1493_ Uncovering the New World Columbus Created - Charles C. Mann [240]
20 “of western Europe”: Williams 1989:33.
21 Powhatan as man and domain: Rountree 1990:7; Rountree 2005:33. Allen (2003:64–67) explains the derivation of the name. His subjects addressed him by his common name, Wahunsenacawh (Strachey 1612:614).
22 Powhatan’s capital, residence, appearance: Author’s visit, archaeological site; Gallivan et al. 2006 (geography, fig. 3.1); Gallivan 2007 (town map, fig. 2); Smith 2007a:17, 22 (“expresse”), 53–54; Smith 2007b:270 (“a vault”), 296–97 (pearls, divan); Strachey 1612:614–19 (“king’s house” 615); Rountree 2005:29–35.
23 Lack of domesticated animals: Strachey 1612:637; Crosby 1986:172–94; Diamond 1999:160–75. The Powhatan, like other Indians in eastern North America, had only dogs and hawks, the latter of which were not domesticated so much as tamed (Anderson 2004:34–37).
24 Criteria for domestication, tally of domesticated animals: E. O. Price 2002; Mason ed. 1984. The number of birds is disputed, one issue being whether caged birds like parakeets and canaries are domesticated.
25 English landscapes: Anderson 2004:84–90.
26 Native agriculture methods: Smith 2007b:279; Strachey 1612:676–77; Spelman 1609:492.
27 Indian maize field size: Maxwell 1910:73; Smith 2007b:284 (“their fields or gardens [are] some 20 acres, some 40. some 100. some 200”). Strachey (1612:626) noted that “so much ground [in one town] is there cleared and open” that with “little labor” the colonists could plant corn “or make vineyards of two or three thousand acres.” Edward Williams argued (1650:13) that colonists need not fear the labor of opening up the forest, because of the “immense quantity of Indian fields cleared already to our hand.” Scholarly summaries include Rountree et al. 2007:34–35, 41–42, 153. Citing another figure by Strachey (1612:636), Rountree (1990:280, note 22) argues that most fields were one to two hundred feet on a side. Strachey also reported that plants were separated from each other by “4 or 5 foot” and “commonly” bore two small ears, which would indicate that a 150’ x 150’ household field would yield about three thousand ears—food for a month or two for the “six to twenty” residents of each house (1612:636, 676). (Native maize ears were less than half the size of typical modern ears.) In anthropological annals one rarely encounters people who take the trouble to clear land for cereals but not enough to use them as staples, as Strachey’s second, smaller estimate suggests.
28 Palisades, absence of fencing: Rountree 2005:42; Rountree and Turner 1998:279; Rountree et al. 2007:38.
29 Meaning of fences, domestic animals in England: Anderson 2004:78–90.
30 Use of “abandoned” fields and plants on them: Rountree, Clarke, and Mountford 2007:42; Rountree 2005:9, 56; Rountree 1993a:173–74.
31 Impact of beaver: Hemenway 2002; Naiman et al. 1988. There is a European beaver, but it had been hunted to extinction in Britain.
32 Tuckahoe: Author’s visits, Jamestown; Smith 2007b:276, 391; Rountree et al. 2007:43–44, 124; Rountree 2005:12, 1990:52–53; Strachey 1625:679.
33 Smoke and fire observable from sea: De Vries 1993:22 (“it is seen”); Bigges 1589:38 (“great fire[s]…are very ordinarie all alongst this coast,” 132).
34 Indian hunting by fire: Smith 2007a:14 (“over the wood”); Mann 2005:248–52; Williams 1989:32–49; Krech 1999:104–06; Byrd 1841:80–81.
35 Effects of native burning: Miller 2001:122; Wennersten 2000:chaps. 13–15; Pyne 1999 (“into metals,” 7), 1997a:301–08, 1997b, 1991 (“corridors of travel,” 504); Pyne et al. 1996:235–40; Rountree 1993b:33–38 (paths); Hammett 1992; Williams 1989:32–49; Byrd 1841:61 (“all before it”); White 1634:40 (“without molestation”). Like White, John Smith insisted that “a man may gallop a horse amongst these woods” (2007b:284), as did a seventeenth-century