The Hemispheric Jamestown - Anna Brickhouse

1. Does the fact that the supposed "birthplace" of the U.S.A. experienced colonization by the Spanish Jesuits before the English have any implications on what you conceived as the history of America?

2. On page 43-44, Brickhouse mentions that there was a supposed younger brother of Don Luis' who was on the verge of death, possibly the Chief Powhatan himself. On page 39 from John Smith's The General Historie of Virginia, Powhatan mentions that he has experienced the death of all of his people thrice and he has been the only one living from those generations. Does this overlap in information provide any new insight?

3. What do you think some of the motives were behind Don Luis' unfaithful allegiance to the Jesuits? Was it pre - meditated as Garcilaso and Ribadeneyra suggest?

4. What reasons other than the propagation of the Black Legend do you think the Spanish Jesuit mission preceding the Virginia Company mission wasn't emphasized as much?

5. How is Alonso's and Don Luis' transculturalism viewed by the Jesuit historians?

"The Americas" by Felipe Fernandez-Armesto

·        1) “America is a term even elastic enough to extend beyond America, as ordinarily understood, into or across the Atlantic and pacific” (14). According to F. Fernandez-A. Why is America so hard to define?

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         2) As Fernandez describes how America is a mixture of cultures and more, how does that change the way in which you look at America today?

·         3)  “The Old World heartlands from which it was transposed were tiny comparison marginal cattle-rearing lands in Extremadura and shepherders’ narrow routes of transhumance, which crossed Castile. In the New World, ranching came to fill huge tracks of prairie, pampa, and sertao. “Before the inruptions of European colonialism it was an almost unknown way of life” (89). What are your thoughts about the New and the Old World, looking at the information provided by Fernandez?

John Smith

Smith refers to the Native Americans as barbarians, savages, and devils. However, his negotiations with Powhatan show him to be a reasonable and articulate leader. Do you think Smith is actively dehumanizing the Native Americans or is he merely ignorant?

Historian J. A. Leo Lemay suggests of the scene during which Pocahontas saves Smith’s life that “Smith was being ritualistically killed. Reborn, he was adopted into the tribe, with Pocahontas as his sponsor. But Smith, of course, did not realise [sic] the nature of the initiation ceremony” (52). How would this information change your reading of the scene?

What do you notice about the differing artistic portrayals of the colonizers, the Native Americans, and the English nobility in the following images from The Generall Historie of Virginia, New-England, and the Summer Isles? How do they relate to Smith's corresponding text?


http://docsouth.unc.edu/southlit/smith/title.html


http://docsouth.unc.edu/southlit/smith/ill1.html

Captain John Smith, "Generall Historie of Virginia...", Selected Vocabulary

salvage (246, 249): savage
fayning: pretending

subtill (248): subtle, crafty

bruit (248): noise

Werowance (249): leader

doe what you list (249): do as you please

curtesies (249): courtesies

Divels (249): devils

Pinnace: ship, boat

misprision (250): misinterpretation

An Excerpt from Chapter One of "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee."

Re: Christopher Columbus and John Smith:

It began with Christopher Columbus, who gave the people the name Indios. Those Europeans, the white men, spoke in different dialects, and some pronounced the word Indien, or Indianer, or Indian. Peaux-rouges, or redskins, came later. As was the custom of the peoplewhen receiving strangers, the Tainos on the island of San Salvador generously presented Columbus and his men with gifts and treated them with honor.

“So tractable, so peaceful are these people,” Columbus wrote to the King and Queen of Spain, “that I swear to your Majesties that there is not in the world a better nation. They love their neighbors as themselves, and their discourse is ever sweet and gentle, and accompanied with a smile; and though it is true that they are naked, yet their manners are decorous and praiseworthy.”

All this, of course, was taken as a sign of weakness, if not heathenism, and Columbus being a righteous European was convinced the people should be “made to work, sow and do all that is necessary to adopt our ways.” Over the next four centuries, (1492-1890) several million Europeans and their descendants undertook to enforce their ways upon the people of the New World.

Columbus kidnapped ten of his friendly Taino hosts and carried them off to Spain, where they could be introduced to the white man's ways. One of them died soon after arriving there, but not before he was baptized a Christian. The Spaniards were so pleased that they had made it possible for the first Indian to enter heaven that they hasted to spread the good news throughout the West Indies.

The Tainos and other Arawak people did not resist conversion to the Europeans' religion, but they did resist strongly when hordes of these bearded strangers began scouring their islands in search of gold and precious stones. The Spaniards looted and burned villages; they kidnapped hundreds of men, women and children and shipped them off to Europe to be sold as slaves. Arawak resistance brought on the use of guns and sabers, and the whole tribes were destroyed, hundreds of thousands of people in less than a decade after Columbus set foot on the beach of San Salvador, October 12 1492.

Communications between the tribes of the New World were slow and news of the Europeans' barbarities rarely overtook the spread of new conquests and settlements. Long before the English-speaking white men arrived in Virginia in 1607, however, the Powhatans had heard rumors about the civilizing methods of the Spaniards. The Englishmen used subtler methods. To ensure peace long enough to establish a settlement at Jamestown, they put a golden crown upon the head of Wahunsonacook, dubbed him King Powhatan, and convinced him that he should put his people to work supplying the white settlers with food. Wahunsonacook vacillated between loyalty to his rebellious subjects and to the English, but after John Rofle married his daughter Pocahontas, he apparently decided that he was more English than Indian. After Wahunsonacook died, the Powhatans rose up in revenge to drive the Englishmen back into the sea from which they had come, but the Indians underestimated the power of English weapons. In a short time the eight thousand Powhatans were reduced to less than a thousand.

Discussion Questions - 2/9/2012

For the writings of Christopher Columbus and John Smith.

1. How does Christopher Columbus potray himself in his account? How does John Smith portray himself? What are the similarities between them?

2. How do both men view the local Indians?

3. What, if any, are the differences between the confirmed historical record and these autobiographical descriptions?