The Quest for Gold - the rest of the Jamestown story

A beautiful story, perhaps, but
it's not close to what really
happened, and there's a
troublesome remnant
left in us today.*

Pocahontas and John Smith have been beautifully portrayed in movies and stories, but inaccurately, and the part about the gold is usually downplayed.

It was Jamestown in December, 1607.

John Smith was twenty-eight when he was captured by Powhatan warriors.  Pocahontas was just eleven at the time, and perhaps had little if anything to do with Smith or saving his life.  Years later though, she was captured and held for ransom by a merchant trying to coerce her father, the Powhatan tribal chief, into a favorable trade deal.  During her captivity, she and John Rolfe fell in love.  They were married in 1614 and moved to England where she bore him a son.  She died there in 1617, perhaps of smallpox, at just twenty-one years of age.

Missing from the story ... the quest for gold!

Various story versions appeared over the years
like this romanticized depiction from 1870.
Smith's own account describes the occasion
as having occurred indoors in a longhouse.
It was later noted that Smith told a
similar story of a young girl saving
his life after having been captured
by Turks in Hungary in 1602.  A
bit of mixed memories, perhaps.

Years before Jamestown, Sir Walter Raleigh was charged by Queen Elizabeth I with establishing a colony in the new world. Founded in 1585, the colony at Roanoke was a stunning failure.  Everyone either starved or disappeared, and the disaster is remembered today as the Lost Colony.  Twenty years later, Jamestown faced a similar end.  Short of supplies, folks nearly starved to death; they weren't expecting to have to feed themselves, we discover.

Inspired by the riches flowing from Spanish colonies, the first Englishmen to settle permanently in America hoped for some of the same rich discoveries when they settled in Jamestown. They were financed by wealthy Englishmen who were perhaps overly optimistic about the prospects for wealth in the new world. The first expectation of the colony was finding gold.^[ref]

From Anas Todkill's diary of the time, "There was no talke, no hope, no worke, but dig gold, refine gold, load gold."  A hopeful cargo sent to England in 1608 turned out to be pyrite, or fool's gold, and worthless.^[ref]

Exploration and conquest had been underway for almost a century by the time England got in the game.  The Spanish had successfully and profitably claimed territories in the central and southern regions of the new world.

The Spanish learned from experience and adapted.  Their attempt in 1534 to colonize the site of today's Buenos Aires illustrates their progress well; it was a pointed failure.  They had hoped to exploit the land and labor of the locals, but there was no gold or silver to plunder.  To make matters worse, the locals refused to be subjugated and enslaved, even going so far as to club to death the Spanish navigator, Juan Diaz de Solis who had the audacity to claim their land for Spain.  And they ate him, or so we're told.

Not to be dissuaded, the Spanish pressed inland and encountered more cooperative folks, the Guarani, a sedentary and agrarian population whom they subjugated after a brief conflict.  The invaders married into the ruling families and set themselves up as the new aristocracy.  They made good use of existing forced labor and tribute practices, and quickly expanded abroad.  They were not interested in tilling the soil themselves.  They wanted others to do the work for them, and they wanted gold and silver to take for themselves.  The town they established was Nuestra Senora de Santa Maria de la Asunción, today's capital of Paraguay.^[ref]

Hernando Cortez conquered the Aztec empire and Francisco Pizarro conquered the Incan empire.  The method they evolved was simple; capture the rulers and their families, marry the princesses, and take over the empire.  Conquistadors were given towns and regions and populations (encomiendas) to own/rule/enslave/exploit.  The indigenous peoples were forced to serve their new masters and eventually to pay tributes and taxes that left them at the bare subsistence level.  It reminds you of Wall Street where finance corporations structure the market and debt to extract a developing country's maximum production as payments to them.  The goal is identical.

By capturing the indigenous ruler, the Spanish could take his accumulated wealth for themselves and take his place as rulers of the people.  When Cortez arrived at the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan, they were welcomed peacefully by the emperor Moctezuma.  The Spaniards took the opportunity to fire their guns and terrify the citizens.  They ransacked and pillaged everything down to chickens and eggs, tortillas and firewood, all demanded of the people.  And treasure!  They went everywhere and took everything they saw that they wanted from everyone.  They forced the emperor to take them to his treasure house where they took everything; golden ornaments and necklaces with pendants, arm bands with gold and quetzal feathers, bracelets, and the turquoise diadem ... they took it all, and they melted the gold down into bars for transport.

As they expanded their conquest across the continent, the Spaniards apportioned among themselves the towns and their inhabitants, treating them as common slaves.  The expedition leader would seize the king of a territory along with his household and hold them prisoner for months while demanding more gold and treasure.  One king, Bogota "was so terrified that, in his anxiety to free himself from the clutches of his tormentors, he consented to the demand that he fill an entire house with gold and hand it over; to this end he sent his people off in search of gold, and bit by bit, they brought it along with many precious stones."  The house was not completely filled, however, so the Spaniards tortured the king for an extended period for failing to fulfill his promise.  After suffering for a period of days, the king eventually died.  These practices were repeated in various forms for the rest of the century and beyond.

Once the initial pillaging was complete, the conquerors moved on to adapt various institutions to exploit the labor of the region.  Cities with populations of 100,000+ like Petosi were established as labor for mining, and so on, ad nauseum. The implementation would press the local population down to the subsistence level, and everything above that would be extracted as wealth for the elite.  Sound familiar?  Latin America became the most unequal continent in the world.^[ref]

So then, back to Jamestown.  Late in the game, England has recovered from civil war and had a lucky win against the Spanish Armada, and finally begin their play for the new world.  They chose the northern continent because that was all that was left.  All the desirable parts of the new world where precious metals were available and where indigenous people were available to exploit for labor, all those were claimed.  There were actually available documents showing North America offered too little return on investment to make colonization attractive.  In terms of profit, it was noted that the farther a colony was from the equator (the hot area), the less profitable it was.  "England got the leftovers."

Still, getting rich was the plan behind the early colonies attempted by the crown and by the wealthy backers.  The Virginia Company that backed the Roanoke and Jamestown efforts was expecting profits; they weren't invested for loving altruism but for wealth.  Of course.  When early attempts at exploiting indigenous peoples finally failed, the colony begged for skilled people to be sent.  "carpenters, husbandmen, gardeners, fishermen, blacksmiths, masons, and diggers up of trees," a thousand of such to be sent and to be well equipped for the work of survival.  They didn't want any more goldsmiths.  Their request was ignored.

The parent company directors realized their plan wasn't working, that they couldn't exploit the locals.  The only option left was to exploit the colonists themselves.  They put men in barracks, set up work teams and tasks and rigid rules, with the company owning all the land.  Of the 500 Jamestown colonists who entered the next winter, only 60 survived until March.  It's a much discussed segment of our history.  This is not just nice folks looking for a new place to live, this is wealthy corporations (like Wall Street today) looking to extract wealth from a region and population much as the Spaniards had in the previous century.

Our history is more complex than just Jamestown, of course, and there are more stories for each place and time.  I've provided this narrative to perhaps illuminate one of the extraordinarily corrupt foundation stones of our business and capitalist thinking.

The quest for gold (wealth, more) gives us an enforced inequality that persists as a cultural norm, perhaps even an imperative in the minds of Europeans and Americans today.*
  

The death toll estimates suggest a massive population decline of perhaps 50% for the period.  While disease played a significant part, there were wars, massacres, displacements and refugees, genocide, economic oppression and enslavement that destroyed civilizations as well as individual lives.  Millions had their world and lives taken from them. And their children.

The same initiative launched from Europe into Africa in the 19th century with similar results.  The injustice and inequality put in place in African cultures and governments persist today.

*Curious if bits of that stuff are embedded in your own thinking?
There's only one way ...  :)  Really.
And here's what it looks like.

P.S.  According to her great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandson, Pocahontas was visited by John Smith in England before she died. She was so shocked, she hid her face, and could not speak for two or three hours. Finally, she said, “They did tell me always you were dead, and I knew no other ’till I came to Plymouth (England). Yet Powhatan did command Uttamatomakkin to seek you, and know the truth – because your countrymen will lie much.”

Where does the money go?

Of Politicians, War, and Public Debt:

"...when war comes [politicians] are both unwilling and unable to increase their [tax] revenue in proportion to the increase of their expense. They are unwilling for fear of offending the people, who, by so great and so sudden an increase of taxes, would soon be disgusted with the war [...] The facility of borrowing delivers them from the embarrassment [...] By means of borrowing they are enabled, with a very moderate increase of taxes, to raise, from year to year, money sufficient for carrying on the war, and by the practice of perpetually funding they are enabled, with the smallest possible increase of taxes [to pay the interest on the debt], to raise annually the largest possible sum of money [to fund the war].

...The return of peace, indeed, seldom relieves them from the greater part of the taxes imposed during the war. These are mortgaged for the interest of the debt contracted in order to carry it on."  Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, first published in 1776

Smith then goes on to say that even if money was set aside from future revenues to pay for the debts of war, it seldom actually gets used to pay down the debt. Politicians are inclined to spend the money on some other scheme that will win the favour of their constituents. Hence, interest payments rise and war debts continue to grow larger, well beyond the end of the war.

Summing up, if governments can borrow without check, then they are more likely to wage war without check, and the costs of the war spending will burden future generations, since war debts are almost never repaid by the generations that incurred them.

... never repaid by the generations that incurred them!  Two centuries later, and the practice continues.  Is this political malpractice, and are there ethical concerns?  Of course.

Does either party address the issue?

Familiar

Annoying reality -- household products we buy in bottles are about 95% water.  The price we pay is primarily for the bottle and shipping and middlemen.  And convenience; you just point and squirt.

The actual non-water content might cost a dime or two to manufacture and fit in a small packet.  Whether it is shampoo, dish soap, window cleaner, or magic-gel toilet scrubber, the part that you don't have already is tiny.

My granddaughter will appreciate this one.  :)   

So what would happen if we could buy little packets for all those things?  Would it make a difference in plastic consumption and waste?  Would it lower our home costs?  Would it really annoy some big businesses?  Of course.

BUT, it would be terribly inconvenient. You'd have to open the packet and put it in a bottle of water.  (Actually, that's where the industry started; with 'labor-saving' solutions.)

Just because it's familiar doesn't mean it's a good solution or even intelligent, and that applies rather broadly in our lives.  Consumerist norms are a play for money and little else.  Can we find a better path? Yes, and it's more fun that way.

The cost of rocket science

Tuition costs have not followed the economic norms.  They have skyrocketed.  Curious?

Regular folks are distressed by stagnant wages and rising costs.  At the top of their recent list of concerns ... healthcare -- it is huge and rising. Today, it still costs more than most can manage easily.  That's a deadly problem that affects the bottom 80% or so of Americans by income, but it's perhaps not the largest problem for many.






The rise in tuition costs is about twice what we've seen for healthcare.  In today's economy, higher education is considered an essential for success, an essential for a way forward, and as such, it is a great venue for predatory lending practices.  As an unintended result of easy money made available by student loan programs, educational institutions are free to raise fees to whatever they like since the government has arranged to finance it for them.  That's the way it has worked for years.

The explosion of education debt has gone virtually unremarked, primarily because it's deferred rather than a cost like healthcare which one must pay today.  That's our banking industry for you.

Many of today's graduates begin their life after school with a debt that will encumber them for a decade or more. Most will have difficulty making payments.  Delinquencies and defaults will be higher than for other debt instruments.

The damage?  A large portion of indebted students will be narrowly constrained for part or all of their career years.  Life will be focused on obligation rather than opportunity, on income instead of life goals and vision.  As seems common with such initiatives, profit is extracted from consumers without equal benefit or value being provided in return.

Indebted former students down the income scale are of course affected more.  The burden may adversely affect the entire life of the borrower.

The student loan program appears to be unimpressive when evaluated for ROI.  Not one benefit has been identified that could not otherwise have been achieved with less downside.

The alternatives are myriad.  If all else fails, employing post-HS students for a couple of years in AmeriCorps doing service projects is a great foundation for education.  Americorp, like the military, has education assistance benefits that could offset the need for a loan.

Fortunately, higher education is now being forced to evolve.  Technology and demand are rendering the traditional campus and curriculum as less valuable with each passing year, innovation, alternative method, and measurement.

The high cost to children of growing up wealthy

While typical in the developed world, this is not normal.

A mom was fixing supper, so I offered to pick up some things at the grocery store.  Her kids went with me, and I was surprised to discover that the youngest, a 3rd grader, had never been in a grocery store before.  She ran around the store wide-eyed and excited while we got some chicken out of the refrigerator section and some peppers off the shelf.  At the checkout, she came hesitantly and asked me so sweetly if she could have this bar of soap she'd found in the beauty section. It smelled pretty and she'd never in her life had anything so nice.  Of course you may.  It was some time ago, but I still remember the wonderment and smiles.

This is normal, the really nice version.

This is the capital city's new marketplace.  It used to be out in the sunshine and on the ground.
Here you can buy produce (bottom floor), and second hand clothes (upper balconies),
and some other household things; mostly local stuff.  Tomatoes, cassava, okra,
seven kinds of bananas, mangoes, jaque fruit, breadfruit,
coconut everything, and fish caught this morning.  I
took this picture just a few months after the
grand opening.

The store where I took the kids was small, perhaps the size of a 7-11, and it was one of just three such stores in the small west-African country.  Shopping for most folks was at roadside kiosks and in the open market on the edge of town.  Only rich people went to stores.

So my wife and I were at the grocery store today (like the one in the top picture), and as we walked the aisles filled with incredible variety and quantity, I was reminded of my little friend and her bar of soap.  And we think we're normal.

Half of the world lives on perhaps $5 per day or less.  That's one tenth of the developed world average.  Poverty is persistent and troublesome, and economic inequality is increasing rather rapidly around the world. Grocery stores perhaps are not the norm.  As the national and international marketplace is reshaped by big businesses and international trade policies, the rich are doing quite well but at the expense of everyone else. This distribution of wealth and resources has nothing to do with intellect, level of effort, or diligence, of course.

Roadside clothing merchant, some new, some second-hand, all
reasonably priced.  This is normal.

Most folks in the developed countries have no idea that they are the ones who are extraordinarily wealthy.  House and car, heating and air conditioning, schools and stores and doctors, they think that all those things are normal.  They could be, they should be, but they're not.

Djibouti, eastern Africa -- there are grocery stores in
the capital city, but they're pricey.  Street markets 
like this are the norm for most.

Apparently, wealth corrupts.

Our young African friends are socially and intellectually healthier than their counterparts in the developed world.  They have only limited exposure to our media.  Their African community does well watching over children as they run rather freely wherever they please. Children are safe, cross-generationally connected, communicative, and meaningfully related.  Unlike children in the developed world, they are not socially constrained to their grade level, and children of all ages walk to and from school together and play together.  They are perhaps emotionally healthier than children in the cities of the developed world, and they are not enslaved to fashion or obsessed with having things.

They knew I was coming to visit, so they bought fish to serve.  
This is a normal kitchen for 2.5 billion folks.

(Their difficulties are getting a balanced diet, a complete education, and healthcare when they need it.  Many of them are under height for age and underweight for height -- stunted, so they'll have health problems.  Their government is perhaps less corrupt than ours.)

Wealth in the west has spawned an economic war where the goal of business is to get more and to do so by competing and winning.  The resulting economic inequality is stunning, and we have evolved a culture where materialistic goals have replaced character and virtue and courageous service.  Fortunately, there is a better path available for our children.

The high cost?  Of growing up wealthy? ... it's perhaps a broken understanding of what's worthwhile and perhaps what's normal as well.

With wealth, one can focus on having and getting more as though that were somehow beneficial or important.  Wealth drives wedges between people; it can crowd in and replace the good parts of life, the meaningful interaction between family members and with friends. Technology and media do that, do they not?  Instead of hours spent together, there are hours spent in solo focus on entertainment things, commercialized and blinged to entice and engage our minds in a materialistic context.  No benefit except to businesses.  

A child raised in western culture and allowed to follow their educational and cultural norms is likely to grow up to be materialistic, intellectually narrow, and unaware of the real world.  True?


Unfortunately, yes.  

Is there a cure?  Yes.  For Adults?  Yes, but it's difficult.
Despite the extraordinary blessings of living in a developed economy, there is a downside that must be overcome if we want to hold on to what is worthwhile.

You might appreciate Psychology Today - The Problem With Rich Kids 

Normal and Natural

Western culture is neither normal nor natural.

Normal and natural are the relatively calm, low-level elements of existence, things just one step up from nothing and that persist as people come and go, as animals and plants live and spread, and as the years pass. It's durable, right up until when things change.

As recently as a century ago, most of us were farmers, and we had skills.  We could grow our own food, tend our own herds, manage our own homes for warmth and water and cooking.  We could build a barn or fix a roof if we needed to.  Today, however, we're specialized.

As our civilization became more complex, we spawned specializations to enhance our productivity.  Assemblers and installers, builders and bankers, paper pushers and plumbers, truckers and tech specialists.  It's a trade-off.  If a techie wants a potato, it's a trade with some potato corporation via a couple of intermediaries and transporters, and 'money' is the exchange medium.  If anything went wrong, the techie would likely have to do without.

With increasing complexity and interdependence, we've added a measure of fragility to our civilization.  Most modern folks wouldn't know what to do if the electricity went off for a month or two.  Or if the water supply shut down.  Or if gasoline supplies were temporarily exhausted.  Again.

So should we position ourselves differently?  Should we prep for change? Should we broaden our skills?  What would be a good mix?  And should our children prepare differently for life perhaps than we did?