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Arrival of wives for the settlers at colonial Jamestown Virginia colony, established by the Virginia Company of London as 'James Fort' on May 14th, 1607
The first English settlers in America were cannibals who even ate a 14 year old girl! Scientists have found solid archeological evidence that the British settlers in their first American colony, Jamestown, engaged in cannibalism. The Jamestown colony was established in 1607, 13 years before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock. It was named after King James, who sponsored it through the for-profit Virginia Company of London.
Reconstruction of the face of Jane, the 19 year old who left Plymouth, England, in June 1609 in the largest fleet to sail to Jamestown.
While written documents had previously suggested the colonists resorted to cannibalism, the discovery of the 14-year-old girl's bones offers the first scientific proof.
Smithsonian researchers believe the girl was food for colonists who were struggling to survive the harsh winter of 1609-10, known to historians as the Starving Time.
"There were numerous chops and cuts - chops to the forehead, chops to the back of the skull and also a puncture to the left side of the head that was used to essentially pry off that side," Dr Owsley, a forensic anthropologist at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington DC., said. "The purpose was to extract the brain."
The marks also indicate that the tongue and facial tissue were removed.
"The clear intent was to remove the facial tissue and the brain for consumption," he said. "These people were in dire circumstances. So any flesh that was available would have been used."
The same flesh taken from animals would have been considered a delicacy in the 17th Century. Hogs' heads in particular featured prominently in recipes from the period.
Early Jamestown colony leader George Percy wrote of a 'world of miseries,' that included digging up corpses from their graves to eat when there was nothing else. In one case, a man killed, 'salted,' and began eating his pregnant wife.
Both Percy and Capt. John Smith, the colony's most famous leader, documented canibalism in their writings. 'One amongst the rest did kill his wife, powdered her, and had eaten part of her before it was known, for which he was executed, as he well deserved,' Smith wrote.
'Now whether she was better roasted, boiled or carbonado'd (barbecued), I know not, but of such a dish as powdered wife I never heard of.'
The Starving Time was one of the most horrific periods of early colonial history. First they ate their horses, then dogs, cats, rats, mice and snakes. Some, to satisfy their cruel hunger, ate the leather of their shoes.
As the weeks turned to months, nothing was spared to maintain life. How many of the growing numbers of dead were cannibalized is unknown. But it is almost certain the girl was not the only victim.
