Colonial America

Cannibalism occured at Jamestown. The Starving Time created dearth and famine in the winter of 1609-1610 and the Virginia Jamestown colonists cannibalized to survive.

Archaeologists found the remains of a 14 year old girl at the Jamestown site. There were axe markings on the skull. The axe cracked the skull open. There was a knife wound. The knife pried the skull open. The markings on "Jane's" jaw, face, forehead, shinbone reveal an intent to remove flesh and brain. "Jane" is the first direct evidence of Jamestown cannibalism.

The stories colonists told of cannibalism are as important as the reality. Virginia's colonists have differeing accounts of the Starving Time. The accounts reflect ulterior motives.

Wrote Captain John Smith in Generall Historie (1629):

Smith left Jamestown before the Starving Time after a gunpowder bag exploded in his lap. Smith wrote his account some years after the Starving time occurred. Smith led Jamestown before his departure and writing about how things fell apart after he left gave Smith an argument for his indespensibility to the colony. Smith likewise drubbed Jamestown's Starving Time president, George Percy.

Percy wrote in A Trewe Relacyon that famine was so great

Percy led Jamestown in the Starving Time. Percy defended his leadership with his account. Percy and Smith's account differ; Percy's is more gruesome. Percy wrote the Starving Time as desperate as possible for his reputation.

Thomas Gates refuted cannibalims in A True Reportory (1610):

Gates believed the man was lying; his house was stored with food. Gates said Jamestown cannibalism did not happen and only murder occurred. Gates led Jamestown after Percy. Gates defended his reputation like Percy. But Gates also wanted to assure London shareholders of their investment in Virginia.

The Virginia Assembly's account in 1624 affirmed Smith and Percy's tales. The Assembly said the Jamestown colonists ate "Doggs, Catts, ratts, Snaes, Toadstooles, [and] horse hides" and that a man "out of the mystery that he endured, killinge his wiefe powdered her upp to eate her, for wch he was burned." The Assembly told of a man "who had gotten unsatiable, out of custome to that foode" and "could not be restrayned" from cannibalism; he was executed. The Assembly mentioned John Smith. The Assembly said that the colonists saw an Indian kill a horse for food and were "wishinge whilst she was a boylinge that Sr. Tho: Smith were uppon her backe in the kettle." The Assembly did not like the Virginia comapany's treasurer Thomas Smith and tried to discredit him. The Assembly wrote of those 12 years of Sr. Tho: Smith his government. But Smith's term ended in 1619, nine years after the Starving Time.

Cannibal stories circulated. The Starving Time allowed Europeans to remodel their identity. The Starving Time colonists were a failed experiment to be learned from. Future Virginia colonists would not make the same mistakes.

Europeans believed America was the Garden of Eden. America was cornucopia. Food was abundant. Richard Hakluyt wrote in 1582 in Divers Voyages that the New World was "abounding in hony, venison, wilde foule, forests, [and] woods of all sortes." Colonists would not have to work the land for food. Arthur Barlowe wrote in 1589, "The earth bringeth foorth all things in aboundanc , as in the first creation, without toile or labour... in all the world the like aboundance is not to be found: and my selfe having seene those partes of Europe that most abound, finde such difference, as were incredible to be written." America was better than Europe.

Even early colonists' imaginations got them. Wrote John Smith of Jamestown's rivers: "so covered with swans, geese, duckes, and crane , that we daily feasted with good bread, Virginia pease, pumpions, and putchamins, fish, fowle, and diverse sorts of wild beastes as fat as we could eate them." Smith did not talk about working fields.

The Starving Time wore America's "Pristine Myth" down. Europeans wrote that cannibal stories damaged Virginia's reputation. Europeans wrote in the early 1610's of "idle and slaunderous surmises" and "calumnies... raised upon our colonies, and the Countrey itself" and "manifold imputations, & disgraces, which Virginia hath innocently undergone." Preacher William Crashawe said the stories were "blowen abroad by Papists, Players, and such like, till they have filled the vulgar eares." Crashawe blamed the Catholics.

The English blamed the colonists. Londoners said colonists governed themselves poorly, stole food from each other, and didn't want to work. Ralph Hamor wrote in A True Discourse of the Present State of Virginia in 1615 that he would "deterre all lasie, impotent, and ill livers from addressing themselves thither, as being a Country too worthy for them." The "base and idle lubbers" caused the Starving Time. America was excused.

Left: Facial reconstruction of "Jane;" Right: "Jane's" skull

So Great was our famine, that a Salvage we slew, and buried, the poorer sort tooke him up againe and eat him, and so did divers one another boyled and stewed with roots and herbs: And one amongst the rest did kill his wife, powdered her, and had eaten part of her before it was knowne, for which hee was executed, as hee well deserved; now whether shee was better roasted, boyled or carbonado'd, I know not, but of such a dish as powdered wife I never heard of.

[they eat] Horses and other beastes as longe as they Lasted... vermin... doggs Catts Ratts and myce... Bootes shoes or any other leather... Serpents and snakes... notheinge was Spared to mainteyne Lyfe and do doe those things which seame incredible, as to digge upp deade corpes outt of graves and to eate them. And some have Licked upp the Bloode which hathe fallen from their weake fellowes. And amongste the reste this was moste lamentable. Thatt one of our Colline murdered his wyfe Ripped the Childe outt of her woambe and threwe itt into the River and after Chopped the Mother in pieces and sallted her for his foode, The same not beinge discovered before he had eaten parte thereof.

Burial of Jamestown dead during Starving Time (1609-1610)

There was one of the companie who mortally hated his Wife, and therefore secretly killed her... [he] cut her in pieces and his her in divers parts of his house... [he claimed] that his Wife died [and] hee hid her to satisfie his hunger, and... fed daily upon her

Nova Reperta, plate 2 by Theodor Galle c. 1600. Vespucci lands in America. Note animals and woman on hammock

Engraving by Theodor de Bry c. 1592. Vespucci is offered Indigenous women. Note womens' similarity to Eve; men's similarity to Adam; frollicking, hammocks, food in background.

Only hard working men deserved America. Writers tried to save Virginia. The Starving Time set nature against man. Shareholders would not gamble on those odds. But man's indolence could be fixed - get better men. Shareholders would still be willing to invest in Virginia if the only problem was man.

"Cannibal" entered the English language in the mid-16th century, "Cannibal" derives from Spanish canibales. Canibales derives from a Carib term meaning "strong men." Christopher Columbus described the Carribean Islands indigenous as canibales. The Carribean Islands indigenous were rumored to be flesh-eaters. Rumors were plenty in the 16th and 17th centuries.

Cannibalism permeated European culture.

New World maps depicted cannibals:

Ancient mythology described cannibals. Wrote Pliny the Elder in Naturalis Historia

(c. AD 77-79):

Explorers claimed to meet cannibals on their travels. Sir John Mandeville wrote in the 14th century in his travelogues that the people he met

Witch hunters accused women of killing and eating babies. Europeans practiced medicinal cannibalism.

Europeans knew starvation cannibalism too. Rural peasants could not always provide for themselves. Food shortages struck in the 1550s and 1590s.

The first Virginia colonists expected the indigenous population to be cannibalistic. The indigenous Powhatans were not cannibals however. The colonists fullfilled their own prophecy by becoming cannibals. The Starving Time colonists fought famine by eating dead bodies.

It was a reluctant move. Cannibalism was the lot of "savages." To cannibalize was to indigenize. The colonists applied English idiosyncrasies to cannibalism to keep their English identity. The colonists believed the Powhatans ate their food raw and did not preserve food. The English did the opposite. John Smith's account tells of the colonists who prepared the body with roots and herbs. Smith and George Percy's account tell of the colonists who ate pieces at a time. The accounts mention salting; the colonists preserved the bodies they ate. The English could preserve their identity by doing "English" things in a "savage" context.

The Starving Time embedded itself in the colonial American consciousness. The Starving time stayed in memory years after it happened. Virginia Historian Robert Beverly wrote in 1705

The Starving Time colonists feared death. But they feared loss of identity more. Colonists' fear of a return to Starving Time conditions allowed them to improve their identity. The post-Starving Time colonists could see themselves as industrious and virtuous by surviving and they could look back condescendingly on the "idle" Starving Time colonists.

The Starving Time colonists gave their identity away when they cannibalized. "Cannibal" is a European word. "Cannibal" is no different from "savage." Europeans applied their terms to people who resisted colonialism. A cannibal and a savage are sub-human beings. Europeans' terms dehumanized indigenous peoples and made the colonial project into a civilizing mission. The colonists who cannibalized thus became indigenized and dehumanized.

Colonists' fears of cultural subsumation are echoed in captivity narratives. Colonists captured in native raids feared being brought into indigenous culture. Captives' fears of cannibalism - of being literally consumed into indigenous culture - reflect colonists' fear of assmilation.

Mary Rowlandson's captivity narrative is an example. Rowlandson spent 12 weeks in captivity in winter 1675. Rowlandson says of the moments before her capture:

Indigneous peoples worked on colonist's fears. Rowlandson asks about her son and her

captor says

There is Herman Melville's travel story about his time among the Typee in the Marquesas called Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life (1846). Melville fears that his captors will eat him when his companion goes missing

Map of Brazil by Diego Gutiérrez, Americae sive qvarta e orbis parties nova et exactissima description, 1562. Note depictions of cannibals.

Map of Canibales Insulae (Cannibal Islands), Joan Blaeu's Atlas Maior, Volume 11

The Anthropophagi, whom we have previously mentioned as dwelling ten days' journey beyond the Borysthenes, according to the account of Isigonus of Nicæa, were in the habit of drinking out of human skulls, and placing the scalps, with the hair attached, upon their breasts, like so many napkins.

have an evil custom among them, for they will eat human flesh more gladly than any other... Merchants bring children there to sell, and the people of the country buy them. Those that are plump they eat; those that are not plump they feed and fatten, and then kill and eat them. And they say it is the best and sweetest flesh in the world.

Leaflet by Munich printer Adam Berg, 1753. Peasant cannibals in famines in Reuss and Littau.

[The Starving Time colonists] seem'd to have escaped, or rather not to have been concern'd in the first Curse, O getting their Bread by the Sweat of their Brows... Living without Labour, and only gathering the Fruits of the Earth when ripe... They continued in these scanty Circumstances till they were at last reduced to such Extremity, as to eat the very Hides of their Horses, and the Bodies of the Indians they had killed; and sometimes also upon a Pinch they had wou'd not disdain to dig them up again to make a homely Meal of after they had been buried. And that Time is to this Day remember'd by the Name of the Starving Time.

But out we must go, the fire increasing, and coming along behind us, roaring, and the Indians gaping before us with their guns, spears, and hatchets, to devour us.

his master roasted him, and that himself did eat a piece of him, as big as two fingers, and that he was very good meat. But the Lord upheld my spirit under this discouragement, and I considered their horrible addictedness to lying, and that there is not one of them that makes the least conscience of speaking the truth

For what [other] conceivable purpose did they thus retain me a captive? What could be their object in treating me with such apparent kindess, and did it not cover some treacherous scheme? Or, if they had no other desire than to hold me a prisoner, how should I be able to pass away my days in this narrow valley, deprived of all intercourse with civilized beings, and for ever separated from friends and home?

Frontispiece for A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson (1682)

Melville critcizes colonial imperalism. Michel de Montaigne writes in "Of Cannibals" (1580)

Melville likewise writes:

Cannibalism is the intersection of civilization and savagery. The two are meaningless.

Prying so narrowly into their faults we are so blinded in ours. I think there is more barbarisme in eating men alive, than to feed upon them being dead; to mangle by tortures and torments a body full of lively sense, to roast him in peeces, to make dogges and swine to gnaw and teare him in mammockes (as wee have not only read, but seene very lately, yea and in our own memorie, not amongst ancient enemies, but our neighbors and fellow-citizens and which is worse, under pretence of pietie and religion) than to roast and eat him after he is dead.

I ask whether the mere eating of human flesh so very far exceeds in barbarity the custom [i.e. slavery] which only a few years since was practiced in enlightened England... The enormities perpetrated in the South Sea upon some of the inoffensive islanders wellnigh pass belief. These things are seldom proclaimed at home; they happen at the very ends of the earth... and there are non to reveal them... How often is the term 'savags' incorrectly applied!