17th century

The Founding Foodies: How Washington, Jefferson, and Franklin Revolutionized American Cuisine by Dave DeWitt
18th century, 19th century, Benjamin Franklin, Culinary history, George Washington, Jamestown, LibraryPoint Blog, Monticello (Jefferson estate), Mount Vernon (Washington estate), Paris, Thomas Jefferson, Virginia Johnson, Biographies & Memoirs, Shelf Life Blog, Cooking, History & Politics, History Blog
01/28/2013 - 7:18am

The Founding Foodies, by Dave DeWitt, is an easy-going chat on matters historic and gastronomic in the Old Dominion and beyond. DeWitt dismisses some food writers’ contentions that colonial food was poor stuff.  Having attended Mr. Jefferson’s university and being thus familiar with the third president’s many accomplishments, he knew that this common opinion was surely an overgeneralization.  Jefferson, as well as Washington and Franklin, were trend-setters—learned men who easily absorbed and promulgated cultured styles of fashion, philosophy, architecture, and, yes, food, derived European trends, especially their French allies.

Besides these Founding Fathers’ culinary preferences, DeWitt also looks at curious historical periods of Virginia history where food, or lack of same, played a noteworthy role.  At Jamestown, the horrors of spoiled ships’ rations and the colonists’ inexperience with hunting and fishing made them very dependent on the native tribes’ shared knowledge. They did learn to hunt and fish which was well since the supply ship was delayed, nearly resulting in John Smith being hanged.  Desperate to turn a profit in the days before tobacco, the settlers took up fishing on a grand scale—thousands of pounds of salted cod to England and dried fish to Spain.

The Forgotten History of America: Little-Known Conflicts of Lasting Importance from the Earliest Colonists to the Eve of the Revolution by Cormac O’Brien
16th century, 17th century, 18th century, American history, LibraryPoint Blog, Virginia Johnson, Shelf Life Blog, Reading Room Blog, History & Politics, History Blog
07/24/2012 - 7:34am

History, particularly popular history, need not be dull, something that Cormac O’Brien demonstrates readily in his book, The Forgotten History of America. Written in a conversational tone and broken into vignettes, old history is made new when written this way. Even so, it’s not the standard stuff taught in schools. It’s about wars and both sides in those wars, reaching back to the country’s colonial beginnings in the 16th century. With personalities writ large on both sides and a good understanding of the differences in modern and historical society, O’Brien leads his readers on journeys back in time:

It begins with the first permanent European settlement in North America:

1565

Pedro Menedez de Aviles anxiously paced the deck of his flagship, San Pelayo. Two days earlier, off the coast of Florida, he had gone ashore and met with Indians who offered valuable information about the prey he was desperately seeking.  Now, confident of success, he led his five vessels northward along the coastline, scanning the beaches for any sign of European settlement.  The day was September 4, 1565, and Menendez was hunting heretics.

The Longest Day: Traditions for the Summer Solstice
Astronomy, Celts, Fairies, Indians of North America, Marriage, Shakespeare, solar power, Virginia Johnson, Folktales
05/16/2012 - 10:44am

Take a moment to savor the summer delights and craft some new traditions while learning the legends of summer.

Ancient Stargazers

Seeds of Discontent: The Deep Roots of the American Revolution, 1650-1750, by J. Revell Carr
17th century, 18th century, English colonies, LibraryPoint Blog, New in Virginiana, Virginia Johnson, History & Politics, Virginia History
03/12/2012 - 10:43am

The American Revolution didn’t start with the Tea Party.

For more than 100 years before that, the immigrants who came to America had very cogent reasons for leaving the civilized world. Many were hotheads—rebels against the king and his policies on religion. Others had come to the colonies hoping to make their fortunes and discovered much to their dismay that the king was very interested in taking a cut of their profits through high taxes, particularly on tobacco.

In Virginia, high taxes meant that the small farmers were left landless when they could not pay. Their farms were taken by wealthier landholders and the dispossessed went to the frontier to find new land to support them and their families. Not surprisingly, this meant clashes with the native population, some of which were quite bloody. Royal Governor Berkeley’s refusal to support the frontier farmers with soldiers—and his obvious friendships with the wealthier Tidewater land barons--led to Bacon’s Rebellion against the king’s most powerful representative and was but one example of the tension felt between the colonists and their royal masters’ representatives.

Once Upon a Time with Charles Perrault
17th century, Author Profiles, Fairy Tales, France -- history, January kids, Librarians, LibraryPoint Blog, literary fairy tales, Virginia Johnson, Fairy Tales & Folktales, Kids Blog
01/03/2012 - 9:56am

"As soon as he entered the wood all those great trees, and the interlaced brambles and thorns, separated to let him pass. He walked towards the castle, which he could see at the end of a great avenue. He was surprised that none of his companions had been able to follow him, since the trees had closed in again as soon as he had passed. But he did not falter. A young prince in love is always brave."

Sleeping Beauty. Cinderella. Puss in Boots. Little Red Riding Hood.
These enduring stories were created as we know them by a brilliant man who lived in 17th-century France. Although similar, but simpler stories were gathered more directly by the folklorists Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm in the 19th century, it was Charles Perrault's addition of delicate and amusing words, crafted to entrance a noble audience, that caught fire with readers' imaginations and were the basis for the way these stories are remembered today. It is easy to see the difference between a story collected by Grimm and a tale sculpted by Perrault. A Grimm tale is simple and direct and sometimes alarming while Perrault's are laced with details that still fire modern imaginations.

Colonial Virginia
Businesses, Colonial Virginia, Craftsmen, Education, Games, George Washington, Holidays, Jamestown, Kids Homework Help, Medicine, Recipes, Slavery, Virginia history for kids, Virginia Johnson, Williamsburg, African American, Teacher Resources, Virginia History
11/29/2010 - 9:13pm

What was it like to live long ago when Virginia belonged to England? When there were no cars, no computers, no hospitals and no public schools?

Without cars, trains or airplanes, people traveled by boat, horseback or on foot by "shank's mare". The reason so many colonial towns were located next to rivers is that often the roads were terrible seas of mud. It was so much easier to travel on the rivers!

"The Queene of Pomonky"
17th century, History Feature Articles, Pamunkey, Powhatan Indians, Virginia Johnson, History, Teacher Resources, Virginia History
10/14/2010 - 11:06am
XII. That each Indian King, and Queen have equall power to govern their owne people and none to have greater power then other, except the Queen of Pomunky to whom severall scattered Indians doe now againe owne their antient Subjection, and are agreed to come in and plant themselves under power and government, whoe with her are alsoe hereby included into this present League and treatie of peace, & are to keep, and observe the same towards the said Queen in all things as her Subjects, as well as towards the English.
First New World English Thanksgiving Was Celebrated in Virginia
17th century, James River, Jamestown, Thanksgiving, Virginia history for kids, Virginia Johnson, History Blog, Virginia History
04/02/2010 - 9:33am

The Pilgrims get the fame for their feast in New England, but two years prior on December 4, 1619, thirty-eight Virginians at Berkeley Hundred celebrated “a day of thanksgiving’ to God as required by their charter:

A Brief and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia
16th century, Colonial Virginia, Dispatches, Farm Life, Food, Indians of North America, Language, Thomas Hariot, Virginia history for kids, Virginia History
04/02/2010 - 9:22am

By Thomas Hariot

The Second Part
CONCERNING SUCH COMMODITIES AS VIRGINIA
IS KNOWN TO YIELD FOR FOOD AND THE SUSTENANCE
OF LIFE, CUSTOMARILY EATEN BY THE NATIVES
AND USED BY US WHILE WE WERE THERE

FIRST, CONCERNING SUCH AS ARE SOWN AND FARMED.
Pagatowr is a kind of grain. It is called maize in the West Indies; Englishmen name it Guinea wheat or Turkey wheat, after the countries from which a similar grain has been brought. This grain is about the size of our ordinary English peas and, while similar to them in form and shape, differs in color, some grains being white, some red, some yellow, and some blue. All of them yield a very white and sweet flour which makes excellent bread. We made malt from the grain while we were in Virginia and brewed as good an ale of it as could be desired. It also could be used, with the addition of hops, to produce a good beer. The grain increases on a marvelous scale-a thousand times, fifteen hundred, and in some cases two thousand fold. There are three sorts, of which two are ripe in ten, eleven, and, at the most, twelve weeks, when their stalks are about six or seven feet in height. The third one ripens in fourteen weeks and is ten feet high. Its stalks bear one, two, three, or four heads, and every head contains five, six, or seven hundred grains, as near as I can say. The inhabitants not only use it for bread but also make food of these grains. They either parch them, boiling them whole until they break, or boil the flour with water into a pap.

In Stafford County: Omens of 1675
17th century, Bacon's Rebellion, cicadas, Doeg Indians, History Feature Articles, Indians of the Eastern Woodlands, Rappahannock River, Robert Hodge, Smith Fort, Stafford County (Va.), History Blog, Virginia History
03/24/2010 - 11:24am

In the year 1675 four interesting events were recorded in Stafford County. Three of these were considered omens of the fourth, and the fourth was considered of significance to the history of our area.

The first event was in the heavens. In the southwestern sky, for more than a week, each day appeared a large comet with a long tail resembling that of a horse on a windy day. The Indians and the whites alike wondered what might be the meaning of this heavenly sign.