VIRGINIA DIVISION OF MINERAL RESOURCES PUBLICATION 176
EARLYATTEMPTS OF ENGLISH MINERAL EXPLORATION IN NORTH AMERICA: THE JAME,STOWN COLONY
Lisa L. Heuvel
fir i+7r L I odrq h".a 1L
l.
COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA DEPARTMENT OF MINES, MINERALS AND ENERGY DIVISION OF MINERAL RESOURCES Edward E. Erb, State Geologist Charlottesville, Virginia
2007 VIRGINIA DIVISION OF MINERAL RESOURCES PUBLICATION 176
EARLYATTEMPTS OF ENGLISH MNERAL EXPLORATION IN NORTH AMERICA: THE JAMESTOWN COLONY
Lisa L. Heuvel
L& tfi. Hh &rt. swt9..,4a od&t btr 4L
COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA DE,PARTMENT OF MINES, MINERALS AND ENERGY DIVISION OF MINERAL RESOURCES Edward E. Erb, State Geologist Charlottesville, Virginia
2007 COVER: John Smith's "Virginia" was separately published in London in 1612 and was also included in the Oxford publication of John Smith's A Map of Virginia: Wth a Description of the Countrey, the Commodities, People, Government and Religion [1612J (Courtesy of The Colonial Williamsburg Foun- dation). RES.URCES 'IRGINIA "ttf,1?it8HHiffiL
EARLYATTEMPTS OF ENGLISH MINERAL EXPLORATION IN NORTHAMERICA: THE JAMESTOWN COLONY
Lisa L. Heuvel
COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA DEPARTMENT OF MINES. MINERALS AND ENERGY DIVISION OF MINERAL RESOURCES Edward E. Erb, State Geologist Charlottesville, Virginia
2007 nHere are abundunce of Iron Mines/here bee silver and gold mines but they cannot beefound out/other mines I know not" " .....I sent some heavy esrth and a peece of fullers earth...... "
Michael Upchurch in leffers to John Ferrar in approximately 1650 (Upchurch, Ferrar Papers).
Portions of this publication may be quoted if credit is given to the Virginia Division of Mineral Resources. It is recommended that reference to this report be made in the following form: Heuvel,LisaL.,2007,Eafly attempts of English mineral exploration in North America: The Jamestown Colony: Virginia Division of Mineral Resources Publication 176,40 p. CONTENTS
An overview of Virginia, the waiting landscape...... 3 A mineral commodities map of the Westem Hemisphere...... 7 England enters the scene...... 9 Precontact to contact: The Virginians and the English ...... 16 The Jamestown story...... 22 The significance of Falling Creek...... 29
Acknowledgements...... 34
ILLUSTRATIONS
Figure l. Location of Jamestown and Jamestown Island...... 1 Figure 2. Generalized geologic map of Virginia ...... 4 Figure 3. Location of the gold-pyrite belt in Virginia...... 5 Figure 4. Location of the Popham Colony...... 15 Figure 5. John Smith's "Map of Virginia"...... I7 Figure 6. Sites of burial grounds and archeological sites producing copper...... 19 Figure 7. Location of select mineral mining sites...... 27 EARLY ATTEMPTS OF ENGLISH MINERAL EXPLORATION IN NORTH AMERICA:
THE JAMESTOWN COLONY
by Lisa L. Heuvel
ABSTRACT Carolina, Virginia, and Maine (Figure l). Plans for expeditions and colonization regularly includ- Modern accounts of early New World ex- ed "mineral men" (prospectors), assayers, min- ploration and colonization often overlook signifi- ers, and goldsmiths. Familiar with period tech- cant geologic and technical foundations of min- nology or artisanship, they were as well prepared eral exploration. These accounts, instead, focus to explore for minerals as the state of Old World on the English colonists' overall failure to find and New World knowledge allowed at that time. gold and subsequent success at growing and ex- Even so, the English did not duplicate Spanish porting tobacco in Virginia. The 1607 Jamestown successes in amassing great mineral wealth in the Colony was one of several English investment Western Hemisphere. Native resistance to territo- attempts to discover and exploit precious metals, rial and cultural encroachment, bad luck and near gems, non-precious metallic ore, and medicinal misses in mineral exploration, and the transition plant and clay commodities in modern-day North from alchemy to a science-based understanding
Figure 1. Location of Jamestown and Jamestown Island. (Map on right from the USGS 7.5-minute Surry quadrangle.) EARLYATTEMPTS OF ENGLISH MINERAL EXPLORATION IN NORTH AMERICA:
THE JAMESTOWN COLONY
by Lisa L. Heuvel
ABSTRACT Carolina, Virginia, and Maine (Figure 1). Plans for expeditions and colonization regularly includ- Modern accounts of early New World ex- ed "mineral men" (prospectors), assayers, min- ploration and colonization often overlook signifi- ers, and goldsmiths. Familiar with period tech- cant geologic and technical foundations of min- nology or artisanship, they were as well prepared eral exploration. These accounts, instead, focus to explore for minerals as the state of Old World on the English colonists' overall failure to find and New World knowledge allowed at that time. gold and subsequent success at growing and ex- Even so, the English did not duplicate Spanish porting tobacco in Virginia. The 1607 Jamestown successes in amassing great mineral wealth in the Colony was one of several English investment Western Hemisphere. Native resistance to territo- attempts to discover and exploit precious metals, rial and cultural encroachment, bad luck and near gems, non-precious metallic ore, and medicinal misses in mineral exploration, and the transition plant and clay commodities in modern-day North from alchemy to a science-based understanding
Figure l. Location of Jamestown and Jamestown Island. (Map on right from the USGS 7.5-minute Surry quadrangle.) VIRGINIA DIVISION OF MINERAL RESOURCES of mineral occuffence prevented timely or early Like mineral exploration, attempts to cre- success of a mineral-based economy in Virginia. ate and support the Virginia iron industry would An English toehold in the New World was es- not bear fiuit for the first colonists. Their descen- tablished through a tobacco-based economy, dants - and Virginians today - would be the ones seemingly limitless supply of fuel and renew- to benefit from mineral-related industries, as sta- able resources, and other realized opportunities. tistics show. Over 400 different minerals have Economic mineral development, however, was been found and more than 30 different mineral achieved in Virginia and North Carolina as tech- resources are produced in Virginia at a combined nology, exploration, and westward expansion in- annual value of nearly two billion dollars. creased. Since gold deposits and successful min- ing activities are documented in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century literature and physical evi- INTRODUCTION dence, why did the English fail in their seven- teenth-century efforts? The hypothesis in this paper centers on the limitations of technology on Colonial mineral exploration by the Eng- the edge of the English frontier as well as a se- lish in the New World has long been considered a ries of circumstances that can best be described footnote to the larger story ofVirginia. However, as near misses and plain bad luck, as well as dis- mineral exploration's influence on the contested ease and death that seemed to follow the "min- landscape of BritishAmerica and the evolution of eral men" (prospectors) in Virginia. In addition, cultural interaction should be re-evaluated from a conflicting perceptions of the landscape by the new perspective. English and the Powhatans had a profound in- Both the English and the indigenous peo- fluence on events in the London Company era. ples were irreversibly locked into an adaptation This new perspective may increase process that evolved over time through cultural awareness of metallurgical and cosmological contact. The scope of this intercultural relation- concepts underlying the English colonial mind- ship can be demonstrated and better understood set by 1607, especially as compared to the spiri- through geo-archaeological evidence and a closer tual and economic perspectives of the Powhatan examination of primary source documents. Indian world. In turn, it may further delineate English and European colonists did not the scope of cultural interaction in early colonial necessarily recognize the complex skills of the Virginia. As James Axtell has written, "We can- native cultures they encountered, particularly in not afford to privilege one kind of source over relation to the natural environment. A compari- another: We need them all if we are to com- son of historical events and geologic documenta- pensate for - when we cannot recover - the tion shows that English colonists at Jamestown evanescent words and gestures that constituted came much closer to precious metals than has much of the public past of these oral cultures been previously credited to them. They projected and face-to-face societies" (Axtell, 1997, pp. their knowledge of mining, mineral exploration, 2-3). As the first chapter will show, geography and metalworking onto the landscape, using it to and geology expand our understanding of the express their expectations. Limitations born of visual and physical landscape of four centuries territorial hostilities, technology, and unforeseen ago, alerting us to the possibility - and reality events were factors in their perceived failure. - of different perceptions of a coflrmon ground. PUBLICATION 176
AN OVERVIEW OF VIRGINIA, THE wealth was just waiting for the colonists to exploit WAITING LANDSCAPE it. The quest for gold and silver was a catalyst for English exploratory and colonizing efforts. Such It was not their known world, this Virgin- early hopes were not unfounded, but premature. ia, and European exploration was akin to shining In T782, Thomas Jefferson wrote in his "Notes a light through a keyhole. If they could scan a on the State of Virginia" that a "four-pound lump modem nautical chart, mariners, mapmakers, and of gold ore" was discovered on the north side of explorers of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth the Rappahannock River, the only such incident centuries would recognize Virginia's plaeement reported for the eighteenth century (Watson, p. between the parallels 34 and 45 degrees north lat- 549). Beginning in the early 1800s, gold was me- itude. Cape Henry Point Comfort (modern-day thodically extracted from visible sources (near- Fort Monroe) and Jamestown Island would prob- surface lode deposits and placer mining), and ably look familiar to experienced colonial mari- then the first reported lode deposit was discovered ners. However, Virginia's true size and that of in 1806 in Spotsylvania County (Sweet, 1980). NorthAmerica would h ave amazedthem. Today's By 1837, William Barton Rogers, first di- Commonwealth comprises some 42,450 square rector of the Geological Survey ofVirginia (1835 miles, of which 2,325 are covered by water. The - 1841) and founder of the Massachusetts Insti- Virginia that King James claimed stretched north tute of Technology, wrote, "the working of the to Halifax, Nova Scotia, south to Cape Fear, auriferous veins of this wide region is destined and west to the Pacific (Gannon, 1985; Watson, to become an important branch of the systematic 1907). According to modern geologic classifi- industry of the state" (Rogers, 1835, p. I32). In cations, Virginia is divided by surface features his "Report of the Geological Reconnaissance of into provinces. These provinces are, from east to the State of Virginia, Made Under the Appoint- west, the Coastal Plain, Piedmont, Blue Ridge, ment of the Board of Public Works, 1835," Rog- Valley and Ridge, andAppalachian Plateaus (Fig- ers wrote extensively of the "gold region." The ure 2). Sediments characterize the Coastal Plain report included mines in Spotsylvania, Orange, province from the coast to the Fall Line bound- Louisa, Fluvanna, and Buckingham counties, o'from ary or about one-fourth the area of Virginia. The many of which rich returns have been re- Coastal Plain is composed of unconsolidated turned and under improved modes of operations sand, gravel, clay, and fossil shells. Rarely, the a still larger profit may be expected." Rogers shells are cemented by iron oxide, calcium car- further observed that mining methods and the bonate, or other materials. West of the Fall Line process for separating gold from ore were waste- are crystalline rocks such as granites, gneisses, ful because "alarge proportion of the gold is lost phyllite, and basalts in the Piedmont province. and thrown out with the gravel from which only The Blue Ridge province includes high- large masses of the gold have been separated." grade gneisses, greenstone, amphibolite, and Geologist Thomas L. Watson's 1907 schists. Rocks in the Valley and Ridge province "Mineral Resources of Virginia" recorded that include limestone, dolostone, sandstone, and the discovery of gold in Orange County by 1829 shale. Coal, oil, and natural gas are present in the led to the 1 83 I incorporation of the Virginia Min- Appalachian Plateaus province and in Mesozoic ing Company ofNewYork. Before the Civil War basins where the rocks also include sandstone. stopped mining operations for its duration, annual siltstone, and shale (Sweet, l9S3). The potential gold production was valued at between $50,000 VIRGINIA DIVISION OF MINERAL RESOURCES
-
e .F 6 ; 9) F 4E g z -^9 a E. ;=-6 P Pr 9.. 4:OaF 6i a q e 9 --h t :I6: :;6e - I a o.95; C) 7=E i R;. flE oE trr -I lr; le t I l.h .b _38 O F- 9- A9E 2 2 g 3 >' a a? tn ;s ?1,.
d. .F _a 9 zF +9-9E a 3H: $ i E9 o ;> E . P-o 5 E E :r !E -s'-E t< E E *; g: =a -| | o9E; c.) z E E !; gr i L-l gsgE Z E C EE E! i !-lEo-6 ? ?iE8 .,i [>o E in!nE!nsirsFI llir t l.tsI eB O =l L-l ![s E;r*EE 2 P: g F >' #!,:; d: c: :'; dn= and $ 100,000) (Watson, 1 907). Between I 804 and iron, and coal, a host of other mineral resources 19 47, Yirginia mining operations produced more have been mined in Virginia. Iron production than 98,600 troy ounces of gold (Sweet, 1980). began in 1609 with the mining and smelting of In 1980, Virginia Division of Mineral Resources limonite, or bog iron. Comrnercial coal mining economic geologist Palmer Sweet reported loca- dates from 1750 near Richmond (Watson, 1907). tion data documenting that, out of primary lit- By examining the events and intellectual erature references for 301 gold and silver mines, developments culminating inthe London Compa- prospects and occurrences, more than 80 per cent ny phase of Virginia colonization, mineral explo- were located in the "gold-pyrite belt" (Figure 3). ration emerges from period accounts as a series The belt stretches approximately 140 miles from of fits and starts. Although mineral exploration, Fairfax County's Potomac River through Buck- mining, and iron working were well under way ingham County (Sweet, 1995). This region var- by the seventeenth century in England, these in- ies from 12 to 25 miles wide. Colonial mineral dustries did not transfer substantially to the New exploration by the English in Virginia should be World compared to Spanish achievements there viewed not as a failure bom of misinformation (Rees, 1967). Spanish mineral exploration in the and greed, but rather a necessary step toward the American Southeast had the same halting results revelation no early visionary or explorer would as the English; however, it was clearly overshad- live to see. In addition to gold, silver, copper, owed by the flood of gold and silver reaching MARYLAND N WESTVIRGINIA 30 miles Atlantic Ocean Figure 3. Location of the gold-pyrite belt in Virginia. VIRGINIA DIVISION OF MINERAL RESOURCES Spain from other parts of its New World dominion. Lane, first governor of the Roanoke Colony, The key to understanding English min- described the region as "very well peopled and eral exploration in Virginia lies in the collective towned" (Perdue, 1985, p. 25). As descendants data accumulated by the English and assimi- of the indigenous peoples (i.e. pre-Algonkians) lated into a working body of knowledge. This who had occupied the land now called Virginia framework of reference was based on available forbetween 10,000 and 12,000 years, Powhatans exploratory information and expectations. An in the Pre-Contact Period had the greatest level of "imaginary map" evolved that supported early familiarity with the woods and waterways. They English efforts to locate mineral resources. Eng- were the guides for Europeans moving between land's documented quest for gold and silver, the the Chesapeake Bay and the Fall Line, particular- Powhatans' desire for finished copper and cop- ly before the English laid visual claim to the ter- per products in trade, and the potential value of ritory with maps of their own. For land and wa- Virginia iron are known factors in the develop- ter travel and identification, the Powhatan tribal ment of the colony. However, clays and other culture relied on hieroglyphics, physical markers, less-noted mineral resources have not been suf- and oral tradition, all of an ephemeral nature. In ficiently studied in relation to specialized Euro- "Seeing Beyond the Dominant Landscape," Wil- pean demand. In addition, the literature has not bur Zelinsky (Zelinsky as cited in Groth and Bres- been reviewed as a "shopping list" of desired si, 1997, p. 158) discusses the ultimately "super mineral commodities other than gold and silver. potent Anglo-American landscape," noting that: Potential export value was a driving force in ex- ploring unknown territories, and the imaginary The invading Europeans encountered in North map of English North America was the guide. America a varied set of genuine preexisting If, as Paul Groth (1997) has written, land- ethnic landscapes that were the result of many scape denotes the interaction of people and place generations of cultural revolution. We have as a source of shared meanings and cultural iden- only a hazy perceplion of what most of these tity, then the geological features of the land called places were like in visible, physical terms, and variously "Tsenacomoco," "La Florida," and for too many virtually no information at all. "Virginia" are integral to understanding its sig- nificance as a historical and cultural landscape. The motivation for Europeans, specifical- The Powhatans, Spanish, and English perceived ly the English who would reshape the Powhatan the landscape and its resources through their own landscape via their own physical actions and in- cultural lenses. Within the James River basin, a tellectual concepts, was possession. The motiva- complex chiefdom under Powhatan's father arose tion for indigenous peoples to offerthemselves as in the second half of the sixteenth century. His guides and informants is more complex. Believ- son would expand that chiefdom to an estimated ing their cooperation to be of short-term conse- 13,000 to 14,000 warriors, women, and children. quence (before the balance of power shifted), the The chiefdom cut a wide swath across all Tsena- Powhatan Indians stood to gain much more than comoco, the modern-day Coastal Plain of Virgin- they would lose. Trade for highly-valued copper ia, despite periods of conflict with the Monicans and high-technology goods such as metal tools, to the west and other tribes to the north and south. weapons, and cloth provided a prime incentive. It is unknown how many otherAlgonkians lived For the English, trade supplied short-term value to the south in today's North Carolina: Ralph in food and furs, but long-term value in informa- PUBLICATION 176 tion and eventual land ownership. Gregory No- Cruxent, 1995). In the Caribbean, placer min- bles (1989) pointed out that trade established Eu- ing was required to obtain gold and the Spanish ropean dominance. Meanwhile, New World Indi- used the indigenous natives as laborers (Kicza, ans exhausted goods and resources through trade 1992). Gold and cedar were factors in Spanish to the point that land itself or the use of it was ex- involvement in the Canary Islands beginning changed. However, as William Cronon observed, in the 1340s, along with slaving. Spain spread Indians "thought they were selling one thing European technology in ironworking, metal- and the English thought they were buying an- working and metallurgy throughout its empire, other" (Cronon as cited in Nobles, 1989,p. 646). and gold and silver from mines in Mexico and Strategically placed along major water- Peru fueled Spain's royal military operations ways in the Chesapeake region, the Powhatans and empire building (Hook and Gaimster, 1995). were self-sufficient and linked by trade and com- After 1513, Spanish exploration in the munications to other native populations. Howev- colonial Southeast did not yield the same results. o'native er, they could not accurately gauge land resources As James Axtell (1997, p. 5) noted, ru- and populations beyond their shores. This was the mors, wishful thinking, and obliging geohopical world and ethnic landscape irrevocably changed theories that planted gold and silver in tropical by the English, whose moral certainty and national and semitropical zones - wherever the Spanish needs propelled them forward. The consequences happened to land - kept the search alive, even of exploration and occupation by the English and in the faoe of daunting native opposition and other Europeans throughout the late fifteenth to unremitting emptyhandedness." One of the im- early seventeenth centuries would be irreversible. portant sources of scientific information on the New World was Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo Valdes, Royal Overseer to the mines in Hispa- AMINERAL COMMODITIES MAP OF THE fiola beginning in 1514. Oviedo was also roy- WESTERN HEMISPHERE ally commissioned to write a history of the New World. Some of his actions may indicate European explorers of the fifteenth already established patterns of colonial mineral through early seventeenth centuries were essen- exploration in the New World: trading with na- tially "pilgrims-for-a-price," seeking New World tives fbr mineral specimens (in his case, pre- knowledge and possession by divine right. As cious stones such as pearls and emeralds) and Michel Foucault stated in "Questions on Geog- writing extensively about natural resources, raphy," "Those seventeenth-cenfury travelers In the fifteenth cenfurli, Portugal, as a and ...... geographers were actually intel- maritime power, secured gold and slave profits ligence-gatherers, collecting and mapping in- from the Senegal region of Africa as Portuguese formation which was directly exploitable by mariners worked southward to the Cape of Good colonial powers, strategists, traders and indus- Hope in 1488 (Thornton, 1998). Spanish explor- trialists" (Foucault and Gordon, 1980, p. 75). ers mapped Florida and moved west questioning Much earlier European metallurgical the natives about precious metals. To the north, technology in the New World has been docu- Jacques Cartier had been sent by King Francis I mented through archaeological excavations at in 1534 and continued to explore New France, La Isabela, site of the 1493-1498 colony estab- which he may have named Canada in 1536. In lished by Christopher Columbus (Deagan and 1542, it was reported that Cartier had accumu- VIRGINIA DIVISION OF MINERAL RESOURCES lated eleven barrels of what he believed to be other peoples, whom we find beginning now gold ore (actually pyrite) and precious stones. to translate from them" (Rowse, 1959, p. 189). Rock crystal quaftz specimens were effoneously From the Middle Ages on, stone quarry- identified as diamonds, generating the expression ing technology in Europe laid the groundwork for "faux comme diamants du Canada" for anything iron technology and metallurgy. German miners false. In 1604, Samuel de Champlain acted on were already recognized and in demand across an account of copper mines in New France from Europe in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries another Frenchman, Captain Pr6vert of St. Malo, for mining gold, silver, iron, copper, lead, zinc, whom he met the previous year. Aminer, Mditre and tin. The predominant vocabulary for mining Simon, accompanied Champlain in his three- became German, underscoring how widely their week expedition with the instructions to keep technical expertise spread (Gimpel, 1977). Paral- hammer and chisel ready. During his trip around leling these earlier developments were advances part of the Nova Scotia peninsula, Champlain in navigation, cartography, physical science, and kept notes on natural resources and promising technology. At the same time, superstition and areas for settlement. Simon detected what ap- science blended to create an atmosphere that peared to be a silver mine at modern-day Mink has often been taken out of context but should Cove and an iron mine at Waterford. Both oc- be examined as a product of the times. While cuffences went into Champlain's reports. The alchemy and mystical theory were intercon- modern-day Advocate Harbor was named Port nected, active observation and experience led aux Mines by Champlain, who found both cop- to two major advances in mining and metallur- per and amethysts there (both are geologically gical literature in the sixteenth century born of verified). Champlain cut one large amethyst out the practical applications of metalworkers and of the rocks, broke it in two, and presented the other workers unknowingly on the frontier of two pieces to two of his noblemen investors. The chemistry and geology. As Cyril Stanley Smith investors accordingly set the stones in gold and wrote in his introduction to "The Pirotechnia of presented them to the king and queen ofFrance Vannoccio Biringuccio: The Classic Sixteenth- (Jones, I 986). In I 604, the French settled Quebec, Century Treatise on Metals and Metallurgy:" and in effect abandoned La Florida to the Spanish. As a by-product of their Atlantic explo- If the development of the chemistry of metals ration, Spain and France contributed substantial in this period was sloq this was a result of the information on mineral resources that can be ex- small number of men interested in such things, amined in the context of perception and reality, the lack ofencouragement they received, and and be compared for similar patterns of obser- the difficulties of communication with each vation and inquiry. In tum, English exploration other, increased by a certain reluctance to efforts show related consistencies that will be share knowledge of possible advanlage to a discussed in this chapter. Elizabethan scholar competitor. (Biringuccio 1540/1990, Gnudi A. L. Rowse wrote, "The awakening interest in Trans., xv) America, from the middle of the century had at first to feed upon translations, from Spanish, Georg Baueq better known by his Latin French, Latin. When the English began to go to name Georgius Agricola, was a practicing doctor Virginia themselves in the 1580's [sic], they were and professor who devoted himself to first-hand able in turn to contribute new information from observation ofmining andgeologyin some ofEu- PUBLICATION 176 9 rope's great mining centers. Before the publica- Biringuccio's instructions foreshadow the ex- tion of his treatise "De Re Metallica" (On the Na- tensive efforts of English explorers, coloniz- ture of Metals) and others, the knowledge needed ers, and mineral men (proSpectors) to engage for smelting metal was largely handed down from native people in information exchanges as father to son. Written in 1530 and published after the "ancient inhabitants" of Virginia. (Simi- Agricola's death in 1556, this would become the lar practices are still incorporated into' mod- standard text on mining for the next two centu- ern geologic fieldwork.) In the same way, the ries. The illustrations in "De Re Metallica" show call for direct observation suggests a separation methods of surveying and digging, assaying ores, from the supernatural aspects of alchemy, an smelting, and mining that were still credible when expression of natural history in development. Jamestown was founded. It demonstrates that the Virginia colonists and officials had access to or at least acquaintance with a well-developed ENGLAND ENTERS.THE SCENE body of knowledge connected with mining and metallurgy. Agricola's published work brought The sixteenth century began with Eng- mining and metallurgy from an arcane science land lagging behind other nations in mining and passed from father to son to a more universal- mineral development. HenTVIII recognizedthe ly understood and technically based discipline. need to develop lead and iron mining in Wales. The spread of these related ideas and informa- Because of the demand for brass and iron for tion had already rnade an impact on England's English artillery production, metal prospecting economy, defensibility and thirst for exploration. and the skill to smelt copper to make bronze for Agricola's first work on mining (1530) cannons were seen as vital by the crown. Ger- influenced the master Italian smelteq ironworker man technical skills were essential if England and mining engineer, Vannoccio Biringuccio. was to cease relying on the importation of copper He wrote "The Pyrotechnia" (1540) a treatise and gun-makers for manufacturing ordnance, or that became the first printed book on the metal worse, importing the cannons themselves (Rees, arts and metallurgy and a significant influence 1967). Queen Elizabeth I succeeded in import- on both until the end of the eighteenth century. ing German miners and metallurgists to recoin Eschewing necromancy as a dependable tool cuffency that had become debased, to train Eng- in mineral prospecting and metallurgy, Birin- lish workers on a higher level in mining and met- guccio advised the folloWing, which foreshad- allurgy, and to support organized monopolies to ows English mine-seeking efforts in Virginia: search for metals in her realm (Grassl, 1993). Under the Germans, industrial operations ...I1 is necessary to walk around, making were greatly expanded in England. New metal certain from the appearance of the signs (try- sources were found within the nation and min- ing to find as many as possible) and always ing operations went deeper into the earth than keeping eyes and ears furned to wherever ever before with more sophisticated technology there is hope of finding some information, - such as water pumps - available to English and especially toward shepherds or other an- Welsh miners. At the same time, English pro- cient inhabitants of the countryside. (Bir- moters, privateers, and explorers opened the inguccio 1540/1990, Gnudi Trans., p. 14) path to the New World. Among them were Sir Martin Frobisher and Sir Walter Ralegh, whose l0 VIRGINIA DIVISION OF MINERAL RESOURCES efforts foreshadowed English colonial ventures Elizabeth the monarch ruling over all its territo- after 1600. By 1568, two mineral development ries. He predicted that rich mines would be found monopolies had been formally incorporated: The as the English explored the northern reaches of Society of the Mines Royal and The Governors, North America and found a route to Asia. Merchants and Society of the Mineral and Bat- "Meta Incognita," or the Unknown tery Works (Grassl, 1993). The primary func- Shore, was Queen Elizabeth's name for the Ca- tion of the Society of Mines Royal was to mine nadian Arctic. Martin Frobisher explored this and smelt copper and lead ores. Joachim Gans, area during three voyages between l576to 1518. a German mineral specialist, did assay work for At first searching for the Northwest Passage, his the Society in 1581 before sailing to Roanoke in second and third voyages were part of a "gold 1585 (Grassl, 1993). rush" based on the misidentification of glittering In examining the cultural underpinnings particles in an ore sample. Howeveq of the first of mineral exploration and metallurgy, the role four assayers who tested pieces of the original of alchemy should not be underestimated. A1- stone sample, three correctly said that there was though it was simultaneously a philosophy of too little gold to warrant mining it (Ruby, 2001). the universe and an experimental science, the Major scientific and archaeological studies of transmutation of metals has become a histori- England's Arctic Colony have shown that the cal "sound bite" for a much larger and complex black hornblende ore found there also contained body of knowledge. Alchemists sought to satisfii biotite, a variety of mica, that gleams like gold "their material needs, their intellectual capacities, when oxidized or heated. and their spiritual yeamings" (J. G. Parr as cited Kamaiyuk, an Inuit village site near the in Marks and Beatty, 1975, p. 29). The essence Countess ofWarwick Sound, was an early contact of early alchemy was a belief that different met- site described in 1577 by Frobisher's lieutenant als represented stages of evolution as the metals George Best. Slag-encrusted crucible fragments "ripened" in the earth into the purest metal, gold. were among the artifacts found there. Kodlunam Physicians between the fifteenth and nineteenth Island, explored in 1577, was a base camp in centuries,used both cofilmon metals (zinc, tin, 1578. The island has yielded artifacts representa- iron, lead, manganese, and nickel) and precious tive of both blacksmithing and assaying activities or noble metals (gold and silver) as medicinal in- (Auger and others, 1995). Questions have arisen gredients. Astrology connected metals to parts regarding the field assay operation of 1578 as to of the body: silver, associated with the head, was why testing conducted before shipping twelve used as an ingredient in treating mental and cere- tons of ore did not prevent shipping it or at least bral diseases (Marks and Beatty, I975). raise doubts as to its worth. Possibly inadequate Dr. John Dee (1527-1608), like the times test results were generated when samples were he lived in" blurred the line between science and contaminated by the lead used to separate gold the supernatural. A learned geographer, math- and silver from the matrix. ematician, alchemist, and occultist, Dee was phi- The queen supported Frobisher's second losopher to Queen Elizabeth and taught Martin and third expeditions after one of several assay- Frobisher and other naval captains the mathemat- ers found promising amounts of gold in the ore ical art of navigation. In a 1577 proposal written samples. The second voyage in 1577 returned for the queen's Privy Council, Dee envisioned 160 tons of ore from one mine (the Countess of England's expansion as an empire with Queen Warwick Mine, on modem-day Kodlurnan Is- PUBLICATION I76 11 land) and resulted in the construction of the larg- similar expertise on a larger scale in the third. est blast furnace in England. The third voyage, It took more than two years to determine that a huge undertaking of 15 ships and 400 men in the ore was worthless, its gold content possibly 1578, conveyed almost2,000 tons of ore to Eng- linked to assayers either deliberately or inadver- land. tently introducing additives in the assay process One hundred forty-seven men were re- (Symons, 1999). Despite the resulting financial cruited as miners and would work seven mines disaster for investors, Frobisher was exonerated. of which only two, the Countess of Warwick He was knighted at sea as a naval commander and the Countess of Sussex (located in Frobisher during defeat of the SpanishArmada in 1588. Bay on a small peninsula), are firmly established English mineral exploration in the New (Hogarth, 1 983). Modern archeological evidence World continued under the auspices of Sir Wal- for assaying activity discovered on Kodlurnan Is- ter Ralegh, sponsor ofseveral voyages and colo- land includes scorched brick, broken crucibles, nizing attempts between 1584 and 1590 in what and partly fused rock. Hogarth presents other is now North Carolina. Ralegh followed in the documentation, including bills of lading for the path of his half-brother Sir Humphrey Gilbert, second and third voyages, showing detailed lists who was the first Englishman to promote active of mining equipment. colonization with discovery of gold and silver Frobisher's effort has often been margin- as a primary goal. Master Daniel the Saxon, a alized, much as colonial mineral exploration in mineral specialist and refiner from Saxony, was Jamestown has generally been dismissed. How- listed in the expedition, and English exploration ever, Smithsonian-sponsored geologic research chronicler Richard Hakluyt wrote that Daniel had by Donald Hogarth and others between 1981 and found iron and silver-bearing ore before perish- 1991 identified and documented over half of the ing in a storm at sea with his shipmates (Grassl, mine sites and provided interesting new data on 1993; Hakluyt 1906, as cited in Burrage, 1930). the true nature of the ore Frobisher described. Gilbert followed John Cabot's 1496 and 1497 Rather than iron pyrite, small flecks of biotite voyages to NorthAmerica with Bristol ships and mica oxidized among black hornblende crystals crews: Cabot, a Genoese, claimed the land he dis- when the ore was heated. Further, the ore does covered (northern New England) for the crown contain gold, but not in a concentration worth of England (Sauer, l97l). Sir Humphrey Gilbert mining. claimed Newfoundland for England in 1583 be- Extensive information, including lists of fore his frigate sank on the return voyage. Edward mining equipment taken on the second and third Hayes captained "The Golden Hind" for Gilbert expeditions, show that mining methods relied and made a report printed in 1589: "We were in primarily on crowbars, sledges, wedges, pick- number in all about 260 men...also mineral men axes, and manpower to excavate the hard rock and refiners..." (Wright, 1965, pp. 82-83). in open pits. The mines were simply abandoned In the field of exploration literature, Rich- whenever the rock proved too hard to excavate ard Hakluyt contributed a significant work, "The (Hogarth, 1983). Principal Navigations, Voiages [sic] and Dis- Technical support was provided by Eng- coveries of the English nation." Expanded later lish and Welsh miners and "goldfiners" (assay- in three volumes published in 1598, 1599, and ers), with two German metallurgists and a Lon- 1600, it includes an insight into Master Daniel don goldsmith in the second voyage and with the Saxon's job security: t2 VIRGINIA DIVISION OF MINERAL RESOURCES possibilities. Some descriptive terms he uses are Who after search brought at first some sort of unfamiliar in modern times: "Roche Allum," , O!", seeming rather to be yron then other met- (double sulphate of aluminum and potassium) tal. The next time he [Master Daniel] found "White Copresse," (protosulphate of zinc) "Ni- Ore, which with no small shew of contentment trum," (potassium nitrate) "Alumen Plumenum," he delivered unto the General, using protes- (plume or feather alum) and "Wapeih" ("very like tation, that if silver were the thing that might to terra sigillata," a clay), in addition to iron, cop- satis$r the Generall and his followers, there per, and silver (Hariot 1590, as cited in Quinn, it was, advising him to seeke no further: the 1991, vol. I,327-328). Hariot lists locations for perill whereof he undertooke upon his life (as all of the above and mentions that the "aforesaide deare unto him as the Crowne of England unto copper wee also founde by trialle to holde silver." her Majestie, that I may use his owne words) Also, ore tested "by the triall of a minerall man, if it fell not out accordingly (Hakluyt, 1906, as was found to holde yron richly" (Quinn, 1991, cited in Burrage, Ed. 1930). vol. I, pp. 331-333). Hariot also interviewed the a " natur all inhab itants " for information, noting that In 1584, Ralegh obtained a patent from "wapeih" had been refined and found by some of the Queen transferring his deceased relative our Phisitos and Chirurgeons to be of the same Humphrey Gilbert's land rights in North Amer- kinde of vertue and more effectuall" than Terra ica to him. Ralegh had aggressively sought out Sigillata, similarly discovered and earmarked as information and expert opinion for founding an a commodity by Jamestown explorers (Quinn, English colony in America (Milton, 2000). One 1991, vol. I, p. 328). of the most important intellectual assets and In "The Roanoke Voyages," David Beers friends he had was Thomas Hariot, the scientist Quinn analyzed Hariot's mineral commodities and mathematician who taught Ralegh's pilots observations according to the known geology of the navigation and mathematics skills needed to North Carolina. Quinn noted there was no alum reach the New World. in the coastal clays of North Carolina, although Bohemian mineral expert Joachim Gans iron and bog iron could be found in swamp for- was also instrumental in the quest for precious ests, and marshes and along the Roanoke and metals. Following Hariot's role as expedition Chowan riverbanks. According to Quinn, natural scientist, his seminal English contribution to the silver was also rare in eastern NorthAmerica and literature of New World exploration, "A Briefe he doubted that white copperas (protosulphate of and True Report of the New Found Land of Vir- zinc) had been located, although copperas (iron ginia" was first published in 1588 and printed sulphate) was possibly identified (Quinn, T99I; again in 1590 by Theodor de Bry with illustra- J.W. Miller, personal communication, September tions by John White. De Bry commissioned bot- 2,2004). anist Charles de I'Ecluse to translate it into Latin Proficient in understanding and speaking and French and more than seventeen printings Algonquin dialects with the native inhabitants of were made in the next quarter-century (Rowse, the Outer Banks. Hariot wrote of their interest in 1959; Hariot, 1972). Hariot gave valuable and English objects: detailed information on the flora, fauna and na- tive inhabitants of the Carolina Outer Banks, yet Most things they saw with us, as Mathemati- his perspective was keyed to the area's economic call instruments, sea Compasses, the vertue PUBLICATION 176 13 of the lodestone in drawing yron, a perspec- Lynnhaven Bay, and Cape Henry, and added im- tive glasse whereby was shewed many strange measurably to the English understanding of the sights, burning glasses, wildefire workes, New World both then and for future colonization gunnes, bookes, writing and reading, spring (Quinn and Quinn, 1995). clockes that seems to go of themselves, and Unlike many other expedition members many other things that we had, were so strange who came for adventure and wealth, Hariot and unto them, and so farre exceeded their ca- Gans methodically inventoried the region's natu- pacities to comprehend the reason and meanes ral resources,for England's benefit (and probably how they should be made and done, that they Sir Walter Ralegh as owner under the crown of thought they were rather the workes of gods these North America property rights). Similarly, then of men (Hariot, 159011972,p.27). Gilbert's assayer, Master Daniel the Saxon, had a portable assay fumace onboard the Delightbe- The supernatural element underlying fore it sank offSable Island, 300 km southeast of each of these culfures in the Contact period is Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. An assaying build- signifi cant to understanding the acclimatization ing was identified as part ofthe Frobisher expedi- then taking place. Although the learning curve tion archaeological project. Frobisher's assayer is not an adaptation of technology in the modem Jonas Schultz may have also brought a portable sense, first impressions of English "workes of assay furnace (Grassl, 1993, p. 87). These ac- gods" indeed changed as native people became tions point to systematic procedures in use by the more familiar with their use. At what points of English in mineral exploration on the frontier. cultural interaction did these native observers re- At Roanoke, Governor Ralph Lane de- alize that they could share in the power of such tailed available native information about potential objects, given the opportunity? At what point did minerals and mines of Chaunis Temoatan. where they separate supernatural authority from objects copper and gold might be found. Its inhabitants, of daily or specialized use? capable of smelting metal, lived in a province The exchange of information across cul- beyond the "Magoaks,'o who may have been an tures and subsequent intellectual and material Iroquian tribe living between the Roanoke and modifications is easier to trace from the English Chowan Rivers (Quinn, 1991). David Beers perspective. It is the dominant voice of coloniza- Quinn has theorized that Chaunis Temoatan, the tion and does not reflect the indigenous peoples' fabulous copper mine, may have been the stuff response. Although much of the data on natural ofnative legend, based on large exposed copper and human resources by Hariot has not survived, nodes found in the Appalachian mountain range his published report indicates a deep interest in near the Roanoke River basin (J.W. Miller, per- native culture and knowledge about the material sonal communication, September 2, 2004). world, as well as native beliefs. Geologist J. William Miller, Jr., profes- Expedition artist John White, scientist sor of environmental sciences at the University Thomas Hariot, and mineral expert Joachim Gans of North Carolina-Asheville, notes the presence accumulated written notes and drawings between of large copper deposits in the Appalachians July, 1585, and June, 1586. They mapped the re- to the west of the Roanoke River; however, he gion between the Neuse and James rivers as far knows of no such copper deposits near the Roa- inland as the head of the Albemarle Sound. They noke River basin. A11 of the copper production in traveled and wintered in modem-dav Norfolk- Virginia and North Carolina is from copper com- t4 VIRGINIA DIVISION OF MINERAL RESOURCES pounds (Sweet, 1989, p. 1-5), with no produc- all point to distilling and assaying by Hariot and tion coming from native copper (metallic copper Gans during the 1585-1586 colonization effort Cu, found in its elemental state), such as from the (Luccketti, personal communication, September Keewenaw Peninsula of Michigan (J.W. Miller, 23,2004,1ecture text 1998; Kelso, personal com- personal communication, Septemb er 2, 2004). munication, July 23,2004). It is likely that min- Such was the case at Jamestown. Initial ers and soldiers assisted metallurgist and mining testing of the ore was important to knowing the engineer, Joachim Gans, in his experiments and potential of promising ore deposits. In 1849, a explorations. However, the colonists' search for visitor reported finding "glass globes contain- gold in modern-day North Carolina was ill-fated. ing quicksilver and hermetically sealed" (Hume, Hariot criticized "the many that aftet gold and 1994, and personal communication, November silver was not so soone found, as it was by them 3, 2004). Sir Walter Ralegh described testing looked for, had little or no care of any other thing equipment used by his contemporaries: in "The but to pamper their bellies" (Hariot, 159011972, Creature in the Map: Sir Walter Ralegh's Quest p. 6) Although gold was not found in the seven- for El Dorado" Charles Nicholl (1995) includes teenth century in 1799 a l7-pound gold nugget Ralegh's account of surprising some Spaniards in was discovered in Carbamrs County near Char- Guiana. Ralegh described an Indian basket con- lotte, North Carolina, and the property where it taining a gold refiner's kit that was found aban- was found yielded an estimated $100,000 in gold doned in the bushes: "I found in it his quicksil- by L824. From the early-to mid-nineteenth cen- ver, salt-petre and divers things for the trial of tury the Charlotte area was the second leading metals." as well as the dust of "such ore as he had producer behind California of gold in the nation refined" (Nicholl, 1995, p. 57). with an average of one rnillion dollars annually According to William Kelso, who worked (Alexander, 2004). on the Roanoke excavation in the early 1990s, no Roanoke was not Ralegh's only quest for actual workshop site was found, only the crucible mineral resources. In 1595, Ralegh implement- fragments and distilling evidence. (Personal cor- ed a plan to exploit iron ore found on his Irish respondence, July 23,2004). On Roanoke Island, estates by mining it, licensing the building of a twentieth-century archaeological work uncov- smelting-works and the felling of timber for fuel ered earthworks and artifacts through the archae- (Nicholl, 1995). That year, Nicholl found, he also ological projects headed by Jean C. "Pinky" Har- led an expedition up the Orinoco River in Guiana rington and Ivor No61 Hume. Assay work was to look for El Dorado, the city of gold, writing conducted on Carolina ore on Roanoke Island as extensively of his findings and technical prepa- documented by over one hundred artifacts found rations. They sound remarkably similar to the (including crucibles, delftware drug pots, chemi- types of physical descriptions that John Smith cal glassware, worked and unworked coppeq and would make in Virginia, noting land topography antimony - used to separate silver from copper) and locations of soils, rocks, and minerals, or during the 1990s excavations led by Ivor Noel Hariot's observations on the Outer Banks. Ac- Hume. cording to the calculations of Ralegh's map, El ooeleven . Archaeologist Nicholas Luccketti, who Dorado lay on the banks of a lake days" also worked at the Roanoke excavation with march from the Orinoco River. In Spanish expe- Hume and Kelso, notes that these artifacts and ditions of the period, a day's march covered five similar materials recovered in earlier excavations leagues, equivalent to 15 miles. In his 1596 work t6 VIRGINIA DIVISION OF MINERAL RESOURCES settlement was Fort St. George on the Sagado- combined forces to prepare for the first voyage hoc (today's Kennebec) River. Gome Carew, to Jamestown, the travelers' agendas must have identified as one of the "Gentlemen of Quality" ranged from selfish to nationalistic with many and "the "Chief Searcher (for mines)," may have shades between. Expectations and experience been an alchemist. levels varied, but one constant may have been A map drawn onsite by one of the col- the "shopping list" of commodities authorities onists before the colony was abandoned in the expected to find. Such a specific list does not ap- fall of 1608 shows the presence, or plan foq a pear in Virginia Company documents, but shows blacksmith's house and possibly, an attached up indirectly between the lines of detailed de- workshop or forge. The Hunt map shows eigh- scriptions made by Archer, Smith, Strachey, and teen buildings, and if the Popham site is further others. References repeatedly made to Terra Si- excavated, archaeologists may leam how many glllata, Mastick, Alum, Salsa Perilla, and Bolus, were actually constructed (Brain, 2001). unfamiliar terms until one consults the "Oxford As a contemporaneous settlement to English Dictionary" for their seventeenth-cen- Jamestown, Fort St. George offers further under- tury meanings. Contemporary sources provide a standing of the English colonial mindset includ- roadmap to the use and value of these substanc- ing similar processes in mineral exploration. As es. In his 1612 "Historis," Strachey referred of the 2004 archaeological season, no artifacts to Dr. Lawrence Bohun, who came to Virginia have been identified as relating to metalworking in 1610 as the first physician appointed by the or refining. The Popham Colony leaders did not Virginia Company. In addition to his expertise mention the same kinds of activities and explora- in medical botany, Bohun may have directed or tions documented for Roanoke and Jamestown, suggested how the colonists proceeded to look but a December 1607 letter written to the Earl of for medicinal clays in the natural pharmacopeia Salisbury by Sir Ferdinando Gorges is part of ex- in which they found themselves (Stearns, 1970). tant correspondence relaying news of the colony. Such clays, ingested like a modern antidiarrheal, In this letter, Gorges assesses the "Kennebec col- could relieve debilitating diarrhea and were pre- ony" commodities, noting: "As for mettals, they scribed in England for such intestinal affiictions. can say nothinge, but they ar confidente there is Dr. Bohun discovered and named "krra Alba in the Contry if they had meanes to seeke for it, Wrginensis,'l a Virginia white clay that promised neither could they go so high, as the Allom mines poison expelling and absorbent properties that aq which the Sauages doth ashure them there would help pestilent and malignant fevers (Blan- is great plenty of' (Quinn and Quinn, 1983, p. ton, 1930). 448). lt appears that in both the Maine and Vir- Bohun was not the only forward-thinking ginia colonies, natives and colonists interacted physician connected in some way with James- concerning identification and location of mineral town and the London Company, Dr. Wyndham resources. Blanton explains. Among the medical men who were subscribers in the Company were Peter Turner, physician to Sir Walter Ralegh in the PRECONTACT TO CONTACT: Tower, John Woodall, author of "The Surgion's THE VIRGINIANS ANDTHE ENGLISH Mate," 116171and Thomas Hood, who traveled with Sir Walter Drake in his explorations. When English investors and adventurers In "The Admirable Secrets of Physicke PUBLICATION 176 tl and Chyrurgery" by Thomas Palmer in 1696 ticks were tree gums or resins used in the treat- (Forbes, 1984), a young Massachusetts practi- ment of dyspepsia, dysentery and gout. Terra tioner, other earlh-based materials are listed for Lemnia or Sigillata was "the sovereign minerall their healing properties. In the prevailing system against infections," according to a 1632 reference of the time, an illness under treatment fit into one in the "Oxford English Dictionary." An "Oxford of several categories of humours: a perceived hot, English Dictionary" 1802 reference continues, moist condition such as dysentery heart disease, "This earth {of Lemnos}...is called Terra Sigil- or gangrene would be treated with cool and dry- lata, being formed into small loaves sealed with ing cures, clay being a valuable curative. Bole the grand seigneur's seal, and thus dispersed Armoniac was red clay, with'obole" meaning a over various parts of Europe." Turkey, Armenia bolus or mass, mixed with other ingredients to and Italy were known for exporting Terra Sigil- treat "moist distempers of the heart," infections lata, Bole Armoniac, and Roach (Romish) Alum of the lungs, and even eye inflammations. Mas- respectively. The 162l expott value of similar ,1.}u a;) .h q* c\T,i!!i;'i:,.;;i;;: s '"r' '.(.Y 1-no-(..?'r _ __,/ ':;;;":r,;:.:2 sil kt: a '1> r &{axxr ,^tf j}{,* T" -r1;^l\l l-t- Grc| ;'r**;-{" b ****T -e- x8 t.;\! ;,tr} & ift:...; ?,/ 'dF l; Zz-qv-r- w -.,^ a \-l-- x-. "^ -4. , {^ 'E-. r :$$'\ - >...-. -l{ xr \\ - A.a {F{R i:;ti;-.-3 : , a /)A tr \_* / t4- '@ ci4r6- Figure 5. John Smith's "Virginia" was separately published in Londonin1612 and was also included in the Oxford publication of John Smith's A Map of Virginia: With a Description of the Countrey, the Commodities, People, Government and Religion [1612J (Courtesy of The Colonial Williamsburg Foun- dation). PUBLICATION 176 17 and Chyrurgery" by Thomas Palmer in 1696 ticks were tree gums or resins used in the treat- (Forbes, 1984), a young Massachusetts practi- ment of dyspepsia, dysentery and gout. Tera tioner, other earth-based materials are listed for Lemnia or Sigillata was "the sovereign minerall their healing properties. In the prevailing system against infections," according to a 1632 reference of the time, an illness under treatment fit into one in the "Oxford English Dictionary." An "Oxford of several categories of humours: a perceived hot, English Dictionary" 1802 reference continues, moist condition such as dysentery heart disease, "This earth {of Lemnos}...is called Terra Sigil- or gangrene would be treated with cool and dry- lata, being formed into small loaves sealed with ing cures, clay being a valuable curative. Bole the grand seigneur's seal, and thus dispersed Armoniac was red clay, with "bole" meaning a over various parts of Europe." Turkey, Armenia bolus or mass, mixed with other ingredients to and Italy were known for exporting Terra Sigil- treat "moist distempers of the healt," infections lata, Bole Armoniac, and Roach (Romish) Alum of the lungs, and even eye inflammations. Mas- respectively. The 162I export value of similar s;@!n'hr,!fet ety a.tL, oit, ,rt lk t,r-u 6ttt.;tr;hkb,i,iA t;y, trilr.LW )tnwt haf{ LL ,g#$ !3 Figure 5. John Smith's "Virginia" was separately published in London in 7672 and was also included in the Oxford publication of John Smith's A Map of Virginia; With a Description of the Countrey, the Commodities, People, Government and Religion [I6l2J (Courlesy of The Colonial Williamsburg Foun- dation). 18 VIRGINIA DIVISION OF MINERAL RESOURCES resources in Virginia included Mastick at three tive people lacked the tools, crafts, sciences, and shillings the pound; RedAllum, called Carthege- arts of the English , "yet in those things they do, na Allum, and also Roach Allum (alum or allum they show excellency of wit:'(Hariot 159011972, is potassium aluminum sulphate, an astringent), p.25). Another source, however, is invaluable. both ten shillings the hundred (Force, 1999, vol. Later English observers who, despite cultural IID. biases, provide important clues. These clues Smith's "Map of Virginia" (Figure showed how Powhatan technical processes and 5) demonstrates the link between geological preferences (particularly related to tools) would ..The observation and such commodities: change after 1607, when the first English settlers Colour of the earth we found in diverse places, landed on Jamestown Island. Before any contact resembleth bole Armoniac, terra sigillata and with Europeans or their trade goods, Powhatans lemnia, Fuller's earth [a variety of earth used in extracted the materials they needed from their cleaning and scouring woven cloth to remove immediate environment. and traded or traveled oil and grease] marle, and divers others such to obtain other natural resources they desired. appearances" (J. Smith as cited in Barbour, 1967, From the woods and water, they gathered stone, Vol. I, p. la5). In such statements, Smith and bone, shells, plant fibers, and wood, as well as other colonial reporters not only helped readers food to supplement the crops they grew. Skillful to connect through familiar cultural references, use of fire enabled them to char, scrape, and thus but also apprised them of Virginia's potential in modifu hard woods for woodworking. mineral resources. Copper has been recognized by modern The first permanent English colony in scholars and archaeologists as one of the orna- North America took hold through such commod- mental or exotic Indian commodities. Daniel ification and possession of the landscape, but Richter described copper as conferring rarity and what of the culture it displaced? In 1607 when great significance to those who acquired them, the English landed, they were in the midst of the esteemed in long-distance reciprocal exchanges, powerful Powhatan chiefclom of an estimated and found often as grave goods (Richter, 200I). 13,000 to 15,000 people, spread over some 6,000 Both Powhatans and the Indians of the Outer square miles of Virginia's coastal plain. It has Banks of North Carolina wore and valued cop- been designated through the centuries by the per, according to English explorers. These native birthplace name of its ruler Wahunsonacaugh, cultures lacked pyro-technology and the ability father of Pocahontas, and mamanatowick fttar- to smelt or cast metal. Thus, they did not devel- amount chief), of over 30 tribes. A portrait of op copper alloys for efficient metal weapons and the Southern Algonkians partially emerges from tools. For the Powhatan Indians, copper sources several sources: l) the documentation of English included native trade from the Great Lakes area. artist John White; 2) the accounts of early ex- European visitors, and later the Jamestown colo- plorers such as Thomas Hariot (both White and nists. In Virginia,most native copper is located in Hariot traveled to the Chesapeake Bay area as the Greenstone units in the Blue Ridge province part of the 1585 expedition to found the ill-fated west of the Monacan Indians in the western Pied- Roanoke Colony), and 3) modern archaeological mont province. Purest native copper has been evidence in Southeastern Virginia. In "A Briefe found in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia and True Report of the New Found Land of Vir- in the Dark Hollow mine (Madison County), ginia" (1590), Hariot wrote that although the na- Hightop mine (Greene County), and Allen mine PUBLICATION I7O t9 (Nelson County) (Sweet, 1989). Jeffrey Hant- English interaction in which a petty chief made man (1993) proposed in "Powhatan's Relations the claim that the Powhatans used native copper with the Monacan Indians" that the Powhatans in Monacan territory @igure 6). He also noted also utilized Monacan copper sources. In 1607, that whether the Monacans were miners, middle- colonist Gabriel Archer described a Powhatan- men in a copper trade chain, or both, copper was 5$ \ 0r0r|${l Milcs Brunbedr Cs c "t(' f I SLZ I - J-I CR Figure 6. Sites of burial grounds and archeological sites producing native copper (C) in the Virginia Piedmont, Blue Ridge, and Valley and Ridge provinces (from Rountree, 1993). 20 VIRGINIA DIVISION OF MINERAL RESOURCES spiritually and economically charged and impor- ack copper artifacts to the English. The chemical tant to Indian regional prestige (Rountree, 1993). analysis has helped to define copper trade and It is likely that the Powhatans shaped vein copper distribution in the Contact period. into tube beads and other desired forms by an- Although the colonists did not identifii nealing it, a simpler method that does not require the Powhatan Indians as miners, mining activity smelting (Heuvel and Veneziano, 1999). was observed elsewhere. To the north near the Vein copper, such as is found in the Great Potomac River, antimony was mined and washed Lakes region, is of purer quality and more mal- free of impurities by Patawomeck natives, then leable than ore copper. Studies of native copper traded as a commodity to other Virginia tribes as use and metallurgy in prehistoric northeastern decoration (Bruce, 1935). From the Blue Ridge North America by Amelia M. Trevelyan point to Mountains of Virginia, the Powhatan Indians a sophisticated and complex use of native copper gathered or traded for Catoctin greenstone (a me- for ritual use and a "copper elite." Data gath- tabasaltic stone) from the Blue Ridge Mountains ered in ancient mining works in the Lake Supe- to polish into celts for stone axes. They were rior region show that Precontact mining practices limited by a geologic shortage of stone and ore in were primarily governed by spiritual rather than the Virginia coastal plain they inhabited (Roun- economic considerations. Accumulated archaeo- tree, 1990). Steatite, or soapstone, was valued in logical evidence from hundreds of mines in the the Archaic Period for making vessels. After the Great Lakes region indicates that the miners were advent of pottery steatite was still used to carve capable of working and moving large masses of objects such as pipe bowls. Cutting tools ranged copper but generally worked only in small veins from those fabricated of easily obtainable quartz, Y+ to /2" deep, possibly for ritual reasons (Trev- q.uafizitq or deer bone to sharpened reeds and elyan,2003). shells. However, the material objects they made Copper's importance in the lower Chesa- were not static in use or design over time. As peake is also substantiated by archaeological evi- with other Indian cultures, they changed as the dence. The summer 2004 announcement of ar- Powhatan people's needs and desires changed chaeological findings at Kiskiack, the Powhatan within their own culture, and after prolonged Indian village site now surrounded by the Naval contact with English culture (Eglotr and Wood- Weapons Station at Yorktown, Virginia, has sig- ward, 1992). Keith Egloff, assistant curator with nificant implications for the study of copper us- the Virginia Department of Historic Resources age in the Chesapeake region. Archaeological and co-author of "First People: The Early Indians evidence from the Kiskiack context established of Virginia," has noted that changes in culture the presence of trade copper in Indian middens do not occur evenly. In comparison to religion, rather than native burial sites. This is possibly in- which normally changes slowly, or govemment, dicative of a major devaluation in copper's spiri- technology tends to change at a faster rate (Egl- tual and economic value among Powhatans once off, personal communication, June 1, 1999). an uncontrolled English copper trade glutted the It is clear from primary English sources native market, a trend previously presented by such as John Smith and William Strachey that the Seth Mallios and Stephen Potter (Blanton and Powhatans observed and absorbed the colonists' Hudgins, 2004). Advanced chemical analysis by uses of metal. The Powhatans' desire for metal Carler Christian Hudgins of copper artifacts from tools, firearms, and other trade items, together Jamestown and Kiskiack definitelv ties the Kiski- with the English desire for food and information, PUBLICAIION 176 2l fueled their early interaction with each other. good and as private trade and official trade in- Timothy Silver's conclusions in "ANew Face on flated the amount of copper within the Powhat- the Countryside: Indians, colonists, and slaves in an economy, its value diminished, affecting the South Atlantic forests, 1500- 1800," point to eco- chiefly hierarchy's prestige. As trade and interac- logical change not simply as an irrevocable re- tion continued, copper receded in importance. In sult of European arrival, but as a series of chang- his essay'NorthAmerican Natives Responses to ing cultural and economic relationships between Europeans: Romantic Versus Rationalistic inter- three successive cultures, Indian, European, and pretations," Bruce Trigger proposed that in react- African, and the land. Silver's "new face on the ing to Europeans, native groups eventually over- countryside," created by early colonization, was came an initial belief that Europeans possessed prefaced by native use of the land and changed supernafural powers and came to re-evaluate by the use of slave labor in South Atlantic agri- them as human beings with whom they would culture (Silvea 1990). trade and interact within recognized cultural The English desire for precious metals, perimeters (Kupperman, 2000). Karen Ordahl among other commodities, was matched by the Kupperman (2000) noted in "Major Problems Powhatans' equal desire for processed copper in American History" that desired trade goods among other trade goods. Amelia Trevelyan's evolved from those immediately recognizable analysis of English descriptions of Wahun- and useable within the native communities, i.e., sonacaugh (or Powhatan), his people, and the copper and beads, to those showing increasing ways they used copper suggests that copper was degrees of cultural adaptation, such as metal spiritually vital to their well being as a society. tools and cloth. An elite kin group led by Wahunsonacaugh in his It can be inferred that in addition to the role as priest and leader may have ceremonially guide services offered officially by the mamana- govemed the use of copper (Trevelyan, 2003). In towick Powhatan and his chiefs. other knowl- his article "Breaking into the Backcountry: New edge and technical transfers took place through Approaches to the Early American Frontier," interpreters (both English and native) and other Gregory Nobles maintains that the English elite cultural contact points, many involving metals sought to shape the frontier "to fit their social vi- and minerals as well as native flora and fauna. In sion and economic interests" (Nobles, 1989, p. "A True Relation," John Smith described a 1608 643). The dynamics of supplyanddemandexisted interaction in which "a Paspaheyan came to show on both sides, i.e. the metals valued by the Eng- us a glistering mineral stone and with signs dem- lish could enrich individuals as well as investors; onstrating it to be in great abundance like some similarly, Powhatan men and women of lower rocks" (J. Smith as cited in Barbour, 1986, Vol. standing than the chiefly class traded goods and I, p. 93). Smith and a dozen men accompanied services with sailors and other colonists without the Indian, whose behavior convinced Smith that sanction of their leaders (Potter, 1989). it was either a potential ambush or a trick to get Stephen R. Potter (1989) has theorized valuable copper. As a punishment, the suspi- that during the early Contact Period, the Algon- cious English leader displayed soms copper the quian chiefs or werowances attempted to control guide would have received had he been trustwor- the flow of trade goods from the English as they thy. Smith then "gave him twentie lashes with a did the flow of tribute from their own people. Rope, and his bowes and arrowes, bidding him Copper was perceived as a high prbstige trade shoote if he durst, and so let him goe" (J. Smith 22 VIRGINIA DIVISION OF MINERAL RESOURCES as cited in Barbour, 1986, Vol. I, p. 93). This ac- cal knowledge on geography, previous explora- count and another involving the Powhatan Indian tion, and technology accompanied the English to guide Namontack suggest other mineral-related Jamestown. cultural interactions took place. Both Ralegh and Hariot still lived, and During the kansition from the initial Vir- substantial exploration literature, most of it lost ginia gold rush to realizationof economic viabili- to modern scholars, was still probably read and ty through tobacco, expectations for commodities discussed by investors and officials connected and industry kept resources flowing to the colony to the Virginia Company's plans. In addition, from overseas. In his New England exploration, natives from Roanoke and later South America John Smith continued to make geologic refer- played a key role in providing a linguistic and ences pertaining to the land and its promise. De- information bridge when Ralegh took them back spite his oft-quoted comments about gold-related to England between 1584 and 1618. Alden T. activities in the early Jamestown colony, Smith Vaughan (2002) provided in-depth information continued to inform readers of potential mineral on as many as twenty natives (beyond the well- resources in his New England descriptions and known pair Manteo and Wanchese) who were noted that he was no alchemist. nor did he have a "gently" indoctrinated into English speech and "mineral man" with him to veri$z his identifica- customs by Ralegh and Hariot during Ralegh's tions of clays, stone and other mineral resources prime expeditionary phase. These natives subse- (Stearns, 1970). quently acted as expedition translators. Based on exploration literature circulating in Europe, the English could easily have believed THE JAMESTOWN STORY that finding precious metals or stones would re- quire little effort. Carole Shammas developed "But the worst was our guilded refiners this thesis in her 1978 essay on English com- with their golden promises made all men their mercial development and American colonization slaves in hope of recompences; there was no tal- between 1560 and 1620. She noted that anyone ke, no hope, no worke, but dig gold, wash gold, who had readatranslated account of Spanish col- refine gold, load gold..." (Smith as cited in Bar- onization in America might have assumed that a bonr,1967, vol. II, pp.247-248). It is tempting relatively small number of Englishmen could ac- to target this passage by John Smith as a condem- complish the same type of conquest and access to nation of mineral exploration in the colony and vast riches via a subdued native population. the ineptness of its organizers. However, taking A thorough reading of John Smith's writ- words out of context may alter their meaning ings (for both Virginia and New England) shows and significance. The colonial Virginia context his ability, like Ralegh's, to observe and analyze unfortunately has gaping holes due to loss of his physical surroundings for their mineral po- written English records and the lack of written tential. Smith was concerned with problems of documentation for the native population. Ana- provisioning and productivity. He was also con- lyzing context involves studying as much cred- cemed that local metallurgical testing, which he ible information as possible and also comparing was not allowed to observe, possibly for political circumstances and actions that appear to have reasons or artisanal secrecy, was inadequate. Per- similarities. The historical accounts previously haps gold fever might be overriding a more ratio- outlined show that an exceptional body of practi- nal approach to governance and exploration, both PUBLICATION 176 23 legitimate concerns. "'Were it that Smith would samples for trials by different assayers. not applaud all those golden inventions because Was anyone at Jamestown familiar with they admitted him not to the sight of their trials precious metals or mineral exploration? New- nor golden consultations, I know not. But I have port, married to the daughter of a goldsmith, heard him oft question with Captain Martin, and had previously invested in a ship with London tell him, except he could show him a more sub- goldsmiths. In 1596, he was part owner of the stantial trial, he was not enamoured with their privateer Neptune with prominent goldsmiths 'dirty' skill..." (Barbour, 1967, vol. lI, pp. 247- Francis and Richard Glenville, who were well 248). established in their trade and primarily interested Gold is concentrated as a product of vol- in gold, silver, and precious stones. Captain John canic or hydrothermal activity. Geologically, it Martin, who supervised metallurgical work at may be found as "free gold" inquartzveins, with Jamestown, was the son of England's Master of pyrite, or as gold that has been eroded and rede- the Mint. Bartholomew Gosnold, captain of the posited in sediments in placer deposits. Iron py- Godspeed in 1606, had explored "the North part rite (fool's gold) may have been present as small of Virginia" (the New England coast) in 1602, bils in the sand on river shores, discovered by the taking Captain Bartholomew Gilbert, a London colonists as they searched for mineral resources goldsmith and no relation to Sir Humphrey Gil- along the coastal plain of Virginia and toward bert, with him on the Concord. Having retumed to the Fall Line near Richmond and westward into England on the Susan Constant with a sample of the Piedmont (Sweet, personal communication, "gold" on29 July 1607 ,Newport brought back to August 14,2A04). Mica, in the form of biotite, Jamestowntwo goldsmiths (William Johnson and also may have been confused for gold. Despite Richard Belfield), a jeweler (Daniel Stallings), the efforts of German mineral men and gold re- and two metallurgical refiners (William Dawson finers from England, gold was not found for the and Abram Ransack) with the First Supply ship Virginia Company or the crown, which lay claim in January 1608 (Barbour,1967). Richard Dole to one-fifth of the gold and one-fifteenth of the joined James Read as the colony's second known value of copper discovered in Virginia (in the blacksmith. If the Frobisher expeditions can be first charter dated 10 April 1606). taken as models for mining logistics, then black- In the "instructions by way of advice" smiths would have been important for the repair given by the Council for Virginia, Captain New- of pickaxes and other tools used in Virginia. port and Captain Gosnold were charged with The subject of mines and miners appears taking 40 men upriver and into the surrounding again and again. Apassage that appears in John territory. Where high hills or lands were seen, Smith's "A True Relation" but none of his sub- Gosnold would then split with half the men and sequent writings describes mineral exploration six pickaxes to look for minerals. Should any with Captain Christopher Newport following exploration parties take native guides, they were Newport's return and resupply in January 1608: advised not to let them slip away, but take a com- "Captain Nuport in the pinnace leaving me in the pass and keep track of directional changes to barge to dig a rock where we supposed a mine avoid being abandoned and lost (Brown, 1993). at Cinquaoteck, .... which done, ere midnight I It should be apparent thatCaptain Newport's two arrived at Weroacomoco, where our pinnace an- early transports of "gilded dirt" to England, like chored, being 20 miles from Cinquaotecke" (Bar- Frobisher's or Ralegh's, returned large testing bour,1967, Vol. I, p.77-18). Virginia Company 24 VIRGINIA DIVISION OF MINERAL RESOURCES instructions of May 1609 directed that Virginia rying process could have taken place several fleets return with valuable commodities from ways in the colony: by boat, using long-handled other countries, tribute, and exports such as iron scoops, or by mining with picks and shovels in and steel from the Virginia colony such as steel swamps and low-lying areas. Bog iron was pro- and iron. cessed to make chisels that Smith describes, and In 1610, George Percy reported there was may have been in two barrels of iron ore samples a conspiracy plotting among "some of our men he sent back to the Treasurer and Council of Vir- which wrought in iron mines to run away with ginia as a result of his explorations. a bark la shipl" (Haile, 1998, p. 5ll). The plot An expedition led by Captain Christo- was unsuccessful. While it seems to confirm the pher Newport after his return with the Second presence of iron mines, this account does not Supply in autumn 1608 went from the Falls mention what type of mining was taking place, (near modern-day Richmond) to the boundaries and no sources have yet confirmed or denied that of the Powhatan/Monacan territory (near mod- colonial miners worked in underground shafts ern-day Columbia and Fork Union) where the in Virginia, although the process of mining was James and Rivanna Rivers come togetheq then well-known in England. back to Jamestown. Smith, then President, was William Strachey (1609) refers to "div- not a member of the expedition but described it ers sorts of minerals, especially of iron ore ly- in "The Generall Historie," "in our returns we ing upon the ground for ten miles circuit," which searched many places we supposed mines, about would make surface mining a distinct possibil- which we spent some time in refining." Smith's ity (Stratchey as cited in Haile, 1998, p. 442). "Virginia" map shows both areas he explored and The eighteenth-century "Diderot Encyclopedie" those known to him only "by relation," identified (I762-1177) illustrates techniques of superficial by Maltese crosses (Barbour, 1967, Yol. II, pp. and deep mining in Europe, as well as quarrying 184-185). and transport of minerals "found in earth and in In 1609, an ocean away in Ireland, iron water" that may have been similar to those colo- ore had been found in abundance and London nial authorities hoped to implement. agents were already assessing where and how the The colonists discovered bog iron (limo- ore was deposited (in mines, bogs, basalt quar- nite or other iron-cement-sand deposits) as they ries and other sites) and took samples of ore, searched for mineral resources along the coastal iron, and steel back to English authorities. By plain of Virginia and toward the Piedmont. In 1612, an estimated one hundred tons of Virginia "James City County, Keystone of the Common- iron had been shipped to England with Captain wealth" (1997), author Martha McCartney relates Christopher Newport and smelted into 16 to 17 an account by agronomist Edmund Ruffin in the tons of useable iron. ln 1612, William Strachey mid-nineteenth century concerning his visit to made note of an iron mine that Sir Thomas Dale the Stonehouse, a stone structure then in ruins. described in his letters to the lords of the Council. Its walls (two feet wide in the basement, eighteen However, a mine could also represent shallow inches above) were constructed of femrginous pits in the ground or swampy areas where bog sandstone (limonite or bog iron with carbonate iron was dug up. The initial gold rush at James- inclusions) found in abundance nearby. Because town seemed to subside as other challenges con- bog iron was readily accessible along rivers and fronted the colonists. The second wave of ex- in bogs, and exposed in eroding cliffs, the quar- ploration began after Thomas West, Baron de la PUBLICATION 176 25 Wan, arrived to renew the colony in 1611. Lord Watson reported deposits from Front Royal south de la Warr's push toward the fall line to search in Warren, Fauquier, Rappahaonock, .Madison, for gold, silver, and the South Sea is well docu- Page, and Greene counties. Amherst County was mented. Through his perseverance, a fort was noted for old openings as "the endeavor of earlier constructed near the Falls, marking English in- explorers to find workable deposits" and in the tentions to explore beyond the Blue Ridge. Blue Ridge, "copper deposits have been known In "The Historie of Travell in Virginia to exist...since the earliest settlements." Watson Britannia," William Strachey noted, "These wa- also wrote, "the native copper of the region prob- ters wash from the rocks such glistering tinctures ably furnished the Indians with the metal from that the ground in some places seemeth as gilded which their ornaments and axes were made" where both the rocks and the earth are so splen- (Watson, 1907, p. 503). dant they contained more than probabilities. Sure In his "Historie of Travell," William it is that some minerals there have been found" Strachey noted "We do alreaddy heare the In- (Wright and Freund, 1953, p. 34).The region dians talk both of Allum-Mynes and copper to Strachey described 40 to 50 miles beyond the the South-ward, where hath bene sufficient tyme Fall Line is in the heart of the gold-pyrite belt for digestion, all which we must submitt to more between modem-day Columbia and Fork Union, cliere Discoveries" (Wright and Freund, 1953, Virginia. Here, a sizeable number of gold depos- p. 40). Strachey also wrote of the "Bocootaw- its and occulrences were mined in the nineteenth wonaukes," or a people so called by Powhatan, and twentieth centuries. Previously, Christopher living north of the Falls and northeast beyond the Newport had explored in the same area as far as Monacans. According to Stratchey, Powhatan Rassawek, an Indian villaee located near Fork said that they "doe likewise melt Copper and Union. other mettells; how true we must leave to further In 1729, in what is now Woodbridge, discovery." Strachey wrote that the "Boocootaw- Prince William County, "King" Carter built a winnauke are said to part the sollideMetelle from landing to ship copper ore at Occoquan (Sweet, the stone without fier, bellowes or additament, 1985). In 1733, the Slith Mine located in Meck- and beat yt into plates, the like whereof is hardly enburg County was worked for copper, gold, and found in any other parte of the world" (Wright silver by one miner and two helpers. In 1836, and Freund, T953, p. 132) In defining the bor- William Barton Rogers reported that virgin cop- ders of Powhatan's domain, Strachey wrote "... per had been reported in many parts of the Blue and west-ward he Commaundes to Manahas- Ridge in thin veins and small masses, and small sanugh, which standes at the foot of the moun- samples picked up (Rogers, 1884, p. 134. Wat- taynes, from Chesapeak [perhaps modern-day son also reported in 1906 that "the ores ofcopper Charlottesvillel or the mouth of our Bay 200 have wide distribution over the State, although myles: Nor-west, to the borders of Masssawo- there are at present but few producing mines," mech and Bocootawwonaugh: Nor=east and by with deposits in the Piedmont, the Blue Ridge, east to Accohanock, Accomack,.and some other Southwest Virginia, and in Loudoun and Culpep- petty Nations, lying on the East syde of our Bay" per counties. (Wright and Freund, 1953, p. 35-36). Beyond In North Carolina, copper was mined. as the Bocootawwonaukes at 44 degrees latitude, early as 1856 in Person County and in the 1800s Strachey wrote, of the country called Pamaquid, and 1890s in Granville County. (Watson,.1907). in which "our westerne Colony (vpon the River 26 VIRGINIA DIVISION OF MINERAL RESOURCES of Sachedehock) [Fort St. George, or the Popham tion of their people. Colony, on the Sagadahoc River in modern-day While the factors outlined above are es- Maine] was sometyme planted" (Wright and sential to understanding the limitations of colo- Freund, 1965, p. 35). It is tempting to link the nial mineral exploration, there may be a third: Boccotawwonaukes and Monacans to Virginia interactions between the English and the Powhat- Indians mining and smelting copper, however, ans, as noted in the previous chapter, that have the Powhatans, like their English counterparts, been overlooked. A case in point is the Powhatan were stymied in comprehending the true geo- warrior Namontack, who was cited by Strachey graphic distances involved in their descriptions as the discoverer of a mine within six miles of to the English. Strachey's descriptions show that the head of the Falls. Significantly, the colonists in the second decade of English occupation, the named the mine for Namontack, an action out of colonists continued to observe their environment keeping with the English desire to honor their and question the Virginia natives about it. own with place names. John Smith mentioned In "Marvelous Possession: The Wonder of that Namontack was a guide on several occasions the New World," Stephen Greenblatt emphasizes for him and for Christopher Newport. Irishman that the critical cultural difference between Euro- Francis Maguel's 1610 account may exaggerate pean and American peoples was the presence or in speaking of "many iron mines (to work which, absence of writing, and that this difference virtu- as well as to work other metals they have already ally determined the outcome of their encounter." erected there some machinery [mi11s]," his de- Greenblatt goes further to discuss the technology scription of sailing to England with the 'oson of of symbolism (Greenblatt, T99l). As part of the the emperor" fits with Namontack's sailing to process of possessing Virginia, English colonial England with Christopher Newport on 10 April implementation of representational technology 1608 and arriving there on 2l May 1608 (Haile, as manifested in their maps and writings was an 1998, p. 451). The Indian warrior retumed to inevitable factor in the conquest of Virginia. A Virginia with Newport in September 1608 (Ma- map's accuracy and measurement of geographic guel as cited in Haile, 1998, p. 451). space were dependent on agreed-upon units of When Newport met with Powhatan after measurement and territorial limitations. Mem- his return to the colonies, he requested additional bers of different cultures with different concep- men and guides for an expedition to Monacan tions of time and space could probably agree territory. Powhatan refused to supply anyone on the amount of ground or water that could be other than Namontack. Refiner William Callicut covered in a day by foot; howeveq hostile forces had arrived, possibly on Newport's Second Sup- could prevent them from veriffing accounts of ply in September 1608 with Namontack. Calli- the peoples and places beyond their safe zones. cut accompanied Newport, the colonial council Smith, Strachey, and colonial authorities would members, five appointed leaders, and 120 cho- have liked to range freely beyond the mountains sen men in the search for mines. According to of "Britannia," but depended on native informa- Smith, he conducted mineral trials on location, tion in that era. Howevet the Powhatans were claiming to extract a small amount of silver ore. limited by the perimeters of their territory or safe Strachey also described two other silver mines zone. Even under ideal communications condi- midway between two Monacan villages 14 miles tions, Powhatan leaders may have restricted or apart: one with ore located only 2 to 3 feet into redirected revealing disclosures for the protec- the sround and the other attested to by the Swiss PUBLICATION 176 21 a lron @ Copper * Lead Gold K Soap stone 1612'1 ;Iortl Creek lron Works -w€ Figure 7. Locations of early colonial settlements and select, relatively recent, mineral-mining extraction sites. Mineral-resource locations from Virginia Division of Mineral Resources files and databases. William Hendrick Faldoe. Was there actually any silver? There are When Faldoe retumed to England with several possibilities. Weathered muscovite looks Captain Newport, the mineral man's assurances similar. According to Virginia Division of Min- persuaded London Company authorities to put eral Resources geologist John Marr, it is possible him under contract. However, in 1610 Faldoe there may have been a very small amount of sil- died with the silver mine's location still secret. ver in the alluvium near Richmond. Records of John Smith related the story of Valdo or Voldafy] mining operations inVirginiadate from 1829 and or Faldoe, concluding his account that with Fal- show that silver was produced from both quartz doe's return with Lord de la Warr, having been and copper ores (Marr, personal correspondence, "found a meere Imposter he dyed most miser- October 22, 1999). In 1904, eleven counties in ablf'(Smith as cited in Barbour, 1967, Vol. II, Virginia contributed to the production of gold and p.226). Strachey reported that Lord de la Warr silver (Figure 7). Silver was located in quafiz had shown him a Portuguese map in which "our veins associated with gold in both Montgomery seat is laid out and in the same two silver mines and Floyd Counties on the west side of the Blue pricked down" (Stratchey as cited in Wright and Ridge Mountains and at the southeast base of Pi- Freund, 1953, p. 31). lot Mountain (Watson, L907, pp. 564-565). As 28 VIRGINIA DTVISION OF MINERAL RESOURCES of 1976. the Division of Mineral Resources had ties (APVA) Jamestown Rediscovery staff, over noted 40 mines in Virginia that reported the pres- 60,000 are geologic materials. The number of ar- ence of silver in varying amounts (Sweet, 1967). tifacts continues to rise as the excavations contin- Additional silver mines, prospects, and occur- ue. According to project curator, Beverly Straube, rences have been found since 1976 (Sweet and apart from native stone tools and flakes, there are Trimble, 1982), Linden and others, 1985), and other lithics found in the colonial contexts that (Sweet and Lovett, 1985). represent local cherts and sandstones, English Comparison of historical events and geo- flint and chalk, Bermuda coral and limestone, logic documentation reveals that limitations born and samples of volcanic rock (Straube, personal of territorial hostilities, technology and unfore- communication, March l, 2005). One explana- seen events were factors in their perceived fail- tion for the presence of these specimens is that ure to locate precious metals. One such factor the mineral men or prospectors were collecting was de la Warr's ill health and his withdrawal examples wherever they landed or explored. A from Virginia in 16l I , removing one of the ma- collection of semi-precious stones was found in jor proponents of mineral exploration. Although the fort's pre-1610 fill of Structure 165. In 1611, the ailing Governor for life attempted to retum Thomas Dale wrote: "And at the Falls, I cannot to Virginia in June 1618, he died during the voy- onely testifie of corne, but of all probabilities of age. From that time on, the priority gradually mines, when - our tyme shall serve (which may moved to exploitation and manufacturing of iron, not be yet) and where I gathered many scattered continuing activity near the Falls. Yet in Don Di- pieces of Crystall" (Brown, 1993, p. 505). ego de Molina's letter to Don Alonso de Velasco The ongoing archaeological discoveries dated 28 May 1613, Molina wrote: centered in the fort site on Jamestown Island indi- ...They have discovered some mines which cate the presence of industrial activity almost 400 are considered productive, altho'they have not years ago. As at Roanoke, the crucibles and dis- yet been able to benefit much by them, until tilling equipment in the National Park Service's they shall be well established here. There are Colonial National Park collection are indicative great expectations of what they will find in the of metallurgical testing. Related finds include: mountains in great abundance; so say the In- evidence of iron smelting (Structure 111); brass dians and offer to show the places which they measuring scales (Refuse Pit 1); bog iron samples know They say at the headwaters of the rivers, and quartz crystal (Kiln area); beaker fragments after they have some forth from the mountains, and a small vial (Refuse Pit 1); and coral and fos- there is a great quantity ofgrains ofsilver and sil pieces along with a small crucible (Structure gold; but as they do not attach any value to 12S). A seventeenth-century alembic was found them, but only to copper which they esteem at Martin's Hundred during excavations from very highly, they do not collect them. Until 1976 to 1980 (Hume,1982). William Kelso and now these men have not been able to go out his staff of archaeologists have excavated other to discover them, however eagerly they may pieces of distilling equipment of the type used by Jamestown desire it...(Brown, 1993, vol.II, p. 6aQ. refiners in the fort context at APVA These artifacts, among them cru- Of over 700,000 prehistoric and historic Rediscovery. vessels, alembics, and cucurbits, period artifacts uncovered as of March 2005 at cibles, distilling described at length in publishedAPvA the original location of James Fort by the Asso- have been Rediscovery reports over the last ciation for the Preservation of Virginia Antiqui- Jamestown PUBLICATION I7b 29 eleven years (Kelso and Straube, 2004). As this tion (Mouer and others, 1992,p.163). project uncovefs more and more evidence of con- It is possible that related activities, includ- certed efforts in industrial activity and trade, old ing refining and mineral exploration, were taking concepts of colonial ineptness and lack of plan- place in the satellite settlement areas as authori- ning are losing credibility. An interesting paral- ties continued to press the search for mineral re- lel is the discovery of drug jars and butter pots at sources in Virginia. That hope, a driving force in a number of seventeenth-century sites including colonization, was destined not to disappear but to The Maine, Jamestown, and Jordan's Journey. be realized over the next four centuries. In a let- A period brass image of a Forest of Dean miner ter dated 16 April 1630, Sir John Harvey wrote to in the Newland Parish Church in the Grayndour Secretary DorchesteE "I intend about September, Chantry Chapel shows him wearing a leatherbag when the heate is over" to travaille about 8 or 9 on his belt to hold such medicinal ointments or dayes journey above the falls to inform myself tools. truly whether there be anie such silver mine as is At Jordan's Journey, the outlying settle- or hath been commonly reported or not." Winter ment in modern-day Henrico County, archaeo- cut short Harvey's planned expedition with 170 logical evidence included bog iron chunks, cru- men (Bruce,1935, vol. I, p. 82). A later attempt cible fragments, and rocks listed as "non-local" with fifty men to look for gold and silver was by the archaeologists (Mouer and others,1992). made by Colonel Edward Hill without official A2004 examination of the artifacts stored in the approval twenty years later, proving that expec- collections at the Virginia Department of Historic tations still ran deep. Resources in Richmond, Virginia, by geologist Palmer Sweet did not include the so-called exotic or non-local rocks, as they were not available. In THE SIGNIFICANCE OF FALLING CREEK the 1992 preliminary report on archaeology pre- pared by L. Daniel Mouer and his colleagues, they The evolution of mineral exploration and noted that among the "more humble, but highly mining technology in colonial Virginia should be intriguing" artifacts were several pounds of rocks compared to overall patterns of cultural transmis- (micaceous schists and gneisses from the West- sion and adaptation. Martin Quitt's 1988 study ern Piedmont) filled with glittery materials like of cultural evolution over space and time showed biotite and pyrite. They concluded that these ar- how immigrant leaders inVirginia fusedtheirEng- tifacts represented ore samples abandoned in site lish background and response to new surround- trash pits. Further, the team wrote: ings to create alegacy to succeeding generations And yet they reveal either the presence of an of their families (Quitt, 1988). Joanne Bowen, extensive Indian trade in potential ore sources, Cary Carson, Willie Graham, Martha McCart- or else the presence ofEnglish prospectors in ney, and Lorena Walsh addressed the mutability the Piedmont fully 30 years or more before any of culture at "The Atlantic World and Virginia, are historically known to have traveled there 1550-1624" conference in March 2004. They (excepting, of course, Newport's 1608 expedi- proposed that seventeenth-century Jamestown tion to the Monacans). At the very least, we and Virginia reflected an adaptive process going need careful and expert geological identifica- on throughout the Western Hemisphere: "Atlan- tion ofthese materials so that we can determine tic world scholarship has broken through to the the extent of this trading network, or explora- important realization that cultures are made and 30 VIRGINIA DIVISION OF MINERAL RESOURCES continually remade on location, not born at home find minerals and to further prove the existence and cloned abroad" (Bowen and others, 2004). of iron mines in the colony. Among the setbacks The colonists learned by trial and error how to was an attempt by some of the men, including exploit the ecological environment of Virginia. blacksmith James Read, who "wrought in iron As noted previously, the Irish spy Francis Miguel mines to run away with a bark." When de la made unsubstantiated claims about Virginia. He Warr sent another expedition toward the Falls, testified to the Spanish that in the first three years they were lured on shore by natives who then at- of Jamestown, English settlers had erected ma- tacked them, leaving only one surviving expedi- chinery to work the iron mines. Miguel claimed tion member. In another attempt, the governor to have carried, from a Virginia mine to England, sent a group of men ahead to the Falls to build a an 8O-pound sample that contained "the weight fort, winter over and continue mineral explora- of three reales [the Spanish sixpence] of gold, tion the following spring, but sickness, scarcity, of five in silver, and of four pounds of copper." and severe Indian attacks were discouraging. The (Miguel as cited in Haile, 1998,p.449). final blow was de la Warr's retum to England in The second major wave of English colo- March 1611 due to ill health with Dr. Lawrence nial mineral exploration occurred after the Starv- Bohun. Sir Thomas Dale took up the cause and ing Time of 1610, when Lord de la Warr arrived "hath mentioned in his letters to the lords of the as governor to restore and renew the debilitated council of a goodly iron mine" (Bruce, 1935, Vol. colony. In a letter from Virginia Council mem- I,pp.445-446). bers to the Corporation of Plymouth in February William Strachey reported that in 1610, 1608, Thomas Smith, Edwin Sadness and others Captain Samuel Argall found "a Mlme of Anti- requested a ship and supplies to support a large mony, which (as aforesaid) never dwells single, supply of 800 men under Lord de la Warr. The but holdes assured legue with Quicksilueq as Council members had already entreated William likewise a myne of Lead" among the Patawom- Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, to impress one hun- ecks (Wright and Freund, 1953, p. 132). When dred mineral and laboring men from the Cornish tobacco began to emerge as Virginia's o'green" tin mines for the voyage in his capacity as lord gold after 1613, the structured search for pre- warden of the stannaries " (Quinn and Quinn, cious metals declined. Both human and econom- 1983). According to the Oxford English Diction- ic resources were increasingly redirected. The ary stannaries were the districts comprising the period from 1606 to 1622 shows a learning curve tin mines and smelting works of Cornwall and related to mines, minerals, and metallurgy. Co- Devon formerly under the jurisdictions of the lonial authorities gradually shifted from finding Stannary courts; also the customs and privileges a quick profit in gold and silver to launching na- attached to the mines. The Govemor would in- tive iron manufacturing as an important colonial deed send an expedition to search for mines above industry. Diego de Molina was reputed to have the Falls, "but the Indians were very troublesome shown the King of Spain a piece of silver he ob- and no mines were found" (Tyler, 1998, p. 39). tained through some means while in Virginia and Lord de la Warr also "nominated Captaine John repeated news of a silver mine discovered there Martine, Master of the Battery workes for Steele and reported in London in June 1618 (Hume, and Iron" (Brown, 1993, Vol. I,p.469). 1994). In his "A trewe relyacorl " Percy de- Between 1618 and 1619. records of the scribed aspects of the govemor's dual search to Virginia Company reflected this goal. Falling PUBLICATION 176 31 Creek provided a waterpower supply and avail- year after the 1622 uprising, the Virginia Com- able timber suitable for an iron works and blast pany made more modest plans for a bloomery. furnace, and ships could be used to transport both In 1623, Jamestown had at least one blacksmith, ore and processed iron along the James River. James Blisse, and the King's Prir.y Council had Between 1619 and l62I,Yirginia Company offi- created a commission to investigate the Virginia cials made ambitious plans. By 1619, 150 work- Company and colonial conditions. The short- ers had been sent under a Captain Blewett to set term destiny of mineral exploration, mining and up three iron works, coming from Warwickshire metalworking - as well as the Jamestown freight and Staffordshire (about 110 workers) and Sussex wharf or pier - seems to be reflected in this de- (about 40 workers), ':aU framed to lron-workes" scription in "Statements of Seamen as to Con- (Force, 1999, vol. III, p. l3). Despite the death ditions in Virginia" between April and June of of Blewett and other specialists from disease and 1623, which demonstrates significant changes the death at sea of more chief ironworkers en had occurred at Jamestown. route, another 20 workers were planned for the Armours, swords, musquets, truncks and such operation in 162I under Blewett's replacement, like goods, lye a fortnight together uncared for, John Berkley. Those workers included found- everie tide beeing overflowed with water and ers to cast the metal, filers to smooth it, refiners, the trunks readie to be swallowed. Lilkewise blacksmiths, and auxiliary workers like carpen- Iron bars and sowes of Ledd, and milstones and ters, traders, and servants (Egloff, 1989). Expec- Grinstones and Iron furnaces, lye right against tations rose for a nearby shipbuilding operation, the same places sunk and covered with sans, with the blast furnace was scheduled to begin the water dayly overflowing them (Kingsbury, operations on Good Friday, 22March 1622. On 1935, vol. IV p. 93) that day, only two children escaped out of twen- In the 15 years between the English ar- ty-nine (including residents twenty-five men, rival in Powhatan territory and the destruction of two women), and the iron production facility the long-awaited, but uncompleted, blast fumace, was reportedly part destroyed as of the uprising there was an ebb and flow to expectations of min- against the English (Higgins and p. others, 1995, eral wealth from precious metals and stones, as In E. oolronworks 6). N. Hargus's on the Saugus" has been shown. Concurrently, an iron-making (Hargus, 200I), the author suggested that if the industry in Virginia was moving forward, halting- blast furnace were in operation, its total demoli- ly at times, with exaggerated claims often over- tion would be a considerable native achievement. shadowing less dramatic realities. Yet in 1650, a According to the 1994 archaeological findings, colonist still wrote: "Here are abundance of Iron some auxiliary buildings might not have been Mines/here bee silver and gold mines but they completed or even under construction at the time cannot bee found out/other mines I know not" of the attack. (Upchurch, Ferrar Papers, document #1182). A Throughout the colonial period, the Pow- succession of iron furnaces followed in the early hatans exchanged food and information for cop- 18ft century and by 1836, the Tredegar Ironworks per and metal tools and absorbed metal and steel was established in Richmond, operating during into their culture. Fear that English trade in iron the War Between the States and producing fifty would strengthen Monacan power may have ac- per cent of the Confederate cannons. Despite a celerated the calculated Powhatan attack on the decline after the war, it remained in service un- blast furnace and the colony as a whole. The til destroyed by fire in 1892. Falling Creek was 32 VIRGINIA DIVISION OF MINERAL RESOURCES the forerunner of these ironworks, and deserves natural resources was valued and recorded by the further study for its impact both positive and English in the early colonization period because negative on the colonial ironworking industry in it enabled them to use the environment for their Virsinia. own benefit and adapt to it at a faster rate. How- ever, David Beers Quinn concluded that from the European perspective, the earliest accounts of the CONCLUSIONS New World were "if often naTve, the least biased" (Quinn, 1990,p.17). As he wrote in "Explorers Ralph Hamor entreated his countrymen and Colonies: America, 1500-1625," "Clearly, in his "A True Discourse of the Present State of almost every source ought to be looked at again Virginia" to hearken unto Caleb and Joshua of and with amany-faceted approach. Already we the Bible, saying, "Let us go up at once and pos- appreciate better than we did the significance of sess it, for undoubtedly we shall overcome it." data on natural history contained in the early ex- (Hamor as cited in Haile, 1998, p. 840). In "A ploration documents" (Quinn, 1990, p. l4). In New Face on the Countryside: Indians, colonists, the 1620 Virginia Company records, a valuation and slaves in SouthAtlantic forests, 1500-1800," of the commodities "growing and to be had" in- Timothy Silver ( I 990) concluded that Indian sub- cluded the following Virginia mineral resources: sistence patterns, as opposed to their own "God- Iron, ten pounds the ton; Red earth Allenagra, given" and proper use of the land, convinced three shillings the hundred; Red Allum, called colonists that they were justified in organizing CarthegenaAllum, ten shillings the hundred, and and transforming the colonial landscape. In con- Roach Allum, called RomishAllum, ten shillings trast to the Spanish empire in America, the Eng- the hundred. Alum springs were later identified lish colonists were prepared to mine for gold and in Rockbridge, Bath, and Rockingham counties precious stones themselves instead of using na- (Rogers, 1884). Instructions for shipping speci- tive labor as Martin Frobisher's second and third fied "Cristall rocke: send as much as you can, expeditions proved before Jamestown's founding and any sort of Minerall stones, or earth that (Andrews and others, 1978). Although there is weighs very heavy" (Kingsbury, 1935, vol. 3, p. some evidence that Powhatan Indian knowledge 238). What this list tells us 400 years later is that and skills extended the boundaries and viability despite the Virginia Company's inability to suc- of colonial mineral exploration, documentation cessfully mine gold, silver, and precious stones, of such interactions is limited to a few written iron and medicinal clays continued to be valued statements by the English. Differences in lan- as commodities. Prospecting did not disappear, guages and communication as well as cultural nor did the hope that unusual specimens might perceptions of time and space led to misunder- provo profitable. standings of and by each culture. James Merrell Despite the destruction of the Falling has pointed out that during the English conquest Creek blast fumace, there would be more explo- of Indian territory in early America, the vast ma- ration along with the evolution of the Virginia jority of natives "remained illiterate, inhabitants iron and coal industry in the centuries to follow. of a symbolic universe they were unable to deci- If English explorers ofthe late sixteenth and early pher," communicating mainly for trade purposes seventeenth centuries could compare their maps (Merrell, 1991, p. 131). to those of modern Virginia and North Carolina, The Powhatan Indians' knowledse of it would show that mineral resources were ac- aa PUBLICATION 176 JJ tually near areas of exploration. However, it is tion of Virginia Antiquities (APVA) Jamestown clear that the technical developments of the time Rediscovery and at the Powhatan village, Pas- and cartographic knowledge simply could not pahegh, have shown that copper goods from im- keep up with early colonial hopes and expecta- ported sheet copper were produced and/or traded tions in a wilderness environment. As archaeo- by early colonists. That trade"was highly valued logical work is unveiled from James Fort, Wero- in early interactions between the two cultures, wocomo, Kiskiack, and-other colonial settlement at least until the supply began to exceed native sites, it may show a greater degree of contact and demand for copper. Analysis of copper artifacts conflict between the Virginia English and the from Werowocomoco, a Powhatan political cen- Powhatan Indians, conflict involving their own ter circa 1607 archaeological site, is currently perceptions and use of,,natural resources as well being conducted to further investigate earlyAng- as conflict with each other. Both cultures con- lo-Powhatan trade. In addition to providing evi- tinually re-shaped the land to suit their traditional dence of trade, chemical analysis and research by and changing needs. Carter C. Hudgins indicates that copper-related When twenty-first-century archaeolo- metallurgical trials were also being conducted in gists, ethnohistorians and anthropologists incor- the James Fort period (Hudgins, personal com- porate chemical analyses of copper artifacts into munications November 18, 2004). their studies, science is demonstrating its value Scholars and scientists should acknowl- to all three disciplines regarding early colonial edge each other's abilities to read the past, wheth- material culture, especially analysis of copper er in words or geologic formations. The land from the Appalachian belt. Native copper and has a story to tell. As the English colonial era European copper have different "fingerprints" or unfolded, those who had come before and mas- chemical profiles: native copper has lower levels tered the landscape encountered newcomers with of arsenic, lead, and antimony than its European a vastly different technology and mindset. Their counterpart, as shown in proton-induced X-ray common denominator was survival using avail- emission spectrometry and neutron activation able resources: what the land could provide for techniques (Rountree and Turner, 2002). Geo- immediate and long-tefin use. Due to the differ- archaeological research in determining sourcing ence in their belief systems and technology, shar- of copper artifacts shows promise as a tool in ing the land was impossible and the changes bom expanding historical narratives (Rapp and oth- of economic encroachmentwere immediate. The ers, 2000). Trace-element sourcing is becoming English intended to make the environment their a significant archaeological tool in tracing trade own in their own words, as our national histori- and distribution pattems in the Contact period. cal narrative has demonstrated. With the limited Analysis of two early Jamestown-era copper ar- documented history the Powhatans and other na- tifacts excavated after 1998 at the historically tive tribes have left behind" the richness of their important Powhatan Indian village, Kiskiack, re- culture and technology can only be hinted at pres- vealed that one copper piece was English (possi- ently, and geology helps to illuminate the story. bly official trade, because it matches copper arti- What if the threat of native attackhad not facts excav ated atJamestown) and the other piece impaired more exploration and mining parties in Swedish (possibly a remnant of trade by sailors) the auriferous or gold-bearing region tretween (Petkofsky, June 29,2004). Similar analyses at Jamestown and modern-day Richmond? What if James Fort by the Association for the Preserva- mineral men on the scene like William Hendrick 34 VIRGINIA DIVISION OF MINERAL RESOURCES Faldoe and Newport's exploring party had lived REFERENCES longer to find, prove, or disprove their claims, rather than from die disease or Indian attack? Agricola, G., 1556, De re metallica, in Hoover, archaeological excavations As continue H. and Hoover, L. H., 1950, (Trans.): New at James Fort and other colonial sites, significant York, Dover Publications. (Original work evidence mineral-related of trade and industrial published 1556). activities in the Virginia colony may emerge. In Alexander, D., 2004, Charlotte's golden past, January 2007, Chesterfield County officials an- Trip: Greater Charlotte visitor resource nounced an amateur archaeologist's discovery magazine: Charlotte, N. C., November. on the banks of Falling Creek: visible ruins of the 1619 blast furnace. According to a Rich- Andrews, K., 1954, Cfuistopher Newport of mond Times Dispatch report, historians believe Limehouse, mariner: The William and Mary that several timbers exposed by heavy rains in Quarterly, 3rd ser., 11, (1), 28-41. 2006 are part of the furnace's foundation, and further study is planned. Today, a respect for the 1978, The westward enterprise: English ac- expertise and adaptability of Virginia's colonists tivities in Ireland, the Atlantic, and America, and indigenous people is expanding. They rap- 1480- 1 650: Liverpool, Liverpool University idly developed knowledge about the New World Press. landscape and each other This adaptive process, Auger, R., Fitzhugh, W., Gullason, L., and Hen- despite its trials, etrors, and conflicts, was es- shaw, A.,1995, Material Evidence from the sential to the development of the colony and the Frobisher Voyages: Anglo-Inuit Contact in future Commonwealth of Virginia. The reality the North American Arctic in the Late Six- underlying England's colonial quest for mineral teenth Century in Hook, D., and Gaimster, resources -- with its conflicting dreams and per- D. eds., Trade and discovery: The scien- spectives, its yet unspoken "might have beens" tific study of artefacts from post-medieval -- has a rightful place in America's historical nar- Europe and beyond: British Museum occa- rative. sional paper, 109, Department of Scientific Research 1995 (p. 13-26). London, British Museum Press. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Axtell, J.,1997, The Indians'new south: Cultur- The author sincerely thanks everyone al change in the colonial southeast: Baton who originally contributed to her Master of Arts Rouge, Louisiana State University Press. thesis (The College of William and Mary 2005). ,1986, The Jamestown voyages un- She is especially grateful to her husband, Jan, to der the first charter, 1606-1609: Documents C. Rick Berquist for encouraging her research relating to the foundation of Jamestown and from its genesis eight years ago, to editor Mi- the history of the Jamestown colony up to chael Upchurch for refining her words, and to the the departure of Captain John Smith, last Division of Mineral Resources for makins this president of the council in Virginia under publication possible. the first charter, early in October 1609: Lon- don, Published for the Hakluyt Society by Cambridge University Press. PUBLICATION 176 35 Barbour, P., ed. T967, The complete works of disclosing the contest between England and Captain John Smith (1580-1631): Institute Spain for the possession of the soil now of Early American History and Culture, occupied by the United States of America: Williamsburg, Virginia, Chapel Hill, North (Vols. 1-2). Boston, New York: Houghton, Carolina, University of North Carolina Miffiin and Company. (Original work pub- Press, 3 vols.. lished 1891). Biringuccio,V., 1540, The pirotechnia: The clas- Bruce, P. A., 1935, Economic history of Virginia sic sixteenth-century treatise on metals and in the seventeenth century; an inquiry into metallurgy, in Cyrll Stanley Smith and Mar- the material condition of the people, based tha Teach Gnudi, 1990, Trans.: New York, upon original and contemporaneous records: Dover Publications (Original work pub- (Vol. I). NewYork, P Smith. (Original work lished 1540). published 1896). Blakeley, B. and Collins, J.,1993, Documents in Burrage, H. S., ed., 1930, Early English and British history: (2nd ed.), New York, Mc- French voyage chiefly from Hakluyt: New Graw-Hil1. York, Charles Scribner's Sons. (Original ' Blanton, D., and Hudgins, C. C., 2004,Archaeo- workpublished 1906). logical evidence for native prestige com- Deagan, K., and Cruxent, J.,1995, The first Eu- modity devaluation: An example from the ropean artefacts in the Americas: La Isa- Chesapeake associated with the Jamestown bela, Dominican Republic (1493-1498), in colony: Working paper retrieved May 23, Hook, D. and Gaimster, D., eds.. Trade and 2006 from http://www.nwsy.navy.miVpress/ discovery: The scientific study of artefacts blanton.html. from post-medieval Europe and beyond: Blanton, W. B., 1930, Medicine in Virginia in the British Museum Occasional Papeq 109, De- seventeenth century: Richmond, The Wil- partment of Scientific Research, 1995 (pp. liam Byrd Press, Inc. 3-12). London, British Museum Press. Bowen, J., Carson, C., Graham, W., McCartney, Diderot, D., 1978, Diderot encyclopedia: The M., and Walsh, L.,2004, New World, real complete illustrations T7 62-1777 : (Yol. 2), Plates world: Improvising English culture in Sev- 788-789, New York, Abrams. enteenth Century Virginia: Paper for the Egloff, K., and Woodward,D.,1992, First peo- Omohundro Institute of Early American ple: The early Indians of Virginia: Rich- History and Culture Jamestown Confer- mond, Virginia, Roanoke, Virginia, Virginia ence, "The Atlantic World and Virginia," Department of Historic Resources. 1550-1624, March 4-7, 2004. Fitzhugh, W., and Olin, J., 1993, Archeology of Brain, J.,2001, The Popham Colony: A histori- the Frobisher voyages: Washington, Smith- cal and archaeological briefi Peabody Essex sonian Institution Press. Museum (3'd. Rev.). Salem, Mass. Force, P., ed., 1999,Tracts and otherpapers relat- Brown, A. (Ed.), 1993, The genesis of the United ing principally to the origin, settlement, and States; a narrative of the movement in Eng- progress of the colonies in North America, land, 1605-1616, which resulted in the plan- from the discovery ofthe country to the year tation of North America by Englishmen, 1776: (YoL IID. Bowie, Heritage Books, 36 VIRGINIA DTVISION OF MINER.AL RESOURCES (Originally published I 836-46). Hariot, T., 1972, A briefe and true report of the ' new found land of Virginia: The complete Foucault, M., and Gordon, C., ed., 1980, Power/ 1590 Theodor de Bry edition: New York, knowledge: Selected interviews and other Dover Publications. writings, 1972-1977: (lst American ed.). New York, Pantheon Books. Heuvel, L. and Veneziano, J., 1999, Copper: Some ways to work it with Powhatan Indian Gannon, M., 1985, Carry me back to old La Flor- technology (unpublished): The Jamestown- ida: The Virginia Magazine of History and Yorktown Foundation, February. Biography, Vol. 93, January . T. F., III, Downing, C.M., Linebaugh, Gimpel, J.,1977, The medieval machine: The in- Higgins, W., Linebaugh, A., Oppertnan, F., and dustrial revolution of the MiddleAses: New D. Turner, E. R. Turner, III., 1995, Archeo- York, Holt, Rinehart and Winston. logical investigations of site 44cF7, Falling Grassl, G. C., 1993, German mineral specialists Creek Ironworks and vicinity, Chesterfield in Elizabethan England and Raleigh's Vir- County, Virginia: William and Mary Center ginia: Paper on file in Jamestown Settlement for Archaeological Research. Library Williamsburg, Virginia. Hogarth, D. D., 1983, Mining and metallurgy Greenblatt, S., 1991, Marvelous possessions: of the Frobisher ores, in Fitzhugh, W., and The wonder of the New World. Chicago, Olin, J., 1993, Archeology of the Frobisher University of Chicago Press. voyages: Washington, Smithsonian Institu- Groth, P.,'and Bressi, T.W., 1997, Understanding tion Press. ordinary landscapes: New Haven, Univer- Hook, D. R. and Gaimster, D. R. M., eds., 1995, sity Press. Trade and discovery: The scientific study Haile, E. W., ed., 1998, Jamestown narratives: of artefacts from post-medieval Europe and Eyewitness accounts of the Virginia colo- beyond: British Museum Occasional Paper, ny: The first decade, 1607-1617: (1st ed.). 109, Department of Scientific Researcb Champlain, Va., RoundHouse Press. London, British Museum Press. Hamor, R. [615], Atrue discourse of the present Hume, I. N., 1982, Martin's Hundred: (lst ed.), estate of Virginia, inHaile, E.W., ed., 1998, NewYork, Knopf. Jamestown narratives: Eyewitness accounts 1994,The Virginia adventure: Roa- The decade, of the Virginia colony: first noke to Jamestown: An archaeological and 1607-1617 (lst ed.). Champlain, Virginia, historical odyssey: New York, Ifuopf). Roundhouse Press. Jones, 8., 1986, Gentlemen and Jesuits: Quests Hantman, J. L., 1993, Powhatan's relations with for glory and adventure in the early days of the Monacan Indians, in 1993, Rountree, H. New France: Toronto, University of Toronto C., ed., Powhatan foreign relations, 1500- Press. 1722: Charlottesville" University Press of Kelso, with Straube, B. A., 2004, James- Virginia. W.M., town rediscovery 1994-2004: The United Hargus, E. N., 200l,Ironworks on the Saugus: States of America: The Association for the (4ft printing), University Oklaho- USA, of Preservation of Virginia Antiquities, James- ma Press. town, Virginia. 1- PUBLICATION 17b JI Kicza, J. 8., 1992, Patterns in early Spanish Archaeological Research Center. Prepared overseas expansion: William and Mary for the Virginia Department of Historic Re- Quarterly, 3'd ser., 49(2), 229 -253. sources and The National Geographic Soci- Kingsbury S. M., 1935, (Comp.). Records of ety, June. the Virginia Company of London: 4 vols., Nicholl, C., 1995, The creature in the map: A Washington D.C., Government Printing Of- journey to El Dorado: New York, William fice. Morrow and Company. Kupperman, K., od., 2000, Major problems in Nobles, G., 1989, Breaking into the backcountry: American history: Boston, Harvard Univer- New approaches to the earlyAmerican fron- sity Press. tier: William and Mary Quarterly, 3'd ser.,46 Linden, M.A., Craig, J.R., and Solberg, T.N., (4),64T-670. 1985, Mineralogy and chemistry of gold Nolan, J.,2007, January 20, Iron furnace ru- in the Virgilina district, Halifax County, ins discovered: Find is earliest evidence of Virginia: Virginia Division of Mineral Re- heavy industry in New World: Richmond sources Virginia Minerals Vol. 31, No. 2. Times- Dispatch. Retrieved February 7, Marks, G., and Beatty, W.K., l975,The precious 2007 from http://www.timesdispatch.com/ metals of medicine: New York, Charles s ervlet/S ate llite?pagename:RTD/MGAr- Scribner's Sons. ticle/RTD B asicArticle&c:MGArticle&ci d:tt49T92753490. McCartney, M' 1997, James City County: Key- stone ofthe Commonwealth: Virginia Beach, Oxford University, l97I,The compact edition of The Dunning Company Publishers. the Oxford English Dictionary: USA, Ox- ford University Press. Merrell, J. M., 1991, The customs of our country: Indians and colonists in early America, in Palmer, T., 1984, in Forbes, T. R., ed., The ad- physick Bernard Bailyn and Philip D. Morgan, eds., mirable secrets of and ch1rurgery: Strangers within the realm: Cultural mar- New Haven, Yale Universify Press. gins of the first British Empire: Chapel Hill, Percy, George, "A trewe relacyon," [A true rela- Published for the Institute of Early Ameri- tionl Virginia from 1609-1612., inHaile,E. can History and Culture, Williamsburg, Vir- W., Jamestown narratives: Eyewitness ac- ginia, by the University of North Carolina counts of the Virginia colony: The first de- Press. cade,160l-1617: (lst ed.). Champlain, Va., Milton, Giles, 2000, Big Chief Elizabeth: The RoundHouse Press. adventures and fate of the first English colo- Perdue, T., 1985, Native Carolinians: The Indi- nists in America: New York, Farrar. Straus ans of North Carolina: Raleigh, Division of and Giroux. Archives and History North Carolina Dept. Mouer, L. D., Mcl-earen, D. C., Kiser, T. R., of Cultural Resources. Egghart, C. P., Binns, B. J., and Magoon, Petkofsky, Andrew., 2004, Archaeologists dis- D. T., T992, Jordan's journey: A prelimi- cover traces of Colonial history: Richmond nary report on archaeology at site 44Pg302. Times Dispatch. (2004, Iune 29), Richmond, Prince George County, Virginia, 1990- Virsinia. 1991: Virginia Commonwealth University 38 VIRGINIA DIVISION OF MINERAL RESOURCES Potter, Stephen R., 1989, Early English effects and the copper trade: Cardiff, University of on Virginia Algonquian exchange and trib- Wales Press. Potomac, ute in the Tidewater in Wood, Richter, D.K., andAmerican Council of Learned P. H., Waselkov, G.A., and Hatley, M. T., Societies, 200I, Facing east from Indian Powhatan's Mantle: Indians in the colonial country: Cambridge, Mass., Harvard Uni- Southeast: p. Lincoln, I5l-172, University versity Press. of Nebraska Press. Rogers, W. B., 1884, Report of the progress of 1970, Thomas and Quinn, D. B., Hariot the Vir- the geological survey ofthe stateofVirginia ginia 1602: voyages of The William and for the year 1835, in Areprint of the annual Mary Quarterly, 3rd ser., Yol 27, No. 2 reports and other papers, on the geology of (April 197 0), pp. 268-281. the Virginias fVirginia and West Virginia]: , 1990, Explorers and colonies: New York, D. Appleton and Company. 1500-1625: America, London, The Ham- Rountree, H. C., 1990, Pocahontas's people: The bleton Press. Powhatan Indians of Virginia through four ,199t, ed, The Roanoke voyages, centuries: (lst ed.), Norman, University of 1584-1590: New York. Dover Publications. Oklahoma Press. Inc. , ed., 1993, Powhatan foreign rela- and Quinn, A. M., 1982, The first tions, 1500-1722 Charlottesville, Univer- colonists : Documents on the planting of the sity Press of Virginia. flrst English settlements in North America, Rowse, A. L., 19 59,The Elizabethans in America: 1584-1590: Raleigh, North Carolina Dept. The Trevelyan lectures at Cambridge, 1958: of Cultural Resources, Division ofArchives New York and Evanston, Harper Colophon and History. Books. 1983, and Quinn, A. M., New Eng- Ruby, R., 2001, The unknown shore: The lost his- landvoyages 1602-1608: London, The Hak- tory of England's Arctic colony: (lst ed.). luyt Society. New York, H. Holt. Quitt, M. H., 1988, Immigrarft origins of the Sauer, C. O., 1971, Sixteenth century North gentry: Virginia A study of cultural trans- America; the land and the people as seen mission and innovation: William and Mary by the Europeans: Berkeley, University of 3'd ser., 46 (4),629-655. Quarterly, Califomia Press. Rapp, G., V., Jing, Albert, J.,Vitali, 2., andHen- Shammas, C., 1978, English commercial devel- drickson, 8, 2000, Determining geologic opment and American colonization 1560 sources ofartifact copper: Source character- - 1620, in Andrews, K. R., Canny, N. P., ization trace element patterns:Land- using and Hair, P. E. H., eds., The westward enter- ham, University Press ofAmerica. prise: English activities in Ireland, the At- Rees, W.,I96J,An historical atlas of Wales from lantic, andAmerica 1480 - 1650: Liverpool, early to modern times: London, Farber and Liverpool University Press. Farber. 3rd. ed. Silver, T., 1990, A new face on the countryside: 2000, King copper: South Wales Indians, colonists, and slaves in south At- PUBLICATION 176 39 lantic forests, 1500-1800: Cambridge, New , and Lovett, J. A., 1985, Additional York: Cambridge University Press. gold mines, prospects, and occurrences in Smith, J., and Barbour, P. A., ed., 1967, The com- Virginia: Virginia Division of Mineral Re- plete works of Captain John Smith (1530- sources Virginia Minerals Vol. 31, No. 4. 1631): (3 vols.). Chapel Hill, published for Symons, T. H. 8., 1999, The significance of the Institute of EarlyAmerican History and the Frobisher voyages, ln Symons, T. H. Culture, Williamsburg, Virginia, by the Uni- B. (with the assistance of Alsford, S. and versity of North Carolina Press. Kitzen, C.)., ed., 1999, Meta incognita: A Steams, R. P., 1970, Science in the British colo- discourse of discovery. Martin Frobisher's nies of America: Urbana, London, Univer- Arctic expeditions, 1576-1578: (Vols. 1-2), sity of Illinois Press. Hull Quebec: Published by the Canadian Museum of Civllization with the authoriza- Strathman, E. A., 1964, Ralegh plans his last tion of the Meta Cognita Project Steering voyage: The Mariner's Mirror, published by Committee. the Society for Nautical Research, Vol. 50 (p. 264-265), London, England. , (with the assistance of Alsford, S., andKitzen, C.). ed., I999,Meta incognita: Stratchey, W. [1612], The historie of travell into Adiscourse of discovery. Martin Frobisher's Virginia Britannia, in Wright, L. B., and Arctic expeditions, 1576-1578: (Vols. 1-2), Freund, V, eds., 1953, London: The Hakluvt Hull Quebec: Published by the Canadian Society. Museum of Civilization with the arfihoriza- Sweet, P. C., 1967, Silver in Virginia: Virginia tion of the Meta Cognita Project Steering Division of Mines, Minerals and Energy, Commiffee. Virginia Minerals, Yol. 22,No. 1. Thornton, J., ,1998, Africa and Africans in the . 1980. Gold in Virginia: Virginia making of the Atlantic world, 1400-1680: Division of Mineral Resources Publication Cambridge, New York: Cambridge Univer- 19. sity Press. _, 1983, Mineral resources of Virgin- Trevelyan, A. M., 2003, Miskwabik, metal of rit- ia: Virginia Division of Mineral Resources, ual: Metallurgy in precontact eastem North color map. America: Lexington, University Press of , 1989, Copper, lead, and zinc re- Kentucky. sources in Virginia: Virginia Division of Tyler, L. G., ed. [915], Encyclopedia ofVirginia Mineral Resources Publication 93. biography: Baltimore, Genealogical Publi- ,1995, Update on unreported occur- cations. 1998. rences of gold-silver in Virginia: Virginia Upchurch, Michael, Letter sent from Castell Division of Mineral Resources Vireinia Creek, Virginia, to John Ferrar, inFenarpa- Minerals, Vol. 41, No. 2. pers, document #1182 (Morgan, J., Trans.). , and Trimble, D., 1982, Gold occur- Jamestown Settlement Librarv. Williams- rences in Virginia, an update: Virginia Divi- burg, Virginia. sion of Mineral Resources Virginia Miner- Vaughan, A. T., 2002, Sir Walter Raleigh's Indian als Vol. 28. No. 4. interpreters, 1584-1618: William and Mary 40 VIRGINIA DIVISION OF MINERAL RESOURCES Quarterly, 3'd ser., 59, p. 341-376. Watson, T. L., 1907, Mineral resources of Vir- ginia: Jamestown Exposition Commission. (1907), Lynchburg, Virginia, J.P. Bell Com- pany, printers and binders. wright, L. 8., €d., 1965, The Elizabethans' America: A collection of early reporting by Englishmen in the New World: Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press. and Freund, V., eds., 1953., The historie of travell into VirginiaBritannta, in Wright, L. B., and Freund, V, eds., London: Hakluyt Society. Zelinsky, W.,1997, Seeing beyond the dominant culture, in Groth, P. and Bressi, T. W., eds., Understanding ordinary landscapes: New Haven. University Press.