Colony of Virginia vs. 1636 Map

Banta · Feb 11, 2021

KorbenDallas said:
Anyways, I was just rambling about nothing

You're so coy.

What I think this does is further show our understanding of the civilization of the "Native Americans" has been purposely suppressed by the invaders who pillaged and killed them. Which isn't surprising or even really controversial... until we start getting into discussions of scope.

I frequently come back to thinking how the eventual US government borrowed language and ideas from the Iroquois Confederacy, which screams PR move. I suspect that we had lots of immigrants pre-Revolutionary War that found that they had more options that living in the British corporate towns and over time, who did those people end up having more in common with? The Europeans or the "Natives"? That's probably what the eventual Revolutionary Patriots wondered too and tried to positively influence, in their effort to become their own mob boss.

Basically, when it comes to the "natives", almost everything we have is so laughably racist/jingoist that the fact that we even have to debate whether these fellow human beings could have made towns that compare to ones made in literally every corner of the world ("Old" and "New") throughout time sort of shows how subtly effective their campaign ultimately was.

KorbenDallas · Jun 17, 2022

Found this interesting excerpt. 33 to 37 covers South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia. Mythology they say.

RCR82 · Jun 17, 2022

What gets me the most is the sheer amount of native towns on old maps in the VA/TN area. It makes one really begin to believe a genocide of much greater magnitude than just the trail of tears took place here

Also, I do not believe there was any shortage of food because every map from the mid 1600s to late 1700s notate abundance of perfect, fertile land, locations of buffalo and fishing spots.

KorbenDallas said:
Found this interesting excerpt. 33 to 37 covers South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia. Mythology they say.

View attachment 12398

Interesting what is this an excerpt from? Thomas Walker's travels in southwestern Virginia talk about natives extensively mining Cinnabar in this area. He says they claimed to have used the red color of the clay to make pigment for their face paint.

There's only one problem with using Cinnabar as pigment. Its 86.22 percent mercury and 13.78 percent sulfur. I find it very hard to believe they were rubbing poisonous metal that smelled like rotten eggs in their faces for decades.

Another thing to notate is, Most mined cinnabar is is used to separate gold ore into elemental gold.

Despite that fact, other travelers noted the Cherokee who inhabited the are had meager jewelery and primarily lived off the land.

Here are some interesting things I found on some a french map of present day Virginia:

It reads:

the Tionontatecaga who live in caves to defend themselves from the great heat.

BTW I'm finding all of these maps on an app called "Old Maps" bunch of hi-res maps from the old world.

xander · Jul 9, 2022

This thread inspired me to start reading this book, which is freely downloadable as a PDF. It’s from 1895 but uses older sources for its information.

It basically says the natives had organized government with taxes, buildings and civil behavior on par with the colonists, and a religion that worshipped the thunder god (which, imo, seems to have been all over the globe). The author repeatedly compares the native civilization to Rome. It also notes churches that are 20 yards wide by 100 yards long. Perhaps those are the large buildings on the map?

reverendALC · Jul 9, 2022

This reminds me of an article I read semi-recently (5+ year old article but I recently stumbled upon it) about some mummified remains discovered in my home state of WA that were highly similar genetically to Siberian (tartarian?) natives. A quick google search returned this neat article:

It’s Official: Native Americans and Siberians are Cousins

whether the Bering ice bridge is debunked or not doesn’t matter. An advanced global civilization could make and use boats to sprawl out. The fact that “natives” (meaning here before western settlers) up and down the americas are closely related to Siberians, and Siberians currently inhabit an area commonly marked tartary in some way or another…. It sure seems like the buildings over here that look like the buildings over there and are seemingly impossible for us to reproduce in any feasible way… belonged to the same some-body else.

Recognition · Jul 9, 2022

Wow, so good to have you back KD! I'm seeing tons of articles I totally missed! The combo of the expo article and this one are so interesting because these "embellished" locations look like renditions of grand unified style buildings with the dome and antenna, and thats exactly what we see at the expo! And we see these style buildings as almost every capitol building in every town, across the US.

Imagine, so many buildings with exteriors like that and interiors like this!

This next idea is more out there, lol. This picture below is interesting because the shapes on the left and right of this enclosure look like stacked buildings of the same kind? are these giants with some sort of vibration levitation stacking buildings? could the horns and wands be technology for levitation? For that matter could this circular space be a spaceship? or a flat earth? just really brainstorming on this. lol.

reverendALC · Jul 10, 2022

Alright, well this is getting strange…. I decided to focus some energy on that interesting picture of upside down people. This is what I found:

Source: Eye Witness John White 1585 - Charnal House

“John White (c 1540-1593) was an English artist & early pioneer of English efforts to settle North America. He was among those who sailed with Richard Grenville to the shore of present-day North Carolina in 1585, acting as artist & mapmaker to the expedition. During his time at Roanoke Island he made a number of watercolor sketches of the surrounding landscape & the native Algonkin peoples. White had been commissioned to "draw to life" the inhabitants of the New World & their surroundings. During White's time at Roanoke Island, he completed numerous watercolor drawings of the surrounding landscape & native peoples. These works are significant as they are the most informative illustrations of a Native American society of the Eastern seaboard. They represent the sole-surviving visual record of the native inhabitants of America encountered by England's first settlers.”

Charnel House Wikipedia: A charnel house is a vault or building where human skeletal remains are stored. They are often built near churches for depositing bones that are unearthed while digging graves. The term can also be used more generally as a description of a place filled with death and destruction.
Italics added by me, see below

He made many paintings of this scene:

This image shows their heads adorned with feathers, but another watercolor shows either entire birds, or a rendition of a bird with wings spread on their heads:

And also many paintings of this scene:

Italics lead here: There’s quite a whole lot of cannibalism depicted, and execution of white men. Were the natives truly belligerent savages, or were they intentionally portrayed as such by the “sole-surviving visual record.”

Theodore DeBry frequently depicted the natives as such.

Recognition · Jul 10, 2022

reverendALC said:
Alright, well this is getting strange…. I decided to focus some energy on that interesting picture of upside down people. This is what I found:
View attachment 12555
Source:
Eye Witness John White 1585 - Charnal House

“John White (c 1540-1593) was an English artist & early pioneer of English efforts to settle North America. He was among those who sailed with Richard Grenville to the shore of present-day North Carolina in 1585, acting as artist & mapmaker to the expedition. During his time at Roanoke Island he made a number of watercolor sketches of the surrounding landscape & the native Algonkin peoples. White had been commissioned to "draw to life" the inhabitants of the New World & their surroundings. During White's time at Roanoke Island, he completed numerous watercolor drawings of the surrounding landscape & native peoples. These works are significant as they are the most informative illustrations of a Native American society of the Eastern seaboard. They represent the sole-surviving visual record of the native inhabitants of America encountered by England's first settlers.”

Charnel House Wikipedia:
A charnel house is a vault or building where human skeletal remains are stored. They are often built near churches for depositing bones that are unearthed while digging graves. The term can also be used more generally as a description of a place filled with death and destruction.
Italics added by me, see below

He made many paintings of this scene:
View attachment 12556
This image shows their heads adorned with feathers, but another watercolor shows either entire birds, or a rendition of a bird with wings spread on their heads:
View attachment 12557
And also many paintings of this scene:
View attachment 12558

Italics lead here: There’s quite a whole lot of cannibalism depicted, and execution of white men. Were the natives truly belligerent savages, or were they intentionally portrayed as such by the “sole-surviving visual record.”

View attachment 12559
Theodore DeBry frequently depicted the natives as such.

your picture above shows what looks to be stone buildings literally underground! especially to the right looks like a big stone house.

reverendALC · Jul 10, 2022

Wow, sometimes you need to step back and take in the whole image

that’s very curious indeed! There appears to be a railed staircase on the left side. I wonder if they were privy to deluged infrastructure?

another interesting note, there is a bit of red border on the top and both sides, but no semblance of red border along the bottom. Is there more to this image that’s been cropped away?

to answer my own question, here’s the tallest image I can find:

It appears that different folks have applied their own coloration to the image. This image depicts the “underground” as underwater. Perhaps so, however the colorator of this image also decided that the corn field on the top left was water!

whether those structures are underground or underwater, they’re still questionable.

here’s another rendition:

It’s hard to tell exactly what John White was illustrating on the bottom of this scene. A hill in the foreground? The shading is all wrong for that, and the rest of the shadows and shading do suggest that he understood the concept.

I’m assuming the TB on the bottom is for Theodore deBry, but in the bottom right I’m not sure what the 19 or J9 means. In the other renditions, the buildings marked A and B are obvious, but the pond in the top right is marked C. I wonder if there’s a legend/key to this artwork floating around somewhere?

here’s an uncolored copy:

without the watercolor, the detail is much greater.

an entirely different artist’s rendition of this camp also seems to suggest that the camp exists on top of something, or on the top layer?

Here is a map by John White of the area, which I found here on researchgate.

I wonder what “corrections” needed making in these two locations?

John White has also seen and drawn starforts too:

jd755 · Jul 11, 2022

Some interesting information on the John White sketch and various versions of it.

Comparison of the sketch and an engraving.

Most interesting to me is this bit.

Engraving "The Tovvne of Pomeiooc" by De Bry (printed 1590) based on watercolor by White..

The engraving is done using artistic licence. So its fantasy from the engravers imagination and message his customer wants to portray.
The sketch is a practical in nature an effort to record a scene on paper if you will. No way to know of course when it was actually drawn or if it was drawn to illustrate a story or is a true depiction of what the artist saw in front of him sadly and I know of no method or process which can establish veracity.

As for the maps are we misinterpreting a building symbology that conveys purpose in the mind of the map maker and the map user?
A drafted legend if you will of an agreed symbology that is based in the society where the map maker and the wandering explorer lived hence the design of the symbols reflects their home society not one said to have been just discovered

Here is the sketch. It is quite telling to see how simple it is compared to the fantasies based upon it. Reality into fantasy or truth into lies?

Of course as today where we have all manner of society and infrastructure in one land I see know reason to discount the likelihood that a similar pattern was observable in the past.

Here's another version attributed to White in the British Museum.
All the naked bits have been covered in this version. Reminds me of the way movies used to be shot. Often there were bared breasts in the cut for European markets but covered breasts in the cut for United States and kingdoms markets.

Recognition · Jul 11, 2022

KorbenDallas said:
rt Algernon or Fort Charles?
And with all of that, the map author forgot to name the so-called Fort Algernon. It was (allegedly) established in the fall of 1609 at the mouth of Hampton Roads at Point Comfort in the Virginia Colony. A strategic point for guarding the shipping channel leading from the Chesapeake Bay, Fort Monroe was built there beginning in the 1830s.

The first fort was a wooden stockade named Fort Algernourne, followed by other small forts

Some interesting thoughts about the word Algernon/Algernourne:

Alger means "elf spear" or "noble, old, temple". I know we've had discussions about the use of "El" connecting to ideas of rulers or gods. Spear could compare to antennae. Is it too much to make the jump to that name comparing to what we see on this map? literally noble old temples with antennae?

xander said:
The author repeatedly compares the native civilization to Rome.

@xander note about this civilization comparing to Rome, seems to back this up.

jd755 · Jul 11, 2022

Recognition said:
Is it too much to make the jump to that name comparing to what we see on this map? literally noble old temples with antennae?

Frankly yes. When an etymology explanation via wikiwakipedia is the basis of the supposition.
Its already a leap with the Alger coming out of Aelfgar. What the explanation is stating is A in Aelfgar is silent and there is no way for anyone alive today to ascertain the pronunciation of the word Aelfgar in either the 13th or 19th century.

Same goes for its meaning. The word gay has been given modern definitions that didn't exist when I was a lad in the sixties/seventies. So when such a change occurs in a matter of a few decades any definition or attribution for centuries past is questionable at best.
Gay used to be spelt gaye so at some point befoe my time an e was dropped But it to is used today as a name in both forms Gay and Gaye.

Etymo!ogy is a true guessing game.

I recall discussions about these symbols on various other maps on the earlier stolenhistory site and they were of the same nature as here. Not considering at all who ordered or paid for the maps to be drawn, or where they were drawn or what the source material, sketch, documentation journal etc was.
As this map symbology is very common on maps contemporary with this one no matter what continent they depict I argue that it was a universally recognised symbology not an accurate portrayal of what is there. Accuracy comes from the sketch book and journals as things worthy of an appearance in such things are likely true depictions and descriptions, assuming such records are genuine and could be placed and cross referrenced with each other in time
Problem is not everything has been digitised and not everything is written in English.

I also recall in depth discussion about electrical antennas on buildings none of which ever provided anything definitive in regards the existence of metalwork as antennas or the machines/cabling/devices they may have been attached to.

Recognition · Jul 11, 2022

ah @jd755 good to see you on here, but as usual we'll have to agree to disagree

reverendALC · Jul 11, 2022

Funny.

@Recognition thats an interesting play. I like it, but it begs the question:

is it Alger-non or is it al-gernon? If the former, your point is well taken. If the latter, Al-gernon is derivative of auxgernon, or “with mustache.”

with mustache seems like an irrelevant dead end of synonymity. If it’s Alger-non, what might the significance of “non” be? Usually it’s a preemptive counterindication, as in non-starter not starter-non. I cannot find any mention or usage of “non” as a suffix… although I do find it built-in to names such as Parthenon, Lebanon, etc.

jd755 · Jul 12, 2022

Recognition said:
ah @jd755 good to see you on here, but as usual we'll have to agree to disagree

Its not about agreement or personalities. Its about the available evidence and the interpretation of it.
Figuring out what the purpose of the map symbology is fundamental to establishing what the maps details, annotations, etc are meant to convey to the viewer. Then establishing who they were made for would give further routes for research to hopefully establish them in some sort of frame within the restrictions of the mainstream timeline we are provided with.

Recognition · Jul 12, 2022

reverendALC said:
Funny.

@Recognition thats an interesting play. I like it, but it begs the question:

is it Alger-non or is it al-gernon? If the former, your point is well taken. If the latter, Al-gernon is derivative of auxgernon, or “with mustache.”

with mustache seems like an irrelevant dead end of synonymity. If it’s Alger-non, what might the significance of “non” be? Usually it’s a preemptive counterindication, as in non-starter not starter-non. I cannot find any mention or usage of “non” as a suffix… although I do find it built-in to names such as Parthenon, Lebanon, etc.

Sources & Abbreviations

According to this compendium, nourne could be to utter/speak/murmur. My thoughts go to vibration or resonance? That's just imo though

jd755 · Jul 12, 2022

A couple of things.
The Smith map is visually consistent with the Smith sketches. There are no depictions of stone buildings on it not a one.
He marks kings houses what we today would call chiefs houses I would guess.
He also marks the different type of tree and ordinary houses. A lot of the map is however supposition as he himself states he was told what was there but did not see for himself. These are the land beyond the crosses.

Doesn't look to inviting but the later map, the engraving of 1636 is indeed embellished with all manner of symbology and is frankly a distortion of Smiths. The engraver I fancy never went near Virginia and simply made things up to sell the opportunity of Virginia to people in England.
A moderrn equivalent would be a developers fantasy artwork used to sell the proposed development to investors.
I haven't yet looked but suspect it was made for the Virginia Company to persuade.

I found this most excellent site full of information about many of the ships, crews and passengers.

This one is an online version of Smiths The Generall Historie of Virginia, New England and the Summer Isles and is truly fascinating.
The most obvious being a very different version of written and presumably spoken English was in use, assuming the text is genuine.
Secondly there is a lot of loghistical information in it which at first blush supports the accepted narrative in parts and contradicts it in others..

It will I fancy put some of the points raised in the op into perspective if anyone, me included, can get comfortable with the language used.

reverendALC · Jul 12, 2022

@jd755 ”As for the maps are we misinterpreting a building symbology that conveys purpose in the mind of the map maker and the map user?”

are you suggesting that the map maker(s) drew English icon cities on the map to represent native dwellings that were actually grass huts etc, because people were not familiar with hut villages and palisades?

according to Wikipedia and numerous other sources, palisades were common amongst Vikings, Roman military camps, and many other cultures/eras. The 1636 map has an illustration of a palisade nonetheless, so it doesn’t really track with me that the legend uses colonial style icons to represent indigenous villages under the premise of familiarity.

furthermore, all natives are illustrated in “their attire” not in contemporary colonial attire, and it wouldn’t make sense to properly represent the people but misrepresent the villages based upon cultural bias.

jd755 · Jul 12, 2022

reverendALC said:
are you suggesting that the map maker(s) drew English icon cities on the map to represent native dwellings that were actually grass huts etc, because people were not familiar with hut villages and palisades

No. I am suggesting the 1636 map symbology depicts things that weren't there to sell the potential of emigration to people who were expecting certain things based in their home surroundings. In the main stone or brick built infrastructure.
These icons and indeed the entire map are fantasy going off of the probability Smiths map, at least the parts he puts inside the little crosses is accurate.
Certainly the engraving is useless for locating oneself in a landscape whereas Smiths could be used so. Ergo the formers purpose is different to the latter's.

From those two sites I discovered earlier its obvious people were not queing up to make the journey and some incentive was needed to persuade them to at least consider going.

As to your other points. Wikipedia and as far as I can tell most other online encyclopedia sites are not trustworthy.

The palisade Smith drew is clearly designed to keep large animals out of the enclosure presumably to get a good nights sleep. Smaller animals can obviously come and go through it.
The fantasy map shows a dense defensive type of palisade. As I said above the engraver chap never went anywhere near Virginia so he simply made things up presumably based on his knowledge of stock pens in England.

Smiths sketch shows naked people. Later copies or fantasies based on his sketch show people in either grass clobber or skins. I reckon the large drawing of the man on Smiths map and the smaller drawings opposite are probably more indicative of their actual attire.
If people were depicted wearing similar attire as they were in England then it would not be as easy to sell the prospect of a better life or financial gain etc in a land already occupied by a people very much like themselves.

Its equally possible the engraving is propaganda to discredit the Virginia Company.

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Colony of Virginia vs. 1636 Map

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