Attachment_N_ExistingWaysideExhibits_Part_2_of_3_July_13.pdf

42 X 24 INCHES | 36% OF ACTUAL SIZE | OCTOBER 2015 | COLO | Wayside Exhibit 09

ATTACHMENT N - PART 3 of 3 Colonial National Historical Park National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior

Of, By and For the People?

In 1619, the General Assembly met in the Jamestown church, the first instance of representative government in British North America. But not all Virginians were represented.

Virginia Indians, indentured servants and enslaved African Virginians were excluded, as were all women. By mid-century, voting was restricted to those who held property.

The site of the Assembly’s meeting place would change many times. The three-gabled brick structure which stood near here likely served as a statehouse from 1646 to 1652.

Later, ironically, one gable lodged Virginia Indian delegations; another was likely the headquarters of the slave-trading Royal African Company.

A delegation from the Nottoway tribe arrives in 1691 to pay its annual tribute to the Royal Governor.

42 X 24 INCHES | 36% OF ACTUAL SIZE | OCTOBER 2015 | COLO | Wayside Exhibit 10

Colonial National Historical Park National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior

“Goodly Tall Trees” When Jamestown was established in 1607, settlers shipped cedar, walnut and sassafras back to England to demonstrate the new colony’s potential wealth.

The virtues of some trees were recognized on both sides of the Atlantic. Virginia oak and walnut were prized for paneling, gunstock and furniture. Cedar made excellent clapboard and shingles. Sassafras was recognized in Europe as a medicinal.

“Others yet without names” healed “green wounds and aches” or yielded “gums pleasant as frankincense.” But by 1620, Virginia Company officials realized it was too costly to ship finished wooden products to England for resale.

Colonists increasingly turned to tobacco for revenue.

42 X 24 INCHES | 36% OF ACTUAL SIZE | OCTOBER 2015 | COLO | Wayside Exhibit 11

U.S. Department of the Interior

“An Honest and Industrious Woman” That was how John Smith described Joan Peirce, a 1609 arrival. Although no women sailed on the first three ships in 1607, Virginia Company officials soon realized “wives and children fix the people on the soil.”

In 1620, the Jonathan and the Merchant of London docked at Jamestown; aboard were 90 “young, handsome, and honestly educated maids,” recruited by the company to wed settlers.

These intrepid women, such as Allice Burges, “skillful in any country work,” and Ann Tanner, who could “brew, and bake, make butter and cheese,” quickly proved their worth in the New World.

42 X 24 INCHES | 36% OF ACTUAL SIZE | OCTOBER 2015 | COLO | Wayside Exhibit 12

U.S. Department of the Interior

Water, Water, Everywhere … . . . and not a drop was drinkable. When settlers arrived in May 1607, spring snowmelt made the river water taste fresh—until summer arrived. Then, as George Percy reported, “our drink … was at a flood very salt, at a low tide full of slime and filth.”

The problem of potable water always plagued Jamestown colonists. Shallow wells dug throughout the townsite were contaminated with surface pollution. In addition, when drought conditions increased, the water became more and more salty. The nearby swamp constantly added a naturally-occurring ingredient—arsenic—to this toxic fluid.

42 X 24 INCHES | 36% OF ACTUAL SIZE | OCTOBER 2015 | COLO | Wayside Exhibit 13

U.S. Department of the Interior

“All Help [Hope] of Fishing Perished” The Chesapeake estuary teems with fish. Why did settlers go hungry? William Strachey provided part of the answer:

“our nets and the unskillfullness of our men to lay them.”

Only two professional fishermen, trained to use and maintain nets, were mentioned in colonists’ accounts.

Another problem arose: how to preserve fish—whether dainty alewives or 800-pound sturgeons—without sufficient salt, especially during warmer months, when fish populations were higher.

In the spring of 1610, however, colonists did not spy a single sturgeon. The worst drought in seven centuries was underway, and normal seasonal fish migrations were severely disrupted.