Posts Tagged Early Americans

This copy of “The Bay Book of Psalms” is owned by The John Carter Brown Library at Brown University and is one of 11 copies of the first edition known to exist and one of only four perfect copies. The book is in its original binding, with the title page signed by principal editor – Richard Mather (in which you can see on the top of the left page). Photo Credit: John Carter Brown Library/World Digital Library

“The Whole Booke of Psalmes Faithfully Translated into English Metre” commonly known as the “Bay Psalm Book”, was the first book printed in the American Colonies. It was first printed in 1640 by Stephen Daye, the first printer of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The original cover of the 1640 “Bay Psalm Book” in the Library of Congress’ collections. Photo Credit: Library of Congress

Two years earlier, in 1638, Reverend Jesse Glover imported the first printing press to the colonies and Daye, a London printer, came over with the press and established a printing office in Cambridge. John Eliot, Thomas Welde and Richard Mather were asked by the colony’s residents to translate the Book of Psalms from Hebrew for use in the churches. While other hymn books were brought to the New World, the Puritans thought they deviated from the original Hebrew words.  Around 30 New England ministers assisted Mather, the principal translator and editor, in translating the book.

The creation of the book is a milestone for both the church and the colonies. It marked an evolution in musical tradition used in American churches. The book was reissued into several editions and was in use for over 100 years. For the colonies, “Bay Psalm Book” represented advancement as a society. To have an actual printing press meant they were not wholly dependent upon outside sources. The press was imported about 20 years after the Mayflower’s arrival and helped fortify their place in the New World.

There are 11 first edition copies of the “Bay Psalm Book” known to still exist. Only five are in complete condition, four of which are considered “perfect” copies. Among the institutions that own a copy include the Library of Congress, Yale University, Harvard University and Brown University. The Old South Church in Boston actually owns two books, which are housed at the Boston Public Library. In December 2012, the church announced they are going to auction off one of their two copies. (The Old South Church is one of the nation’s oldest churches and was founded in 1669.) It is estimated that the 372-year-old hymn book will fetch anywhere between $10 million to $20 million.

Sources
Library of Congress
World Digital Library
Ted Widmer, “This Is the First Book the Puritans Published on Our Shores,” Slate, November 19, 2012.
Jay Lindsay, “Bay Psalm Book Sale: Old South Church To Sell First Book Published In North America,” Huffington Post, Decemeber 2, 2012.

The specific origins of Halloween are often debated. Like many historical events created in ancient times, much of how we celebrate Halloween today is a compilation of hundreds of years including the input of many different people. The most agreed upon version is that it began as a festival for witches, goblins and ghosts.

Ancient Celtic Origins
Originating with ancient Celts in the 5th century B.C. who were among the firsts to celebrate October 31st. They called it “All Hallows Eve.” The day itself had two meanings. First, it marked the official end of summer and the Celts were honor the sun god for the summer’s harvest. Secondly, the last day of October was believed to also be a day of supernatural forces. It was a day that the spirits of those who died the previous year could transfer into a living person or animal. By transferring into a body for the next year, it was believed that the spirit would then be able to move into the afterlife peacefully.

On “All Hallows Eve,” Celtic houses would be deliberately made cold in order ward off undesired spirits. Additionally to help deter and scare unwanted ghouls, family members dressed as witches, hobgoblins and demons. They would parade inside the home before moving outside. During their parading, it was important to be as noisy as possible and to partake in pranks and trickery. The parade continued through the village until they arrived at a large bonfire created by a Druid priest outside the village. The bonfire honored the sun god for the summer harvest but it was also a means to ward off furtive spirits. If a person was already believed to be possessed, they could be sacrificed as an example to the spirits thinking of possessing human body.

Roman and the Christianity Adaption
As the Roman Empire began to conquer Celtic territory around 43 A.D., they also adopted Celtic Halloween practices. However, they quickly outlawed human sacrificing around 61 A.D. The Romans added two major items to the Halloween celebrations, the first being to honor the passing of the dead. Secondly, they honored Pomona, the goddess of fruit and trees, by incorporating apples as a symbol of the goddess. They would use apples in various forms during their celebration. One activity still practiced today would be the tradition of “bobbing” for apples. Additionally, as time passed the belief in spiritual possession waned. Instead, celebrations still included the parading, costuming and trickery but it was more for amusement than as a method to deter unwanted spirits.

November 1st was eventually assigned as “All Saints Day.” Allegedly, this Christian feast was created to deter people from practicing the pagan traditions of Halloween. Instead the first of November honored every Christian saint, particularly those that do not have their own devoted day. The idea did not fully happen, however over time, many of the traditional deity worship done in the ancient “All Hollows Eve” rituals diminished. In the 9th century, the church tried again to weaken Halloween by establishing “All Souls Day” on November 2nd. “All Souls Day” was a day in which the living would pray for the souls of the dead. Again, the church was powerless in its attempt to create a secular church holiday that would overshadow Halloween.

Halloween comes to America
Halloween was not a popular holiday observed by the early settlers in the United States. The Protestants in the New England area were against it because it was considered a Pagan, Catholic or Episcopalian holiday and not acceptable. It was not until around the 1840s when Irish immigration greatly increased due to those fleeing the Great Famine (potato famine) that Halloween started to spread. Irish immigrants brought with them the Halloween customs of costume and mischief on a larger scale than was previous seen.

At the turn of the century, both children and adults celebrated with Halloween parties focused on games, food and costumes. In the 1920s and 1930s, the holiday became community-centered with parades and large parties. The town of Anoka, Minnesota is believed to be the first town in the country to host a Halloween parade in 1920. In an effort to deter the mischief of the town’s youth, who were known to let the cattle loose and turn over outhouses on Halloween, started this annual tradition. By the 1930s, it was estimated around 20,000 people attended the parades.

As the years passed, Halloween has become increasingly more popular. In the United States, Halloween has moved past its origins as a pagan spiritual festival and into a secular celebration. Commercialization has emphasized costumes, trick-or-treat and food as well as turning it into a holiday children and adults alike.

Sources
Charles Panati, Panati’s Extraordinary Origins of Everyday Things, New York: Harper, 1989, 62-63.
Anoka, MN website
Halloween History
History Channel
Photos: 2nd, 3rd, 4th

The only state that does not have a national park, seashore, battlefield, memorials or monument is Delaware. This is interesting since the state is steeped in history, having been one of the thirteen colonies during the Revolutionary War and the first state to ratify the United States Constitution. Long story short, if you’re looking to find a job with the National Park Services in Delaware, look elsewhere.

Source

By   Christopher Wanjek

10/10/2011 12:46:50 PM ET

Monday is Columbus Day, time to buy appliances on sale and contemplate other things that have nothing to do with Christopher Columbus. So much of what we say about Columbus is either wholly untrue or greatly exaggerated.

Here are a few of the top offenders.

1. Columbus set out to prove the world was round.

If he did, he was about 2,000 years too late. Ancient Greek mathematicians had already proven that the earth was round, not flat.

Pythagoras in the sixth century B.C. was one of the originators of the idea. Aristotle in the fourth century B.C. provided the physical evidence, such as the shadow of the Earth on the moon and the curvature of the Earth known by all sailors approaching land. And by the third century B.C., Eratosthenes determined our planet’s shape and circumference using basic geometry. In the second century, Claudius Ptolemy wrote the “Almagest,” the mathematical and astronomical treatise on planetary shapes and motions, describing the spherical Earth. This text was well known throughout educated Europe in Columbus’ time.

Columbus, a self-taught man, greatly underestimated Earth’s circumference. He also thought Europe was wider than it actually was and that Japan was farther from the coast of China than it really was. For these reasons, he figured he could reach Asia by going west, a concept that most of educated Europe at the time thought was daft — not because the earth was flat, but because Columbus’ math was so wrong. Columbus, in effect, got lucky by bumping into land that, of course, wasn’t Asia.

The Columbus flat-earth myth perhaps originated with Washington Irving’s 1828 biography of Columbus; there’s no mention of this before that. His crew wasn’t nervous about falling off the earth.

2. Columbus discovered America.

Tourists walk by the tomb of Spanish explorer Christopher Columbus in the Cathedral of Seville, Spain. Spanish researchers recently determined that Columbus' remains are indeed buried in the tomb, based on DNA results. Another Columbus tomb is located in the Dominican Republic, but DNA tests have not been conducted on the remains buried there. (Cristina Quicler/AP file)

Yes, let’s ignore the fact that millions of humans already inhabited this land later to be called the Americas, having discovered it millennia before. And let’s ignore that whole Leif Ericson voyage to Greenland and modern-day Canada around the year 1000. If Columbus discovered America, he himself didn’t know. Until his death he claimed to have landed in Asia, even though most navigators knew he didn’t.

What Columbus came across was the archipelago of the Bahamas and then the island later named Hispaniola, now split into Haiti and the Dominican Republic. On his subsequent voyages he went farther south, to Central and South America. He never got close to what is now called the United States.

So why does the United States celebrate the guy who thought he found a nifty new route to Asia and the lands described by Marco Polo? This is because the early United States was fighting with England, not Spain. John Cabot (a.k.a. Giovanni Cabot, another Italian) “discovered” Newfoundland in England’s name around 1497 and paved the way for England’s colonization of most of North America. So the American colonialists instead turned to Columbus as their hero, not England’s Cabot. Hence we have the capital, Washington, D.C. — that’s District of Columbia, not District of Cabot.

3. Columbus introduced syphilis to Europe.

This is hotly debated. Syphilis was present in pre-Columbus America. Yet syphilis probably existed for millennia in Europe as well, but simply wasn’t well understood. The ancient Greeks describe lesions rather similar to that from syphilis. Perhaps by coincidence, an outbreak of syphilis occurred in Naples in 1494 during a French invasion, just two years after Columbus’ return. This sealed the connection.

But aside from descriptions of syphilis-like lesions by Hippocrates, many researchers believe that there was a syphilis outbreak in, of all places, a 13th-century Augustinian friary in the English port of Kingston upon Hull. This coastal city saw a continual influx of sailors from distant lands, and you know what sailors can do. Carbon dating and DNA analysis of bones from the friary support the theory of syphilis being a worldwide disease before Columbus’ voyages.

4. Columbus died unknown in poverty.

Columbus wasn’t a rich man when he died in Spain at age 54 in 1506. But he wasn’t impoverished. He was living comfortably, economically speaking, in an apartment in Valladolid, Crown of Castile, in present-day Spain, albeit in pain from severe arthritis. Columbus had been arrested years prior on accusations of tyranny and brutality toward native peoples of the Americas. But he was released by King Ferdinand after six weeks in prison. He was subsequently denied most of the profits of his discoveries promised to him by Ferdinand and Queen Isabella.

After his death, though, his family sued the royal crown, a famous lawsuit known as the Pleitos colombinos, or Columbian lawsuits, lasting nearly 20 years. Columbus’ heirs ultimately secured significant amounts of property and other riches from the crown. Also, most European navigators understood by the end of the 15th century, before his death, that Columbus had discovered islands and a large land mass unknown to them.

5. Columbus did nothing significant.

With all this talk of a hapless Columbus accidentally “discovering” the New World, as well as the subsequent genocide of native cultures, it is easy to understand the current backlash against Columbus and the national holiday called Columbus Day, celebrated throughout North and South America. This isn’t entirely fair.

While Columbus was wrong about most things, he did help establish knowledge about trade winds, namely the lower-latitude easterlies that blow toward the Caribbean and the higher-latitude westerlies that can blow a ship back to Western Europe. Also, while Columbus wasn’t the first European to reach the Western Hemisphere, he was the first European to stay. His voyages directly initiated a permanent presence of Europeans in both North and South America.

News of the success of his first voyage spread like wildfire through Europe, setting the stage for an era of European conquest. One can argue whether the conquest was good or bad for humanity: that is, the spread of Christianity, rise of modernism, exploitation and annihilation of native cultures, and so on. But it is difficult to deny Columbus’ direct role in quickly and radically changing the world.

Christopher Wanjek is the author of the books “Bad Medicine” and “Food At Work.” His column, Bad Medicine, appears regularly on LiveScience.

MSNBC 

Bangwell Putt

Clarissa Field of Northfield, Massachusetts, was born blind in 1765. This doll was made for her and she fancifully named it Bangwell Putt. Bangwell lacks facial features but her ten carefully constructed fingers suggest the importance of touch in Clarissa’s world. Bangwell has a homespun body and is dressed in 18th century fashion, including corset. Clarissa kept Bangwell until she died in her eighties. Bangwell Putt is thought to be the oldest surviving rag doll in North America.

Via Memorial Hall Museum Online Collection

Nancy Ward (1738-1824) was the last “Beloved Woman” of the Cherokees. She earned the “Beloved Woman” title after the Creeks tribe killed her husband, a warrior, during a skirmish. Fighting alongside him, Ward became enraged at the Creeks for his death, and she rallied the Cherokee forces to a decisive victory. For her heroism, she was named “Beloved Woman,” a title reserved for wise women who have distinguished themselves in battle or who have been the wives or mothers of great warriors.

In becoming the “Beloved Woman,” Ward sat in on General Council meetings where she could participate fully, vote and pardon condemned prisoners. Reportedly, she did in fact pardon a prison by the name of Mrs. Bean, a white woman. Not only did Ward nurse Mrs. Bean back to health, she also set her free. Before she left, Mrs. Bean showed Ward the loom weave technique and how to raise dairy cattle. She also headed the Women’s Council and prepared the various ceremonies. In addition, another duty of hers was to act as a negotiator in treaty parlays. While her advancements and dedication to the tribe are highly regarded, she was also the first Cherokee to have African American slaves.

Previously, she had advocated for peaceful relations with the whites, but after years of broken promises, she no longer advised peace. Fearing the impending force removal, she married Bryan Ward, a white innkeeper. They became quite prosperous and she dead in 1824. Her son claimed that when his mother died, a white light ascended from her body and flew into the sacred mound at Chota, located in present-day Monroe County, Tennessee. In the 1970s and 1980s, the mound was destroyed during the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Tellico Dam Project.

The Nancy Ward Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution based in Chattanooga, Tennessee was named after her.

Information
Bataille, Gretchen, ed. Native American Women. New York: Garland Publishing, 1993, 272-273.
Smith, David Ray. “Nancy Ward,” December 25, 2009, found online here.

Map of San Juan Island

As westward exploration expanded, it was common for land to have overlapping claims between Spain, Great Britain and the United States. This was especially common in the Oregon region, including present states of Washington, Idaho, Oregon, portions of Wyoming and Montana, in addition to British Colombia.

By the early 1800s, Spain had let go of their claims in the Oregon region, but the U.S. and Great Britain still had overlapping  land claims. One particular region in competition was the San Juan Island, an island located between Washington and Vancouver Island. Great Britain attested that the island was legally theirs since the British-run Hudson’s Bay Company had operated trade and commercial activities before the American’s claim. The backbone of the American claim rested on their idea of “manifest destiny” and saw the British threatening their idea of expansion.

British Capt. Geoffrey Hornby

The Hudson’s Bay Company set up a post on the island around 1818. Not long after, American settlers took notice of the island’s fertile land and set up farms. Tension between the two mounted and on June 15, 1859, it erupted over quite a small matter. On that day, American Lyman A. Cutler killed a Hudson’s Bay-owned pig because it kept destroying his garden. The pig repeatedly disrupted Cutler’s potato patch and he discussed the issue with the pig’s owners but they did very little. After the pig’s death, the Hudson’s Bay Company demanded that Cutler reimburse $100 dollars for the slain pig. Cutler refuted that he would not pay $100 dollars for “a $10 pig.”

American Capt. George Pickett

Because Cutler refused to pay the fine, the Hudson’s Bay Company threatened to bring him to trial and sentence him under British law. Since Cutler is American, he sought protection from the U.S. government. The British sent five vessels, stationed them in the straits by the island, and were authorized to land if necessary. They were commanded by Captain Hornby. The U.S. dispatched troops commanded by Captain Pickett from Oregon. Both captains realized the situation would not end well if further military action occurred. Both governments agreed upon joint military occupation on the island until they agreed upon a finalized border. Great Britain gave up their claim on the island in 1873.

The Pig War resulted in one casualty – the pig.

[Zim’s Note: Captain Pickett is most known for his actions in the Civil War. During the Battle of Gettysburg, he, a Confederate Major General, led the Pickett’s Charge. The charge was a bloodbath, with over 50 percent of those who fought in it were either killed or wounded. Until his death, Pickett regretted having anything to do with Pickett’s Charge.]

Sources:
New York Times, “State Department Recounts Tale of a Pig That Nearly Caused Conflict With Britain,” August 1, 1948.
New York Times, “A Pig Nearly Causes a War,” July 17, 1892.
“The Pig War” on the National Park Service website.

Photos: Pickett and Hornby

Image depicting Virginia Dare's baptism

Virginia Dare was the first child born in America (while under British control) to British parents. She was born on August 18, 1587 in the Roanoke Colony.

Her maternal grandfather was John White, the governor of Roanoke Island. The Island is just off the coast of modern-day North Carolina and had only 120 settlers at the time.

Sculptor’s interpretation of Virginia Dare

Roanoke Colony is famously known as the “Lost Colony” and is shrouded in myth and folklore. Governor White left the colony to return to England for more supplies and money,when he returned in 1591 everyone had disappeared. The only thing left was a stone carving with the word “Croatan.” This led many to speculate that the settlers were killed or kidnapped by the Croatan tribe.

North Carolina still celebrates Virginia Dare’s birthday on Roanoke Island.

[Information and photos found at North Carolina History Project and Time Magazine]

John Jacob Astor (1763-1848)

America’s first multimillionaire was John Jacob Astor. As a German immigrant, Astor acquired his wealth in fur trade (he created the American Fur Company) and real estate. By today’s standards, he would have been the fourth richest American ever.

[Photo]