They were sailing away from England.
TO NORTH AMERICA.
And these three ships carried people. One of the more important of these people is
JOHN SMITH.
Please do note this is not going to be written in the form of narration that has been avoided in the past. Absolutely nothing is going to happen like that. Hopefully. Maybe. We’ll see.
BUT WHAT IS SO IMPORTANT ABOUT THIS JOHN SMITH, WHICH HIS STEREOTYPICAL NAME AND SUCH?
Everything.
ELABORATE, PLEASE.
No.
WHY?
Because I said.
C’MON. I ASKED NICELY.
Ok, fine.
...
...
...
GET ON WITH IT.
Ok, ok, hold your horses.
JOHN SMITH.
He was the one who more or less got everyone who was traveling to North America through the winter.
ALSO, THIS NAME SHOULD SOUND FAMILIAR IF YOU’VE SEEN A CERTAIN DISNEY MOVIE.
Called Pocahontas.
BUT MORE ON THAT LATER.
Who was this
JOHN SMITH?
Well he was born in England. But when he turned 16, he kinda left his house.
FOR ADVENTURE.
He fought some battles, bluh bluh found ships. Three of them. No, not /those/ kind of ships.
THESE KIND OF SHIPS.
No. /These/ kind of ships.
So there was a voyage and John Smith was like “YES.”
AND THEN HE GOT ACCUSED, ABOUT HALF WAY THROUGH THE TRIP. OF PLOTTING MUTINY.
Which he wouldn’t do. Well, maybe he would. But he might or might not have done it. I don’t know.
GET ON WITH ITTT.
Anyway! He kinda got chained up to the wall and he very barely escaped execution. Because to be frank, nobody really liked him and he wasn’t really trusted either.
AND THEN THE SHIP REACHED NORTH AMERICA.
They landed on the coast of Virginia.
WHICH WAS NAMED AFTER ELIZABETH.
The “Virgin” queen.
ANYWAY.
The captain here decided he’d name their settlement Jamestown. Because James was the king.
WHO SENT THEM A SECRET BOX.
Well what was in this box?
IT’S A SECRET!
No ok. It had 7 names. Inside it. The names inside were not to be read until they reached their destination.
AND THESE 7 MEN WHOSE NAMES WERE INSIDE THE SECRET BOX WERE TO GOVERN THE NEW SETTLEMENTS.
Basically there’s this thing. Called Imminent Domain. So if you want to go up and be like “Hey. You. I’m just gonna crash here for a little. I hope you don’t mind. Because you have to let me. Because that’s what it says.”
IT’S KINDA MESSED UP.
But basically that’s what they did to the Indians.
ANYWAY, BACK TO THE NAMES.
Three guesses as to whose name was pulled up.
JOHN.
monkeying.
SMITH.
And everyone, more or less, hated him. He was still in chains for about 2 months after he was elected governor.
NOW AT THIS TIME, A FORM OF SOCIALISM WAS IN PLACE.
The settlers were not getting along.
WHY?
Because not everyone was pulling their weight. And people were suffering for it.
SOCIALISM BASICALLY MEANT EVERYONE ATE FROM A COMMON STORAGE, WEATHER OR NOT THEY ACTUALLY COLLECTED FOOD.
Which is a pretty bad system. Doesn’t it sound like one? It sounds like an ok idea. At least, for those not actually working. However, for those working for the food, it stinks really bad because you tend to
ABSOLUTELY HATE THOSE WHO DON’T DO ANYTHING BECAUSE YOU SUFFER FOR IT BECAUSE THERE IS NOT AS MUCH FOOD FOR EVERYONE.
And a big problem with the system is that
HALF OF THE MONKEYING PEOPLE WERE
“Gentlemen.” And that means they don’t do anything. They don’t plow fields, they don’t harvest food, they don’t really do anything.
SO INSTEAD THEY LAZED AROUND.
And when John Smith got out of confinement, he called for... uhhh...
CHANGE.
First of all, he came in kinda jerkfaced because he had kinda been hated. He was jaded now after accepting the fact that nobody really cared about him and he wasn’t going win any elections anyway. He had nothing to lose.
NOW DUE TO THIS, HIS METHODS WERE A TAD QUESTIONABLE.
And what were they, exactly?
POISONINGS, FLOGGINGS, AND ASSASSINATIONS OF THE TROUBLEMAKERS.
Well that’s nice. He pretty much understood that everyone would have to do stuff for them all to survive.
AND HE FINALLY MADE A POLICY THAT SAID, “YOU DON’T WORK, YOU DON’T EAT.”
Socialism was out. Which was a good thing. Because nobody had to be mad at anybody except for John Smith!
AND PRIVATE LABOUR IS A FORM OF CAPITALISM.
Which is what we have in America. Sorta. It’s sort of an odd mixture of Socialism and Capitalism.
ALSO, IT’S GOOD TO NOTE THAT JAMESTOWN WAS IN A SWAMP.
Which means mosquitoes. And if you’ve ever been in, you know, anywhere, you know that mosquitoes are probably born in the bowels of Hell or something. Because mosquitoes suck.
MOVING ON.
People were not dying! Malaria, Typhoid fever, Dysentery, oh my!
TAKE MY WORD FOR IT, IF YOU ARE UNDER 500, HAVE HEART OR STOMACH CONDITIONS, ARE PREGNANT, OR ARE HUMAN, DO NOT GOOGLE ANY OF THESE DISEASES.
SERIOUSLY.
So!
John Smith decided to get help with the Indians. Because they know how to fix this stuff. Maybe. And there were about 18,000 Indians living around that area.
AND THIS CHIEF.
He never really trusted the settlers, but he kinda sucked it up and dealt with it.
AND THIS LED TO NONE OTHER THAN POCAHONTAS.
She was the chief’s daughter. And according to John Smith’s version of the story, He was about to be killed by the chief and then Pocahontas showed up. She was like “nooo” And so the chief stopped. Yay.
SO APPARENTLY, DISNEY KINDA SCREWED THAT ONE UP.
Anyway. Over the next few months, Pocahontas was tight with the peeps.
HOWEVER, THE CHIEF WAS STILL KINDA NERVOUS.
herpderp. They had to get a bunch of gifts for the chief to even get some corn from him. Like, he got some bling. He got a bed. He got a cape. He got a sink-thing. Bluhbluh.
AND THEN SOMETHING BAD HAPPENED TO JOHN.
He was hurt. Because he was walking around with some gunpowder.
AND IT BLEW UP.
herpderp. So he went back to England so he wouldn’t die.
AND WHEN HE LEFT, GUESS WHAT HAPPENED?
Stuff in Jamestown started going downhill. Because this new ship had come and people started getting lazy and angry. And they didn’t come with enough food and then winter and people starting dying and bluh bluh.
THE WINTER CAME WITH 500 SETTLERS. THE WINTER ENDED WITH 60.
That means 440 people died.
THEN THIS GUY CAME.
His name was Thomas West. Thomas West de La Ware.
AND YOU HAVE THREE GUESSES AS TO WHAT STATE WAS NAMED AFTER HIM.
Anyway. He helped everyone out a lot, and he helped them raise pigs, tobacco, corn, and other stuff. They sent stuff back and forth between England and their settlement. Which meant more settlers. Which meant more women.
ONE SHIP WAS REALLY IMPORTANT.
Because it carried 40 women. And only 40 women. 40 young, educated, hard working women.
Which didn’t just mean. Uhh. More settlers. It also meant that everyone started working a lot harder, because people weren’t going to marry the lazy people. They were going to marry the ones who were out in the fields, hard working, and had all the pigs and tobacco and corn and bluh bluh.
THE RIGHT OF REPRESENTATION. FREE ENTERPRISE. PRIVATE BUSINESS.
The Right of Representation means that the people had a voice in what went on in, uhh, everything. And in 1619 there was a representative body called the House of Burgesses.
OH MY GOSH LOOK AT THAT I USED A DATE AND BIG WORDS.
So what does this mean? Well, they met to make laws. On the basis of representation.
AND AS GOOD AS ALL THIS SOUNDS, BASICALLY SOME STUFF WAS GOIN DOWN.
Free Enterprise and private business and all that jazz had a few problems. Some of the Europeans didn’t exactly
GIVE A MONKEY ABOUT THE INDIANS.
Well, some probably did care. But that was the minority. The very very small minority. And every pasture that was used? That was cleared of people. And animals. And everything. It took away hunting ground, to took away people, bluh bluh bad stuff.
AND WHAT DO YOU NEED IN ORDER TO FARM?
People to work the farm! Annnd guess who worked the farm?
SLAVES.
Now the obvious people to be the slaves were the Indians. But the Indians really didn’t want to be slaves. So the Europeans kinda gave that up. So they went over here to Africa and took some people from there.
NOW REAL QUICK. I AM NOT BEING RACIST. DON’T CALL ME A RACIST. OR CALL ME ONE. I DON’T REALLY CARE WHAT YOU CALL ME. THIS IS NOT AN ATTACK AGAINST AFRICAN AMERICANS OR STRAIGHT UP AFRICANS. THIS IS HISTORY. THIS IS WHAT HAPPENED. I AM NOT THE ONE WHO ENSLAVED YOU OR YOUR ANCESTORS. MY ANCESTORS DID IT. THEIR BAD. NOT MINE. END OF STORY. OR MAYBE NOT EVEN MY ANCESTORS CONSIDERING WE’RE NOT DUTCH I'M PRETTY SURE WE CAME OVER HERE FROM LIKE WALES OR SOMETHING. WE MAY OR MAY NOT HAVE OWNED SLAVES. I DON’T KNOW. ACTUALLY WE PROBABLY DID BECAUSE EVERYONE DID. SORRY. THAT WAS THE WORLD THEY LIVED IN. THIS IS THE WORLD WE LIVE IN. IF IT BOTHERS YOU TO READ ABOUT THIS, I KINDLY ASK THAT YOU DON’T. BECAUSE WE WILL BE TALKING MORE ABOUT SLAVERY LATER.
So! The King of England made Virginia a royal colony. Foreshadowingggg~
AND NOW WE HAVE A CLIFFHANGER.
Bum
BUM.
Bummm!
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