  But Henry died leaving only a 10 year old boy, Edward, as heir and he died 6 years later. Some  Protestant nobles conspired to enthrone Lady Jane Grey, a distant cousin, the new queen since she was Protestant.  She didn’t even want to be queen and ruled only 10 days when Mary declared herself queen, gathered Catholic allies, and marched on London. Princess Mary, after 22 years of patience in her humiliation surely would make a gentle queen, it was thought by Catholic England which comprised 90% of the population in 1553.

But Mary, who wanted to be a unifier, was frail, poor health, looked old beyond her years and didn’t have the political skill to handle the partisanship.  (Like Biden?) She relied on advisors who wanted REVENGE. She started with the idea of tolerance, that the Catholics would persuade the Protestants back into the Papal church.  No luck.  Every noble family now owned church lands they have to give up.  Worse, she arranged herself to be married to the Spanish king Phillip.  The Protestant nobles knew that if the Spanish came in, they would be hunted down like pirates.  The English people as a whole were terrified that Spain would make Britain a colony like they were trying to do with Netherlands—England’s woolens trading partner.  She flubbed one initiative after another until the people began to taunt her in public.  She outlawed Protestantism.  Executed  hapless Lady Jane. And at that point, several Protestant dukes, preferring to die in battle rather than on the block revolted.  Mary’s troops won the short civil war, but then she began to retire to make babies with Phillip and leaving enforcement in the hands of her Catholic advisors.  Thus began the infamous 4 year holocaust.  Elizabeth, her half sister and 15 years younger was implicated with the conspirators, but Mary wavered.  Had her sister done anything wrong?  Mary failed to get pregnant and her health was declining amid ailments that could not be treated in those days.  She went to the Tower, met a sister who like her, was bastardized by Parliament and persecuted and innocent of charges.  They both had developed a deep personal faith in captivity, though Elizabeth didn’t show hers in public. Mary, now reconciled, let her out of prison.  In 1558,as she lay dying, she sent Elizabeth the crown jewels and her blessing to succeed. This, rather than the rightful heir, Mary Stuart of Scotland, also a Catholic. Mary, desperate to have someone’s love, finally found her soul mate in a half sister.

Because of the 4 years of terror, Mary inadvertently earned the nickname “Bloody Mary”.  But she had been out of her league in the highly partisan politics of the day.  Not so Elizabeth.  She was sharp-tongued but fluent in 5 languages, sensed politics like no other monarch before or since. In this red-haired 18 year old girl lived the heart of an emperor.  After a quick harsh put-down of rebellious Catholics, she turned tolerant.  She was conservative and didn’t tax the nobles which they loved.  Athletic like her father, she tirelessly rode her horse and led a retinue from shire to shire drawing enormous crowds at every stop. (Sound like Trump?)  The people had gotten a taste of Catholic excess and started turning Protestant.  By her death 45 years later, the country was 2/3 Protestant, 1/3 Catholic.  Using her language skills she flirted courtship with just about every eligible continental monarch, thus keeping larger countries at bay, thinking they might marry into her kingdom. And England stayed out of war.  But to the English, she constantly reminded them of their prosperity and that she had chosen to marry her country.  Her speeches were compelling, riveting, and it united the entire nation against the Spanish Armada. 

At this writing, we don’t know if Biden or Trump will win.  But if Biden and the Democrats take over, if Biden leaves government to the Leftist advisors, and the country gets a whiff of socialism, it will cause angst and rebellion politically that will haunt the Dems for years.  If Trump wins and gets more mellow in a second term while still doing inspiring stuff, he has a good chance of being like Elizabeth, even if his economy goes south.  We will just have to see how this plays out.