A Pious Perversion of History (Part One)

This title sums up my feelings regarding the writings of certain authors who argue that the United States was in some sense founded as a "Christian nation" by devoutly Christian men. This topic is far too complicated for me to completely delve into on this blog, but as I am currently researching and writing a paper about it, I'd like to be able to share some instances of what I think is bad history being written by people who seem to be advocating the Christian nation position.

In conducting my research, I made the unfortunate mistake of actually purchasing some of these books on Amazon.com instead of having my university library find and borrow copies of them for my use. One of the books I bought was America's Christian Heritage by Gary DeMar. The book intends to be a short history of the founding of the United States of America with an emphasis on the importance of God and Christianity to the project. When I ordered it, I wasn't expecting to receive some substantial scholarly book; the Amazon page says it's a mere eighty-eight pages long, far shorter than decent histories of the time period. When the package came in the mail, I was somewhat surprised to find out that it is put together very much like a children's book. The pages are approximately 8.5" x 11", and nearly every page has at least one picture. Even so, I still assumed that DeMar could make his case in that kind of a book, so I thought it would be fair to read what he has to say and evaluate his arguments. I'll evaluate some of his arguments in my paper, but for now I'd like to point out just one detail that caught my attention.

In Chapter 1 DeMar discusses the importance of Christianity for the early colonists. It's common knowledge that many devout men and women came to America in the early years of colonization in order to create a new society with Christianity as its focal point. Of course, there were other motivations for coming to the New World, but this was an important factor for numerous people. This is all interesting information, and DeMar seems to tell the story with as much emphasis on Christianity as he can muster.

But he seems to want to go beyond merely claiming that the Christian God was important to the colonists; from what I can gather, he wants to make the more bold claim that God actually played an active role in helping things along. This was a view held by the colonists (and even many of the Founding Fathers in the eighteenth century), men who often referred to "Divine Providence." Regarding the Jamestown Colony in Virginia, DeMar explains that the men "were not suitably prepared to handle the hardships that would confront them" (15). However, "their Christian faith saw them through." On this point, he writes: "The Jamestown colonists suffered great hardship. At a time when they were nearly out of food, with their original colony down to about fifty from the original 104, God provided sustenance from an unlikely source." That source consisted of Indians who brought food.

The story has been drastically understated by DeMar. It is common knowledge that the colonists faced enormous hardships in the early years of Jamestown's existence. Historian Howard Zinn, talking of these early times, writes: "The first settlement had a hundred persons, who had one small ladle of barley per meal. When more people arrived, there was even less food. Many of the people lived in cavelike holes dug into the ground..." (24).

Death was an all-too-common phenomenon for the early Jamestown settlers, who, as DeMar rightly noted, weren't really prepared to start a successful colony. The men were notoriously lazy, and they also suffered quite a bit from disease. Historian Virginia Bernhard writes: "From May to September that first year, fifty men had died. Sickness--malaria, dysentery, typhoid, ship's fever--had plagued Jamestown from the beginning" (615).

They (perhaps unreasonably) had the expectation that the Indians would help sustain them by providing food. But the colonists and the Indians didn't always get along. So even though it might have seemed like a miracle from God when the "savages" provided food for the hungry Englishmen, such feelings must have evaporated when the Indians turned their bows on them.

This is precisely what happened in the infamous winter of 1609-1610, often called the "starving time" of the Jamestown colony. At the time there was, in the words of William M. Kelso (Head Archaeologist of the Jamestown Rediscovery Project), "serious animosity between the Indians and the English" (38). A number of Indians besieged Jamestown and "withheld even their occasional food deliveries" (39). As a result, the vast majority of colonists died that winter and spring--many from hunger. Howard Zinn confirms this, writing that the colonists who were "crazed for want of food... died in batches" that winter (24). Archeological finds reported by Kelso suggest that Jamestown colonists were forced to eat horses, dogs, cats, and even rats (92-93). Historian Alan Taylor summarizes Jamestown's situation like this:

"[T]he colonists died in droves from disease and hunger. Of the initial 104, only 38 were alive nine months later. Despite shipping hundreds of reinforcements annually, the Virginia Company barely kept ahead of the continuing deaths at Jamestown. In December 1609 there were 220 colonists; after an especially deadly winter, only 60 remained alive by the next spring. One starving colonist killed and ate his wife, for which he was tried, convicted, and burned at the stake." (130)

Virginia Bernhard comments that "this woman's story is one of the grisliest events in early American history" (617-18). Colonist George Percy describes the event with a little bit more detail: "one of our colony murdered his wife, ripped the child out of her womb and threw it into the river, and after chopped the mother in pieces and salted her for his food."

Regarding the "starving time," Zinn quotes a 1619 document from the Journals of the House of Burgesses of Virginia:

"...driven thru insufferable hunger to eat those things which nature most abhorred, the flesh and excrements of man as well of our own nation as of an Indian, digged by some out of his grave after he had lain buried three days and wholly devoured him... one among them slew his wife as she slept in his bosom, cut her in pieces, salted her and fed upon her till he had clean devoured all parts saving her head..." (24)

George Percy further tells of the lengths the colonists were driven to in order to sustain themselves. After explaining that some men were forced to eat their boots and other leather products, he writes:

"Some were enforced to search the woods and to feed upon serpents and snakes and to dig the earth for wild and unknown roots, where many of our men were cut off of and slain by the savages. And now famine beginning to look ghastly and pale in every face that nothing was spared to maintain life and to do those things which seem incredible as to dig up dead corpses out of graves and to eat them, and some have licked up the blood which has fallen from their weak fellows."

If these early reports are accurate, then the colonists were in such dire straits that some felt it was necessary to drink human blood and eat dead people.

The suffering of the Jamestown settlement did not end after the infamous winter of 1609-1610. The men, women, and children struggled to survive in the following years in some of the worst living conditions imaginable. Zinn quotes an early document drafted by colonists who were "complaining against the twelve-year governorship of Sir Thomas Smith" which paints a picture of life in Jamestown:

"In those 12 years of Sir Thomas Smith, his government, we aver that the colony for the most part remained in great want and misery under most severe and cruel laws.... The allowance in those times for a man was only eight ounces of meale and half a pint of peas for a day... mouldy, rotten, full of cobwebs and maggots, loathsome to man and not fit for beasts, which forced many to flee for relief to the savage enemy, who being taken again were put to sundry deaths as by hanging, shooting and breaking upon the wheel... of whom one for stealing two or three pints of oatmeal had a bodkin thrust through his tongue and was tied with a chain to a tree until he starved." (24)

It is no surprise that Jamestown was not a very successful financial venture. Eminent historian Sydney Ahlstrom writes:

"The cost of the experiment was high. The company lost over £200,000 in the enterprise, and finally collapsed in bankruptcy. By 1616 some 1,600 colonists had been sent from England; but only 350 were still alive. By 1618 the population had grown to about 1,000, yet in 1623, despite the immigration of 4,000 more, the population still numbered only 1,200. Ravaged by Indian massacres, pestilence, misgovernment, sloth, avarice, disorderliness, and neglect, the Jamestown settlement all but expired." (105)

If the colonists at Jamestown were helped along by a loving God who wanted to ensure their survival by giving them food to eat, he sure had an interesting way of making his presence known. One wonders whether the colonists, before bringing the human or rat flesh to their lips, had the courtesy to thank God for the sustenance.

* * * * *

A word of caution is in order. Technically, DeMar's words could be read to merely imply that the colonists believed that God had provided sustenance when the Indians showed up with food, not that he (DeMar) believes God was involved. So although the common sense reading of the passage is what I attributed to him above, he is welcome to clear the matter up for himself.

For my part, I recently contacted him via email to confirm that this was indeed the meaning of the passage in question, but our correspondence consisted of him providing ambiguous responses to my questions (which I took to be evasive). After asking him the question three times and not getting a straight answer, I simply told him that I would assume this is what he meant. For those interested, I'll post my questions and his responses in order:

(1) You make much of the fact that the Christian God was centrally important to the colonists (even those in Jamestown). On p. 15 you discuss some of the hardships that they had in Jamestown, and you write: "God provided sustenance from an unlikely source." (i.e. Indians with food). Do you mean to say that the colonists thought God was providing sustenance--as some of them did--or is it your belief that God really did play a role as provider there?

These Christians were great believers in God’s Providence. The word is used often in their writings. The “Indians,” even though heathens, were still under God’s Providential care and direction.

Since I still wasn't clear about his answer, I rephrased the question in my next email:

(2) I know that some of the colonists in Jamestown believed that God was helping them when the Indians arrived with food, but in your book are you saying that God really was helping? This presupposes that God exists and intervenes in human affairs, obviously. So in your opinion, did God really send the Indians there with food to help the colonists? That's what your book seems to say but I wasn't sure if you meant to write something else.

The colonists believed in God’s providence, good or bad. All that happened in their lives was the result of God’s providence.

And since even this response could be read both ways, I asked him one final time:

(3) Do you, Gary DeMar, believe that God really does exist and really was intervening in human affairs to help the hungry colonists in Jamestown when the Indians arrived with food?

Of course I believe God exists. You need to study the doctrine of Providence.

* * * * *

Sources Consulted

Ahlstrom, Sydney E. A Religious History of the American People. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004.

Bernhard, Virginia. " 'Men, Women and Children' at Jamestown: Population and Gender in Early Virginia, 1607-1610." The Journal of Southern History, Vol. 58, No. 4 (Nov., 1992), pp. 599-618.

Kelso, William M. Jamestown: The Buried Truth. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2006.

Kupperman, Karen Ordahl. "Apathy and Death in Early Jamestown." The Journal of American History, Vol. 66, No. 1 (Jun., 1979), pp. 24-40.

Morgan, Edmund S. "The Labor Problem at Jamestown, 1607-18." The American Historical Review, Vol. 76, No. 3 (Jun., 1971), pp. 595-611.

Percy, George. A True Relation. London, 1624. Excerpted here.

Taylor, Alan. American Colonies. New York: Viking Penguin, 2001.

Zinn, Howard. A People's History of the United States. New York: HarperPerennial, 2005.