Fortifying America: a salute to our veterans
In November, the Architecture Examiner will be running a special series on American military architecture in honor of America’s veterans. The series started in the Colonial Period and will continue up to the Civil War. Reading the previous articles in this series on Fort Caroline, Fort Raleigh and the Lost Colony will help the reader better understand the complex political, religious and military situation of Jamestown.
The first attempted colony in Virginia
Neither Fort Raleigh (1585) nor Fort James (1607) was the first attempt to plant a colony in what is now the Commonwealth of Virginia. The first attempted colony was sponsored by Spain and occurred in 1670. That year Father Juan Bautista de Segura, Jesuit Vice Provincial in Havana, withdrew all Jesuit missionaries from the South Atlantic Coast.
In 1561 the son of an Indian chief was abducted from a village on the York River in Virginia. He was brought to Spain and then to Mexico City: baptized as Luis: given a title of nobility (Don) and exposed to Spanish civilization. Father Segura took Luis along with another priest and six Jesuit brothers on a journey to establish the Mission de Santa Maria on the Chesapeake Bay. They built a simple structure to be used as a temporary mission near Don Luis’s village. They did not bring enough food and were forced to trade with the local Indians in order to survive winter weather.
Although Don Luis had been treated as a celebrity by the church bureaucracy in Mexico City, something had happened during the 10 year period of being “civilized” that made him really hate priests. As soon as Luis had found the new location of his home village, he escaped the mission. He returned with some comrades to massacre all but one of the Jesuits. These Jesuits had not done anything that is documented to justify their fate. Of course, they were unarmed. One can assume that the murders were revenge for past deeds by other priests. The murders fit the pattern of an “eye for an eye” Indian concept of justice. In most Native societies, the clan (i.e. Jesuits) was responsible for the deeds of its members.
The founding of Jamestown
Upon succeeding the late Queen Elizabeth, King James of Scotland and now, England, announced his first order of business was to seek an end to the Anglo-Spanish War, which had been draining England’s treasury since 1585. No colonization of the New World could be sponsored by England as long as hostile Spanish fleets patrolled the Atlantic. A treaty of peace was accomplished in 1604.
In 1604, King James chartered the London Company a patent to establish a colony in Virginia. The London Company already owned patents to settle portions of what is now Canada, and therefore created a subsidiary, named the Virginia Company to sponsor colonies in the territory between the 34th and 38th parallels – roughly between Cape Fear, NC and Long Island Sound, NY. North of that line, the Plymouth Company was chartered to establish colonies. Both companies sent expeditions to the New World within a few months apart. Most people don’t know that.
One of the many pervasive myths perpetuated by school textbooks is that the future colonists were all aristocratic gentry, who were disinclined to do physical work. This bit of fabricated history was started by Northern Abolitionists, in order to paint the descendants of the Virginia Colony (i.e. Southerners) as degenerate aristocrats, who were inherently inferior to the descendants of the Pilgrims and Puritans (i.e. Northerners). In fact, each future colonist was chosen for either their education or craft, so that the new colony would have all the skills needed to succeed.
All colonists were employees of the Virginia Company, whether gentry or yeomen. They were obligated to work on assigned tasks for the Virginia Company for seven years. At the completion of the seven year contract, they would be given land and sufficient funds to start their own farm.
There is another pervasive myth. John Smith was NOT the original President of Jamestown Colony, but in fact was an independent employee of the Virginia Company, who was hired to train a militia to protect the colonists. He later was the third elected President of the colony. His military leadership skills proved to be invaluable as the colony suffered from disease, inadequate nutrition and sabotage by Spanish agents imbedded inside the colony. We will discuss the sabotage in part two.
In December 0f 1606 the Virginia Company dispatched three ships, carrying 144 men and boys, to establish a colony somewhere in the Chesapeake Bay. Forty of the passengers died on the voyage! The ships first arrived at the southern tip of the Chesapeake Bay (Cape Henry) on April 26, 1607. They were almost immediately attacked by local natives. The native continued to attack them as they sailed northward until the ships reached the boundaries of a Native American confederacy ruled by Wahunsenacawh, known to us today as Chief Powhatan. Wahunsenacawh offered them an uninhabited island in the York River as a temporary refuge. It was at the far edge of his confederacy, and placed the English near the enemies of the Powhatans.
Wahunsenacawh’s capital was at least 50 miles inland on the York River, approximately where Don Luis was abducted by Spanish explorers. His capital was not near the coast as was depicted in the movie, “The New World.” It has been speculated that Wahunsenacawh’s younger brother, Opechancanough, might have been the “Don Luis”, who massacred the Jesuit missionaries in 1571. They would have been about the same age. Opechancanough later succeeded his brother as leader and waged two bloody wars against the English, which twice almost ended the colony.
It is probable that Wahunsenacawh allowed the Englishmen to temporarily live an island, known for its bad water and infertile soil, because they had been attacked by enemies of his province. The fact that the ships contained no females led Powhatan and his advisors to assume that these were stranded explorers. He might have viewed them as potential allies to fight the tribes that had attacked the colonists.
Fort King James
The 104 surviving colonists stepped onto their “loaned” island on May 14, 1607. They immediately began construction of a fort upon landing on the island. The design of the fort and was based on forts constructed in Ireland in the late 1500’s. Since the early 1500’s, England had been trying to subjugate the people of Ireland. The conflicts turned into a religious war after Queen Elizabeth formerly proclaimed the Church of England.
One of the military tactics used by Protestant English against an alliance of Irish Catholics and Papal troops was the establishment of plantations. English Protestant troops would move into a community and build a triangular fort constructed of timber palisades. English colonists would live in the fort until the locals were killed, driven out or pacified. Unfortunately, for Wahunsenacawh, there were no books on recent Irish history, available at the local library.
Fort King James was not a fortification that would have withstood assault by European ships or infantry. The fort would have been quickly reduced if attacked by naval cannon of that era. Like its Irish Plantation predecessors, it was a simple triangular, timber palisade with raised earthen cannon platforms on the points of the triangle. On the insides of the palisades was wood scaffolding that enabled infantry to fire arquebuses over the tops of the palisade. The single entrance with simple swinging gates had no additional fortification. There was possibly a slightly raised embankment to buttress the timber palisade, but it would have not stopped cannon balls. The cannons on the raised earthen platforms were small bore and, therefore, would have been effective only against infantry or small boats. Inside the fort were several small half-timber houses with thatched roofs, a small church, a warehouse, office and a powder magazine.
In part two of this article we will discuss the colony and fort that was established by the Plymouth Company in New England in 1608, plus the intrigues of a Spanish agent planted inside the Jamestown Colony. Yes, there was a colony in New England prior to Plymouth Plantation!
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