Jamestown Redivivus: An Interview with James Horn

6 Historically Speaking March/April 2007 Jamestown Redivivus: An Interview with James Horn Conducted by RandallJ. Stephens JAMES HORN IS O'NEILL DIRECTOR OF THE JOHN D. ROCKefellerjr . Library at The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation andlectureratthe College of William andMary. He is the author of numerous books and articles on colonialAmerica, includingAdapting to a New World: English Society in the Seventeendi-Centary Chesapeake (University of North Carolina Press, 1994). A social historian, Horn has analysed colonialsociety within the broader context of the 17th-century Anglophone world. He is abo the editor of thejust-published Library of America's edition ofJohn Smith's works. His most recentwork is A Land As God Made It:Jamestown and die Birth of America (BasicBooks, 2005). Historian Camilla Townsend, Rutgers University, describes this study as a "grandeffort . "Horn "brings togethertheperspectives of recentgenerations of scholars in this relatively brief andhighly readable book. " (William and Mary Quarterly 63 [2006]: 597). Horn is currently workingon a history of the lostRoanoke colony. Historically Speaking assonate editorRandallStephens spoke with Horn in October2006. Randall Stephens: How prominent is Jamestown in the American popular imagination? James Horn: The history of Jamestown has been almost completely overshadowed by die history of Plymouth. If you took a straw poll, I bet you'd probably find that whereas most Americans have heard of die Mayflower and die Pilgrims , far fewer would know much, if anytiiing, aboutJamestown. Stephens: Did 19th-century American historians have something to do with this? Horn: I trace it back to the late 18th century. Sectional rivalries, particularly between Virginia and Massachusetts , existed already in the 1780s. But, of course, the Civil War was what really clinched it for New England. As a consequence of die Soudi losing die war, die New England founding myth became established as die nation's beginning, taught to millions of school children in dieir textbooks and celebrated annually at Thanksgiving. The victors tend to write the dominant version of history, and so Jamestown was largely forgotten. Stephens: Yet the story ofPocahontas and John Smith seems to occupy an important place in the American imagination. Horn: Absolutely. But it seems to me that die story of Smith and Pocahontas is somewhat divorced fromJamestown. The location is early Virginia, but the theme is a romance that has litde to do widi reality . Pocahontas was only 11 or 12 when they first met. Smith was not in love widi her and she was not in love with him. The true story of Pocahontas, at least as far as die English were concerned, is one of redemption. The fact that she converted to Christianity and joined die Anglican Church was evidence "John Smith Takes the King Of Paspaheg Prisoner," in John Smith, The Generali Historie of Virginia , New-England, and the Summer lies (London, 1624). Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. (the English believed) diat Indians could be redeemed and brought to the true faith as well as, in time, to English ways. An overlooked aspect of early Virginia was the genuine effort on the part of the English to convert Indians to Christianity. It is a misconception to see Massachusetts as the "religious" colony and Virginia as die "greedy" colony. Stephens: What are some other misconceptions about Jamestown? Horn: It is a mistake to see Jamestown as a failure. Jamestown did not fail; it survived and was ultimately successful. Jamestown's survival was pardy a result of the determined efforts of the settlers and die support of the Virginia Company of London, die colony's sponsor, and pardy a matter of luck. But the fact diat it didsurvive had consequences for die rest of the colonial period and ultimately, Fd say, for die later development of the United States. Stephens: What kinds of consequences ? Horn: Think about what might have happened hadJamestown collapsed . If the English had abandoned the Chesapeake region, would Plymouth have been settled? (Prior to their arrival in North America, the Pilgrims were involved in negotiations widi die Virginia Company, from whom they received permission to settle in die northern part of the colony, near the Hudson River). Similarly, would the founders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony have gone to New England if there hadn...