Historic Jamestowne, Virginia--Part II

A continuation of yesterpost...

Just outside the visitor center for Historic Jamestowne is the land owned by Governor George Yeardley, one of the earliest governors of the colony.

No buildings left

A footbridge leads over a swampy area to the original settlement.

Swampy area

Fort and flag in the distance

Just before the fort site there's the Tercentenary Monument. Built in 1907 to commemorate the 300th anniversary, the monument is 104 feet tall (the same number as of the original colonists!).

Tercentenary Monument

Base of the monument (shady side)

Base of the monument (sunny side)

A fancy gate leads into the area with the original church and fort. The church was built just outside of the fort.

A nice entrance

The church was reconstructed in the late 1890s over the original foundation. Most of the brickwork had been taken over the years for other projects or as mementos by visitors.

Rebuilt exterior

The church's graveyard is also reconstructed. Archaeological workers found a few graves just outside the foundations of the church.

Churchyard

Inside, visitors can seen the original foundation.

Bell tower foundation

They are still working on it!

Church interior

View from the altar

Memorial inside the church

Bell tower end of the church

Ad to get donations to help out the restoration

Nearby is a statue of Pocahontas. She was most likely born around 1595 at Werowocomoco, fifteen miles from Jamestown. She was the favorite daughter of Chief Powhatan and visited the colony often in 1608. John Smith credits her with saving his life twice. In 1613, Pocahontas was kidnapped by Captain Argall. While captive, she learned Christianity and was baptized. In 1614 she married John Rolfe, which established peace between the settlers and the natives. She went with Rolfe to England in 1616 with their son Thomas and met the Royal Court. She died in 1617 and was buried in England.

Pocahontas in her younger days

Copy of the 17th-century English engraving of Pocahontas

Archeology is ongoing at the site but no archeologists were on duty.

Blockhouse from the extended fort

Inside the fort grounds is a recreation of the barracks. A wooden frame would be coated with a mud mixture to make the walls. The roofs were typically thatched.

Barracks framed out

Sample of wall

One of the cannons on display

Several burial sites can be found around the property. These two next to each other do not seem to be related. On the left is the remains of a young European man who had a gunshot wound and was buried between 1607 and 1620. On the right is a European woman who was buried in the 1620s somewhere between the ages or 40 and 55.

Burial markers

A statue of Captain John Smith stands right by the waters of the James River. Part of the plaque describing him struck me as funny: "He was an arrogant and boastful man, often tactless and sometimes brutal. Physically strong and worldly wise, he made an excellent settler. However, his personality, his obvious qualifications and his low social position infuriated many of the colony's leaders and settlers." His early life is fascinating. He was born about 1580 to a yeoman farmer. He traveled Europe and fought as a soldier in the Netherlands and Hungary. He was captured and sold as a slave to a Russian master. He killed that man and escaped to Hungary. He made it back to England in time to colonize Virginia. He returned to England in 1609 where he published a few works (the book, a map, and a history of Virginia). He visited New England briefly to map the coast in 1614. He lived the rest of his life in England, dying in 1631.

John Smith statue

Close up 

Another memorial is the Hunt Shrine. Reverend Robert Hunt was the first Anglican minister in the colony. He died in 1608.

Hunt Shrine

The site also has a metal miniature of the original fort.

Triangle fort

Western end

Eastern end

The area also has a "new towne" with the foundations of various buildings from the 1600s. We didn't visit because the kids were done. The new town area was burned down in 1676 by Nathaniel Bacon who led a rebellion against the Colonial Governor William Berkeley.

Historic Jamestowne, Virginia--Part I

Historic Jamestowne is part of the Colonial National Historical Park in the Williamsburg area of Virginia. It is the site of the first permanent English settlement on the North American continent.

Yes, the do spell it with the "e" on the signs

Our first stop was the visitor center where we paid the entrance fee (which includes access to the Yorktown Battlefield site) and looked at some of the exhibits.

More olde spelling

The first settlers came to Jamestown Island in 1607. Captain John Smith was one of the first settlers and he wrote a two-volume book called "The True Travels, Adventures, and Observations of Captaine John Smith." The book was first published in London in 1629; the museum has an American reprint from 1819. It was a sensation and Smith promoted colonization to others.

John Smith's mega-hit

The original 104 English colonists (all men) came on three ships, the Discovery (Captain John Ratcliffe commanding with 21 colonists), the Susan Constant (Captain Christopher Newport commanding with 71 colonists), and the Godspeed (Captain Bartholomew Gosnold commanding with 52 persons). John Smith was a passenger but quickly rose to prominence in the colony.

Model of the Discovery

Model of the Susan Constant

Model of the Godspeed

The settlers almost immediately ran into the local tribe led by Chief Powhatan. The natives attacked, forcing the colonists to build a triangular fort. Tensions eased and some trade started. The next year, another 200 colonists came. Powhatan ordered a siege of the fort and only 60 of the then 500 colonists survived the winter of 1609-1610. Tensions eased again. New colonists came, including women and children, in order to make it a permanent foothold in the new world.

The colony gets bigger

The colony grew outside the fort. A small town was built and by 1619 the colonists elected their first governing body, the House of Burgesses. Also in 1619, the first slaves were brought to the fledgling colony. By that point, John Rolfe had introduced a strain of tobacco that grew well there, becoming the first cash crop.

Building equipment

Relations with the local tribes continued to be strained. The museum has a lot of information about the culture and activities of the natives, along with an amazing map of communication and trade routes between North American tribes.

Trade/communications routes

Items made for trade with locals and back home (i.e. England)

Cooking in colonial times

We went outside to see where the original colonists settled, but not before getting in an extra photo opportunity.

Please observe our rules

Don't make us angry

Happy to have an extra arm to help out

We journey outside in the next post!

Book Review: Saint John the Baptist by Ezekiel Saucedo

Saint John the Baptist: A Voice Crying Out in the Desert written and illustrated by Ezekiel Saucedo

The life of John the Baptist is recreated in graphic-novel form. The book covers all the bits from the gospels and adds a little bit of supplementary story taken from traditional apocryphal sources. The biblical story is familiar and well rendered in an attractive style. The extra bit comes after the birth of John. When King Herod sends his soldiers to wipe out the new-born messiah, Zechariah and Elizabeth flee with their son John (who is in the age group of Jesus) to the wilderness. They die when he is a youth and leave him with a lot of spiritual equipment that forms him spiritually. John evangelizes at the Jordan River, baptizes Jesus, and is captured by Herod's son against whom John had preached. The ultimate beheading of John is dealt with discreetly not gorily. The story ends with Jesus praising John as one who fulfilled his role in salvation history.

The author does a great job depicting John's life in an engaging and kid-friendly way. The dialog sounds natural and the art works very well. As an adult, I enjoyed this a lot and will get my kids to read it too.

Highly recommended.

Book Review: Five Moral Pieces by Umberto Eco

Five Moral Pieces by Umberto Eco

Umberto Eco is most famous for writing The Name of the Rose, a medieval murder mystery in a monastery. He is also a professor and prolific writer. This small collection of essays deals with some moral issues in unique and interesting ways. Here's an essay by essay review:

Reflections on War--Eco argues that the nature of war has changed substantially in the twentieth century. Before, a war meant that two sides would come to blows along a front. The armies would oppose each other and one or the other country would be invaded. Other countries stayed on the sidelines, maybe making a profit on selling arms to one or both sides. In the modern age, transportation mixes citizens of various countries all over the earth--every country has ex-patriots from not just one but several other countries. Communications are so immediate that information about the conflict is available, often from both sides of the conflict. In the old days, nationalist propaganda kept citizens more or less on the same side. Dissidents were traitors who would be interned in camps or jails. Modern democracies are very reluctant to take such actions. Eco comes to the conclusion that the new concept of a "cold" war is a better way to create the equilibrium between countries--the battle lines are already blurred and the casualties are much lower than an all-out war with massive casualties, both military and civilian. I don't agree with everything Eco argues but this essay is very thought-provoking.

When the Other Appears on the Scene--How does someone who doesn't believe in God or a categorical imperative come to morally certain conclusions? This was the question put to Eco by an Italian cardinal; this essay is a response. Eco talks about "elementary notions" that all humans have regardless of their culture, e.g. we are erect beings so that we have a sense of up and down and being upside down is an undesireable situation for longer than a short while. He cites lots of other examples of solitary experiences that generate a sense of right and wrong with regard to personal freedom. Then Eco discusses social situations and norms (e.g. romantic or economic) that also ground judgements of what is right and wrong. He discusses this all quite persuasively without ever mentioning Natural Law, the theory that his idea is clearly based on.

On the Press--Eco provides a fairly interesting analysis of the state of newspapers in Italy (though the situation is mirrored in other countries). Once television news started, daily papers were no longer the first source of breaking news. In an attempt to keep readership, the dailies expanded their coverage to be more like weekly papers or Sunday editions, with a lot more fluff padding out the page count. That turn forced the weeklies to adapt as well. None of these effects have been good, as more and more papers become like USA Today (Eco's example, not mine). He provides some ideas to solve the problems.

Ur-Fascism--In the wake of the Oklahoma City Bombing, Eco gave a speech about Fascism at an American university. Eco speaks from his experience as a child in World War II Italy. When the liberation came to his small town, it was shocking for him to realize there was more than one political party in Italy and that love of country hardly had to equate with love of Mussolini. He then reflects on the nature of generic fascism (the "Ur-Fascism" of the title), which includes under its broad umbrella many characteristics that are mutually exclusive (much like existentialism, which includes both atheists and theists). He gives fourteen characteristics, starting with the "cult of tradition" and ending with "use of newspeak" which certainly appear contradictory. They are all potential danger signs for which we need to be vigilant. "Freedom and liberation are never-ending tasks. Let this be our motto: 'Don not forget.'" [p. 88]

Migration, Tolerance, and the Intolerable--In an essay stitched together from several other essays, Eco discusses the distinction he makes between immigration and migration. Immigration is a politically-governed activity where the person moving adopt the new home's culture. Migration is a natural flow of people where their culture is integrated into the new home's culture. Eco predicts (from the late 1990s) that Europe will turn into a mixture of the two. Some peoples will be subsumed by the local culture, others will keep apart and keep their own customs. It's the sort of social evolution that's uncomfortable for the locals and can cause strife and intolerance. A mature and discerning tolerance is needed. But how much tolerance? The final section of the essay discusses the case of Erich Priebke, a former SS officer extradited from Argentina to Italy to face a war crimes tribunal. He was let off on a technicality, which certainly seems like a travesty. The Holocaust was so barbaric and unimaginable that intolerance is called for. Working out how that fits with the earlier part of the essay makes for interesting reading.

Recommended. I liked the book but I realize that it may not be to everyone's taste.

Movie Review: Terminator Dark Fate (2019)

Terminator Dark Fate (2019) directed by Tim Miller

After Sarah Connor's (Linda Hamilton) son John is killed in 1998 by a Terminator sent from the future, she lives an unhappy existence terminating Terminators. She gets a text on her cell phone telling her when and where to go with the message at the end: "For John." She's managed to erase Skynet from the future, i.e. the defense system that would have sent the Terminators to kill her and her son, which it actually did even though it never exists (a conundrum that the movie basically just ignores). The new threat is from a company called Legion that invents very similar Terminator machines. This time the killer is called a REV- 9 (Gabriel Luna), which is a hybrid of the classic android exoskeleton and the liquid metal machine from Terminator 2: Judgment Day. The good guys send back an enhanced human (Mackenzie Davis) to defend the new target, Dani Ramos (Natalia Reyes). Dani is the key to the humans fighting back in the new apocalyptic future. The enhanced human and Sarah join up to protect Dani, leading to a lot of big action sequences as they attempt to destroy the REV-9.

The story is fairly unoriginal, just remapping the characters and plot of Terminator 2 onto new people, but still having the characters from the original film. The time travel element is exceptionally nonsensical. The filmmakers don't seem to care; they just want to make an entertaining action movie. The action scenes are exciting, taking advantage of the latest in special effects. The characters discuss fate and free will a lot (which is a staple of the Terminator films) with nothing particularly profound to add to the discussion. The twists in the story are highly predictable. The story is very unsatisfying.

The performances are okay. No one bombs their role. The only standout is Arnold Schwarzenegger. His Terminator has more depth, interest, and humor than any other character in the film. If the movie had been focused on the Terminator who has to find meaning in existence once his only designed purpose was fulfilled, the film would have been more original and more interesting. Even in his 60s, Schwarzenegger has more star power and charisma than the rest of the cast combined. I admit it's weird to claim that the acting in the film should have had more Schwarzenegger, but that's the way it is.

Slightly recommended--the movie is not particularly bad but neither is it particularly good. For Terminator completists or fans of dumb yet spectacular action films.

Random Bits of Williamsburg

Here are some things from Williamsburg that didn't make their own post!

We went out to dinner at Oceans and Ale, where I had Good Luck Irish Stout (4.4% alcohol by volume) by Alewerks Brewing Company in Williamsburg, Virginia. The beer was a very nice stout clearly inspired by classic Guinness. I enjoyed it though a real Guinness would be better--a little creamier, a little tastier. No pretzel at this restaurant, alas! They did serve a good fish and chips.

A nice beer

I couldn't resist this Dragon Pack of beer at the grocery story in Williamsburg. The brews are from The St. George Brewing Company of Hampton, Virginia. They are local (to Williamsburg) beers and some have won awards.

The Dragon Pack!

This particular pack contains six different beers made by the brewery:

• Golden Ale (5% alcohol by volume)--This is a standard golden ale. It's a bit dry and a bit sour and a bit bitter. It goes better with a meal or a snack, something for it to contrast and compare to.
• Porter (5% alcohol by volume)--The label calls this "London style." I am not sure what that means. Porter was first made in London and is probably named after those people who carry around stuff for you, with whom the beer was popular. St. George's is clearly hanging on to their British inspiration. As for this beer, it has a woody flavor with a bit of smoke and bitterness. It drinks like its hearty without a heavy or oily texture. It's not as smooth as a Guinness but is a fine drink nonetheless.
• English IPA (5.5% alcohol by volume)-- For an IPA, I enjoyed this. It doesn't have the sharp bitterness of other IPAs. The dryness is nice. I may start trying more IPAs thanks to this.
• Nut Brown Ale (5% alcohol by volume)--This ale does have a bit of nuttiness (flavor only) and more complex flavors in the aftertaste. It would go well with food or on its own. Yummy!
• Knight's Lager (unlisted% alcohol by volume)--This Vienna-style lager has the deep tan you couldn't possibly get from English sunshine or in a regular lager. It has a bit more roasty and nutty flavor than a regular lager, making it a good pairing with a salty snack. I had it with some Chex mix and thought they went together well.
• Pilsner (5% alcohol by volume)--This beer is pretty standard. It has the usual look and color of a pilsner. Not bad but not anything special either.

We did some geocaching in the greater Williamsburg area. Monopoly: Free Parking was an easy find near our hotel. The log inside the cache was a bit wet. We could barely write our geocaching name on it!

View of the hide from the parking lot

Not too far from there is a cache dedicated to a bakery that isn't there anymore. "Fat Kids Love Cake!" is a cache that's easy to find in a strip mall parking lot.

The cache is in here somewhere

Much less easy to find is the cache that's behind the strip mall. 403's Boo Boo Box Hide-Out is apparently in an unconventional hiding spot. It was unconventional enough that we couldn't find it with ten minutes of searching. 

Somewhere in this picture, we assume

We found the Fire Station #4 to the Rescue! cache near Yorktown. The cache location is delightful for its obvious placement and less than obvious way of being opened. Our whole group enjoyed this one just before visiting the Yorktown battlefield.

The fire department

Book Review: My Hero Academia Vol. 13 by Kohei Horikoshi

My Hero Academia Volume 13 by Kohei Horikoshi

The provisional license exam continues with a rescue exercise designed to check the students' ability to work together and save civilians during a disaster. Personality conflicts abound, especially with the Shiketsu High students also participating. In a surprising twist, not all of the U.A. students succeed. Meanwhile, the regular heroes are putting plans together to deal with the social impact of All Might's retirement. Villains are getting braver and teaming up in the aftermath of the League of Villains. All Might visits All for One in jail to find out what the League's plans are and finds out little.

The story moves a bit further than it did in the last issue. This part of the exam was a lot more interesting and renewed enough faith in the book to keep on reading.

Recommended.