I am a student of history, a mentor, and a believer in the value of a “good” education. I love children, dogs, and most of all I love my family. My love of writing began as a child, and my greatest hope is that I have passed down that love to the many students I have worked with through the years. You’ll eventually be able to read about a variety of topics on this site, and I will enjoy writing and publishing each and every one.
I don’t know about you, but for me, a bad hair day seems to set the tone for everything else. I can leave the house without make-up, dress down on a regular basis, and never feel as if I am missing a beat, but unruly hair…it makes me crazy.
Each and every day, our tresses are attacked by environmental damage; pollutants, dry air and heat, all of which, wreak havoc on what my grandmother called “a woman’s glory.” If we look even further, we can also see that much of the damage our hair experiences comes as a direct result of our own actions; permanents, dyes, strong shampoos and conditioners all contain chemicals. Not to mention, most hair care products (shampoos and conditioners) do nothing more than coat the hair with a protective layer of film.
Natural Rinses
Natural rinses strengthen and repair damaged hair. They stimulate the scalp, which is responsible for supplying the hair with protein and nutrients. Thus, they do not simulate a fresh, silky appearance, but rather supply the scalp with stimulation, and in turn, provide nourishment to the hair follicle, which promotes healthy growth.
Cammomile
Linden-Flower
Herbal Rinses
Herbal rinses are formulated in the same way we prepare tea. It is as effortless as boiling water, adding a teaspoon of herbs, steeping, straining, and massaging the rinse onto your scalp before combing through (adjust amounts according to the length of your hair). Unlike store bought conditioners, there is no need for rinsing- simply towel dry.
Those who suffer from oily hair can prepare their rinse with a variety of dried herbs; sage, chamomile, lavender, and lemon balm to name a few. Each of these herbal concoctions will assist in reducing oil buildup and producing healthy hair.
An infusion made from dried birch leaves will not only promote scalp and hair health but ward off hair loss as well. An added benefit……. soft, shiny, luxurious locks. Note, this rinse is not recommended for those with blonde or gray hair as birch leaves may darken the hue.
Chamomile, used for centuries to relieve stress, is just as beneficial to those suffering from itchy scalp (dry skin, eczema, dandruff). It has also been used to naturally lighten hair, something we may not all be interested in…… so beware and use with caution.
Linden-Flower rinse is the perfect choice for overworked, stressed, or damaged hair. Repeated coloring, processing, and other chemical treatments can cause hair to become brittle, which often leads to split-ends and breakage. Linden-Flower will soothe the brittleness, promote circulation in the scalp and nurture healthy outgrowth.
Birch Leaves
Yes, Beer is Good for Your Hair!
Another well-known rinse, perfect for the day after an outdoor barbecue, makes for an excellent way to utilize that leftover over beer (flat and straight from the can or bottle), and yes, you do need to wash this rinse away with warm water after treatment. Abundant in B vitamins and sugar, a beer rinse will leave your hair full of body and alive with radiance. Whoever said “leftovers” were a bad thing?
In Conclusion…..
As you can see, homemade, natural hair rinses are just as beneficial, and far more economical than most any product you will find in the beauty department of your local store. Better yet, they contain no preservatives or chemicals…… nothing but pure, natural goodness.
Sir Walter Raleigh’s attempts to establish the first English colony in the New World were historically unsuccessful. Regardless, the lessons learned by the English through his failures at Roanoke would serve to insure the monarchy’s future realization of Raleigh’s dream. Failure is often necessary in order to experience success.
Raleigh believed that his colonial ventures would supply him with a source of immense financial gain. Instead, he lost every penny of his investment. He also learned that the location they’d chosen for settlement, although relatively warm, was not conducive to supply the bounty of crops its inhabitants would require.
Another drawback was Roanoke’s geographical location. The island lacked any type of protective harbor, was surrounded by shallow coastal waters, and the shifting of the tides was a constant threat to the ships, running them aground.
Sir Walter Raleigh always knew that colonization of the Americas would be profitable, but his planning was never quite precise enough to bring his own attempts to fruition. A successful colony would require more settlers, a larger source of funds, an adequate supply of necessary provisions, and the perfect location. In 1607, a number of these requirements were met in the founding of England’s first permanent colony, Jamestown.
The Virginia Company
Queen Elizabeth’s death in 1503 brought many changes to England; her successor and cousin, King James of Scotland, made peace with Spain. English privateers, who’d long raided Spanish ships no longer had license to do so. With the country at peace, the monarchy looked toward the New World. Unlike Spain, the English monarchy had no money to finance colonization, and after witnessing Raleigh’s independent losses, no other individual was prepared to take that kind of gamble with their own. Thus, the birth of England’s first joint stock companies. Backed by investors and chartered by King James I, the Virginia Company of London and the Virginia Company of Plymouth were born.
The Virginia Company’s investors had been hearing stories about Spain’s discoveries of gold in both Mexico and Peru for years. They believed that if such riches existed in the areas of the New World colonized by Spain, they were certain to find them elsewhere. Initial proposals chose Virginia as their destination, followed by a short exploration of the area in order to find the perfect location for the construction of a small fortress that would later be replaced by a much larger settlement.
The Virginia Company of London sent its first expedition to Chesapeake Bay in 1607. Their charter had granted them rights to settle in the southern part of England’s claimed territory. More than 100 colonists, all men and boys, and all of them volunteers, joined that expedition. Here is their story.
With their charter granted, the Virginia Company’s directors went to work. Decisions were made, plans were put in place, and various options were weighed. The investors had no desire to repeat England’s previous failures in establishing a permanent settlement, and members of the company were sure that if they did it right, it would only be a matter of time before thousands of English citizens would migrate to the New World.
Part of the Virginia Company’s plan was to map the region, and like so many preceding expeditions, to find a route to the Pacific Ocean; the elusive Northwest Passage. Mistakenly, the Virginia Company’s directors believed that the New World was no more than a narrow strip of land separating the Atlantic Ocean from the Pacific. Their assumptions were wrong.
150 men volunteered to man the Virginia Company’s first expedition. Bricklayers, stone masons, carpenters, and soldiers signed on for the journey. But the ships’ rosters also included the names of various members of England’s wealthiest families. The Virginia Company would soon find out that the money these men had to invest would in no way make up for their laziness or lack of experience. Physical labor and the ability to deal with harsh conditions were something they were unaccustomed to. Yes, their money was useful, but the men themselves? They were useless.
Susan Constant, Discovery, and Godspeed
John Smith and the Journey to America
On January 1, 1607, three ships set sail down the Thames River; the Susan Constant, the Godspeed, and the Discovery. Once on board and out to sea, the future settlers found the weather less than agreeable, storms slowed the ships down considerably. Many of the men became sick, and before land would ever be sighted 45 of the 150 travelers would be dead.
Aboard the Susan Constant was a man named John Smith. Born January 2, 1579, Smith was a native of Lincolnshire, England. His parents, George and Alice were tenant farmers, but don’t let that fool you. The family may not have been members of the aristocracy, but careful planning had allowed George to amass an enormous amount of wealth with his agricultural endeavors. His family enjoyed a much higher standard of living than you would expect of a family of commoners.
Smith had long been an adventurer. Having left home after his father’s death in 1596, at the young age of 16, Smith traveled to France where he squandered the family fortune. Ashamed of his actions and embarrassed to return to his family home in Sendall, he eventually volunteered in the French army and later hired himself out as a professional soldier. After a few years he returned to England, but his visit was short lived as boredom set in. A soldier’s life was filled with travel, adventure, and excitement. It called to him, and he answered its call.
As a soldier, Smith was brilliant. He taught himself swordsmanship and hand-to-hand combat. He was also adept at creating bombs from everyday items. All he needed was tar, a dusting of gunpowder, and the ever accessible clay pot.
His days as a mercenary satisfied his wanderlust, taking him from France to the Netherlands, and finally to southeastern Europe, the edge of the Ottoman Empire. While fighting for the Hungarians, Smith began writing a journal. Whether or not his original writings survived an ambush by the Turks in the Transylvanian Alps is uncertain. Captured by the Turks, he was sold into slavery where he would spend several years bound by an iron neck piece, regularly beaten, and starved almost to the point of death.
It is hard to believe that after such treatment he was able to muster the strength it would take to one day murder his Turkish owner and escape on horseback into Russia. Necessity can give you the power to accomplish most anything. John Smith would use that same sense of urgency and necessity to one day take control of the Jamestown colony.
Smith’s interest in the New World was sparked by none other than the great Sir Walter Raleigh himself. With no work to be found as a mercenary, he returned to London to find the city abuzz with tales of the New World, but Smith had tales of his own to tell. And while making his rounds through London’s taverns he did just that.
The stories he told soon made their way to Tower of London, where Raleigh was being held on suspicion of treason. The two men held their first meeting in Raleigh’s prison cell, trading their stories and dreams of future adventures. Smith, intrigued by what he’d heard, couldn’t resist when he found out that the Virginia Company sought investors. Not only did the Virginia Company get Smith’s money, they got Smith as well.
While the London investors busied themselves with the purchase of ships and the hiring of captains, they trusted John Smith with the responsibility of ordering and stocking supplies. Smith had assumed the role of buyer on his own. His experiences as a mercenary had left him determined to leave England prepared for things to come. Once again, the family fortune was on the line.
Smith traveled on the Susan Constant, sharing a cabin with Gabriel Archer. Archer was also a soldier and soon to become an enemy. The voyage to North America was long and tedious for other reasons as well. Over the course of their months at sea, Smith, well known to be an arrogant braggart, alienated the expedition’s captains on a regular basis. He considered them both ignorant and inept. He had no respect for decorum, and he certainly didn’t bow down to authority.
One of the voyage’s major problems was caused by a consistent battle for power amongst the ship’s travelers. Designation of power or the lack of the designation of power could have become the expedition’s undoing. The Virginia Company had made the grave mistake of failing to establish leadership before the ships set sail. Instead, they had drafted a charter for the new colony’s governing body, and then locked it in a box with instructions that the box not be unlocked until the ships dropped anchor in Virginia. This mistake left the future colony’s inhabitants to indulge in petty arguments that couldn’t be solved. The anger festered and the men turned on each other. What was an inarguably difficult journey had been made even more difficult
Smith indisputably made himself heard in each of the ensuing debates. He in fact, so tested the combined authority of the men he sailed with that he was sentenced to hang upon the expedition’s arrival in the New World. Smith’s death sentence progressed as far as the special gallows erected for his execution on the Caribbean Island of Nevis. That hanging never took place, partly because Smith was so well armed, and inarguably because one of expedition’s leaders was smart enough to realize his value. Captain Newport, a career privateer, stopped the hanging because he knew they’d need every able bodied fighting man they had once they arrived in Virginia. Smith was a seasoned soldier; he was valuable, and he would soon prove Captain Newport correct.
April 26, 1607 found three small English ships sailing out of the early morning mist of modern day Cape Henry and cruising their way into the mouth of Chesapeake Bay. Scouts had spent more than two weeks exploring the area, and after much deliberation a site had been chosen for settlement. The possibility of being discovered by marauding Spanish warships had led the scouts to choose a location sixty miles inland along the James River. It was there that the colony of Jamestown was born.
Map of the Viriginia Colony. Created by John Smith in 1612, with color added by Henricus Hondias in 1639
Chief Powhatan in a longhouse at Werowocomoco.
Jamestown, John Smith, and Powhatan
Jamestown’s early history was far from promising. The colony’s leadership was inconsistent; its death rate was high, and its settlers were far more interested in self profit than establishing a permanent home. These men had traveled far, and they also had a financial stake in what would be their own futures; farmers, laborers, craftsmen, jewelers, and members of the English gentry had set out to make their fortunes. Each of these men had something to contribute to the group as a whole, but none of them wished for anything more than to prospect for gold.
Desire for immediate riches combined with failure to think about the immediate future may have been the cause of many of their deaths, malaria and other diseases notwithstanding. John Smith, disgusted by their work ethic once declared that things would need to change, but that wasn’t where he left his opinions. Fortunately for the colonists, Smith believed in more than mere talk; he believed in action.
Jamestown had a need for a leader, and John Smith was the man for the job. His role in the colony had been one of protection, but he was also courageous, experienced, and levelheaded. Freedom of movement ended with Smith’s control, his military background influencing both the ends and the means of his actions. Smith’s well known quote, “The greater part must be more industrious or starve. He that will not work shall not eat,” was the beginning of a period of forced labor, during which colonists built houses and planted crops. They hated his autocratic form of governing and resented his interference, but it was Smith’s iron fist that kept them alive.
The area in which Jamestown was constructed was also inhabited by small groups of Native American agricultural villages. The Indians, who are said to have numbered between fifteen and twenty-five thousand, were ruled by the shrewd and forceful leader Wahunsonacock, whom the settlers named Powhatan.
Soon after choosing Jamestown as their location for settlement, Captain Newport took command of the shallop (a small boat constructed by the colonists), and accompanied by John Smith led a scouting party another 70 miles up the James River. Smith took this opportunity and used it to his advantage, easily making friends with the local natives and while doing so picking up bits and pieces of the native languages spoken by the groups they encountered. During those first few months Smith was the only member of the colony able to effectively communicate with the Native Americans.
It is believed that Smith first met the Native American leader Powhatan on this first journey up the river. The tiny expedition had supplied themselves with items for trade, and upon meeting the great chief gave him a number of presents to confirm their good intentions and ingratiate themselves with the people Powhatan ruled. Powhatan, in turn, is believed to have assisted Smith in drawing what would be one of the first maps of Virginia.
John Smith described the Native American leader as “a tall, well proportioned man, with a sower look, his head somewhat gray, his beard so thinne, that it seemeth none at all, his age neare sixtie, of a very able and hardy body to endure an labour.”
1870’s lithograph of Pocahontas’ alleged intervention between Smith and her father.
Rising Tension
Over the course of their first summer in Jamestown, Smith would continue to make many journeys up the James River in order to scout the wilderness, draw maps, and pursue amiable relationships with the neighboring tribes. He traded both axes and cooking pots for much needed food, and accepted Native American lessons in the process of drying animal skins for use as clothing. This lesson would have been deeply appreciated during the onset of winter, as these shirts, trousers, and coats were far warmer than anyone in the colony already possessed.
Eventually, the peace between the colonists and Native Americans became strained as both groups strove for dominance. Powhatan believed that he could bring the colonists under his control, that their settlement could be incorporated into his own realm. Smith, on the other hand, believed that he could manage the Native American leader with bullying and threats. Both men were wrong.
Although each group had begun their relationship desiring peace, their hopes would not survive. On December 29, 1607, Smith and Powhatan engaged in the visit from which legends were made.
Smith and a group of men had been scouring the wilderness for food; the colony was starving. The party, traveling by barge, found themselves blocked by branches that overhung the river. Unable to continue by barge, Smith and a few of his men decided to go on in a canoe and were ambushed by Native American bowman; two of Smith’s men were killed. It is said that Smith used his Native American guide as a shield and escaped, only to fall into a bog where he was later captured by the Powhatan tribesmen.
Paraded through the villages by his captors, Smith was delivered to Powhatan by the dancing warriors who’d taken him prisoner. The Chief, leery of the colonists, their presence, and their expanding settlement, condemned Smith to death by clubbing. Legend tells us that at the last minute Pocahontas threw herself over Smith’s body and stopped the execution, that her act was seen by her father as an omen, that because of his daughter’s intervention he declared Smith a brother. Tale or truth? Even Smith fails to unveil the answer to that question.
Pocahontas was surely present during the meeting between her father and John Smith, but the details of their relationship are far from concrete. There have been many tales told about these two historic figures, and there are many to consider, but even John Smith’s memoirs fail to be consistent. This, their story or stories, if you will; will have to wait for another day.
What is known is that Smith and Powhatan’s tenuous relationship eventually embarked on a collision course of misunderstandings and lost opportunities. Each faction, the colonists and the Native Americans were equally accountable for their actions.
Jamestown; the dreams, the hardships,
and the reality…
On January 3, 1608, Virginia Company supply boats arrived at the fort accompanied by 100 new colonists. Four days later a fire destroyed a large portion of the settlement.
The new arrivals, expecting an easier life, were shocked that the settlement’s existing supplies had been rationed. The supply ship’s captain spent 14 weeks searching for gold and feeding his crew with the stores intended for the colony. The settlers were relieved when the ships sailed home for England, and were also dismayed by the ship captain’s refusal to unload supplies until he’d put aside enough food and water to get his crew home with full stomachs. Things were worse than ever.
As if the fire wasn’t bad enough, the new settlers had unknowingly brought company with them to the New World. Rats had disembarked the ship alongside their human counterparts, and their numbers increased so rapidly that they’d soon infested and eaten their way through half of the corn in the storage house. Shortly after, Smith was forced to send a third of the colonists down river to subsist on the abundant oysters found in the riverbeds downstream.
In September of 1608, Smith was officially elected the colony’s leader. At the young age of 28, Smith became British America’s chief executive, military commander, and political leader. He had finally found a niche where name, title, and patronage weren’t required for personal advancement, and he took full advantage of the opportunity. Smith, though known for his wit and bravery, ruled with a will of iron.
A realist, Smith wasted no time in advising the Virginia Company’s investors that the area was not only barren of the gold they hoped for, but that the James River was not going to supply them with the short cut to China they’d been seeking.
Drought took over the land, and the natives refused to trade for food. Horses, dogs, cats, and rats became dinner; settlers wandered through the woods in search of edible roots and snakes when they had no other options.
The settlers who wandered away seldom returned; the settlers who remained were left to bury the dead. Colonists desperate enough to steal from the Algonquians were found murdered, bread stuffed in their mouths, a warning. But what difference does it make how you die when death becomes inevitable.
There are rumors that settlers were driven crazy, that in their insanity they turned to cannibalism. A man was convicted of the murder of his wife; he had chopped her up into bits and pieces, salted her, and then feasted on the majority of her remains before being caught. He was quickly tried, convicted, and burned alive.
Although the colony endured many hardships, the settlers who continued to arrive on the Atlantic shore eventually made Jamestown their permanent home. As the colonists fulfilled their obligations to the Virginia Company for repayment of their passage, more and more of the settlers began to build homesteads and turn to farming.
By the 1620’s the people of Jamestown had replaced what had originally been a rudimentary fort with a thriving market town. Settlements were now surrounded by fences, houses boasted enclosed yards to keep their livestock from wandering away, forts were fortified, and storehouses were well provisioned.
The colonists had passed their own laws and held their own elected Parliament; tobacco became the colony’s main crop; ships of women arrived to combat the shortage of wives and to establish families (a wife would cost you 150 pounds of tobacco). King James I wasn’t necessarily happy with Jamestown’s budding independence, but citizens moved forward nonetheless.
English colonization in America had long been a dream, and of the 7,289 colonists who’d set sail for Jamestown in its first 18 years, 6,040 had died. Many lives had been lost to realize success, to realize the dreams of adventurers and explorers. Dreams do come true, never doubt it.
England’s first attempts to colonize the Americas began with an expedition in 1584. At the behest of Queen Elizabeth’s trusted counselor, Sir Walter Raleigh, Philip Amadas and Arthur Barlowe set sail to the North American coastline on a scouting mission. Their goal; to explore the sounds and estuaries in search of the “perfect” location for the first English settlement in the Americas.
Raleigh, the great soldier, statesman, and adventurer, had been given a charter by the Queen that endowed him with the exclusive rights of the land he claimed in her name, but her sponsorship was withheld. Raleigh would bear the cost of the colony on his own. Certain that he’d prosper, he agreed to her terms.
Amadas and Barlowe’s first landing in the New World was believed to have been in the area of Hatteras, an island off the coast of modern day North Carolina; they then traveled northward where they found an area that would soon be called Roanoke.
Amadas and Barlowe
Barlowe’s descriptions of the New World were reminiscent of the Garden of Eden. He speaks of the smell of sweet flowers, the cedars rising tall on the horizon, vines laden with grapes, and greenery everywhere. He describes the flight of the cranes as they take to the skies in reaction to the unknown blasts of gunfire; he writes of the cheers of his men as they watch the birds’ movements across the sky.
Upon their arrival the men had no idea that the land where they’d anchored was not the mainland, that the land they claimed in the name of the Queen was indeed no more than a barrier island. In Barlowes’s own words; “We manned our boats, and went to view the land next adjoyning, and to take possession of the same, in the right of the Queenes most excellent Majestie, and rightfull Queene, and Princesse of the same, and after delivered the same over to your use, according to her Majesties grant, and letters patents, under her Highnesses great seal.” They believed themselves to have found what Raleigh was looking for.
Like the Spanish before them, Amadas and Barlowe lay claim to land in the name of a monarchy. How much land did their claim include? Did anyone really know? Or did they just mean everything?
Portrait of an Indian Chief by the Governor of the Cittie of Raleigh, John White
Granganimeo
A few days after their arrival, the men were met by one of the island’s inhabitants, a Native American named Granganimeo. The men, impressed by his lack of fear, invited him aboard. They invited him to dinner, shared a meal and drank wine. The English gave him gifts; a shirt, a hat, and select items they’d seen him gaze at in curiosity. When Granganimeo left the ship, he went to his own small sailing craft and proceeded to fish.
Granganimeo returned the following day, accompanied by his brother and an additional forty to fifty men. Barlowe describes the company as a “very handsome and goodly people, and in their behaviour as mannerly and civill as any of Europe.” He would later come to find that Granganimeo’s brother was in fact a tribal chief, Wingina. But it doesn’t seem to have concerned him that a king already ruled the land they had just claimed for Raleigh in Queen Elizabeth’s name. Since Wingina was not a Christian monarch, his claim to the land was irrelevant.
Most European explorers saw Indian societies in terms of their own experience. They acknowledged nobility, and they understood that each region boasted powerful chiefs, but that was where their understanding ended.
Sir Richard Grenville
Grenville’s Expedition
In 1585, after a year of exploration, Amadas and Barlowe returned to England. The stories and wonders they brought with them (pearls, animal skins, potatoes, tobacco leaf, and two natives named Mateo and Wanchese) sparked the imagination of England’s citizens and opened the eyes of the English Queen. Colonization was no longer a dream. It was imminent.
The spring of 1585, found five ships setting sail from England’s Plymouth port carrying the first group of English settlers to the New World. The expedition was led by Sir Richard Grenville.
On June 26th, the settlers landed on the Atlantic coast, and then spent the next month searching for a suitable place to build their community. Their arrival at Roanoke was cause for celebration. The environment was perfect and the natives were friendly. A miscalculation in provisions could have been a disaster, but relations between the settlers and the Native Americans were good. The settlers were provided with help in building shelters and hunting game.
Once Roanoke had been established (late summer), Grenville made his way back to England in order to pick up more supplies. Ralph Lane was named governor of the colony.
Ralph Lane
Roanoke’s First Governor
As time went on, autumn brought colder weather, nodding its head towards the bitter cold that would accompany the winter months. Relations between the Native Americans and the settlers began to deteriorate. The natives weren’t fools, and they could see that these visitors weren’t solely there to explore; they were there to take land; they were there to stay.
The help of the local tribe came to an end. Food was withheld, and the colonists were hungry. The natives attacked the settlement. Their reasons for attack are unknown, but history tells us that although the colony depended on the local natives for food, they were also prone to kidnapping and keeping the natives hostage.
Natives were held until their ransom was paid, and the ransom was often that of information. One example of this may have been the colonist’s search for riches, namely pearls. What history doesn’t tell us is to what lengths the colonists were antagonized and threatened by the natives who wanted them to leave, or that much of the settlement’s discourse was in fact caused by bickering and quarrels amongst the members of the colony itself.
Lane is said to have not been a very diplomatic man. His tendency to deal sharply and violently with both the colonists and the natives failed to endear him to anyone. A quarrel with Wingina led to the chief’s death; he was beheaded on June 10, 1586. But their quarrel stemmed from Wingina’s organization of a planned attack on the colony. Was Lane wrong to have protected the people he governed? I think not. Was he justified in ordering the death of a native chief? I don’t know.
Sir Francis Drake
The Arrival of
Sir Francis Drake
The day after Wingina’s death, Sir Francis Drake arrived at Roanoke. En route to England, he stopped to offer Lane’s colony help and supplies. Those supplies consisted of various types of equipment, 100 black slaves, and 300 South American Indians that had been taken from Spanish settlements he’d raided in the Caribbean Islands and Florida. He also offered to leave a ship, but the arrival of a hurricane quickly changed his plans. With his ship blown out to sea, Drake offered the colonists a choice; to accept a minimal amount of provisions and wait out Grenville’s expected arrival or to join his own expedition and return to England.
Lane immediately accepted Drake’s offer to return to England, as did the colonists who were present. Three colonists who’d gone out on a scouting mission in the up-country were left behind as Drake had no time to wait for their return. His ship, already laden with the extra weight of those abandoning their home sites, had no more room. Belongings were thrown overboard, as were important records; what hadn’t already been destroyed was simply cast away. Those records may have been the missing link as to what had really happened during the time the settlers lived there. But it doesn’t matter, fish can’t read.
Grenville’s ships arrived with the promised relief supplies shortly after the colony had been deserted, causing a multitude of criticism for Lane’s abandonment of the settlement. Grenville, on the other hand, not sure where the settlers had gone, left behind fifteen of his men and enough provisions for two years.
Rumors abounded upon Lane’s return to England; many accusing him of leaving his post because he mistrusted Grenville’s intentions. No one speaks of the way the colonists were living, or the fact that many had already left the settlement and moved towards the ocean in search of food; mussels, fish, and clams. Lane never again commanded a colonial expedition. Maybe he didn’t want to, but more likely, he wasn’t allowed to.
Map by John White- 1585
John White
Artist John White had been among the first group of settlers at Roanoke. He painted scenes of Native American villages, the people, the customs, and the wildlife that surrounded him in a place he’d hoped to call home. After returning to England, he advocated for future colonization.
In 1587, White convinced Raleigh to give the colony another try, and in May of 1587 he once again left Plymouth for the New World. White was accompanied by ninety men, seventeen women, and nine children. This attempt at colonization focused on families, and each was required to put up a portion of their own money to help offset Raleigh ‘s cost. In return, the families were each given 500 acres of land. White was so sure that life in Roanoke would be successful that two of his own family members accompanied him, his daughter Elinor Dare and her husband Ananias. The family was on its way to a new future, in a new land. John White’s new role would be that of the colony’s governor.
Upon their arrival, the settlers immediately began to repair the cottages and buildings that had been deserted by Lane and his men. The previous fort had for the most part been destroyed, and the fifteen men Grenville had left behind with supplies a year earlier were nowhere to be found.
The earlier colonists had given the new group a foundation to work with, but the presence of women and children gave the entire venture a new sense of urgency. Aware of the mistakes made in their first attempt at colonization, Raleigh made sure that the second group was more prepared. Experience and careful planning would surely make a difference. The prospective colonists didn’t just set off with provisions of food, clothing, and tools. They were also supplied with everything they could have needed to implement a self sustaining community. Trunks included books, maps, and pictures. But these things were not enough, and shortly after landing it became clear that they had once again made a mistake in calculating for provisions.
Good relations with a neighboring tribe, the Croatoan, may have led the governor into a false sense of security. They were friendly, open people, who when questioned told White that the fifteen men who’d disappeared were actually killed by members of the Roanoke, Wingina’s tribe. The settlers wasted no time in attacking the village of Dasamonquepeuc , but the Roanoke had already fled the area. The settlers didn’t get revenge, but they did kill a number of the Croatoan tribe members who were present within the community at the time of attack. Whatever relationship had been forged was now tenuous; the colonists had made a grave mistake.
Harsh weather, specifically drought, forced White to return to England far sooner than he had originally planned in order to conduct business and restock necessary supplies for the colony. That he had mixed feelings about leaving would be an understatement. Not only did he leave his daughter and son-in-law behind; he also left his newly born granddaughter, the first English baby to be born in America, Virginia Dare. The colonist’s however, supported his return to England. They knew that replenishment of their supplies was necessary, and so did their governor. White departed for England late that summer; he wouldn’t return to Roanoke until August of 1590.
Thousands of years ago the Earth was an extremely cold place to live. The frigid climate caused water to freeze into large sheets of ice, and the resulting glaciers moved slowly and stealthily across the land, lowering sea levels and exposing new land that had never before been seen. This change in the Earth’s surface served to connect areas that had once been separated by water, and the appearance of these new, natural land bridges afforded both humans and animals new routes to travel in their search for warmer temperatures and places to settle.
Berengia is one of the land bridges that scientists believe allowed people to cross from Asia into the Americas. It is also believed that people from Europe migrated to the Americas by following a Palaeolithic route, the North American ice edge corridor.
The First Americans- Early Settlers
Early settlers in the Americas survived by hunting wild animals and gathering wild plants. Food sources were sparse, and the hunter- gatherer societies were perpetually always on the move following game and looking for new sources of plant life.
Weapons were crafted from natural resources at hand, stones became spearheads, knives, and hammers, twigs and grasses made twine or rudimentary bindings.
The animals were far larger that those we’re familiar with today; animals such as the giant, woolly mammoth who sported long, shaggy hair and enormously long, curled tusks. Animals such as this supplied much needed meat that was eaten in addition to the roots, wild fruits, nuts, and mushrooms that were gathered when available, but the availability of these food sources was rare, and the hunter-gatherer societies kept moving until the climate and environment allowed for settlement. Eventually, the chance to settle changed everything.
Early Settlements
10,000 B.C., found the glaciers melting, the oceans on the rise, and the land bridges disappearing, once again becoming a part of the ocean floor. For those who’d migrated to the Americas from Asia and Europe it meant the inability to ever return home. Some of these people continued to roam the Americas preferring their nomadic lifestyle to permanent settlement. Others chose to create the homesteads that would lead to permanent communities.
Archaeological discoveries in both South America and Mexico show that seed planting may have occurred as early as 7000 B.C. The warmth of the climate combined with the availability of rich natural resources encouraged plant growth. Few animals were left to hunt which made farming a lucrative decision for those who wanted to plant roots. America’s first home grown foods were corn, beans, tomatoes, sunflowers and different varieties of squash.
Farming allowed people to grow more food than they personally had need for, and a surplus of farm goods meant that hunting was not always a necessary endeavor. Hunters, of course, still went out on a regular basis, but those who hunted now did it for the entire community. Farming allowed for specialization of labor; specialization of labor led to complex societies. Early developments of these types of communities are found in the country we know today as Mexico.
The Olmec
One of the earliest civilizations in the Americas was the Olmec. The Olmec civilization boasted its own intricate forms of education, government, and religion. Between the years 1300 and 400 B.C., the Olmec people lived along the southern coastline of Mexico in what is now known as the Gulf of Mexico. Each summer the riverbanks would overflow, fertilizing the soil and allowing the Olmec to grow and harvest crops like corn, beans and squash.
It is believed that the city of La Venta was built by the Olmec as a place for trade, and that the Olmec culture itself had great influence on the future cultures that would follow them in settling the region. Archaeologists believe that the Olmec were the first Americans to sculpt in stone. They are also known for creating a calendar and indulging in “ball games.” The games, of course, were ceremonial.
The Maya Civilization
It is believed that the Mayan’s complex culture began around 300 B.C. Development of that culture, in what is now southern Mexico and Guatelmala was based upon their unequaled strides in farming, something that allowed for a large population due to very large supplies of food.
Corn was their main source of sustenance; supplemented by large crops of sweet potatoes, beans, yucca, and squash. Corn (maize) was used in both its natural form and also as flour, something that allowed for bread, flat cakes, and the preliminary form of today’s ever popular tortillas.
Although the Mayan way of farming was unequaled at the time, their other accomplishments were many. The Maya people specialized in numerous things; their cities had scientists, artists, and historians living within them. The Maya divided their calendars into 260 days and celebrated 20 festivals per year. Written records have not only been found, they’ve also been translated. The Maya noted dates, times, and events; they chronicled conquests, and they invented the concept of the number zero. Large Mayan cities were formed; cities such as Copan, Tikal, and Chichen Itza. Remains of those cities reveal that the Maya had palaces, stone temples, and many other types of buildings, buildings that housed thousands of people. The religious centers and temples were the most important facet of the Mayan culture, and during their time the largest in the Americas.
Trade was also an essential part of Mayan culture. Traded goods in the region that have been discovered include obsidian, flint, oyster shells, and jade. Food stuff such as cacao beans and spices were also in demand, as were things like cloth, pelts, rubber, wood, and ceramic goods.
How and why the Mayan civilization disappeared is still a mystery, but around the year 909 A.D., they deserted their cities. Archaeological experts are of the opinion that food shortages and war caused them to move on, but the true reason for their disappearance may never be revealed.
What we do know is what’s been left behind. The ruins, the temples, the descendants who presently live in Guatemala and Mexico, descendants who continue to speak the language and follow the customs of their lost ancestors; the first Americans.
It never ceases to amaze me that the topic of “man against nature” is always a subject capable of stirring up fierce debate. Everyone is all about what they would have done differently, what they wouldn’t have done at all, and often what they wouldn’t know how to do in the first place. It always seems to take awhile for my students to acknowledge the presence of strength and courage or to question the thirst for adventure that defines a specific character’s role in a story. It takes even longer for them to question what just might be seen as that character’s lack of caution, and even possibly their “pure stupidity.” Man against nature, which will prevail? Can anyone ever pit themselves against those same forces of nature and truly survive? Is it really survival, or is it just plain old luck?
Jack London
“The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.”
This quote has long fascinated me, and it speaks volumes about the man that Jack London once was, who he became, and why the tales he told carried such truths. He was a self-educated man, and his knowledge came from nothing more than the desire to learn, and forays into the world of the public library. The brilliance was there, but without the outlet that would give him that knowledge, the longing to attain that knowledge, and his thirst to be better and do better, we would never have met this man, let alone to see our world through his eyes. Attempting to describe where he came from, or the obstacles he faced would be futile, as no one can describe it better than the man himself;
“I was born in the working-class. Early I discovered enthusiasm, ambition, and ideals; and to satisfy these became the problem of my child-life. My environment was crude and rough and raw. I had no outlook, but an uplook rather. My place in society was at the bottom. Here life offered nothing but sordidness and wretchedness, both of the flesh and the spirit; for here flesh and spirit were alike starved and tormented.”–“What Life Means To Me” from Revolution and Other Essays (1910).
London was an adventurer, a laborer, a pirate, and a tramp. His desire to become a writer was one of necessity rather than choice. He was simply determined that he not spend his life performing menial labor, and that his love of reading could blossom into a lifetime of writing, that he could simply “be better” than what he believed was his destiny. His belief was correct, and his writings live on; he lived his dream. What could be better than that? And how fortunate we are as readers to be able to share his experiences through the words and tales he’s left us.
To Build A Fire/ Summary
“The Yukon lay a mile wide and hidden under three feet of ice.”
Our story begins on the Yukon Trail. It’s a freezing day in the middle of winter. The temperature reads -100, and we immediately ask ourselves who on Earth would be traveling on foot in an uninhabited, wild area, with no other company than his Husky-Wolf dog?
The answer is easy; it’s simply a man, a man who has begun his journey against the advice of a Yukon native, someone who knows, but he does not listen; he is not a young man, but he is a newcomer to the area, and he is initially unfazed by the frigid weather. He is ignorant, and even worse; he is arrogant. He believes that his journey will take only a matter of hours, and he has planned his journey down to the last detail, or so he believes. Our main character is learned, but he is inexperienced. He holds the facts and knowledge that he needs to know within his mind, but he lacks the experience to be able to define what they really mean, thus, he is unable to apply them to his situation. So, it is on this day that he lives his destiny; this is the day he believes himself to be smart, invincibility at its best, so he sets off on his own, and the journey begins.
Invincibility: To Build a Fire
The temperature initially reads at -50 degrees, and yet the man sets off to find his friends; they are expecting him in camp. He is what he believes to be prepared; mittens, check; ear flaps, check; moccasins and thick, warm socks, check; he carries his lunch of biscuits and bacon wrapped in a package within his shirt to keep it warm, and the thought of leisurely stopping along the trail for a warm and delicious interlude makes him smile in anticipation.
It doesn’t take long, however, for the man to realize that it’s colder than he believed. He spits into the air and hears the faint crackle of ice as it breaks into the air around him. The dog, visibly upset, wants nothing more than to stop and find the warmth it craves. Its instinctual behaviors that should have served as a warning were completely ignored by the man who believed that he knew better, and the dog, who has learned from where its food and warmth come from, continues along beside him. The man begins to realize how cold it is when it becomes apparent that his cheeks are exposed, and that they’re going to freeze… that his nose will do the same. The whiskers on his face are not enough to provide sufficient coverage, and the chewing tobacco he uses consistently begins to dribble into his beard, lengthening into what resembles a copper colored glass; frozen, solidified, and capable of shattering into a million shards.
When he reaches a place named Henderson Creek, he realizes that he is only ten miles from the forks he needs to reach, and by his best estimate he is traveling at maybe four miles per hour. Only ten miles to go, and he can stop for lunch. So he moves on with the dog close at his heels, and it seems that of the two, only the dog is feeling apprehensive, slinking ever closer to its master, tail between its legs. Further along, the man’s cheeks and nose are becoming ever more numb, and he realizes that the friction supplied by his mittens is not going to save his face. He regrets not having brought along a nose strap to save, if only that, from the elements, but this was no time to worry, and no time to be distracted by things that couldn’t be helped. The path was ever changing, and he needed to be aware. The creek bed was erratic, not every layer was frozen solid, and to plunge through the ice could leave him wet to the waist. In some places it was obvious, and in others he would see the fear in the eyes of the dog who would shy away and move no further, but his own fear led him to push the dog out in front, and then the dog fell in soaking its legs and coat, a soaking that would immediately freeze leaving the dog to chew at the ice on its legs and paws. Instinct and survival; the basic instincts of an animal as opposed the inherent instincts of men. In the never ending battle against nature just who will prove to have the best instincts? Man or beast?
Unwarranted Relief?
As he reached the forks by the creek he was immensely relieved to find that he’d only lost a half an hour, and that all things considered he was still making good time; he should arrive at his destination approximately when he had planned to. He settled down on a log, longingly thinking of sandwiches and the end of his journey. He’d only had one mitten off momentarily to remove his lunch when he realized that his fingers had gone completely numb in a matter of seconds. The man couldn’t hold the sandwich; he couldn’t move his fingers; he couldn’t feel his toes inside of his moccasins, and even worse, he was unable to open his mouth. His mouth was frozen, and whatever parts of him had continued to hold warmth, they were freezing too, and quickly.
Upon this realization he quickly moved to gather branches with which to make a fire, admonishing himself for not listening to the old man who’d advised him about the true fierceness of the cold. Taking out his matches he built a roaring fire and thawed himself to the point where he could once again feel his hands, open his mouth, and finally, eat his lunch. The dog was comfortable, happy to have the fire, and curled up just far enough away that it wouldn’t be singed by the flames.
Mistakes and More Mistakes
Thawed and once again ready to move on, the man readies himself to leave the sanctuary provided by the fire. The dog is restless, and doesn’t want to leave, whining in its rebellion, and then the man whistles, and the dog moves to obey. Their relationship is described as one being the master and the other the “toil-slave.” Thus, the dog, knowing that disobedience would mean the whip didn’t disobey. He knew better; he knew who fed him, and he wanted to eat.
Shortly after, an error in judgement or lack of observation finds the man knee deep in water. Rather than panicking about what the ramifications of being soaked through will mean, he curses that this will cause him delay; he doesn’t worry that what has happened may indeed cost him his life. He stops and builds another fire, cautiously removing his foot gear in order for it to dry. His hands and feet are without feeling once again, and then with no warning the loosened snow on a nearby spruce begins its careless descent, subsequently dousing the newly burning fire.
And this is where we end, but the story moves on….. and that would mean you’ll have to read it yourself.
Man -vs- Nature:
To Build a Fire
When I sent the children home with this story last week I requested one thing from them, well, one thing besides reading it, and that was to think about nature in every form and ask themselves what, if any, survival skills they’ve acquired. Did they believe that they have any skills whatsoever to BEAT nature, and if nature decided to test those skills, did they believe that they would have a chance against her.
This story is so simple, and yet so complex. There are only three characters; a man, a dog, and finally the story’s antagonist; the ever mysterious Mother Nature. Our story’s main character is of course, the man. He’s been described as an older man, and he seems to be somewhat arrogant. Within the course of the story we learn that he’s been warned by someone far more experienced that his foray is dangerous, that the elements are unforgiving, that he should never try to make a trip like this on his own, and yet he doesn’t listen. This is where our discussion begins. Why don’t we listen to the words of those who are more experienced? Why do we flout their advice?
Where the discussion went…. was nowhere I thought to be going.
Well, to begin with, starting a discussion in this way with a group of twelve and thirteen year olds, what was I thinking? In all honesty, what I was thinking was that I could infiltrate young minds and the reason for rebellion against what I will term as parental guidance. I was, after all, once their age, even if it was a very long time ago. What they gave me was as always, totally unexpected. My expectation was simply the age old, my parents know nothing; what I got was, we just want to do something; anything.
What does this mean you ask? It means simply this, our children believe themselves to be scheduled into the ground. Everything they do has its own schedule. This feeling included school, shopping, sports, socializing with friends, visiting family, and even television. They feel as if they’ve never learned how to play, or just go outside and amuse themselves because their parents have carefully calculated and accounted for every moment of their time. They can’t run down the block and ring a doorbell because they have to phone first, and they can’t spontaneously invite someone over because it might interfere with the schedule. They can’t walk because they need to be supervised, they have to be driven because it’s not safe, and they can’t just go pick up a game of baseball at the park because their parents don’t want to worry.
Although I understand this train of thought, and I even sympathize… let’s face it, I was never in the house, and I don’t think many people my age were. I know why their parents find it all necessary, and to some degree I raised my own children in a very similar way. Unfortunately, we ran so far off of the beaten path that I ended up having to stop them mid-sentence; our discussion had run amuck! Discussing why the man ignored the advice of someone older, wiser, and more experienced had become a discussion about personal freedoms.
Can we beat nature? Is it possible?
So, we returned to the theme of man against nature, much against their wills, and I admit to having a very difficult time reeling them in. Nature as an antagonist; an act of God; nature, the one thing we will never be able to control, and the one thing that will always prevail; can we beat her? The answer was unanimous, no! They found the application of the story to their own personal experiences almost impossible to connect. Survival skills were deemed non-existent; they don’t have any; they would be calling for help…. AAA please come to our rescue. They talked about recent events; hurricanes, storms, tornadoes, and the fires that continue to rage in California. They acknowledged the impossibility of making real preparations for these circumstances, and they acknowledged that their lack of knowledge and inexperience would make survival almost impossible. Like the man in the story, their preparations would leave them with a death sentence hanging over their heads…. How could he make the fire if he couldn’t move his hands?
Each of them felt that the man’s actions were stupid at best; they felt compassion and empathy for the dog who knew better, and they felt that the man’s refusal to see that the dog was indeed warning him was a sign of his arrogance and a lack of common sense. They talked about storms, simple thunderstorms, and how they can suddenly roll in without warning, and then they talked about how if you really listened you would hear the warning. The warning is silence; the silence of the birds and their disappearance from the sky; the dog who crawls under the bed long before the first sounds of thunder. Lack of noise, lack of movement, and the epiphany that only humans are still wandering around ignoring the intelligence of the less intelligent. Man against beast…. sometimes all the wiser for all their lack of brain mass. Then the discussion quickly left me again. Never say I haven’t warned you; they are full of surprises!
Their biggest fear… and the worry about what it would take to survive!
As our discussion about survival progressed, it suddenly morphed itself into a discussion about war, the fear that one day they would have to live and survive a war in their own country, but where did this come from? Our children watch the news, possibly more than I do, and they worry about world events far more than we give them credit for. Their thoughts focused on questions. What would they do without luxuries, how would they handle food shortages, how do you build a fire if you need to… if there’s no gas in your home, no electricity? How do you make a call without a phone? Where do you go if you find yourself under attack? One of the boys answered the question of how to build a fire by saying that the text we’d just read had been like watching a video, but then again, what if he had no matches?
They voiced many concerns over things that they considered reality, things that could be real in their own lives. They had lost all interest in analyzing the actions of a character they couldn’t relate to, someone who didn’t have the sense to stay out of the cold. He was simply a character, and he was no longer important to them. The importance of survival, and the battle between man and nature had changed. Their worries are not consumed by the ever changing and volatile “mother nature,” their worries are based on their ultimate fear, that being “human nature.”
Truthfully, this may be the furthest this group of children has ever gone off topic, but their discussion was also like a mirror into their minds. I don’t mind going off topic, and I love when they open up enough to let me know what they’re really thinking. I mean, what’s the point if they’re constantly trying to follow my cues….. when the reason I actually do this is to follow theirs. The goal is to make them think, and they do. I have once again been humbled by their minds, and once again happy to know what they’re thinking. We don’t know if we don’t ask, and I don’t think we ask often enough.
The home of Jean Baptiste Point DuSable, Chicago’s first settler.
Chicago’s Beginnings
In the early 1800s, the city that we now know as Chicago, was a small community and an important center of the fur trade. The city began as a trading post where the Potawatomi would provide pelts and information to the traders in exchange for goods, most of which were imported from England.
The traders, primarily French, cemented their relationships with the Native Americans through marriage, which allowed them safe access to tribal hunting camps throughout the Great Lakes region. The wives, on the other hand, generally stayed behind while their husbands set off on their journeys, maintaining and supervising the family businesses and raising the children, who would go on to become important ambassadors and negotiators as the area expanded.
Jean Baptiste Point DuSable, one of Chicago’s first settlers, an active farmer, and a fur trader, would erect the area’s first mansion, a sprawling five room log cabin on the north bank of the river that boasted a long-covered porch constructed in the Creole fashion. The definition of “mansion” has definitely evolved over the centuries. DuSable left Chicago in 1800 in favor of Spanish Upper Louisiana, an area now known as Missouri.
Like DuSable’s, other homes in the area were made from logs, as was Fort Dearborn when it was constructed in 1803. Most of these homes, however, were constructed in the French-Canadian style, with the logs placed vertically within a trench, and openings filled in with a mixture of grass and mud, before the dwelling would finally be covered with lumber or bark. Fireplaces, which were a necessity, were placed in the center of the dwelling in order to provide better heating.
John Kinzie
The Fur Trade
By 1810, three families dominated the fur trade. John Kinzie purchased DuSable’s home and moved to Chicago from Michigan, where he began successfully trading with the Native Americans in 1804. Today, Kinzie is honored as the “Father of Chicago,” the first permanent white settler, and the only white settler outside of the military for almost twenty years.
Fast forward to June 17, 1812, the date on which Kinzie engaged with Fort Dearborn’s interpreter, Jean Lalime, in what would be a fight to the death. The actual cause of the conflict between the two men remains unknown, and the event has been reported in numerous ways… few objective. What we do know is that Lalime worked as the interpreter at Fort Dearborn, that the US Factory, where Lalime spent most of his time had been closed by Captain Heald because of an attack by the Native Americans on a nearby farm, and that Lalime had already been threatened with personal harm by two members of the garrison, Lt. Helm and Ensign Ronan due to arguments about the factory’s closure. It is also said that Kinzie was actively working toward Lalime’s dismissal and the installment of one of his own men to Lalime’s position, in addition to the fact that Kinzie had forced Lalime to relinquish his home.
That both Lalime and Kinzie were willing participants in the confrontation is unquestionable. Both men carried weapons, Kinzie a butcher knife; Lalime a pistol. That they departed the fort together was confirmed by witnesses, that the fight between them was agreed upon remains unknown. In the end, Kinzie escaped the altercation with a gunshot wound to the shoulder and returned home where his wife, Eleanor, cleaned and bandaged his wound before he left the fort, obviously unwilling to accept the consequences. Lalime wasn’t so lucky. He died immediately. All that was left to his wife was the burial and the memories.
Fort Dearborn
Before the Battle
Kinzie was already well away from the fort when Captain Heald issued a warrant for his arrest, having sought refuge in the woods north of the Chicago River where he convalesced. Soon after, he would make his way to Milwaukee where he had many connections, arriving on June 21, 1812. Ironically (or not), Milwaukee was hosting other notable figures at this very same time… a Native American war council was in progress.
During his time in Milwaukee, Kinzie ingratiated himself with the tribes and gained acceptance, even among those who were initially suspicious of his loyalties. He became aware of the Native Americans’ plans to fight alongside the British, and he even learned of the gathering of forces for the attack on Fort Mackinac. The information Kinzie gathered would later be used to support the US government.
The threat of war seems to carry with it the possibility of making impossible things happen, as is the case of John Kinzie’s recall to Fort Dearborn. During his absence, he’d proved that his presence was a necessity. In recalling Kinzie, Captain Heald acknowledged his worth as interpreter and negotiator, Kinzie’s connections were more important than his arrest. The Potawatomi, with whom Kinzie had always had a cordial, respectful relationship, were showing signs of increasing resentment toward the Americans and their neglect in paying out the annuities that were a part of previous treaties. Knowing the fort was well supplied, they began to gather, hoping for a distribution of the stored goods.
Fort Dearborn circa 1810
The Warning and the Evacuation
In early August of 1812, Kinzie accepted Captain Heald’s appointment as the agent, who would represent Chicago at a council set to meet in northwest Ohio at Picqua. The purpose of this council raises questions, however, as the US government intended the event to put time and distance between the militia and any hostile actions that might be brewing. The leaders of the Native American tribes, on the other hand, agreed to attend the council in the hopes of receiving the annuities that had been deferred or other gifts. Looking back, did the government actually believe that holding this council would better their relations with the Native Americans or defer hostility? What plans did they have to ensure peace? Why host a council with the intent of placating or postponing the inevitable. This we will never know, as the group traveling with Kinzie would only make it as far as St. Joseph, before meeting with a messenger who was destined for Fort Dearborn, carrying orders for Captain Heald and the news that Fort Mackinac had fallen… surrendered without one shot fired.
Upon hearing the news, Kinzie immediately turned and headed for home. Kinzie’s response to the news was simple, and he advised Captain Heald he had two options. One, evacuate immediately as ordered. Two, remain in the fort, which had ample supplies and protection. Heald chose to follow orders, though his “adjustment” to those orders would be responsible for creating the chaos and violence that followed.
On August 15, 1812, while Kinzie was preparing for evacuation, visitors who’d spent the entire night on horseback arrived from St. Joseph to warn him about the dangers of joining Captain Heald and the others as they departed the fort. Topinbee, a good friend of Kinzie’s, as well as the uncle of Kinzie’s clerk, accompanied by Leopold Pokagon and Keepotah tried their best to dissuade Kinzie from joining Heald and the others to no avail, but their journey was not in vain, as they were able to convince Kinzie to remove his family from danger. The biggest question… how to guarantee their safety. If the evacuation wasn’t safe, how would leaving them at home be any different? His family would be unprotected, and his home, filled with supplies could be a target, how could abandoning them be the right decision?
Hurriedly, Kinzie made both the decision and the arrangements that he hoped would insure the safety of his wife and four children. A large open boat, known as a bateau, was procured and Kinzie’s family, his clerk, Black Jim, the boatman, and two Native Americans, who’d agreed to act as the family’s protectors were ensconced in the boat and anchored near the mouth of the river, just close enough that he would be able to see them as he began his journey down the shoreline.
The Massacre at Fort Dearborn
The Massacre
Kinzie’s family stood witness to the violence that followed, the smoke, the fire, and the sound of the guns. Kinzie noted that at some point during the battle, an order was given that neither he or his family should be hurt. Black Partridge, in order to keep the family safe, took them all as prisoners in order to protect them. The family survived intact and by nightfall, they were home. Within days, Back Partridge would send the family to St. Joseph by boat, from which they would travel to Detroit where they would remain for four years before returning to Chicago. During this time, Kinzie was not only arrested, he was imprisoned for treason. Living under British occupation wasn’t easy.
Perseverance in the Face of Adversity
At the end of the war, hostilities would be replaced by reconstruction. The Kinzies would return to their home, and a village would take root. Fort Dearborn would be rebuilt, and the militia would move in and out of the area as deemed necessary. Kinzie and his partner, Thomas Forsyth, were deeply in debt, their fur packs lost to the war, and their remaining property destroyed. In order to pay their debts, they sold any property that remained, including land to avoid imprisonment.
Kinzie’s life was anything but simple during this time. He and his partner were unable to return to the fur trade due to their lack of funds, repeated attempts for reimbursement of property lost due to the actions of the American militia, including Heald’s rental of horses and mules to aid in the evacuation of the fort in 1812 were refused. Compensation for their goods and property at Peoria, destroyed by an American militia commanded by Captain Craig, were also ruled against by Congress.
Lack of money and the inability to return to the business in which he’d been so successful led Kinzie to seek out government employment. In response, he was appointed the interpreter for the new fort that was under construction in 1816. One year later, he would be appointed the fort’s subagent as a result of Charles Jouett’s decision to relocate his family to Kentucky.
Although Kinzie continued to experience financial difficulties, his hard work and perseverance would prevail. By 1825, he was assessed to be one of the wealthiest men in Chicago, but the title didn’t come easy. In the nine years after his return to the fort, Kinzie had multiple jobs that included government appointments, farming, and a bit of trade.
The Decline of the Fur Trade
In 1818, Kinzie would take a job with the American Fur Company as a debt collector, and his fifteen-year-old son, John H. Kinzie was sent to Mackinac as an apprentice for the same. The fur trade was in the family’s blood, fortunes were made and lost, and yet the family’s love for the business could not save it from decline.
As the area around Chicago grew, land cessions reduced the Native American range, and with it, the hunting. Traders moved west, and the whiskey business became a staple of trade. Annuity monies were spent on liquor, an item that was illegal to sell on Native American lands, but as the government took over more and more land, the sale of liquor increased in opposition to the fur trade which faced continuous losses.
By 1828, the fur trade began shuttering its windows and closing its doors. Chicago, along with the time, changed and grew accordingly. The American Fur Company, in the midst of closing down their operations, didn’t waste any time in collecting Native American debt. Government negotiation treaties with the Native Americans allowed for immediate collection of their trading debts, and although the American Fur Company left the city… it didn’t leave empty handed.
Ironically, the end of the fur trade would parallel the end of John Kinzie’s life. Kinzie died on January 6, 1828, leaving his wife and children to adapt to Chicago’s transitions on their own. The man who’d insisted that the area around Chicago remain Indian Country at the end of the War of 1812 would never see the transformation of the area he loved, as settlers moved into the area in droves and industry boomed. Possibly, that’s the way he would have wanted it.
Chicago, Five Years After Kinzie’s Death
Sources:
chicagotribune.com
chicagology.com
livinghistoryofillinois.com
manisteenews.com
“Rising Up from Indian Country: The Battle of Fort Dearborn and the Birth of Chicago” by Ann Durkin Keating
On August 15, 1812, the original Fort Dearborn, erected in 1803, was burned to the ground by members of the Potowatami after Captain Nathan Heald attempted to evacuate the fort on orders by his superiors. Heald’s evacuation was a disaster, and his actions throughout are subject to question, but in the end, many of the evacuees were brutally killed. These deaths included the militia, their wives, and yes, their children. Those who survived were either ransomed and returned home to their families or held captive for the rest of their lives.
During the years that followed the Potawatomi destruction of the fort, the tribe itself had committed itself to the British. Some of its members actively fought alongside the British forces and others remained behind… occasionally fighting other tribes and sporadically attacking American settlements.
The Second Fort Dearborn
On July 1, 1816, the United States militia would return to rebuild the fort on the same plot of land, and Chicago, which had for four years remained somewhat stagnant, would be reborn under the command of Captain Hezekiah Bradley. Little information is available about Bradley, but it is said that his reconstruction of the fort was impeccable, and that his men, regardless of title, labored to complete the fort’s erection. Rumor has it that he also commissioned his men to replace the spikes and nails with carefully fashioned wooden pins. Might I say he did his work with loving care?
Large picket fences were raised to enclose the garrison, accessible only by the gates which were installed on the north and south sides of the fort. To the south and past the parade ground, the company gardens flourished, adorned with fruit trees and currant bushes that provided fresh produce for the militia, and the ability to use what was left by canning or preparing fruit butters for the long winter months. To the west of the river stood the garrison’s root houses, filled with supplies and foodstuffs. Bradley’s preparations were detailed, using an economy that is said to have gone unnoticed by the government that funded the project.
Beyond the fort’s walls, a community also took root. The common, which was known as the “Reservation”, included buildings, a marketplace, and the lighthouse that stood as a beacon for those entering and leaving the fort by water. Nearby, the Kinzie home (originally owned and built by Jean Baptiste Point Du Sable), which had survived the battle in 1812, still stood on the horizon.
Jean Baptiste Beaubien
Enter Jean Baptiste Beaubien
A year later, around 1817, Jean Baptiste Beaubien, an agent for the American Fur Company returned to Fort Dearborn. Beaubien, who’d first visited the original Fort Dearborn in 1804 had left the area before or immediately after the fort’s destruction (some sources disagree), and although his return was based on business… Chicago would become his home.
Beaubien first bought property in the Chicago area in 1812. Prior to this, he ran a trading house in Milwaukee. Trading was in his veins, beginning with his great-grandmother, Marie-Catherine Trotter, who’d consolidated the family business, and his great-grandfather, Jean Baptiste Cuillerier Beaubien, who was the wealthiest businessman in Detroit. Having been trained in the fur business by William Bailly, a successful Michigan trader, Beaubien was ready to expand, even if the events surrounding him delayed his eventual success.
At the age of eighteen, Beaubien married the daughter of Shabbona (Shabbone), a legendary warrior of the Ottawa tribe. His wife, Mahnawbunokwe, would die in childbirth in 1812. The couple had three children, cementing his ties with the Native American population.
After his wife’s death, Beaubien would meet and marry Josette Laframboise, but depending upon the source, it is hard to confirm whether they were married before or after the fall of Fort Dearborn. According to some sources, Josette was a maid servant who is said to have survived the massacre. According to others, the couple married and left Fort Dearborn in April of 1812 after a Winnebago attack in which several settlers were killed and scalped at a nearby farm. If we rely on the latter information, we might ask if this was a prelude of things to come… was the relationship between the Native Americans and the fort’s inhabitants already past reconciliation?
Making Chicago Home
When Beaubien returned in 1817, he accomplished the goals that had been waylaid because of the war. His work for the American Fur Company was more than profitable, allowing him to build a home for his family that was said by some to be a mansion, though in order to use this word, we must carefully consider that a mansion in the early 1800s isn’t what we would envision today.
Fast forward to 1825, when Chicago would hold its first elections, though it had not been officially incorporated into a city. Beaubien was the wealthiest man in Chicago, and the elections were held in his home. Soon after, according to the book, Rising Up From Indian Country by Ann Durkin Keating, thirty-five men would vote in the town’s first general election the following year, which were once again held in Beaubien’s home. Government representatives, elected in 1825 included Billy Caldwell, a Metis, who was elected justice of the peace.
The Council of Three Fires
Significant numbers of the Ottawas and Chippewas (Ojibwas) joined the Potawatomi, as they moved into the area, creating what was known as the Council of Three Fires. These tribes took advantage of the fact that they shared the same language, customs, and family heritage, using their talents as traders, hunters, fishermen, and canoe builders to expand their role in the growing community.
The Potowatomi, however, actively participated in six of seven treaties with the government. In agreeing to and signing these treaties, the Potawatomi gave up large portions of land in northern Illinois and the neighboring regions of Wisconsin, Indiana, and Michigan. In return for land, the government provided the tribes with annuities, something that led the Native Americans to become reliant on government payments. Over time, the annuities were responsible for the tribes becoming ever more dependent upon the government, which in turn, caused them to form an allegiance in which the tribes would step in to parlay with their kinsmen when disagreements erupted. They worked to keep the peace.
Chicago 1830, Photograph by Granger
Amazingly, though Chicago’s growth was slow, it was also steady. Between 1816 and 1830, Chicago’s population is recorded as having less than one-hundred residents. Only twelve to fifteen houses are said to have been erected, and the landscape remained much as it had been from the time the original Fort Dearborn was constructed.
Between 1828 and 1832, Fort Dearborn was once again abandoned by government militia, only to be re-garrisoned when new trouble arose between the government and the Winnebago (1828). Then… like a revolving door, the fort was abandoned once more until the onset of the Black Hawk War in 1832, but that’s a story for another day, a story that will include the incorporation of Chicago, the decline of the fur trade, Beaubien’s contributions to the city, the defeat and relocation of Native Americans, and the final closure of Fort Dearborn.
The benefits of the Dead Sea facial are plentiful. Read on to learn more!
Dead Sea Skincare
The Dead Sea (actually a lake), comfortably situated between Israel and Jordan at 1,300 feet below sea level, fills a void in what is in fact the “lowest place” on earth. Protected from pollution by its location, the Dead Sea is continuously fed by the Jordan River and a number of local mineral springs. Because of its special conditions, both the mud and water of the Dead Sea are an extraordinary source of minerals and natural sediments that have accumulated over countless years. Dead Sea mud, valuable for its high concentrations of magnesium, calcium chlorides, potassium and salts offers the skin numerous health and beauty benefits
The Dead Sea
Benefits From Minerals
Minerals benefit the skin by absorbing and utilizing the moisture that is necessary for keeping our skin smooth, soft and resilient. As we age, it is necessary to supplement our skin with moisture in order to lessen its vulnerability to the damaging influences that continuously surround us in our daily lives. Skin cells rely on minerals for metabolism. Without minerals, our skin cells cannot synthesize the nutrients they require for healthy maintenance and growth. Keeping the moisture of our skin well-balanced slows down the effects of aging and protects it from free radical damage. Dead Sea mud, now available to the public for purchase, was once so valued for its beauty properties that Marc Antony captured the Dead Sea area for Cleopatra. Ancient Egyptians are known to have used the mud in the preparation of cosmetics, perfumes and medicinal products, and Cleopatra obviously desired the availability of a continuous supply; I guess she got what she wanted… for a while.
Dead Sea Mud
Mineral and Salt Content
The mineral and salt content of Dead Sea mud affects people differently. Let’s face it, depending on skin type, we all have different needs. People with oily skin can safely use the mud up to three times per week, whereas normal skin types would limit their use to no more than twice a week and dry skin types no more than once per week. Although I have to admit that having dry skin myself, I wouldn’t use the preparation more than a few times per month.
Upgrading Your Experience
Dead Sea mud users can also upgrade their experience by adding other readily available ingredients to their mask preparations. A bit of honey, aloe vera, lemon juice and even essential oils can be added during the mixing; the best thing about preparing treatments at home is the individuality of the results. Just remember to apply your mask thinly and to soften it with a warm, wet towel before removal. Softening the mask will make it far easier to remove and a much more pleasant experience.
Dead Sea mud may be prepared in a number of different ways depending upon how simple or extravagant you’d like your application to be.
Preparation of Dead Sea Mud
Dead Sea mud may be prepared in a number of different ways depending upon how simple or extravagant you’d like your application to be. Simple masks can be made by taking several teaspoons of the mud grains (available in many health food stores or online) and gradually adding water until a soft paste forms. This application, which only requires a small amount of mud, should be thinly spread on fresh, clean skin and allowed to dry. After drying, just rinse and pat your face with a clean towel and relish the feeling. Note that Dead Sea mud’s stimulating ingredients may be used on the body as well as the face, but that those same stimulating ingredients may require some getting used to. If you’re using the mud for the first time, it might be a good idea to put it off until you have a nice period for relaxation and to avoid its use just prior to a night on the town. Different skin reacts in different ways, and as with anything else, better safe than sorry.
The simple application noted above is also beneficial when used as an exfoliant. Dry, irritated and often abused body parts like knees and elbows easily shed their flaky, dry skin when treated. Dead skin doesn’t have a chance against the mud and after treatment rinses down the drain leaving your skin both smooth and moisturized. Extremely dry areas may of course require more than one application depending on how neglected they’ve been, but once you’ve experienced the desired results I doubt you’ll ever neglect them again.
Test a Small Patch of Skin Before Application
As with all natural ingredients, test a small patch of skin before application. Most natural ingredients are safely and easily used by the majority, but when using something new there is always a chance of an allergic reaction. Those with sensitive skin should also use these products carefully
Sources
The Complete Guide to Natural Healing, International Masters Publishers, @ MCMXCIX
This content is accurate and true to the best of the author’s knowledge and is not meant to substitute for formal and individualized advice from a qualified professional.
One of my favorite landmarks in Chicago is without doubt the fairy-tale castle located on Chicago’s Michigan Avenue, also known as the Magnificent Mile. Magnificent doesn’t even begin to describe the Gothic structure which stands as a place out of time…… and depicts an era never seen within the borders of the Windy City. The Chicago Water Tower is a testament to the rich history of its European citizens, a monument filled with imagination and dreams; a citadel standing strong. Surrounded by massive edifices of concrete, glass, and steel, some might believe the Water Tower outdated and out of place, but they would be wrong.
The Water Tower, designed by William W. Boyington, a Chicago architect, was built using enormous limestone blocks quarried in nearby Joliet, Illinois. Construction began in 1867 and was completed in 1869. When finished, the Water Tower boasted an octagonal minaret, beautifully placed arched windows, numerous balconies, and an elaborate sleeping room in the main turret, topped off by a roof of copper and steel, like icing on a cake. Who wouldn’t want to call this romantic wonderland home?
Treasured by Chicagoans, this historic landmark was not built as a monument or as an abode for some rich and famous Chicago resident, but rather to conceal and house the 138 foot standpipe that regulated the city’s water pressure. Upon completion, it stood 154 feet tall and was ranked one of the tallest buildings in the world.
The Great Chicago Fire
Over the years, the tower would face troubled times. It witnessed the destruction of the city during the Great Chicago Fire (1871) and stood proud as the flames tested its endurance. In the midst of Chicago’s charred and blackened landscape, the Water Tower became a symbol of hope and endurance to the people, a symbol of their invincible character.
Demolition?
Shockingly, the Water Tower was slated for demolition by the city on more than one occasion; the public outcry was loud, angry, and adamant. As a result, major renovations were made. The first restoration was a three-year project (1913-1916), in which every limestone block was replaced. This overhaul garnered so much support that it was completed by a ten man construction crew and a team of five-hundred volunteers. Amazing……
In 1969, during the Water Tower’s centennial celebration, the American Water Works Association deemed it America’s first official water landmark. This honored historical status guaranteed the tower’s safety. The accompanying publicity would make it the third most popular attraction in the city.
A second renovation of the structure took place in 1978, which included the removal of the standpipe, a complete remodeling of the interior, and a minor face-lift of the aging beauty’s exterior.
The Chicago Water Tower Today
Today, though long relieved of its original purpose, the Water Tower now serves as both a tourist center for visitors and art gallery showcasing the work of local artists. It also ranks among Chicago’s top five haunts…… according to legend, rather than taking flight, one of the tower’s workers stayed behind during the Great Chicago Fire in an attempt to keep the pumps running and was trapped when the fire encapsulated the area. Rather than die in the flames, he hung himself in the tower. Many witnesses claim to have seen the shadow of this man hanging through the tower window.
The Chicago Water Tower is open year round, seven days a week, from 10:00 am until 4:00 pm. Admission is free for all.
Sources
Chicago Water Tower, Chicago. Courtesy Of The, Illinois State Historical Library, Mary Michals,, and Iconographer. The Historic Water Tower: Chicago’s Gem (n.d.): n. pag. Web.
Nestled high within the Andes Mountains of South America is a lush, green valley called the Valley of Cuzco. Around A.D. 1200, a native tribe moved into the mountains and established an empire; this tribe was called the Inca. Today, Cuzco is an archaeological dream. Excavations have uncovered the ruins of buildings and cities; artifacts have been sketched and photographed as evidence. Burial mounds have been discovered, as have the naturally made mounds that over thousands of years have changed the landscapes and covered parts of the Inca world.
The Sacred Valley
The Cuzco Valley
Before arriving in the mountains the Inca had lived a nomadic lifestyle. They were a part of the hunter- gatherer society that moved from place to place in search of animals to hunt and edible vegetation for gathering, but the Inca were not the only tribe to make their way into the mountains, nor were they the only ones to settle there.
The Cuzco Valley is believed to have been settled nearly 3,000 years before the arrival of the Inca people. Around 2,000 B.C., a little known tribe named the Chevin settled in and called the valley home. Towns and villages were born, and from the things they’ve left behind we know that their citizens farmed and carved…. beautiful carvings that have provided us with an open window into the past. Stone buildings and temples, all decorated with the images of snakes, birds, and the BIG cats which roamed the area have been discovered.
The Mochica
Another civilization, the Mochica, flourished between the years of A.D 100 to 800, and the artifacts they so carefully created have left us with a vivid picture of their tribal customs. Pots, unearthed in various archaeological digs are painted with pictures of everyday life and are formed in the shapes of animals and humans. These paintings enable us to observe the civilization’s customs from afar.
Land of Four Quarters
Once the Incas made their way into the mountains, it took only a few hundred years for them to conquer neighboring peoples and extend their domain from the northern border of what is now Ecuador to the modern day city of Santiago in Chile. 2,100 miles of land and nearly 6 million people of those vanquished civilizations found themselves under Inca control.
The Inca territory was equally divided into four quarters, thus earning the name, Tahuantinsuyu, The Land of Four Quarters. Its division into quarters made governing easier. The tribes that the Inca conquered were not always submissive, and although many of those tribes had already become the Incas allies, some chose to fight rather than join what was becoming a mighty empire.
Manco Capac and Mama Ocllo
Over the years, the Inca had 12 emperors. The first Inca ruler, Manco Capac, claimed the Sun god as his father. Legend has it that his wife, Mama Ocllo, was known as the daughter of the moon; she was in fact his sister. Manco Capac lived in a luxurious palace decorated in gold; his wife had her own palace that was just as magnificent.
As first wife, Mama Ocllo was given the title Coya, a name of honor. The Inca were polygamists and had large families of children, but only the sons of the Coya could inherit the kingdom. Unlike many kingdoms, the oldest son did not necessarily come into power after his father’s death. A younger son could inherit the kingdom, and that decision was up to his father, the emperor.
Manco Capac started the tradition of palace construction, and every emperor to claim rule after his reign built their own palace in Cuzco in celebration of their rule. Palaces were decorated with intricate wall hangings; they boasted bath houses, temples, and patios. The exteriors were surrounded by trees and gardens, and the aroma of flowers and herbs filled the air.
Cuzco
The city of Cuzco was the first major Inca city, and the first eight Inca emperors used the city as the center of their government. Over time, the government became stronger, and as the empire’s boundaries expanded its laws became stricter.
Conquered tribes came under Inca rule; their cultures faced extinction, but often their leaders, the local chiefs, were allowed to stay in power. The sons of these chiefs were commonly taken hostage, and held as important, protected prisoners in Cuzco. It was hoped that the hostages would be completely assimilated to the Inca culture during their stay; it was also hoped that the situation would ensure the behavior of the hostage’s father.
Defeated tribes were expected to adapt to the Incan way of life. Inca religion became the main religion (those conquered were allowed to keep their own gods, but had to worship the Sun god first), the Inca language the sole form of communication, and everyone without exception was expected to follow Incan law. A group of people called mitimaes traveled through the territory as teachers of culture. Stopping along the way, they visited and warned the members of conquered tribes against rebellion, taught them Incan culture, and taught them new forms of agriculture to improve crop production.
Pachacuti Inca
Between the years of 1438 and 1471, the ninth Inca emperor, Pachacuti Inca, began an expedition up and down the coast of South America. Along the way, he and his men fought in a series of battles. Conquering city after city, the empire grew. Many tribes in the line of destruction chose to ally themselves with the invaders rather than fight.
The Inca ruler or emperor was known as the Sapa Inca. His counsel included four apus, usually family members who were responsible for the day to day governing of the four quarters in which the kingdom was divided. There were many officers under the apus; governors oversaw provincial capitals, curacas (local rulers) were answerable to the governors, and district headmen (camayoc) answered for the specific homes and households they were assigned.
Inca Life
Inca laws were often harsh. Lying, drunkenness, and murder could all carry the same punishment, death.
The fruits of labor were food, clothing, and shelter. Provinces paid tribute to the Sapa Inca as a whole. Food and goods would be sent to Cuzco regularly as a tribute to their ruler.
The Inca people also paid taxes. Most taxpayers were over the age of 25. All were men who worked on state land. Mind you, the state owned all of the land. Taxpayers also had to serve the Inca government. Service lasted for a duration of five years and may have included time spent in the army, mines, or working on city improvement projects.
Engineers, architects, and craftsmen were not required to pay tribute. They were taken care of by the government; food, clothing, and daily needs were supplied so that these people could give their full attention to the work at hand.
Craftsmen worked for the royal family and the priests. They created beautiful carvings, cloth, and miscellaneous objects worked from silver and gold. Craftsmen were often sent from one part of the empire to another as teachers. New workers needed to acquire needed skills, although more often than not the trade was passed down to younger family members.
Nobles, government officials, and women were exempt from paying taxes; although it was a state requirement that one woman from each of the Inca households had to weave cloth for the state each year.
Building a Civilization
Natural resources in the Cuzco Valley allowed for the accumulation of great wealth. Precious metals; silver, tin, bronze, and copper were mined in abundance. Gemstones and gold were great treasures. Metalworkers used their fine tuned skills to produce tools, weapons, decorations, and jewelry, enabling the empire to trade for other not so available necessities and to amass more wealth.
Beautiful cities appeared, each connected by roads and bridges meticulously planned by Inca engineers. Only government officials and messengers were allowed legal access to roads, however, as their original intent was to enhance the delivery of communication between the provinces and Cuzco. Messengers were stationed every few miles in order to speed up the delivery of important information.
The Inca laid more than 15,000 miles of road while in power. Two of those roads ran the entire length of the empire. Stone causeways were built over swamp lands, and bridges were suspended across canyons and rivers. Bridges were reconstructed each year because they were suspended by rope.
The most important Inca buildings were constructed in stone; adobe bricks were used for decoration and design. Engineers planned these buildings with the use of clay models; the result was some of the finest stone-masonry of the time. Walls sloped towards the interior as the largest and heaviest blocks of stone were used at the base of the building. Polishing and sanding were done with great care to ensure the perfect fit of each block, rarely did more than a line betray where one block ended and another began.
Homes were constructed by citizens, and they were often group projects. Each neighbor helping the other with whatever resources were available; grass, mud, stone, or wood depending upon where they lived.
City dwellers constructed their homes from stone. Those living along the coastline lived in simple frame houses fabricated from wood and roofed with thatch. Residences near the forests built their homes with the use of wood and cane; they too had thatched rooftops. Other homes were made from adobe, brightly painted, an artist’s palette of color on the landscape. Adobe bricks made from mud and straw are still used in the Andes today.
Entrance into a city would require payment of a toll. Visitors would also need to state their business in the city before permission to enter was granted.
Agriculture
Most members of the Inca Empire were farmers, something not always easy to do in the Cuzco Valley. The coastal climate was dry, making it necessary for water to be brought into the area. Irrigation systems were engineered to carry available water through canals. Water was diverted from mountain streams into channels of stone, and when necessary, they physically straightened the rivers and used them as canals.
Further inland, the more mountainous areas had a different problem; water wasn’t an issue. Farmers on high slopes didn’t lack for rain, they lacked the availability of flat land on which to plant, and they fought the colder climate that produced early winter frost.
By the time the Spaniards arrived in 1532, forty different types of food sources were grown in the Cuzco Valley. Farmers worked for themselves and for the state, sending produce to the Sapa Inca for his family’s use in tribute, keeping what was needed for their family’s use, and storing surplus crops in state storehouses.
To solve their problem terraces were built into the hillsides. Walls were constructed to hold back the soil and keep it from eroding. Land was leveled out increasing the amount of land to be farmed.
Viracocha
Inca Gods and Religion
It is said that the Inca worshiped six different gods. The first and most important was Viracocha, the god of creation. They believed that Viracocha made all things in the universe, and that he lived high in the heavens. Viracocha was a spirit god, and he was invisible. Other Inca gods were; Inti (Father Sun and life giver), Mama Quilla (Mother Moon), Pacha Mama (Mother Earth), and Mama Cocha (Mother of Lakes and Seas). The stars were also worshipped as children of the sun and moon.
Members of the Inca community worshipped the gods in a number of different places. Great temples were built inside the cities. Places where the royal family, nobles, and other government officials could make their confessions and listen to oracles. Priests performed sacrifices and acted as liaisons to the gods. Priestesses served by weaving cloth and preparing special meals.
Ordinary citizens would worship at outdoor services in the city center. Holy places were also found in the mountains and near streams. These holy places were called huacas, and they were places where people would make offerings to their gods, praying for good weather, harvests, health, or simply to say thank you. Farmers would pour corn beer onto their crops for Pacha Mama; travelers would add stones to the apacita near a mountain pass in hopes of a safe journey.
The Inca, fascinated by the moon, stars, and visible planets kept detailed and accurate astrological records. The astronomers, generally priests, watched the positions of the sun, the moon, and the planet Venus carefully. Based on their observations, it seems the Inca followed two separate calendars; one, based on three ten day weeks that made up a month, and another, that placed eight days in a week.
Inca Calendar
Festivals
Numerous festivals and ceremonies marked the Inca calendar. Most of these events revolved around farming, some were marked by celebration, others, by sacrifice. The Inti raimi, took place each June, and was an important feast in honor of the Sun god. Great sacrifices were made to Inti at this time; many of the sacrifices were children. The sowing season began in August, and was celebrated by the sacrifice of 1,000 guinea pigs with the first planting of corn. In October, the Inca prayed for rain. November brought the Feast of the Dead, special ceremonies and remembrance. Wrapped bodies were ritualistically removed from their resting places and paraded through the streets, something that we would consider desecration; the Inca considered an honor.
The Inca greatly enjoyed music, and it was another important part of the feast and festival activities. Almost every religious ceremony and public festival included music and dancing. Inca dances used movement to portray pivotal occurrences in their past. They were another way for the people of the empire to hand down the Inca history and culture. Special dances accompanied by bamboo flutes and the beating of drums told the tales of warriors and farmers; other dances were for the gods, requests for victory in battle or fair weather for farming.
Peruvian Burial Dig
Burials
The death of a loved one was a time to both show respect and honor. The deceased was wrapped in layers of fine cloth, then buried or entombed. Personal items were also buried with the corpse. The Inca believed in life after death, and they believed in sending their loved ones into the afterlife with everything they would need. Food was jarred and sealed, warriors would be accompanied by their weapons, and occasionally an emperor would be attended by the wives or servants who were killed and entombed beside him.
Relatives would dress in black from head to toe; the women would cut their hair. Funeral feasts were elaborate; good food, good music, and everyone sharing in the slow dancing.
Inca burials varied. Tombs may have been located in caves or made in rocks. People who lived along the coastline were buried in underground graves. Family members would often visit the grave sites and leave food.
Marriage and Education
Inca men married around the age of 25; women were given as brides at around the age of 20. If the couple lived within Cuzco, the marriage ceremony was performed by the Sapa Inca. Those outside the capital’s city limits would be married by the local official of their province. After the official ceremony, the couple would return to the bride’s house where her father would give her to her husband. This was symbolized by the father placing a sandal on her right foot. The wedding party would then move on to the home of the groom, where the bride would gift her husband with a special wedding cloth she’d woven herself. Then came the feasting and dancing.
Children were trained in the work of their families, something they’d need in order to become fruitful adults. Boys and girls both celebrated a ritual coming of age. As girls turned into women they would fast for three days. The fasting would end with a ceremonial washing, new “adult” clothing, and a formal naming. This celebration was called the quicochico ceremony.
Traditional coming of age for the boys took place at the age of fourteen, a celebration marked by a ceremony called huarochico. The huarochico ceremony took place over several weeks, and was always celebrated during the time of the summer solstice. The boys’ discipline, strength and skills were tested in a variety of different ways, and at the end they were given their adult names, weapons, and gifts from their families.
Boys from the nobility would go on to the house of teaching. Located in Cuzco, the yachahuasi was a place where they were educated in religion, government, society, and engineering.
Francisco Pizzaro
Atahuallpa
Atahuallpa’s Death
The Arrival of the Spanish
Francisco Pizzaro, a Spanish explorer, set out to explore South America in 1531. As one of the first European men to see the Pacific Ocean, he was also one of the first to see the South American coastline, but his first glimpse of the riches South America held was the view of a large raft. The raft carried something that many throughout history have sought, fought, and died for; it carried silver, gold, gemstones, and finely made cloth.
Messengers brought news to Atahuallpa (the last of the Inca Emperors), that white men had landed on their shores. The messengers detailed that these men were warriors, that they rode animals, and that they carried sharp swords. In 1532, one of Atahuallpa’s messengers was sent to visit Pizzaro’s camp where he invited the explorer and his men to visit the city of Cajamarca.
Pizzaro and 160 men soon set off for Cajamarca. Some traveled by foot, others on horseback. The Spaniards nervously traveled through the canyons, up into the high passes. Inca forts were visible and manned. It would have been an easy feat for the Inca to overtake the newcomers, but they didn’t. In November of 1532, Pizzaro and his men finally reached the end of the mountain passes where they came face to face with the beautiful farmlands of the Cajamarca Valley. A place they also found themselves staring down on the tents of an enormous Incan army.
Atahuallpa was not inside of the city when the Spaniards arrived, but he soon came to greet his visitors. Dressed in richly embroidered clothing and wearing an emerald collar, he was carried into the city seated on a throne; he arrived with 5,000 of his men. He was impressed by the Spaniards’ horses, knowing that their presence gave the visitors the ability to move quickly through the city, but he wasn’t afraid. He should have been.
What Atahuallpa hadn’t known was that many of the Spaniards had hidden themselves in the city early that morning, that they had been awaiting his arrival for most of the day. Sapa Inca was quickly taken prisoner by the Spanish contingent. One account describes Atahuallpa watching as his nobles were killed, and then helplessly watching the attempts of his unarmed soldiers to escape. Another account cites that the soldiers were armed with small weapons concealed inside of their clothing. Either way, by nightfall, thousands lay dead on the city streets.
Morning found the Spaniards riding into the Inca camp. They took all the gold they could find, and Atahuallpa, believing he still had room to bargain, offered them a room of gold if only they would free him. Pizzaro agreed, and Atathuallpa kept his promise; Pizzaro didn’t. Within months, all of the gold was melted down, and Atahuallpa was sentenced to death. The last true Inca emperor was strangled publicly in the city square. As the deed was finished, they set off to claim Cuzco.
After Atahuallpa’s death, the Inca civilization quickly collapsed. The Spaniards had no appreciation for their customs and traditions. Lands were quickly confiscated, new taxes were employed, and many of the Inca men became little more than slaves laboring in the mines.
The Spanish unknowingly brought other things with them as well. Diseases like measles, smallpox, and typhus decimated the Inca population. What had once been a population of six million had fallen to two million over a fifty year period of time.
Conclusion
Although the great Inca Empire had fallen, many of its customs and traditions still live on today. There are at least six million people who currently speak the Inca language. Housing has changed little, farming is still the same, the terraces are still used, and the foods they eat have stayed constant. The only big change in the Inca crops would be the wheat introduced to them by the Spaniards.
Today’s farmers still use the same types of hoes that existed in the earliest days; technology is still unheard of. The feasts and festivals of the gods are celebrated, although many are accompanied by the Christian celebrations that so many of the Inca now believe in. Religions have blended. Peru’s citizens, particularly those living in the mountains continue to use many of the same roads and bridges built by their ancestors. Andean women continue to make thread with the same tools.
When you really stop to think about it, it’s almost as if time has been standing still.
History Belongs To Us 