There Was Cannibalism In Jamestown
The time between 1600 to 1700 is somewhat a blur within our history books. What we do know, are the necessary facts. It began with the founding of the first permanent English settlement in America, the one called Jamestown, who brought hope to settlers of a New World and a better life. This century unfortunately saw disease-ridden settlers that were either slaughtering or getting slaughtered by the Original Inhabitants.
Bernard Bailyn, one of the greatest historians of early America refers to this time as The Barbarous Years and according to the Smithsonian, "spares us no details of the terror, desperation, degradation and widespread torture. And yet somehow amid the merciless massacres were elements that gave birth to the rudiments of civilization." The big question is, did these times shape or misshape America's future? Well, it depends on the stories you know. Here are the collected gruesome tales of what really went on during the Colonial times, and we can tell you it's not as happy and peaceful as you may have thought.
The Smithsonian suggests that the winter of 1609 was so horrible it was deemed the Starving Time. We know how bad it was because of survivor George Percy. He wrote about how when there were no longer any horses, rats, cats, and dogs, the people would look at the dead with hungry eyes. He wrote that people would dig up the graves of those who had most recently died and began to eat their bodies. He also claimed that people would begin drinking the blood of those who were too weak to protest.
Colonial Medicine Was Basic
Percy was not the only one to write about this time. There were others who also wrote about the extreme measures the colonists took to survive during this time, but it wasn't until 2012 that we were able to show physical proof to such claims. Archaeologists found a partial skull belonging to a woman they dubbed "Jane" and pieced together her fate. Douglas Owsley, a forensic anthropologist says that around 14 years old, she died of natural causes before the colonists ate her brain, tongue, face and leg muscles. He found cut marks on her skull which suggested she was most likely butchered by someone who hesitated before cutting her open, while her legs had skilled and professional looking cuts.
According to historian Martha K. Robinson, there was no facilities for training new doctors in the colonies until 1765. Up until that point, they were training doctors based on two European theories. William Cullen deduced that illness usually came from some kind of contagion, and Herman Boerhaave believed that there were two forces within the human body: solids and fluids. He believed keeping these two forces balanced would keep a person healthy.
The Witch Hunts
Regardless, the treatments during that time were pretty standard no matter what the doctor was taught. They believed the treatment with the most visible effect on a patient was the most effective. Basically, whatever caused vomit or fluids to be flushed from the body was the most effective since that was flushing out the harmful bacteria. These days you can be pretty sure that they're not going to give you something to make you sweat, run and vomit as violently as possible.
You probably didn't know this, but before the big 'Salem Witch Trials' there were ones that took place in Hartford, Connecticut. Hartford had made it a law that someone could get the death penalty if proven to have been involved with witch craft. Connecticut History claimed that Also Young was hanged for witchcraft in 1647, around the same time Mary Johnson was having a confession whipped out of her. She eventually confessed to witchcraft (since she had no choice) and was hanged later. There aren't files that state how many people were exactly accused, but it can be assumed there were up to 11, including two men.
The Pequot Massacre
Others ran away or were banished from the grounds. It only took a singular witness for someone to put another on trial and get a guilty verdict. This meant that if one person didn't like you, you could receive the death penalty at their wish. One of the women was sent to death after being accused of practicing witchcraft and made her neighbor shoot someone. In 1662, authorities began to slow down and rethink what they were accepting as evidence.
Many people have not heard of the Pequot Massacre. In the 1630s, Puritan settlers were fighting the local Pequot people over a patch of land that came to be southern Connecticut. This war lasted three whole years, and it seemed towards the end that the Puritans were going to be driven from the land they were trying to steal. On May 26th, 1637, they surrounded Mystic Fort and killed 500 men, women, and children. Anthropologist Kevin McBride, says that this would be the first of three incidents that would occur between the Puritan settlers and natives.
The Phips Proclamation
English attackers initially attempted to enter the fort, but ended up losing half their number. Hence, they decided to play dirty. They set the entire fort on fire and killed anyone who tried to flee the flames. Afterwards, the Pequot in other villages fled to safety but were soon pursued by the march of the English. Two more villages were destroyed soon after.
These days it would seem that there were little racist connotations to deeming a team "Redskins", but here is where the phrase is actually derived from that might make you change your mind. In 1755, the Massachusetts government issued something called the Phips Proclamation, which was basically a giant bounty letter. It promised reward to people who brought any Penobscot to them in chains or in pieced.
The Mason-Dixon Line
The highest bounties were paid for men taken to Boston alive, but they also paid for the number of scalps they received. These scalps were called "Redskins," Esquire says that this term, "represents a trophy of war, the bloodied scalp of a murdered Native American, slaughtered for money, the amount dependent on whether it was a man, woman, or child."
The Mason-Dixon line is known these days as the border between the north and the south. It's also a pretty unnecessary border, since we have plenty others we can use. However, you probably don't know that this border was created by an 82-year family feud. The Maryland Historical Society, claims that it started when England's king gave William Penn II approval to claim everything between Maryland and New York. Since this order was incredibly vague, fights obviously ensued.
The Almost Sinking of the Mayflower and First Murder
Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon were summoned from the Royal Observatory in England to put the fights to rest. The Smithsonian then said that at this time there was a lot of hate. Although there wasn't exactly a war, there was a lot of border skirmishing, arson and sometimes murder. When the territories signed a peace treaty in 1738, they agreed there wouldn't be anymore "Tumults Riots or other Outrageous Disorders to be committed". Yet, another 12 years went by before the border was legalized, and it was another 17 years until the Pennsylvania Penns and the Maryland Calverts agreed on the Mason-Dixon Line.
Many people have a very special and idealized vision of the people who first came to the New World aboard the Mayflower. People tend to think they were. devout group who spent the journey praying and being kind to each other. However, John Billington and his family oppose this theory. The Billingtons were fleeing to the New World to escape some heavy debts they had run up in England, and it's thanks to the Billington children, the ship almost didn't make it.
Hannah Dustin's Revenge
There was a point where the boys decided it would be a good idea to play with their father's gun, causing it to fire below deck in a cabin full of people and gunpowder. When they landed, John Billington not only refused the mandatory bit of military service, but he started yelling anti-establishment propaganda while planning to overthrow the new colony's leaders. It wasn't until 1630 when he got into an argument with a settler and shot him. The man, John Newcomen, died from infection, and Billington was hanged as the first murderer.
Hannah Dustin lived in Haverhill, Massachusetts, and in 1697, she had just given birth to a daughter when her settlement was attacked by a group of Abenaki. Dustin, her baby, and her maid were taken and marched north. The horrifying detail to this story? Apparently, since the baby slowed down the group, she was smashed against a tree and killed. From this, sprouted Dustin's rage. When they stopped for an overnight rest in New Hampshire, Dustin, her maid, and a boy named Samuel killed the whole group as they slept.
The Unmarked Grave
Knowing that other's wouldn't believe them, they took their scalps, including six children. Dustin went back home and told her tale to the minister, Cotton Mather. He recorded it for history and has since been memorialized in odd ways. There's a nursing home named after her, bobbleheads, and a statue of her in New Hampshire. The gory detail? It's holding scalps.
While working in Anne Arundel County, Maryland, archaeologists discovered the skeleton of a teenage boy. What unraveled from this finding was a murder case. The boy was found with fireplace ash, animal bones, and a milk pan that was most likely used to dig his grave. It seemed that he had only been 15 years old but his spine showed serious damage from a life of labor, and his teeth were just as bad.
It seemed his wrist was broken from trying to fight off blows that killed him. The Smithsonian, says that he was probably one of the indentured servants who went to the New World trying to find a better life, but found the opposite of that. He was killed and buried between 1665 and 1675, which was around the time laws were being passed forbidding private burials of servants. Since the deaths of servants and secret burials were happening so much, there was a law put in place to prevent this kind of violence, abuse, and murder.