University of Virginia Library

CHAPTER III

PHYSICAL ASPECTS OF ABORIGINAL VIRGINIA

What was the aboriginal character of the region which
the London Company was organized to explore and turn to
good use for the purposes of trade and settlement? Before
starting out to describe the expedition which disembarked in
Virginia in the spring of 1607, it will be pertinent to offer
some account of the virgin land which these eager adventurers
entered, its potentiality of wealth through its natural products,
and the extent to which its soil and animal life had
already been turned to practical advantage by the primitive
race that occupied it. The first impression of the voyagers,
as their ships slowly made their way up the waters of the
Powhatan, was one of enthusiastic admiration for the bulk,
height, and variety of the trees that entirely hid the surface
of the country visible from the bosom of the stream. The
woods, on either side, were, as a rule, without any undergrowth,—a
condition brought about by the Indian custom of
burning the fallen leaves in autumn in order to form a circle
of fire for the capture of whole herds of deer. It was asserted
afterwards that a coach and four could have been driven
through the thickest groups of trees without danger of touching
a single trunk; and that a person in the forest remained
unhidden even when he had got a mile and a half away from
the observer. A perfect order of battle could have been
arranged, without any serious obstruction, in these woods.

Along the outer ocean coast, and the shores of the modern
Hampton Roads, the array of tall pines shut out the landscape,
but, in the valley of the Powhatan, there were seen walnut
trees in such numbers that it was calculated that these trees

James River Chart

made up at least one-fourth of the entire forests; oaks so
straight and tall that planks twenty feet in length and two
and one-half feet square, could be obtained from their trunks;
cypresses three fathoms in girth about the roots; mulberries
in groves that shaded many acres with their spreading limbs;
ash, destined to furnish an unlimited quantity of material for
soap-ashes; cedars that recalled those of Lebanon in the affluence
of their branches; sassafras, laurel, locust, tulip, balsam;
chestnuts that produced nuts equal in flavor to those for which
Spain was so renowned; chinquapins and hazels springing
up in thick bushes. The only apple discovered was the crab,
which was unpalatable to the taste; but there were several
varieties of cherries, plums, persimmons,—the latter reminded
the early explorers of the English medley,—blackberries,
raspberries, and whortleberries.

The trees here and there were overrun with pendent masses
of grape-vines, which, at the point where they issued from the
ground, were sometimes as large in size as the thigh of a
man's body. Four varieties of the sloe alone were noted in
the wooded valleys of the rivulets, and along the borders of
the tangled swamps. So thickly scattered over the ground in
season were the strawberries growing in sunny spots that it
was said by the first explorers that the foot, in treading on
them, was soon dyed as it were in blood. Along the shores
of the sea and the bay, and in the fastnesses of inland bogs,
the myrtle bushes sprang up in thickets. Their berries at a
later day supplied a transparent wax which was used by rich
and poor alike in the domestic manufacture of candles, remarkable
for the soft light which they gave out, and also for the
delicious fumes which rose from the wick when the flame was
quenched. In the rich loam were found hops growing wild,
muskmelons, squashes, gourds, may-apples, beans and pumpkins,
parsley and sorrel, oats, flax, and sumac. But what the
progress of time was to prove to be of a more important
nature than all these products of the soil combined was the
maize stalk and the tobacco plant, two natural growths, discovered

in the country when first explored, which were to
exercise a supreme influence on its subsequent development.

One of the early voyagers has recorded that the ground in
the neighborhood of Jamestown Island was so enameled with
wildflowers that it reminded the spectator of an English
garden in spring. The woods along the banks of the Powhatan
were decorated with the white blossoms of the dogwood when
first seen from the English ships; and the varieties of shrubs

and weeds appeared to be almost countless in number. Many
of these had an aromatic odor, which, breathed upon the wind
by the forest fires of the Indians, could be detected far out at
sea by approaching mariners. Indeed, after the first settlement
of Virginia, the hidden presence of the shore was, at
certain seasons, often disclosed by the sweet smell diffused
over the waves by the fresh fragrance of green leaf, flower,
and shrub growing on land lying below the horizon.

Aboriginal Virginia was a region of streams. The earliest
explorers were astonished by the number of brooks, copious
and lucid, that meandered through every part of the unending
woods; and they were constantly reminded by these sylvan

streams of the network of veins that interlace the human body.
One natural fountain at Newport News was so outpouring as
to furnish quickly an ample supply of water to every outward
bound ship. So enormous was the volume of water discharged
into the principal rivers by the creeks that the contents of
these rivers continued without any salty taint fifty to an
hundred miles below the influx and reflux of the tides, and at
times within thirty or forty miles of the great bay itself. Few
countries possessed so many rivers of such imposing dimensions.
The Potomac, Rappahannock, Pamunkey and Powhatan
were, in their lower reaches, estuaries of the sea, and they ran
back into the land far enough to offer, during the first one
hundred or more years, in association with smaller streams
like the Nansemond, Chickahominy, Pyankitank, and Appomattox,
all the water highways needed for the exportation of
the commodities of the country.

The outer coast was low and uniform, and so free from the
presence of rocks and shoals that a ship could approach it by
night as well as by day, with safety, in ordinary weather, while,
in the event of a rising storm, quiet anchorage could always be
found within the Capes, or in some natural harbour situated
at a little distance from the mouth of the larger rivers.

So vast were the swarms of fish swimming in the pellucid
currents of the smaller streams that the Indians were in the
habit of wading in and killing them with sticks. At a later
period, it was said that, in places, during the spawning season,
the air reeked with the odors of those which had become
exhausted and died of starvation before they could make their
way out to sea again. When Captain John Smith sailed up
Chesapeake Bay on his first voyage of discovery, the schools
of fish that silvered the surface of the water here and there
were easily scooped up with ordinary frying pans. The
quantity of shad, herring, and rock, seemed to be beyond calculation.
In one cast of the seine, under the eye of Sir Thomas
Dale, five thousand fish, of numerous varieties, were hauled
to the shore; and in another cast off the coast near Cape

Charles, the catch was voluminous enough to furnish a cargo
for a small frigate. Among the swarms of these creatures of
the deep were salmon, perch, bass, whiting, carp, pike, porpoise,
and sole. In the space of a few hours, two men at
Jamestown, while standing in the water, killed forty enormous
sturgeons with their axes.

Along the wooded banks of the Powhatan and modern York
huge piles of oyster-shells bore silent testimony to the extraordinary
abundance of this fish, while mussel-shells covered the
deep bottom of the tidal streams, and crabs and turtles lurked
everywhere in the shallows.

So soon as the frosts of autumn began to fall, vast flocks
of wild fowl from the North dropped upon the surface of the
rivers and inlets in order to feed upon the succulent wild
celery and oats that grew there in profusion. They had been
haunting those waters for countless centuries, with practically
no depletion through the weapons of men. Robert Evelyn,
writing forty years after the first house was built at Jamestown,
mentions the fact that there had been seen off shore on
the upper Chesapeake Bay masses of swimming swans, geese,
and ducks, intermingled, that spread out a mile in width, and
in length, seven miles. In numbers still more incalculable were
the snipe, plover, and curlew. So many wild turkeys were
observed in one place on the banks of the Powhatan by the
voyagers that they gave the spot the name of that imposing
bird, a designation which has survived until the present day.
Evelyn, a sober witness, tells us that the flocks of turkeys
generally contained as many as forty individuals; and that, on
several occasions, four hundred or more had been counted as
they fed unconcernedly in the green savannas. At last one
specimen had been known to weigh fifty pounds.

Cranes, frightened to wing by the sight of the approaching
voyagers, were described as giving forth a joint cry, which,
redoubled by the echoes of the neighboring woods, sounded as
if a whole army of men were shouting together. The whippoorwill
called mournfully at night from the borders of the

swamps. The bluebird and the redbird flashed through the
openings of the forest like flying patches of brilliant color.
Many of the cardinals were, in later times, sent in cages to
England for the enjoyment of the beauty of their plumage.
Larks, kingfishers, jays, humming-birds, and gold finches, were
to be seen on the wing or feeding, at every turn in a stroll;
and equally numerous were the partridges, which were found
to be larger in size than those of the English fields. Streams
of pigeons, apparently without end, very often threw the sky
into eclipse, and broke down the limbs of the large trees by
their combined weight as they settled at night to roost. In
spite of the almost incredible speed of their flight, it sometimes
required half a day for one flock to pass a single point;
and the beating of their wings as they careered overhead
sounded like the long roll of muffled thunder. Just before
the rebellion of 1676 began, there suddenly swept into view a
mighty mass of these gallant birds, that, in breadth, occupied
a quarter of the midhemisphere, and stretched away far
beyond the power of the eye to reach.

The presence of ornate parrakeets in the forest led the
early explorers to conclude that the tropical climate of the
South Seas could not be far away from the upper waters of
the Powhatan and the Chickahominy. From tree to tree
darted wood-peckers, with scarlet crests at the top of their
heads, or with bodies speckled with white and black spots or
yellow and brown. But the most remarkable of all the birds
seen, if tested, not by its plumage, but by its song, was the
mocker, which never grew tired, while balancing itself on a
bending spray, of imitating the notes of the entire choir of
the woods. Spelman, who had travelled up and down the
recesses of the aboriginal forests with his Indian hosts,
records the fact that the only English bird which had no habitat
in Virginia was the peacock.

In spite of the device of using encircling fires through ages,
the Indians had not been able to keep down the number of deer.
Large herds of these animals were seen by the first settlers

even in the vicinity of Jamestown; and further up the Powhatan,
other herds were met so tame in spirit that the English
approached them at the closest quarters without exciting their
fear. Buffalo and elk wandered about in the remote regions
towards the mountains, disturbed only by wolves and Indians.
They had disappeared from the Peninsula. Wolves were constantly
heard at night in the vicinity of Jamestown as they
hunted like packs of yelping beagles in the neighboring woods;
and it was difficult for the planter, overtaken in the forest by
darkness, and compelled to go into camp until morning, to save
his frightened horse from their devouring jaws. The bear of
aboriginal Virginia was small in size. Its principal haunts
were in the cane brakes of the Dismal Swamp; but, towards
the falls of the Powhatan, a herd was very frequently seen by
the explorers feeding like common swine on the acorns that
bestrewed the ground under the oaks. The woods harbored
the gray fox; and in the little valleys of forest streams, the
beaver built its ingenious and houselike dam. The raccoon
was thought at first to be a variety of monkey, and many of
these sly little animals were sent to England to serve as curiosities
for the amusement of private households. Its flesh was
prized in Virginia as being as palatable as that of lamb.

The flying squirrel was of the same pointed interest as a
rarety. Individuals of this variety were acquired by English
noblemen as oddities for the zoological collections of their
parks, or by English scientists as specimens for their cabinets.
Even King James was eager to secure one of them for his own
diversion. Among the other animals which existed in aboriginal
Virginia in large numbers were otters, minks, wild cats,
polecats, martens, hares, and ground and grey squirrels. The
opossum, with its pouch of living skin to hold its young, and
with its ability to feign death with strange fidelity, was the
most astonishing natural freak of all. Panthers prowled
stealthily in the remote forests, but were not seen in the woods
about Jamestown. Rattlesnakes and other venomous reptiles
were soon detected in the thick weeds and copses. Mosquitos,
the conveyors of the malaria that cut off so many of the transplanted

Englishmen, rose in clouds from the fetid marshes,
and bull frogs and tree frogs called to each other in bass voices
through all the hours of day and night.

It was soon observed that the climate of aboriginal Virginia
varied but little in summer from that of Spain, while the degree
of temperature in winter was not colder than the same season
in England and France. Rain fell in copious quantities
throughout the month of April, and also in the course of
September. This latter month, owing to the decay of the rank
vegetation, was always the most unhealthy. Autumn, beginning
with the advent of the first frosts of October, spread a
blue veil of extraordinary beauty over the quiet face of the
fields and forests.

It was soon found out, after the first colonization of the
country, that the regions situated near the falls in the rivers
were more salubrious than those lying in reach of the ocean
tides. Whilst men were dying like infected cattle at Jamestown,
the companies so journing for a short time at the cataract
in the Powhatan, and on the high banks of the Nansemond,
enjoyed good health and kept up their normal strength. The
enemies of the earliest settlement founded in Virginia
asserted that its people, owing to the presence of innumerable
bogs and swamps in the lower valleys of the country, were
exposed to all those chronic diseases that prevailed in the
fens of Eastern England. By some, the ill health was attributed
to the brackish taint of the water which was drunk at
first; but its origin was not always confined to that source. It
was often due to other causes,—to the difference between the
moderate summer heat of England, to which the colonists had
been accustomed from birth, and the frequent torridity of the
Virginian atmosphere at the same season; to the variableness
of the Virginian climate, now cool, now hot, now dry, now
moist, according to the way the wind was blowing; to the
copious use of malt liquors; but above all, to fevers brought
on land from the decks and cabins of ships that had huddled
up their passengers with no regard for sanitary laws, even
so far as known in those times.