Kathryn Vitek

The Original Immigrants and Minorities: James Town

For better or worse, Americans have developed cultural expectations of immigrants. Whether these expectations take the form of stereotypes or legitimate depictions, they result from historical trends and a mindset of assimilation and/or opposition. I am interested in the immigrant mentality – what it is that makes a person decide to set out for America and the spectrum of hopes they hold. As an eighth grade teacher, I just recently finished reading a social studies summer reading requirement about the first settlement at Jamestown called Blood on the River: James Town 1607 by Elisa Carbone. It is an excellent piece of historical fiction aimed at young adults. My fellow social studies teacher visited Jamestown last summer and informs me that the historians there name this book as the book they recommend to people interested in the settlement. Not only is it an enjoyable read; it also includes an impressive list of primary documents used in the author’s research and recommended websites for accessing those and other relevant documents. My interest in James Town as well as my desire to explore those web sites has led me to my first research question: What, if any, similarities are there between the mindsets of the original American immigrants and those of today? Many documents are available that detail the building of the settlement and the political expectations set forth by the Virginia Company, but I set out to find personal accounts of those early settlers so that I might gain insight into their frames of mind.

I first looked at a document containing the laws of the colony and searched for any laws pertaining to immigration. The only reference to citizenship is that the court “can admit any into this society.” There doesn’t seem to have been much concern about who should be accepted into or rejected from that original settlement. There is also an article specifying that one of the goals was “the reclaiming of the Barbarous Natives; and bringing them to the true worship of God, the civilitie of life, and vertue.” From the beginning then, assimilation was desirable. This article shows that the settlers did not intend to get rid of the Native Americans, but to convince them to assimilate into the new American culture. While their original motives may have been largely religious, accounts of their actions show that religion was certainly not the only factor. In considering assimilation, I turned to an interpretive essay by historian Karen Ordahl Kupperman titled “Indians and English Meet on the James.” Her essay supports my idea that the colonists’ expectations of “converting the natives” shows a certain arrogance of the dominant culture, in that the colonists were ignorant of the land and inexperienced in survival there, yet they still saw themselves as being in control. Despite their dependence on the Native Americans, they still believed themselves to be a “higher” race. Conversely, there is evidence that the Native Americans intended to assimilate the newcomers into their own culture. They initially established positive contact by sharing their food. As time went on, they also began sharing some of their knowledge and practices. Although there was reluctance on both sides, for fear of espionage and attack, the general trading of knowledge and goods suggest that both sides saw assimilation as possibly the safest course of action. This logic still holds true today. If a group of people migrates to a foreign land and does not make any attempt at assimilation, they are just taking over land that isn’t really theirs. The effort at cooperation shows good will and helps different cultural groups to feel secure in accepting one another as opposed to worrying that the new group may pose a threat. A specific example of total assimilation may be the disappearance of the Roanoke Colony. Roanoke was established in 1587, and Captain John White returned to the settlement in 1590 to find that all traces of the colony had disappeared. The only evidence of the colonists’ whereabouts was the word “Croatan” carved into a tree. The Croatans were a friendly nearby Indian tribe. Today, a group of Croatan Indians living in North Carolina often have English names. This has led people to speculate that the colonists at Roanoke may have been absorbed into the Croatan tribe. The first similarity between past and present immigration that I see, then, is an interest in assimilation on both sides. A major theme in Immigrant literature is the desire of the newcomer to “fit in” or in some way assimilate into the dominant culture. Likewise, I think it is safe to say that the dominant culture hopes for the same outcome, because if assimilation did not occur then immigrants would be a great threat to the dominant way of life.

My attention was next drawn to an interpretive essay by Thomas M. Costa titled “Who Built Virginia? Servants and Slaves as Seen Through Runaway Advertisements.” This article led me to expand my question to include not only America’s first immigrants, but also America’s first minorities. Again, I wanted to focus on comparing and contrasting the people in those roles in the past and present. One of the Virginia Company’s primary goals in the New World was to successfully harvest tobacco that could be brought back to England for a profit. Once the colonists succeeded in this, there was a sudden need for laborers. However, the abundance of available land meant that everyone had an opportunity to be a land-owner and reap the profits of his own tobacco growth. In short, everyone had the ability to be at the top of the tobacco hierarchy, so no one wanted to labor at the bottom. This was the conflict that led to indentured servitude in America. Rather than allowing people to leave England for America at will, poor immigrants had to pay for their food, clothing, and passage across the Atlantic by agreeing to a period of servitude in the new world, usually about four years, and often some form of “freedom dues” at the end of that time period. This compares to today’s immigrants who begin their lives in the U.S. working menial jobs that are often far below their “social station” in their home country. Based on records from that time period, it seems clear that James Town would not have survived without these servants. In her book Blood on the River: James Town 1607, Elisa Carbone describes the difficulties of having only Gentlemen present in the colony. These men had previously led lives of privilege and seemed to have no intention of changing their way of life in the New World. Consequently, younger men were forced to do exhausting amounts of work that contributed to the frequent sickness and death of the early colonists. The Gentlemen’s unwillingness to work also meant that it took longer to build palisades and houses, leaving the colonists vulnerable to attacks. The servants who immigrated to James Town thus clearly played a crucial role in its success. Ultimately, there were two types of “servants” in James Town: White, Christian servants who served limited terms, and Black, Non-Christian servants (usually of African descent) who served life terms. This led to new social distinctions based on race and culture that benefitted white colonists and contributed to the decline in African-Americans’ quality of life.  The colonists’ desire for power and status seems to have greatly contributed to the beginning of racism in America.

            Based on my research, I see quite a lot of similarities between the immigrant and minority narratives of the past and the present. New colonists relied on the help of Native Americans to survive in a foreign land, yet their dependence left them very vulnerable. Immigrants today face a similar conflict; they need help learning a new way of life, but they are susceptible to stereotyping and discrimination. Patterns of assimilation seem to have reversed themselves. Today, immigrants are largely expected to assimilate into a new culture whereas in the early 17^th century the immigrants/colonists expected the Native Americans to assimilate into the English culture. The ultimate fate of Native Americans is an extreme example of the power a dominant culture holds. As for minorities, Jamestown describes not so much a similarity as a point of origin. The colonists’ original American Dream showed them the potential of racism and discrimination for helping them financially as well as socially by placing them in a position of power over others. Their arrogance toward Native Americans makes it easy to believe that they were happy to take racism to extremes. Our class discussed slave-holders’ hardening because of their lifestyle; the colonists probably experienced that same progression of cruelty. What began as a necessity for the survival of an entire colony became an opportunity for personal power and privilege. The dominant culture took advantage of that opportunity at James Town just as it does today. The sources I’ve found are interesting and abundant. If I were to continue with this line of inquiry, I would continue reading resources offered at Virtual Jamestown to add to my knowledge of the settlement. My research moved away from immigrant and minority mentalities and toward their roles in society. Because of this, I would like to read more personal accounts to more directly address my initial interest.

Works Cited

Carbone, Elisa. Blood on the River: James Town 1607. New York: Puffin Books, 2006. Print.

Costa, Thomas M. “Who Built Virginia? Servants and Slaves as Seen through Runaway Advertisements.” www.virtualjamestown.org/essays.

Kupperman, Karen Ordahl. “Indians and English Meet on the James.” www.virtualjamestown.org/essays.

“Orders and Constitutions 1619-1620.” First Hand Accounts of Virginia. Virtual Jamestown. http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/jamestown-browse?id=J1049