Jacqueline Langholtz: Take a few minutes working in groups to figure out what’s in the pocket in front of them. So first, what is it? How would have it been used? And then lastly, who they think would have carried this pocket. So I am going to just give you the exact same challenge, take 10 minutes or so, talk within your group.

[Group 1:]
Teacher 1: Somebody’s a seamstress.
Teacher 2: Yes.
Teacher 1: Must do some cooking or . . .
Teacher 3: Had responsibility—
Teacher 2: Yes.
Teacher 3: —because I remember reading about that in the dependencies.
Teacher 2: Yeah, cause not everybody had the keys.
Teacher 1: No.
Teacher 3: Martha had the keys and there was one other.
Teacher 1: And there was a sewing little table in there.
Teacher 2: Also a number of geese were killed.
Teacher 1: I would think this would be like somebody who's either a supervisor or somebody that’s not the bottom person.
Teacher 2: No.
Teacher 1: This person writes so it couldn’t be a slave, right? Because they weren’t suppose to be able to write. Not that they couldn’t.
Teacher 3: Yeah, yeah.
Teacher 2: For our own eating 28 hams of bacon. Twenty-one shoulders and 27 middlings.
Teacher 1: Well, I think it’s a she based on the embroidery, on the fan.
Teacher 2: Sewing stuff.
Teacher 1: Right.

[Group 2:]
Teacher 1: I think we have it.
Jacqueline Langholtz: You got it.
Teacher 2: Yeah.
Jacqueline Langholtz: So that’s a—
Teacher 1: We think this is a slave child’s pocket.
Teacher 2: Or a child’s pocket.
Jacqueline Langholtz: What makes you say that?
Teacher 1: Well, you said they made nails.
Jacqueline Langholtz: Excellent.
Teacher 1: Marbles.
Jacqueline Langholtz: What were the marbles for?
Teacher 1: A game.
Jacqueline Langholtz: Yeah, keep going.
Teacher 2: Making extra money if, like, they made some extra nails or they were able to—
Jacqueline Langholtz: That’s right. And can I ask you would you have known that before you did your gallery tour and your house visit?
Teacher 1: No, because I had no idea they made money.
Jacqueline Langholtz: Yeah, that is a surprising fact to a lot of students and teachers to find money in the slave’s pocket
Teacher 1: And that they had china and stuff.
Jacqueline Langholtz: Yeah, so that’s a great opportunity for discussion because a lot of people will think this must be from someone else’s pocket or they’ll look at this and say ‘I thought it was a slave pocket but there's money in it,’ but you knew why there might be money in it, good for you.
Teacher 1: Fishing.
Teacher 2: We had said actually, originally, we thought this might be something that they either made like a handle or we thought is it something that shaped the, you know.
Jacqueline Langholtz: And once you know it, it’s right there in front of you but for students finding their way through this on their own, it’s a really good activity and they have a lot of fun with it. And then we get to you know dim the lights and we'll do a flint and steel show for them.
Teacher 1: I like this as a pre- and post- activity. That’s amazing.
Jacqueline Langholtz: Yeah, and photos for a lot of this are online, too. And you knew what this was?
Teacher 1: She did.
Teacher 2: Yeah, I did.
Jacqueline Langholtz: Good for you, do you have a name for it?
Teacher 1: Mouth harp?
Teacher 2: Something, yeah, it’s a mouth harp. I think it’s the mouth harp.
Jacqueline Langholtz: Yeah, so if you then had to group these items, too, or tell us what types of things you see—work, right, you see some home life, you see some entertainment, slave garden.
Teacher 1: Yeah, like this would be making a fire at home. This would be work.
Jacqueline Langholtz: And possibly spinning, this is flax.
Teacher 2: Okay.
Teacher 1: This would be play. This could be work or play.
Teacher 2: Or I was going to say, or extra food.
Jacqueline Langholtz: And there are some things that can be made and some things that are bought.
Teacher 1: Why would they carry seeds?
Jacqueline Langholtz: You tell me, I don’t know. And we don’t know that all of this was always carried.
Teacher 1: Why would they have seeds? Maybe they traded for them or something.
Jacqueline Langholtz: Well, do you remember Elizabeth Chew told us a story about the gardens—well, she said the garden's main function was not to supply all the food for the table and then she supplemented that with the story about the main house actually sometimes purchasing food from the slaves so purchasing cucumbers that they have grown or . . .
Teacher 1: So this boy maybe is going to plant some seeds to grow some food.
Teacher 2: So there are slave gardens.
Jacqueline Langholtz: Yeah, sometimes for themselves. So on a plot of land where they're able to supplement their rations, food that they're given by the house or maybe they choose to grow something that they know that the house could have a use for and they sell it back to the house.

Jacqueline Langholtz: Who thinks they know whose pockets they have? Just with a silent show of hands. I know, I know who my pocket represents. Great! Ah, wonderful.

Teacher 1: It’s a list and it’s written so we knew that person had to be educated—

Jacqueline Langholtz: Great.

Teacher 1: 'Cause even if they didn’t write it they had to read it.

Jacqueline Langholtz: And it’s a list of what kinds of things, can I ask?

Teacher 1: Ah, things they’re going to buy or—like it says kill chickens and stuff like that, you know, it would be like a grocery list.

Teacher 1: Like a grocery list, great.

Jacqueline Langholtz: Keys.

Jacqueline Langholtz: Can you hold those up so that we can all see them too? How would you describe that key set? If you said, oh, I left my keys on my desk, go and grab them. They look like . . .

Teacher 1: Like jail keys, no.

Jacqueline Langholtz: They’re big, right?

Teacher 1: They’re big, they’re bulky, they’re heavy. Must be somebody important 'cause not everybody had keys.

Jacqueline Langholtz: Great deduction, yes. And what’s that door like probably?

Teacher 1: Heavy.

Jacqueline Langholtz: It’s not a dainty little door, right. Great, what else is in your pocket?

Teacher 1: We had a fan and then an embroidered bag, so that led us to believe it was probably a female's bag.

Jacqueline Langholtz: Excellent. And that is a pocket that’s worn on the outside, tied around your waist, great. How about the big reveal? Whose do you think it is?

Teacher 2: Well, we thought it was Martha, Jefferson’s daughter.

Jacqueline Langholtz: Round of applause. Excellent. Yay. So, so why it, why is it Martha Jefferson Randolph’s pocket?

Teacher 2: Well, we knew based on what we had seen in the dependencies about the keys and the importance of controlling stores . . .

Jacqueline Langholtz: Great.

Teacher 2: And the list, keeping that. And then it was kind of also interesting, lots of sewing items.

Jacqueline Langholtz: Yep. You have spices in there, I heard you talking about the vanilla, you have a sewing kit—and carrying the keys, you’re right, even that phrase is responsibility in the house. So if I’m carrying the keys to the storehouse, I’m responsible for what’s inside there, and she would sometimes pass the keys over to a domestic house servant or a slave who needed to get in to retrieve something or she would get it for them. And this was apparently an exercise that each one of the granddaughters had to do for about a week and they write and complain about it because it’s such a pain that people are constantly coming and finding you and interrupting you because they need access to something in the storehouse. And it reminds me of when I was in high school or junior high and they made me carry around a fake baby for a while. I don’t know if that’s still done in schools but it was to teach that this is—being an adult is a lot of responsibility.

Teacher 3: Well, one of the things I knew 'cause I knew somebody that actually had one of these and could play it. It’s a mouth harp. So you can put it in your mouth and when you put it in between your lips and you go like this then you can change, like, and it makes a twangy kind of sound like—yeah, like a real twangy kind of sound so we thought that that would probably be some sort of recreational something that would be in this pocket.

Teacher 4: And then there's nails, and I remember somewhere we heard that they make nails in the—that the children make nails, so—

Jacqueline Langholtz: Yes, in the what though? You were about to tell us where?

Teacher 4: In the, I forget, the place where they make nails.

Teacher 3: The forgery.

Jacqueline Langholtz: Yeah, that's the forge, the blacksmith shop, great.

Teacher 4: And then fishing line and a hook and a bobber doohickey.

Teacher 3: And then a flint, which we didn’t know what this was, but you can make fire with it and you've got the flax—yeah, Chris helped us. At first we thought it was a handle on something, but you can actually hold it and you can do that and make fire.

Teacher 4: And it’s small so it’s not like an adult could use it because the way you use it has to be small for small hands.

Jacqueline Langholtz: I use it, I use it. That’s a typical striker size.

Teacher 4: Oh, it is? Oh, okay, I thought it was small.

Jacqueline Langholtz: But you’re right in saying that it's small, you’re also letting us know something about it, that it’s portable. Right? And if we are looking at pockets, everything wer'e looking at is something that is portable here.

Teacher 3: And then really quickly, interestingly, we had these little pieces—they look like Monopoly pieces, and so you can put them together and make a coin. Apparently you used to be able to break a coin apart to make change.

Jacqueline Langholtz: Not like a piece of candy bar, though, but cutting it.

Teacher 5: Like a piece of eight.

Jacqueline Langholtz: Piece of eight! So okay, there’s a story there. What do you know?

Teacher 5: They would cut it and they would weigh it so that they would make sure that they paid the right amount.

Jacqueline Langholtz: That’s right.

Teacher 5: 'Cause your silver was very precious to you.

Jacqueline Langholtz: That’s right. So cutting and weighing the silver. And a piece of eight—eight of those pieces go into a dollar piece.

Teacher 4: And then marbles, which are also recreation.

Teacher 3: So we thought that it was a slave's pocket, like a child slave or, you know, young person.

Jacqueline Langholtz: And they got it right. And we had what I thought was a great discussion, too, because often times if—even teachers—but students do this activity before they’ve gone through any part of the mountain or before they’ve gotten exposed to some of the things in the galleries, sometimes the money in that pocket can throw them off. They either think, well, I thought it was a slave's pocket, but there’s money in it, so it’s not, or they think the money is from someone else’s pocket, so it’s a great way to also teach about how Monticello has different roles and responsibilities for slaves here and that sometimes slaves were paid for their work. People like Joe Foset, the blacksmith, or John Hemmings who often times sold some of their work in town and then had some money from that or selling produce back to the house as Dr. Chew told us.

Teacher 1: We had a sampler with the alphabet on it. A game that has different levels of difficulty, either trying to catch it on top here or in the hole, which is next to impossible. We also had marbles in ours, as well. A little squirrel, which, that actually ended up being a game piece as well. We had a slate with the engraving—I don’t know if you call it chalk or not but—and we had a book in French that was on Anne of Cleves and that’s all we could really figure out because it’s entirely in French. And what was most helpful was a letter from Thomas Jefferson to Patsy that was written—it was dated 1783 in Annapolis and kind of went over his educational expectations for her while he was not at Monticello and that led us to believe that this was the pocket of Patsy, his daughter.

Jacqueline Langholtz: Yes, and would you mind for everyone’s intense enjoyment walking us through what the "miser of his time," Thomas Jefferson, recommends for how a young girl should spend her day?

Teacher 1: "From eight to 10 o’clock, practice music. From 10 to one, dance one day and draw another. From one to two, draw on a day you dance and write a letter the next day. From three to four, read French"—that explained the book—"From four to five exercise yourself in music. From five till bedtime read English and write"—looks like "writed." Communicate this plan to Ms. Hopkinson—

Jacqueline Langholtz: Her tutor.

Teacher 1: —"and if she approves of it, pursue it as long as I remain in Philadelphia. Activate her"—"articulate her affections, she has been a valuable friend to you and her good sense and her good heart make her valued by all who know her."

Jacqueline Langholtz: Excellent. Wonderful reading. So from family letters we learn a lot about the daily life—I mean, that’s the name of this program right, Daily Life at Monticello—for the family, for the staff, so for those who live in the house, for those who work in the house. We love that letter. And what do you think students—how do you think students react to that letter? What do they hear when they see it? They’re like, did she not eat? No, she ate. Did she not sleep? Right, but it sounds—you know, it sounds pretty stern. So who’s missing from this picture? El Jefe, right? Take us through what was in your pocket.

Teacher 2: Well, the first thing that was noticed was it's nice leather when we opened the pocket itself. The thing that we thought—we found really curious was the ivory for note-taking, for this. The glasses are really nice and they—

Jacqueline Langholtz: Ah, the spectacles.

Teacher 2: So they can be compacted a lot more. And this feels like very nice leather. There is a letter inside, it’s been sealed with the wax and the seal from here and it’s signed from Thomas Jefferson. It’s dated Monticello, April 16, and then the year 10, obviously 1810 because what other century could it be?

Jacqueline Langholtz: Right, but great question.

Teacher 2: And it says, "Dear Jefferson"—our question is who’s the Jefferson he’s writing to, it’s a person, he says they’re out of salad oil, he’s wondering if they have any in Richmond, if it’s good quality, they wanted—

Jacqueline Langholtz: They want a lot of it.

Teacher 2: They want a lot of it. I’m trying to think how many. If it’s mediocre then they want two or three. If it’s not so good just a single bottle just to serve them until he can get some from Philadelphia.

Jacqueline Langholtz: This is a man obsessed with salad oil, just so you know. Thomas Jefferson is obsessed with salad oil and this is—if it’s good stuff, get a lot of it, and if it’s bad, I need some, so just give me some and then we'll get some good stuff later on whenever we can. Yeah, that’s what that is.

Teacher 2: Just too fun. And then at the very end he says that everyone in my family is well except for Benjamin whose health isn’t too good. How are you in Richmond? And he said he’d probably see him in Richmond at some point in time. But we don’t know, at least we couldn’t figure out who Jefferson was. Was it his brother or somebody?

Jacqueline Langholtz: Well, that’s a great question and it’s someone in the family. Does anyone here—anyone here in a family where names are repeated in your family? Yeah, so the same thing here. And you’ve already seen that Martha’s name is repeated so his wife is Martha, his eldest daughter is Martha, and here his name is repeated—Thomas Jefferson Randolph is the grandson. He’s actually the executor of the will, so this is a letter from Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Jefferson Randolph.

Teacher 2: Randolph, the grandson.

Teacher 3: Provider of salad oil.

Jacqueline Langholtz: Provider of salad oil, that’s right.

Teacher 2: Okay, do we go through everything?

Jacqueline Langholtz: I like that next thing you’re grabbing, so please do.

Teacher 2: It’s a—this one is the quill—portable quill and the ink as well.

Jacqueline Langholtz: It’s a portable writing set. I love that. It’s so funny, too, because sometimes students ask us if it’s perfume or do you want to guess the other thing they were like—

Teachers: A flask.

Jacqueline Langholtz: A flask. No, no, no! Jefferson’s a man of letters, it’s for writing, yeah.

Teacher 2: Then there’s more money. If you want to show them the money.

Jacqueline Langholtz: Yeah, and more money compared certainly to what you had in your pocket, yeah. Excellent. And any sort of epiphanies or questions you have about Jefferson the man after looking through a recreated pocket for him?

Teacher 2: I just love seeing this after we’ve talked about it. This was awfully fun for me.

Jacqueline Langholtz: So what did we—what did we say about this? Or I don’t know if the whole group heard the discussion&#8212

Teacher 2: It was—it was made from ivory and you can write on it with a pencil.

Teacher 4: How accessible was that?

Jacqueline Langholtz: I don’t know, that’s a great question. Jefferson often has things made specifically for him to his specifications. I, at least, haven’t seen this in other venues—David, I’m looking towards you. I mean I learned about it here but that’s not to say that no one else used it. Certainly other people and Jefferson is not alone in being obsessed with data collecting as a man of the Enlightenment, he’s doing this and he’s sharing data with other people, but this is his system of collecting, but you can’t buy these so they're at least uncommon enough that no one makes reproductions of them. So these are piano keys, this is ivory from piano keys that we bought and then they're just sort of tacked together. And he had very small ones for travel and slightly larger ones in the galleries too. And you’re right—you take shorthand notes on them in lead and then transfer it to the appropriate book, so maybe it transferred into the weather book or the garden book or the plantation book and then wipe it off and reuse it. I love these.

Teacher 4: Were some of Jefferson’s actually found onsite?

Jacqueline Langholtz: We have some of his upstairs but I don’t think they were ever buried and unearthed. I think they were always known to be his and treasured or at least known of. Let’s give them a round of applause. Wonderful job!

This is a map drawn by John Smith who was one of the first English settlers at Jamestown. And it was first published in 1612 in England. Probably what’s most interesting about the map is just to stop and think: Who did it? Who’s it for? Why is he doing it? What’s he trying to do?

It shows us the worldview of the maker, John Smith, who draws the map. And of the audience, the people in England, members of the Virginia Company, who are investors trying to make money off of this colony of Virginia, who want to hear back that this is a good investment.

It’s a good idea to start out with a few basic orienting things. What’s the orientation? What direction are we coming from? When you look carefully at this map, you’ll see that north is not at the top of the map the way it is in most maps that we’re accustomed to and that most maps at the time in Europe would’ve done. North is to the right. If you stop and think about why that is, it really captures the point of view of somebody looking at the New World from Europe.

How would you approach it? Well, you get a hint with the picture of the ship down in the bottom left. You’re coming on a ship from Europe and this is the European point of view. There are some places, which are named clearly for European figures—Cape Charles, Cape Henry. Jamestown itself, of course, is named for King James. But most of the names are not English names. And this shows how densely populated this area was in the early 17th century by Native peoples.

It tells us something about the style of life in which you live in many different groups with different names. It isn’t clear that all of these Indian groups would’ve thought of themselves as having a common identity beyond owing political allegiance to Powhatan.

Mostly it’s an effort to get information across to the investors in the Virginia Company, who are funding his explorations. The investors did give instructions to the first group of settlers and explorers, saying, “Set up your town and then travel out from there and find out everything.” He’s particularly interested in showing this as a good investment.

He shows the Indian groups that are settled in different areas in order to convince them that there are people there to trade with, people there who can live off of this land. It’s a good land; it sustains life. He’s trying to give them information, but he’s also trying to encourage them to invest more, to have faith in this colony, to support him and the other adventurers. He is trying to be accurate. It’s one of the things you always want to know. How much is this person trying to tell accurate information to the audience. Or are they trying to give a very rosy or maybe a very negative view?

Archeological work confirms that he’s pretty accurate. There seem to be villages where he indicates villages. Maps certainly have to do with laying claim to the territory. Among European powers, the country that has drawn a map of an area does that as part of saying, “this is ours.” Smith isn’t entirely claiming this area. The English have already claimed it, although the Spanish had claimed it earlier.

And as you can see from all the different groups, lots of people claimed it earlier. All these native groups, this is their land. Smith isn’t really contesting at this point whether it’s the Indians’ land or not. Knowledge of where the people are is important in order to understand how much trade can take place in this area.

It says at the top, “Virginia,” although it doesn’t actually cover all the area that the Virginia Company claims to be Virginia.

Powhatan—that’s a name of the chief, but it’s also the name for the group of people who are parts of the empire that Powhatan rules. He’s the leader and he has all these tribes whom he protects. And they pay him tribute, tax, in the form of corn, trade goods, pelts. And that’s what makes him the powerful figure that the English have to deal with.

This helps us understand why it’s limited to this area. It’s not a map of Virginia from the point of view of the Virginia colony and its aspirations to own a great deal more of the continent. And it’s not a map of Jamestown where the English people are settled. It’s a map of Senecomaca, Powhatan’s kingdom.

There’re a couple of answers we come across from the written records. One reason he’s not showing you beyond Powhatan’s area is he’s relying on Powhatan’s Indian guides. They showed him all of the area where they could go freely. When they get to the fall line, you can see that there’re other tribes—the Manahoacs, the Monocans. The Powhatan guides aren’t going to take Smith into enemy territory. So all he can do at that point is take a record and say, “This is where these other Indians are.”

We find out from records of the Virginia Company and letters from Smith and other people in England about what they’re doing and why it’s a good idea to go to Virginia. They’re basing their idea of colonization on what the Spanish did for nearly a century in Mexico and in Peru and in the Caribbean. The Spanish go and find settled Indian groups. They’d like them especially to be rich, like the Incas or the Mayas, to have gold or silver. Then the Spanish conquer them, either through warfare or through diplomatic treaties.

They try to take over at the top so all of the gold, all of the corn, all of the beaver skins, all of the wealth that normally has gone to the dominant chiefs, the Spanish want that to come to them. And they ship that out to Spain. And that’s how they get wealthy. That’s what the English think they’re going to do in Virginia.

It’s an incredibly expensive thing to colonize. The King of England didn’t put up all the money to go settle Virginia, although the King claimed the land. They chartered a private company. In this case the Virginia Company, in which you get investors and they put in money. And they decide to support John Smith and other men who are going to go out and stake a claim and explore what’s there.

The idea of landing in Jamestown is you’ll set up a little town where you can live, and from there you’ll travel out and you’ll find wealth and riches. You’ll find Indian groups with whom you can make alliances. Find out who the important political leaders are. See if you can conquer them or get them to follow you. And see if you can follow the rivers to see if you can get farther into the continent and maybe even to the other side.

Why would Smith want to tell people in England about all these different Indian groups and their names? Aren’t these Indian groups taking up all the land that the English might take up when they come over? And the answer is, initially, that’s not the way the English are looking at it.

They’re looking at it as, “These are people whose wealth we can gain, we can get their crops, the animals they hunt.” And that’s shown up in the map.

In the upper right-hand corner, there’s part of the legend describing what’s on the map. Kings’ houses are a certain size and ordinary houses are another size. Smith is showing there’re all these chiefs and that means this an important political unit. There must be some wealth here. And that’s why this is a good place to settle.

One other aspect of the map that Smith spends a lot of time on is the rivers, showing you the bends and the ups and downs—where it’s wide, where it’s narrow. And that really shows us how he expects the Europeans to enter into the country. They enter in on ships. This is also how they will be transporting the trade goods that they’re getting from these different Indian groups.

It’s very important to the English to think about how they will get wealth back to England. They’re not yet seeing America as, “Here’s a place where we’re going to go and settle and stay.“ Instead, it’s a place we’re going to go, find riches, and return those riches back to England. Some of us may live there on these little outposts such as Jamestown, but most of us will not. And certainly the investors who’re trying to make money, most of them will not actually travel. The closest they get to adventure is reading about it and looking at Smith’s map.

In the upper left is Powhatan, the chief political leader of this time period in this area. It says underneath his name “Powhatan held this state [in] fashion,” meaning he sat and held this meeting in this way. Powhatan is the one with the pipe in his hand. Tobacco ceremonies are part of the diplomacy of the Powhatan people. And he’s got the feathers on his head and he’s wearing some beads or some decoration. And he’s up on a platform. So he’s clearly the big political leader. And beneath him are other people with a fire in this house or building.

The other Indian off to right side is a Susquehannock and he looks rather different. What it says underneath is “The Susquehannahs are a giant-like people and thus attired,” or dressed like this. He’s carrying a bow. He’s carrying a club in his other hand. He’s got an Indian pelt. So he’s depicted as a hunter.

We have here images of two different Indian groups. The suggestion is that one of these groups, the Susquehannahs, are primarily hunters and that what’s important about them is this individual hunting out in the forests. What’s important about the Powhatans is that they are a political group with this important leader.

It’s worth spending some time seeing how different those images are, particularly because we know from other sources that the Susquehannahs also had a political organization. They had chiefs; they had hierarchy. And the Powhatans also hunted. And that was one of the things the English were interested in—how do we get those pelts and furs that might be worth money back in England?

It’s a question that the map presents us with. Why is one group presented this way and the other group presented that way? The map is giving information, but it’s giving selected information about these Indian groups. If we didn’t know from other sources, we might think the Powhatans weren’t primarily hunters or the Susquehannocks didn’t have political institutions.

A choice was made by the mapmaker to emphasize something about these different groups. It tells us that he saw the Susquehannahs in one way, beyond the boundaries of the settled area, out there hunting. And he saw the Powhatans another way, in terms of their political hierarchy.

Powhatan, the paramount chief or political leader of this area, has an idea when the English arrive, too. Which is, “Here’s another tribe; maybe I can add them to the group of tribes with whom I’m allied and to whom I give protection and they will pay me tribute.” So his notion is they may be a useful additional group. They have iron goods. They have guns. They have some really useful things that would make you want to ally with them. They have copper, which is a beautiful good and a good material for making pots that last longer than earthenware. It’s what anthropologists called a “prestige good.” It makes clear that you have access to powers far away. It’s really the same as the Queen of England wearing beaver coats, which show that she has connections and control over the New World.

So from the Powhatan point of view, here’s these new people and they’re kind of interesting. They seem odd because they don’t seem to have any women. It’s hard to understand groups that don’t have women. But I think it’s quite intriguing to think of John Smith on the one hand thinking, “All right, how do I get control of Powhatan and his empire.” And Powhatan thinking on the other hand, “How do I get control of John Smith and his people.” And recognizing that they need help. These are explorers; they’re not farmers. They certainly don’t know how to grow the kind of corn that is grown in North America. The main thing they know how to do is fight and draw maps and explore. The English absolutely need the Indians to help them out.

It certainly isn’t the first place they come to. They come to Cape Charles and Cape Henry and they could’ve gone anywhere up the Chesapeake Bay or any of these other rivers. They go up the river in order to make sure it’s a little bit safer from the Spanish. The Spanish are constantly patrolling the shore of the Atlantic.

Virginia doesn’t really attract the Spanish. They’re happy with their gold from South America and Mexico and the plantation economies in the Caribbean. But they don’t really want the English to get wealthy and become greater competitors. The English know that and they go up the river far enough so they’re not really exposed.

They’re also on the river in case they need to retreat from Indians. Although they expect to be at peace with the Indians and to dominate the Indians, they also know that’s not always going to be true. So they settle right on the water, but up from the coast. It’s deep enough there. It’s not so far up that big ships can’t dock there. Those ships will supply them with food, with tools, and with new settlers. They want to set up a kind of post from which ships will go back and forth to England carrying the wealth that the settlers will be gathering from the countryside.

At the very beginning, it was much less successful than they expected. They suffered immensely from diseases and also they suffered from hunger. There was a drought, so the Indians had less corn themselves than they had normally had to trade and give to the English settlers.

The other aspect was the English settlers were so unprepared to be farmers themselves. They expected both to get food from the Indians and to be able to just gather food from the forest or gather fish from the rivers. And they did do some of that, but it turned out it was a lot harder to live than they thought. So they really needed the support of the Indians.

There was this period historians call the “Starving Time.” You can imagine being an investor in England and thinking this was not a good idea.

Part of the history behind this map is to represent the area as able to sustain life. It’s been a successful settlement so far because we’ve been able to travel throughout and gather this information. Let’s reassure the investors that there’s promise here.

After looking for gold the English try lots of different resources to send back. What they really discover is that tobacco will grow and tobacco becomes this much sought-after item in the 1620s. You can get really rich off tobacco, assuming that you can control enough land and enough labor to work it. Over the next decades, as it turns out that Virginia’s going to become a plantation economy, a society which grows tobacco, it changes the relationships tremendously with the Indians.

Within a couple of decades, there are plantations up and down the James River and it causes great conflict with the different Powhatan groups because those are lands that they use. They may not live on them in settled houses, but they use them for farming or they use them for hunting or they use them to fish along the river.

And the English have no understanding of, or respect for, the Indian’s ideas of ownership and use of the land. So over time, it becomes really clear to the Powhatans that there are more and more English. They’re here to stay. They want more and more land. And so you get a series of wars in the 1620s up through 1640s, when the Powhatans are pushed back.

I would start out with point of view. When you draw the map, you have to stand somewhere and look at the area that you’re mapping. I might ask students where Smith is standing. I guess he’s standing in the Atlantic Ocean or maybe on shipboard. He’s assuming you’re approaching from Europe.

The other thing about every map is it’s a small image of a big area. So the mapmaker had to leave a lot of things out. I would ask what kinds of things got put in and maybe what got left out. For example, we could imagine other things that Smith could’ve put on his map. We could say, well, “Why did he put on the rivers, not roads?” Well, they don’t have roads. There’re certainly paths, but the way you’re going to travel is by water.

He could’ve put on the different kinds of trees or animals that lived here. Or the different kinds of soil. There’re any number of physical features that he could have emphasized. But he was really interested in all these different Native American groups. Students could speculate: Why is that what’s most important or most interesting to the people back in England? Maybe if there had been gold, he would’ve done a map showing that.

You could ask students, to put themselves in the Native Americans’ position. What kind of map would you draw? At the very least it would be turned around, and you’d have some ships coming towards you off the Atlantic instead of sailing away from you. And the English would be this little group over here in Jamestown.

It might not look too different in some ways, but instead of these Indians, they might have images of the English settlers. And it would say, “The English are a giant people and they are thus attired. They carry these odd guns. They have no women.”