Forests and Forest Products at the Time of Jamestown

by Jeff Kirwan and Brian Bond

(Most of the following text appeared in the summer 2007 issue of Virginia Forests)

What was Virginia like in 1607? To people who love the land and its resources, it is an intriguing question. Written accounts must be interpreted carefully. Oral histories and the words people use (names such as hickory, persimmon and chinquapin are Algonquian words) can be instructive. Even today's trees, some living at the time of Jamestown, and others no less than one generation removed, offer glimpses into the world of 1607.

When we read the historical accounts it is important to understand the Jamestown Colony was a commercial enterprise and a player in an intensely competitive global economy 400 years ago. The corporate charter and instructions were very specific, recommending stockholders and laborers collect and export 16 items back to England. At the top of the list was the root of a tree- sassafras- then considered to be a miracle drug already with a 50-year history of export. Also included were products to be made from oak, hickory and pine. Nowhere on the list is tobacco. Sturgeon, the fish now largely gone from the James River, appears three times. Beaver, whose population is only now recovering, is listed twice.

It is also important to know that communications from the Colony were important state secrets, censured, and surviving documents were probably used as propaganda. Positive descriptions of an idyllic landscape with a small, friendly native population were used to lure new recruits and venture capital to the Colony. Negative reports, such as those describing the Colony on the brink of collapse, would have deflated Spanish concerns about (and possible attack upon) English advances in North America.

The most noticeable landscape feature described in early accounts was the openness of forests, an almost unbroken, park-like setting with widely spaced, large trees. Was this an Eden-like description used to lure new recruits and investors? Probably. Could have American Indians created and maintained a park-like landscape with fire? Probably. The sophistication of Indian fire culture has been compared to European metal culture. It should be noted, however, that at least some present day Indians in Virginia are reluctant to accept widespread burning as an ancestral practice.

A more likely scenario is a landscape of contrasting types- thick forests, open forests, even treeless areas. Anthropologists now believe that a pre-Columbian population of 50-60 million in the Americas was reduced up to 90%, beginning almost a century before Jamestown. If this is correct and if American Indians were actively managing their landscape, then forest succession would have been massive and well underway at the time of Jamestown. The extent of forest succession in the western hemisphere alone may have lowered global CO2 (detectable in ice cores) and triggered the little ice age.

An equally tantalizing prospect is the level of agricultural and horticultural advancements taking place in Virginia at the time of Jamestown. The Indian practice of orchardry- the intentional leaving or planting of trees bearing valuable fruit and nuts in cultivated fields- was largely unreported by the English at Jamestown, but recognized by the French and Spanish throughout the Atlantic coastal plain and Tennessee River Valley. These tree crops likely included persimmon, American plum, red mulberry, paw-paw, cherry, American chestnut and chinquapin. Further research may reveal that trees such as black walnut, shagbark hickory, bur and chinquapin oaks, all with locally and/or regionally disjunct populations, may also have been cultivated.

We know from an official Spanish account (1611) that two forest products were being exported from Jamestown by the colonists- sassafras and wood for barrels and vessels. We also know from William Strachey's History (1612) that black walnut was being sent back every year. Wood from the colonies was typically pit sawn into boards or split into clapboard for shipment back to England. Pit sawing involved digging a pit and placing the timber to be sawn on sticks. A trench with sawdust, a likely pit saw location, has been excavated in Jamestown. Splitting wood into clapboard, or riving, was done with a tool called a froe. The froe would be driven into the end grain of the wood, usually oak, and worked back and forth to split the wood.

Naval stores and soap ashes were other likely exports. The products made from pine resin (otherwise known as sap or pitch), were known as naval stores because of their great importance to sailing ships of the day. Naval stores were used to caulk seams in sailing ships and preserve ropes used in rigging from decay. Resin was obtained from trees by progressively removing the bark and a small amount of wood by chipping in a herring-bone pattern. This allowed resin to flow from resin ducts to cavities chipped in the base of the trees. Every sailing ship of the day carried naval stores on board to assure that the ship could be maintained properly. Soap ashes, probably made from elm and ash, were used to make glass.

Trees living today are contributing to the body of knowledge about Virginia at the time of Jamestown. Big tree searchers Gary Williamson and Byron Carmean are credited with finding old-growth baldcypress on the Blackwater River whose tree rings revealed the 800-year drought experienced by the Jamestown and Roanoke Colonies. Similarly, tree rings from the national champion Osage-orange in Charlotte County revealed this western tree species was likely being traded by Indians prior to European settlement. Even the diminutive yaupon holly, an important Indian ceremonial plant, may hold secrets. The largest of this species in North America were recently discovered on both banks of the Elizabeth River in Hampton Roads.

The question of sustainability should be asked of everyone comparing Virginia today with Virginia at Jamestown. The first blush comparison looks good, with healthy forests still covering over 60 percent of the landscape, providing an ever-growing population with forest products. But looking closer we see that our two most useful native species, the American chestnut and Virginia oyster, species who literally define our Appalachians and Chesapeake (meaning "great shellfish") Bay, are now all but gone, victims of a global economy that introduced new diseases. Perhaps even more troubling is the gradual loss of memory of what the land and its bounty were like, as generation after generation loses the knowledge of elders. The question, "what was Virginia like at 1607?" must always be asked.

Further reading:

Jamestown Narratives by Edward W. Hale (1998) - a complete and modern transcription of all the surviving Jamestown accounts, with a valuable summary of the context in which they were written. 946 pp.

Their Number Became Thinned by Henry F. Dobyns (1983) - investigates American Indian depopulation and horticulture at the time of European contact. 378 pp.

Plows, Plagues and Petroleum by William F. Ruddiman (2006) - explores human impacts on climate over the past 6,000 years.

Sixteenth Century North America by Carl Sauer- covers European exploration and accounts of North America leading up to the founding of Jamestown.

Pine Trees and Politics by Joseph Malone (1964) looks at naval stores and forest policy in Colonial New England.


List of Potential Exports, the Virginia Charter

1. Sassafras
2. Bayberries
3. Poecone (puccoon- a red dye?)
4. Galband (gallberry, a holly?)
5. Sarsapilla
6. Walnut oil
7. Wine
8. Silkgrass
9. Beaver cod
10. Beaver skins
11. Oak and walnut. Oak to be cleaven into clapboard. Black walnut for wainscot, tables, cupboards, chair, stools
12. Pine trees to be wounded for the collection of turpentine
13. Pitch and tar
14. Sturgeon
15. Roe of sturgeon
16. Air bladders from sturgeon

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