Captain Smith Essay, Research Paper

1. ?Woowara? also known as curare is a white powder substance deriving from Surinam. Curare is an extremely lethal poison even in the smallest of quantities. Curare was used by the natives of Surinam to induce slow death?s those that wronged them in times before. This poison was used in a traditional sense, not only was it effective at terminating life, but a message of sincerity was sent. To drink with a person that had no reason to suspect there dosage then slip them the lethal drug. Just as they felt safe was all the sweeter revenge. Coincidentally enough Silas Deane died from some kind of poison. Also as queer Edward Bancroft was an expert on poisons and their symbolic meanings as shown by his studies and book of Guiana.

2. Captain John Smith was a writer that published his first book in 1624. Captain Smith?s first book was called A generall historie of Virginia. Captain Smith wrote this book from first hand, eyewitness accounts. Smith did a lot of traveling when he signed on with the Virginia Company of London.

As a writer Captain Smith wrote in great detail points out and expanding on sometimes non-important facts. The view smith wrote from came mainly from his state of mind, while the event was going on, this influenced his writing style greatly since his approach to describing events had not been used before. People had a problem understanding it. Early English settlers, despite all their differences, have one thing in common with today?s American?s, they are skeptical of change. Like wise with captain Smith?s writing style. This different causes people to ask about the legitimacy of his claims.

Smith had a remarkable fast paced life. He started out as a soldier in center Europe. After being took prisoner, where he normally would have spent the rest of his life, he managed to escape with the help of a Greek princess. This is an example of the kind of stories captain smith wrote about. All of his stories by his own accounts reverse some kind of historical truth. The facts are not exact, but there are some better than guessed details.

3. Tobacco cost is on the rise and the crafty are looking for away to make a fast buck. Simple solution, sell tobacco, the problem is who works the fields, too hard for the wealthy; the poor can?t afford to come to the New World. One such work program was the apprentice, usually called duty boys. The works in their category came by the name duty boys because they usually came after on the ships named duty. Their master paid the trip over where they were an apprentice for the first seven years then they became tenants for the next seven.

4. According to tribe records, individuals possessed by the witches were often thrown into fits of hysteria. One such fit was labeled the are de cercle. This particular hysteria convulsion is when a bewitched subject would fall to the ground throw the head as far back as possible and arch the back with arms and hands curled inward. While in these fits the person would be in some deal of pain, shouting and complaining of choking on a lump in their throat. Some reports included great strength of the possessed that in which three of or four men could not hold down a simple child. The same kind of symptoms the are common in today?s seizure victims.

To believe these people were actually possessed is not very likely. To believe these young people in the presence of Tituba, an African American, were merely succumbing to the power of suggestion is a lot doing what was expected of them by their peers. The power of suggestion and a little acting made these between experiences all to real for early settlers.

5. Francis Hutcheson was an 18th century philosopher that with Jefferson?s permission attempted to quantify visible concepts like the age-old question, the meaning of life. He was a proponent of do good to others, and good will come on to you. Hutcheson believed that happiness and virtue could be measured and put into definitive rankings. Jefferson also believed in much of Hutcheson?s ideas and some of these are believed to have influenced his thoughts.

6. When Historians attempted to put together facts and ideas of the past, they are faced with many different challenges. Imagine sitting down to put together a puzzle which you have very little knowledge of the outcome. Just start with one piece and find another that fits with the first. A theory to help develop these puzzles of history is called the grand theory. Historians and researchers use new and old knowledge to fill the gaps of history.

7. When stories spread to England about the New World and its fish as plentiful as sand it was destined to be popular. It was thought that the animal population was limited by the total amount of resources available, but according to Liebig?s Law it is limited by the minimum amount of food available during the scarcest times of the year. As noted by early accounts of native Americans and settlers, the plains were lettered with prey because their resources were plentiful at all times

8.

Eric Erikson, renowned psychologist has done many psychoanalytic interpretations for historians, According to Erikson, John Brown had the same inner burning desire other civil rights activists had in the past. Brown?s raid on Harpers Ferry initiated questions in peoples mind to the sanity of their man. Erikson sought the answers to these questions from a psychological point of view.

9. John Brown?s actions and thought process is impossible to explain. One explanation though might be understood with the help of Sigmund Freud?s oedipal conflict. According to Freud, children manifest an exotic sexual urge for their mother, the conflict occurs when the urge is fought with psychic peril. After the child relinquishes his impulses toward the mother, and excepts his role as the child the conflicts is resolved. A letter surviving from Brown?s childhood gives in sight to his early years. This letter thought a good source of information is not the total story.

10. As John Brown was captured only 36 hours after his initial assault his stand against slavery was over. Brown and his men had delusions of capturing Harpers Ferry and the armory, hoping to get slaves and other anti-slavery supporters to help out in his quest. Some people say Brown was unstable. According to affidavits submitted to the court, brown had a long history of instability in his family. Weather it was this history on a deep hatred for slaves that caused the attack of Harpers Ferry is not clear-cut, but the results are, a civil war.

1.Silas Deane brought himself up from the poor working class to riches. After his modest start and a little bit of luck in his first two marriages, Dean found himself in politics and in turn wealth. In Deane?s road trip popularity he made some influential acquaintances. Many of the predominant people Deane met felt good about him. Some of the contacts were apprehensive about Dean and his dealings. Deane was eventually sent to France, as the first American to represent the colonies aboard. To aid Deane in his goals, the Continental Congress sent some high profile political figures such as Benjamin Franklin and Arthur Lee. After watching and hearing stories about Dean, Arthur Lee began not to trust him. In fact after a couple of stories Lee reported to Congress that Deane was using his position to make personal profit. This news made many people unhappy and led to Deane?s recall. Soon after the illegal profits controversy, a handful of Deane?s letters were intercepted and published in a New York newsletter. As bad luck would have it America had just won a huge battle over Britain and hatred for the British was at an all-time high. Deane became a drifter. Americans saw him as a trader; he could not go to England without confirming the America?s suspicion and after wrongly accusing Louis VI he couldn?t go to France.

Now that Silas Deane had no friends and no place to go he was banished to Flanders. After a couple of years in Flanders he was able to go to England now that the attention was drawn away from him. There he lived a retched life and took to drinking. The only friend that seemed not to acknowledge the problems of the past, was Edward Bancroft Deane?s pupil and Secretary in Paris. Bancroft was known to be an American spy and allowed to live for good practice. After the war was over Bancroft was in London and supplied money to Deane periodically.

According to the ?plain acts? Deane could not take life any more. The thought of his acts over the early years was too much for him to bear. Deane was rumored to have told people he was going to take his own life. Letters went around and newspapers wrote stories about him. One of Deane?s last decisions was to board ship bound for America on this ship Deane waited out a storm land then took an our dose of Laudanum to bring on his own early demise. After his death, there were people that reported knowing of his plan to take poison. After learning of the story leading up to Silas Deane?s death John Adams was heard saying it was to be expected.

After historians got involved with the Silas Deane story more facts turned up. Facts that were certainly relevant and shed new light on the story. Edward Bancroft, Deane?s friend, secretary, and pupil was found to have spent considerable amounts of time in Surinam and studied poisons and the native users. Bancroft also allegedly brought some Curare on Woowara to England with him. When he came back Edward Bancroft was found to be not only the spy he was, but also a double spy working for both countries. These new facts brought to light have changed the way historians looked at the death of Silas Deane.

After review of the facts the idea that Edward Bancroft spent time in Surinam and was extremely familiar with native cultures including color dyes, traditions, and poisons one can not help but to consider the insurance games that he and Deane were playing. The money they were making with inside information from both countries and his plans for the color dye in England, Deans death was just too timely and coincidental. It appears that Deane and Bancroft were friends with a great dose of access to government knowledge. They both made money with that knowledge. Deane was caught first and removed. Bancroft continued to financially excel even to a point of using dyes in England. Bancroft and Deane had a fight in England. Deane threatened to go to America and tell all. Edward Bancroft had to much to lose so before Deane could ruin his plan he used some of the poison he brought back to get rid of Deane. This new scenario was only available to us through the diligent work of historians.

2.The Salem Witchcraft trials started with an old servant lady, telling some local kids witch stories. After the old lady put the ideas into the children?s heads, they started acting out the tales they were told. The start of witchcraft spread took on a new meaning as the public began to realize that by claiming a witch it was possible to get rid of people that were not wanted in Salem for one reason or another. This was an advantage to the agricultural people of the west. Salem town is not to be confused with Salem Village; Salem Town was the original ?Downtown? of the town. As more people arrived and the population spread out to the west, the courthouse and meeting house became to far for the farmers to travel. To avoid the long travel to the meeting house, the council of Salem Town allowed a closer meeting house to be built. Keeping in mind this was natural evolution in the making of another town. As more land was needed people flowed to open space until there was too much space where a new village would form. The idea of breaking Salem Town in half was none to appealing to the upper class of the east.

Well into the 17th century women had no power of or voice of opinion. Then, if a woman was left land, she could use it as a resource only as necessary never any further. These widows with land and resources were deemed ?women alone?. The thought of women with power did not fit into anybody?s thinking in the 17th century. This obsolete thought process combined with the power of deletion learned by the witchcraft accusations made times tough for these women alone.

Several peculiarities about the witchcraft accusations are available but none as important as the fight between east and west. The resident of Salem had a problem; the west was happy farming and living under their own government. The east was content being the upper class and the merchant class. If the west broke off and formed their own village then the east would not benefit from the large towing taxes and manpower. The witchcraft accusations gave the people the ability to accuse any persons that countered their ideas. This created a dived between the east and the west or the accuser and the accused with the defender.

3. To properly understand documents there are many different techniques, historians may use any or all of the techniques from time to time. When attempting to decipher a 200-year-old document, different viewpoint and opinions can aid in accurate decoding of the works. To accurately verify the content historians use four main types of interpretations.

The document is first read to extract the surface contact. At initial glance or first read of a document historians tend to focus on their expertise. To help counter this effect several historians may read and give their opinion to help come to a consensus. The declaration of Independence for example has the purpose of the document what is going to happen and lastly why Independence is being declared.

Another form of Interpreting is establishing the context of the document, and asking what it might have said but did not. Quite simply put looking into what was written is just as signified into what was not written. Hidden meanings and intent? Left out phrases give insight to the times as well as the environment and surroundings. In the constitution America blamed the king for slavery, Jefferson used the logic that if too many slaves came to America it would ruin his economy, so he set high tariffs to keep slaves out. This was for financial reasons not human rights. This is a prime example of a hidden meaning.

A document may be understood by seeking to reconstruct the intellectual worlds behind its words. Historians must be good at role-playing. They have to put them self into another writers mind. Understand what Jefferson was thinking when he wrote the Declaration. To have any one at the signers of the declaration read any given article out of today?s papers would confuse them today. If they could decipher any of the complex terms they would surely misunderstand their context. The same goes for today?s historians. Understanding, what the writer is thinking and feeling is as important to what he is writing.

Who was the document written for and in what way was it to function in specific social situation loans as many clues as anything else was. How was the document written? Taking into accounts the attitude and opinion it was to portray and the people that were supposed to read and understand it. Gives clues to the soul of the document. In an original draft of the declaration Jefferson bitterly and subtly attacked the British people. After further review that phrase was stricken.

4.Frederick Jackson turner was an historian born in the Midwest. Turner came to realize through his studies that historians of the past have suffered an East Coast bias. He was under the firm impression that many documents about the past were in current not in facts but in concepts. This became the start of what is known as the Turner Thesis. He believed that America as we know it started in the east indeed, but as the settlers moved west, English tradition was dropped little by little along the way. America was born in the west, as English ways were shed, new traditions had to be made up and kept along the way. Of the opinion that the eastern historians were warped, Turner, believed that was because historians kept trying to trace America to English roots instead of making up there own. Turner also believed in independence for the first time American?s were without the mother country?s help, they had to survive on their own. Mostly Turner emphasized the importance of independence, not as a country, but as people. As settlers went west the less there was pre-established for them. They were starting from scratch so to speak. This start left room for upward mobility, a demand for a successful civilization.

Turner believed that Andrew Jackson made the west, from start to finish Jackson?s life was in the form of western pioneer. His humble start and rough luck was over come by his persistence and desire for greatness. He taught himself law and to survive even without the help of his family due to the war. Even as a young hell raiser Jackson had the desire for greatness, only reinforced by strong and ridged personality he could turn on and off his courtesies to get what he wanted, weather it had speculations or even the presidency in the end. Andrew Jackson was tough and loved as a man with a humble background, no different than you and I.

Arthur Abernethy analyzed Jackson in a lot of the same ways as Turner. Many views of him were exactly opposite though. He did not think of Jackson as a western man, more over he saw him as an eastern gone bad.

Schlesinger could not help but to express the ideas that Turner and Abernethy both over emphasized Jackson?s importance on the west. Due to Schlesinger natural up bringing, he was channeled into the idea that Jackson?s natural upbringing had the same effect on him. Since Jackson was born into the working class he had a tendency to favor their opinion, this was seen in the war on banks and in the shadow book on Franklin Roosevelt.

Michael Rogin took an approach to Jackson that was new to every body. In examples set forward by Sigmund Freud, Rogin believed that Jackson?s ideas stemmed from his childhood. The examination of Jackson should start with his dealings with the native Indians. In his speeches Jackson was trying to portray himself as a father figure, Rogin believed this because he had no father growing up. Any of the four different Andrew Jackson can be examined, but to there understanding, Jackson an any other historians figure he needed theories.

5.With ecological frontier as numerous as waves in the ocean sweeping across America the most prolific was the disease the Europeans brought with them and the Epidemics they caused. As the Europeans came over and settled in America, they brought many new diseases that the natives were not immune to. European cities were a lot denser in population, so as a whole the settlers were immune to the viruses. Native Americans lived in-groups that were indeed more numerous than most European cities, but they were also spread out more than the cities of Europe. As the settlers moved west exploring, trading furs, on just plain migrating the disease and death went with them. The actual numbers are vague but the death rate was between 50%-90% for the native Americans. This population thin out made it possible for Spain to move north through present day Mexico and England south. If the natives had their entire population available the tides would have been turned.