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The New World:
Jamestown to Genocide
Still from The New World flm dir. by Terrence Malick
| Why
should you take by force that from us which you can have by love? Why
should you destroy us, who have provided you with food? What can you get
by war? We can hide our provisions, and fly into the woods; and then you
must consequently famish by wronging your friends. What is the cause of
your jealousy? You see us unarmed, and willing to supply your wants, if
you will come in a friendly manner, and not with guns and swords , as
to invade an enemy. Wahunsonacock, Powhatan, 1609 |
 Sir Walter Raleigh and Sir Francis Drake |
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| Where does one start the story of the 400 year anniversary of the journey to the New World and the first permanent English settlement of the North America, Jamestown. With the awesome quirk of fate by which England became THE (maritime) WORLD power! Its particular brand of cunning and ruthlessness certainly transformed government sponsored piracy (not least from 16th Century privateers such as Drake and Raleigh) into imperial supremacy and the subsequent expansion of its colonies across the earth. There is no doubt that in the journey to the New World and the establishment of the Jamestown settlement of 1607 in Virginia, this fearless 'seafaring' people and in particular, their power-hungry leaders showed extraordinary determination and resilience in the quest for wealth and world domination. |
 Indian mother & Child - Indian Chief |
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| Several exhibitions currently consider the subject of the New World, the colony or occupation that would become United States of America. John Whites 'colour sales brochure'‚ watercolours made at the instigation of Walter Raleigh are currently on show at the British Museum. Called simply New World. it offers an idealised 16th Century perception of the people and terrain of North America. Commissioned by Walter Raleigh in 1575 exotic prints of its flora and fauna as well as the detailed portrayal of Indian life provide a window through which the Old World could imagine the New, in the years preceding the Jamestown expedition on 1606/1607. |
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| In contrast, the Museum in Docklands‚ Journey to the New World exhibition provides a celebration of the expedition itself; the roots of venture capitalism (The Virginia Company of London) and the foundation of the Anglo-American relationship. Its exhibits capture the ornament and rhetoric of Elizabethan England. The language of 'Shakespeare' would rally support for this private venture as well as sell tickets for the 'Virginia lottery', a fundraising activity with the same logic as the lotteries of today. Aside from claiming to protect the natives against the brutal 'popery' of the Spanish, the English aimed 'to cover their naked miserie, with civill use of foode, and cloathing, and to traine them by gentle meanes, to those manuall artes and skill, which they so much affect and doe admire in us'‚. In return for these blessings, the English would require only a 'quiet residence to us and ours and that by our owne labour and toyle, we may worke this good unto them and recompence our owne adventures , costs and travells'. The difference between such persuasions and their reality remind us of the actual 'peace and democracy' served up by the Anglo-American forces in Iraq. |
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| What is rarely offered in any exploration of this period and if so, only incidentally, is the genocide that resulted from the clash of the English with the Native American peoples. Tribes spanning that vast area today known as the United States spoke up to 500 different languages with a culture and appearance that was often markedly different, distinctions rarely acknowledged in the general name of 'indians' or 'redskins' so often portrayed as a threat in the Hollywood movies. When the 1607 Jamestown colony was established, many of the original settlers died in the unfamiliar terrain of Virginia. For the native tribes of North America, the settlement ushered in the beginnings of a slaughter that would continue until the peoples were held on reservations or destroyed. Photographers using the daguerrotype technology of the mid 19th Century began to capture the culture in the twilight of its existence, a people whose existence stretched back over 12,000 years. |
 Terrence Malick, director of The New World. Stills from the film depicting Indian Chief's daughter Pocahantos (right above, Q'Orianka Kilcher) and colonialist, John Smith (Colin Farrell) meeting Indian tribes |
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| Pertinent to the 2007 bicentenary of the Abolition of the Slave Trade are the origins of American slavery that can be found in this early settlement of Jamestown. It emerged from a system known as indentured labour whereby people were bound to work for a set period of years before being granted their freedom. Indentured labour rapidly developed into the system of slavery that transported millions of Africans and bound them to work the plantations until death in one of the last regions of the world to finally give up this inhuman practice. Needless to say, England prospered from its colonies long after the abolition of slavery in 1807. |
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| It is commonly known that the occupying colonists were only able to settle because the discovery of effective tobacco cultivation provided the hard sought 'gold' they imagined would adorn the trees on their arrival, (They couldn't even find their own food but relied on the native Americans to provide this). Less well known is the history documented in the remarkable book, American Slavery, American Freedom (below) by US historian Edmund. S. Morgan, that the poor white and mostly criminalized‚ underclass resisted the working conditions of their particular class of bondage or indentured labour that was as close to slavery as one could get without using the name. Indeed many fled the colony to join the neighbouring native, tribal settlements, even under threat of the harshest of penalties. |
| Ultimately, the English colony survived because of the introduction of slavery. Dependent on the slave trade, this involved the mass transportation of African people to work its plantations, from a continent that would be decimated over the following centuries. The British established a base in the West Indies where they set up plantations, initially condemning their own imprisoned underclass from home colonies such as Ireland and Wales to slavery. In Jamestown, transportation included street kids and prostitutes from London's slums. However, to expand and industri- |  |
| alize this system would require the mass transportation of slave labour - African slave labour. To resolve the problem of the native indigenous peoples of North America, gun law would clear the land of those who had survived the diseases of the colonists, since these people were utterly resistant to the dawning slave system of the New World. |
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| Terence Malick's blockbuster film about the first colonists of North America bears all the stylistic hallmarks of his best work. His sensuous, cinematic audiovisual exploration of the natural world draws us into the landscape where we can begin to imagine and contemplate the interaction of nature; between its predatory visitors and its vulnerable, often displaced inhabitants. Naked and revealed, he attempts to uncover their inner thoughts through voice-over rather than dialogue. Its poetic license will incense historians, especially those whose concern with nit-picking detail conceals perhaps a refusal to reconsider their own narrow view of the pageant of history. Malick's film is far from perfect. The device of voiceover which works so well in his contemporary drama of his earlier Badlands is at times contrived and sentimental. His 'Hollywood' casting is disconcerting placing carefully chosen types or period-faces alongside 'stars'. This is ofcourse, an industrial imperative but one wonders if Colin Farrell, playing John Smith, is just too pretty for the part. An overblown revelatory soundtrack often mars absorption in the extraordinary atmosphere of his carefully chosen and authentic locations. However, this Hollywood movie stands alone in its depiction of a catastrophic clash of cultures, namely that of the savage, early English colony and the relatively (in contrast) peaceful and civilised peoples of native America. |
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| The achievement of Malick's film, The New World is to reopen a window through which we can view this key turning-point in the history of mankind, the point at which one world is displaced by another, namely the tribal peoples of North America with the cuckoo colony of the English. Malick captures fully the lawlessness and foolhardiness of the initial expedition, in which a high percentage of gentry were accompanied by largely unskilled laborers, almost all pathetically unable to fend for themselves. Central to his filmic narrative drawn from history is that part of the story that is undisputed by historians - that had it not been for the humanity (perhaps naiveté) of the native peoples, this touch-and-go colonial venture may not have survived at all. It did; and as a result it determined the future of the world, |
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In
'The Earth Shall Weep'‚ a detailed and
compelling work on that fate of Native American
tribes, written during 20 years involvement
with native North Americans, historian James
Wilson suggests that history need not have been this way; he cites
the examples of people such as the Basques who as early as the 1530's
invited the Indians aboard their ships, not
only to trade but also to socialize. The Basque peoples
had no imperial ambition and contact with another world was possible without
such tragic consequences. fiba Editor David Somerset, April 2007 |
LINKS
http://www.fipresci.org/undercurrent/issue_0206/sterritt_malick.htm - this site includes pictures
World Socialists take on New World
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2006/feb2006/neww-f10.shtml
Link to Museum in Docklands
http://www.museumindocklands.org.uk/English/EventsExhibitions/Special/JourneyNewWorld.htm
Link to British Museum
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Greenwich Park
COMING
SOON
From
Jamestown to Genocide: the fate
of the native peoples of North America
| Description: When the Jamestown colony was established as the first permanent English settlement of America in 1607 the lands and way of life of its indigenous peoples would never be the same again. In this lecture author James Wilson will consider the subsequent experience of the North American Indians. Dr Colin Samson will conclude with a look at the modern day Innu people of the Labrador-Quebec Peninsula, Canada, who share a common ancestry with the Powhatan and are facing a similar crisis following their recent dispossession. |
| Type:
Adult Events Programme: Jan-April 2007 Phone: 08704443855 Duration: 3 hours Ticketed event Minimum age: 14 Location: Museum in Docklands Part of the "Special event" series. of Instructions free with Annual museum ticket Dates and times Sunday, April 29, 2007, 14:30 - 17:30 |
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http://www.thebritishmuseum.ac.u