Jamestowne Settlement

 Our family has been to this site at least four times and it always captures my attention. It is where America (the good, the bad and the ugly) all began. There had been other attempts to settle the area but that were unsuccessful, namely, the Roanoke colony. Lately, that period of time has interested me. I don't really know why, but certainly it has something to do with the fact that we go to this area for vacations. Maybe. in a former life I lived in that time and place. I dunno. It just draws me in and I'm fascinated by Elizabethan and Jacobean period history. 

It just strikes me as strange to consider Shakespeare's England as being part of the culture of the crew when they landed. It doesn't really feel like that belongs in America, but it does. We appear to give a lot of attention to the revolutionary period, or maybe pilgrims, but our British beginning is slightly different.

Above is a likeness of Capt. Bartholomew Gosnold, and his story.

The Virginia colony was a "bachelor colony" composed of men and boys seeking gold. From 1607 to 1620, English culture underwent a pivotal shift from exploratory commercial ventures to the establishment of permanent social and religious institutions. This period saw the transition from a "get-rich-quick" adventurer mindset to a focus on family stability and religious identity. In England, the publication of the King James Bible in 1611 standardized English prose and reinforced the "majesty of kings," while the 1616 death of William Shakespeare signaled the end of the high Renaissance era.

Above is an image of the Jamestowne site. My son Lorenzo is standing about where John Rolfe and Pocahontas, daughter of the chief of the Powhatan Indians were married. The partial walls show the boundaries of the first church built at the Jamestowne settlement. 

It's an interesting area to explore and it seems it will someday be under water. Something to consider.

A dark cultural shift occurred in 1619 with the arrival of the first Africans in Virginia. This marked the beginning of a labor system that would evolve from indentured servitude into racialized slavery, fundamentally altering English concepts of social hierarchy and labor in the colonies.

Above is and illustration in the Jamestown settlement museum about an early enslaved woman named Angela. She came to Virginia in 1619, captured from a Spanish slave ship by English privateer ships. 

Above is cowrie shell found on the grounds of the Jamestown settlement brought by enslaved Africans from their home across the ocean.