From R2D2 to Yankee Doodle: A Good Day

A good day.

As I noted in my last post nearly a week ago, this was heavy duty week, the week of the Middle East Institute's Annual Conference, when I'm on duty more than usual (and work my usual Friday off), and we have a banquet Thursday night, and our usual babysitter was sick and we had to hire the more expensive one, and ... oh well, you get it. By Friday night I was drained, exhausted, and fell asleep at 10:30. I'm a night person. I can stay up half the night if I don't have to get up the next day, but last night I collapsed like a punctured baloon. All this even though I didn't chair a panel, didn't give a presentation, and my superb staff did most of the work at the Journal's booth. It was just a long, always-on, networking day.

One of the advantages of going to bed early is that, even without an alarm, I woke up early. After a rough week, I was determined to have a really good family fun day. We went down to the reopening, after about two and a half years, of the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, which has been significantly rebuilt and renovated with a new central atrium, a new home for the original Star Spangled Banner, and much more. Sarah liked the museum even when she was six or so, and wanted to visit it; I am of course a history buff (oh yeah, also a Ph.D. if that counts) and always loved the museum in its earlier incarnation.

It's nearly one am I want to go to bed so let me make this short, with more later: there were reenactors (George Washington, several Revolutionary types I didn't identify, Mary Pickersgill who made the original Star Spangled Banner in Baltimore, a civil rights activist talking about the first Greensboro NC sit-in in front of the original lunch counter seats, etc. Sarah tried out the hands-on "science in American history" stuff and an old lab that she'd loved when four or five, revived but not much changed. Much else had changed. There were bands (we heard a kids' Yorktown fife-and-drum group twice, a bluegrass group, and I understand Jazz, Dixieland and other groups played during the day), and, to add to the oddity, the Washington DC R2-D2 builders' club, which is what it says, guys who build working, moving, beeping R2-D2 robots. These guys obviously have more time on their hands than I do (I won't say too much time on their hands, because they've obviously got money to burn as well, neither of which applies to me.) (Sarah: "Is that a sand-person?" Geek: "No, that's a Jawa. Sand-People are quite different." Bear in mind that the Jawa in question is life sized, and for all I know may move. The other robots did.)

At first we filmed one R2-D2 going by, beeping and its upper turret revolving like, well, like a droid. Then two or three were roaming about (these are all full-sized, mind you, with flashing lights and beeping just like the real R2-D2, if there was a real R2-D2), while the fife and drum band was playing "Yankee Doodle" and "The World Turned Upside Down": this is either quintessential Americana or complete surrealism, or perhaps there's no distinction between the two. The R2s seemed to proliferate like cockroaches, though apparently they require a great deal of effort and dedication to build. I know this couldn't happen in Egypt and I rather doubt it could happen in France.

Because the new museum didn't have hot food yet in their cafe we went next door to the Natural History Museum (the dinosaur museum as Sarah has long called it) and then returned. We heard more music, looked around, listened to a presentation on the Star Spangled Banner's creation (the lines to see the original flag were quite long: it's been off display for years while being restored, so Sarah has still never seen it but will when the lines shorten).

Wonderful re-imagining of the central parts of the museum. The Star Spangled Banner is back (though we didn't see it yet), and in December, they'll reopen the First Ladies' inaugural gowns. Those two items long made this the most popular Smithsonian museum.

We stopped at Best Buy to get some necessities and a few frills, went out to dinner, discussed Thanksgiving plans and parameters for Sarah's coming allowance (I won't record for the world since it's family stuff), and generally had a good day.

A video of many of the reenactors and the R2s and other stuff is going up on YouTube as I write this on a different computer. Drop by if you're authorized to see our family YouTube stuff. If not, cheers.

Only as I was moving video and still photos around the Web did the date hit me: November 22. It's 45 years since JFK was killed. I didn't see any mention in today's Washington Post. 45 years. I grow older.

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Militia Muster at Saint Mary's City

We spent part of the day in Historic Saint Mary's City, Maryland. I'll post more later, but here's Tam in the pillory, Tam with a helmet and musket, and hoisting a musket. We also witnessed a display of firing (repelling a raid by pirates) which will go on You Tube, probably in two pieces since it's longer than YouTube's 10 minute limit. As I noted yesterday, the promotion spoke of the need for militia to repel pirates and Virginians, and soon after we arrived someone fired a cannon. They must have recognized us for what we are.

There was an encampment as well so we spent some time watching the reenactors; Sarah's seen reenactors doing later periods but the 1600s stuff was a bit new for all of us. We have a friend who does 18th century and have seen a fair number of civil war reenactments, but the 17th century stuff was different enough to be interesting -- although Sarah declared that the battle part "stunk," she showed interest in visiting the encampment beforehand.

Reenactors of course can never recreate the past, which really is and always remains another country; a reminder of this came at the end of the battle when a group of girls in bikinis, possibly from the college adjacent or from a boat on the river, wandered through the reenactment area, in rather stark contrast to the guys in 17th century halberds and helmets. I have no idea what the girls were doing there (it was a bit warm but still October) but it made for considerable comment. [UPDATE: It belatedly occurred to me the next day that this could have been a deliberate college prank, showing up in bikinis -- I don't think any were in one-piece suits -- at a 1600s reenactment. Assuming college students still do stunts like they used to.] [UPDATE 2: When I mentioned this to Tam she said, "Sure, I figured it was a prank all along. They were all in black, skimpy suits. What else could it be?" Okay, I'm slow, but I got there eventually.] The pirates, having been repelled, retreated in the same direction as the girls, but that may have been coincidence. It would have made a great picture but it happened too quickly and I had the camera turned off.

The 17th century reenactors, like civil war reenactors, tend to be on the heavy-set side: rather more so than I suspect the first settlers of Lord Baltimore's proprietary really were. (The movies "Gettysburg" and "Gods and Generals" used renenactors for battle scenes, but some of them look a lot better fed than your average Confederate infantryman.)

More on the day in a bit. As usual I don't post pictures of Sarah's face on the blog to respect her privacy.

A bit later: Although I knew Sarah hadn't enjoyed the "battle" that much (there weren't that many reenactors and 17th century firelocks take a long time to reload, so the musketry was scattered at best), I asked her what she had enjoyed most about the day: was it the reenactors' encampment where we were shown how they lived? No, she said: it was when I turned on the GPS in the car. And it does indeed work.

More tomorrow. This was an unplanned weekend but it's a fun one. I may not get the YouTube videos up till tomorrow or so.

The reenactor in the pic with Tam has obviously lost his helmet and musket to a Virginia plunderer, by the way.

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A Gorgeous Jamestown Book

I gushed earlier about Jamestown and mentioned that everybody's writing books on the subject. I want to praise one I've only partially read. It's John Smith's Chesapeake Voyages, 1607-1609, by Helen C. Rountree, Wayne E. Clark, and Kent Mountford. Published by the University of Virignia Press (Charlottesville and London: wonder what Mr. Jefferson would think of that?), 2007.

It's a truly interdisciplinary work. Rountree is the ethnohistorian who has done most of the groundbreaking work on the Powhatan and other Chesapeake Indians. Clark is apparently a local history type and Mountford an ecologist. They have tried to recreate and explain Smith's voyages (and the early explorations generally) in terms of the local cultures, geography, flora and fauna, and ecology of the Bay at the time.

I think the book was about $30 or so. The maps alone are worth it. I'm a local history/local Indians buff and find the book enormously informative, but I think geographers, ecologists, Save the Bay people, and local history folks will enjoy it as well.

I haven't read it all yet, but the maps alone are gorgeous and the book has tremendous production values.

UPDATE: A belated realization that you might want to find the Amazon link for this book. No, I'm not getting a commission.

Jamestown's 400th: Some Family Reflections, 1

It is, of course, the 400th anniversary of Jamestown. The Queen has been to Virginia, and all that. Many of the best-known authorities on the colonial period, Indians, the Chesapeake, and so on have weighed in with new books, and I've been acquiring them. Sarah even did her first ever book report on a kids' book about Pocahontas. Jamestown's big this year, especially here in Virginia.

But I have some personal reasons for being interested in all the hoopla. Like many people whose roots lie in the upper south, I've always been puzzled by why the Pilgrims, those weird puritanical latecomers, got all the glory. They didn't get here till 1620. They didn't even celebrate Christmas: how American is that? The Jamestown colonists were looking for gold, fighting each other, shooting Indians and importing slaves before the Mayflower ever got here. Now that's America. (Kidding, kidding, don't yell, please.) Of course the dominance of New England historians, of Harvard and Yale, especially after the Civil War, had a lot to do with it, and Longfellow and his ilk were writing things like "The Courtship of Miles Standish," and Thanksgiving was taking hold, and so Plymouth trumped Jamestown, at least for a while. The South was too busy getting reconstructed to remind everybody how late the Pilgrims got here and how lame they were at a party.

But for all that, and regardless of what your take is on John Smith and Pocahontas and all, I had ancestors who were in the same area not too many years later, and who also had links to the local Indians. I feel that Jamestown is closer to the record of my own family tree (some of Tam's folks were in Massachusetts early, so she may have more affinities there). And the Indian stuff is tantalizing: literally so, clues here, intermarriages there, but no reason (so far) to think I've got native ancestry myself.

Last weekend we went over to the Calvert Marine Museum in Solomons, Maryland, to see the "John Smith Shallop," a living history recreation that's sailing/rowing its way around Chesapeake Bay for the summer months, to commemorate the 1608 voyage of John Smith to explore the Bay, the Potomac, the Patuxent, and the Rappahannock. (Why are they commemorating a 1608 voyage in 2007? Well, of course, because Jamestown is the big draw and no one will pay any attention by next year. We'll doubtless see the shallop again: it's coming to DC for the Smithsonian folklife festival, to Alexandria, Mount Vernon, and other places close by. If you're interested in the shallop, go here. For Jamestown celebrations generally, check in here.

We also visited recently the new museum that has opened at the Jamestown Settlement, the state-run reconstruction of Jamestown that has the replica ships, Indian village, and fort, and what is now a superb new interpretive museum. Last year we saw the new archaeological museum at the original site of Jamestown, run by the National Park Service and the Association for Preservation of Virginia Antiquities, now known as Historic Jamestowne. This is the original site of the settlement and where in recent years the original fort, long thought to have been under the present river, has been found and excavated. Both of these sites, which are nearly adjacent, are essential for understanding the place. I recommend if you haven't been there, go to both. They're next door to Williamsburg, but in my book, much more interesting (and less expensive).

Anyway, my personal interest in the subject stems in part from the fact that my Collins ancestors can be traced back to early Tidewater Virginia. By 1665, they were owning land south of the James, roughly across the river and a bit down from Jamestown. While the immigrant is uncertain, the name Collins (my middle name) is found as early as the earliest years of the colony, as I've noted here. But I suspect my own ancestor is one of two men who came over in 1635, probably as an indentured servant, as I argue here. In any event, they were here early. Not as early as Jamestown, probably, but early.

I've long had an interest in the surviving remnants of the Virginia Indians. There are eight recognized tribes today (recognized by the state, not by the feds.) Two, the Mattaponi and Pamunkey, live on small reservations that were created in the 17th century. (A good links list on Virginia Indians is here.) I've never been entirely sure why the Virginia Indians fascinate me, though I have known for some time that I have Cherokee cousins on my Dunn/Kell side. (My 3rd great-grandmother's brother married a Cherokee woman; his sons included two men who became judges and members of the Cherokee senate. They were generally more prominent than their Anglo cousins.) More recently I've learned that there may be multiple connections to the Indians of the tidewater: my Vinson relatives were intermarried more than once with the Bass family, who descend from the Nansemond tribe, who in turn were living alongside my Collinses and Vinsons in the late 1600s. After the Collinses and Vinsons moved to North Carolina they had many intermarriages with Richardsons about 12 miles down the road from an area which is today the center of the Haliwa-Saponi. The most common name among the Haliwa-Saponi is Richardson. Bass is also common. But the connections are, so far, all inferential.

So I suspect I've got some early Indian links in the tidewater. My fourth great grandparents, James Collins and Tempy Vinson, left a list of their 16 children's births,which is followed by a list of three Richardson children's births,not otherwise explained, and then by a list of slaves' births.

We're trying to make sure Sarah understands that Pocahontas and Powhatan have kinfolk around today. A few weeks ago we went to the Powwow of the Upper Mattaponi, one of the state-recognized Powhatan tribes. (For years I've pronounced it "Matta-PO-ny" (wouldn't you?) but at the Powwow I learned it's Matta-po-NYE.) When Sarah was much younger we took her to the Eastern Band Cherokee reservation in NC and she kept asking "but where are the Indians?" Despite our efforts she's still expecting Tonto, I guess. Now I think she's catching on. She liked the Powwow. (I didn't have the guts to buy the Tshirt that said "Immigration problems began in 1492" or the one that showed General Custer surrounded and said "First Successful Neighborhood Watch Program," but I wanted to.) I hope to get her to the Pamunkey and Mattaponi reservations soon. They're tiny, but they are, like the people themselves, still stubbornly there. (They aren't federally recognized reservations since they date from a treaty signed in the 1670s [LATER UPDATE: Treaty of Middle Plantation, 1677] I think, so their treaty is with Virginia. But they send a deer to the governor every year.)

I expect I'll be pursuing some of these issues, but I hope I've shed some light on why the whole Jamestown anniversary is of interest to us, over and beyond its interest to, say, the Queen, who dropped in as well. One's own connection to history personalizes it, makes it less abstract. We're trying to convey that to Sarah.

I'll try to offer reactions/reviews to some of the new Jamestown books as time goes on, and come back to some of these related topics.

This post, unlike our family posts, is open to comments from anyone.

Michael