"The New World" and Reconstructed Languages

This article in the New York Times is an interesting read on efforts made to reconstruct the extinct Algonquian language spoken by the Indians who interacted with the English settlement at Jamestown, Virginia in 1607. This work was funded to support the filming of Terrence Malick's movie, "The New World", that portrays the John Smith and Pocahontas story one more time. Malick wanted to have some of the Indian characters speak in as close to an authentic language as was possible.

However, one thing in here is emblematic of a larger misconception I have to correct. John Noble Wilford says, "In the new movie about Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in North America, founded in 1607, the paramount Indian chief Powhatan asks Capt. John Smith where his people came from. The sky?"

Do we really think Powhatan had no idea where the English came from? It is a popular misconception - obviously carried forward in this movie - that the failed Roanoke colony of the 1580s, the Jamestown colony and its later sister colony at Plymouth (1621) were settled in a land of "surprised" Native Americans who had not seen Europeans before. Nothing could be further from the truth. A useful corrective is provided by David Weber in his excellent book, The Spanish Frontier in North America.

In 1497, John Cabot landed in Labrador, the first European landing (we think) in North America since the Vikings. Hard on his heels were fleets of fishermen and whalers exploiting the Grand Banks and other fishing grounds off New England. Some believe they may actually have preceded Cabot and kept the secret of the rich fishing grounds to themselves, as told in this book. The first recorded shipment to Europe of Newfoundland cod dates from 1502. A nearly permanent European presence on the north Atlantic coast of North America dates from then.

Ponce de Leon explored the Atlantic coast of Florida in 1513, claiming it for Spain. Spanish slavers sailed up and down the Atlantic coast starting then, attempting to kidnap Indians for labor in the Caribbean islands where the native populations were dying off fast. From then on there was a nearly permanent European presence from Florida north to Chesapeake Bay. The de Soto expedition of 1539 - 1543 is well known. Others followed.

A colony of French Huegenots established Ft. Caroline on the St. Johns River in Florida in 1564. It was later destroyed by the Spanish. Permanent Spanish bases were founded at St. Augustine in 1565 and Santa Elena in South Carolina in 1566. An abortive attempt was made to plant a Spanish settlement in Chesapeake Bay at this time.

In 1570, a small group of Spanish Jesuit missionaries landed on the James River, five miles from the future site of Jamestown. They crossed the peninsula to the York River, where they established a small mission they called Ajacan. They were accompanied by a remarkable Native American who served as their translator. I'll let Weber pick up the story.

"The Jesuits employed an Indian whom Spaniards had captured on the Chesapeake some years before. This young Algonquian, the son of a chief and apparently the brother of the Powhatan whom the British would come to know, had been taken to Spain on two occasions. He had also lived for a time in Mexico City, where he had acquired the name Luis de Velasco after his patron and godfather, the viceroy of Mexico. The native Luis de Velasco had accompanied the abortive 1566 expedition to the Chesapeake, nearly becoming reunited with his people; in 1570 he inspired Father Segura to take him home to his people."

Almost immediately, Luis de Velasco defected from the Spanish and went back to his family. He took the name Opechancanough, "he whose soul is white." In 1571 he led a group of natives that killed all the Jesuits. His familiarity with Europeans made him a leader in dealing with them. Later he led attacks against the Jamestown colony that nearly destroyed it in 1622. At an advanced age he was murdered in Jamestown, shot in the back by a colonist in 1644.

Powhatan thought the English came from the sky? Native Americans along the Atlantic coast had been interacting with Europeans for a hundred years by the time Jamestown was founded. I think I might skip this movie.