Colony of Virginia vs. 1636 Map

It's kind of hard to figure out what the official population numbers for the Colony of Virginia were in the year 1636. For the most part, the numbers are estimates. Here is some of the available info.
  • 1624: Since 1606, approximately 7,300 emigrants have sailed for the colony, and 6,040 have died either en route or after arrival. However, the Privy Council argues that that the colony has had a net increase of only 275 people since its founding. The colony suffers from chronic food shortages and seems unable to get a subsistence from its own efforts. The greatest death rate has occurred between 1621 and 1623, during the period of the Great Migration.
  • In 1625, there were 1,200 people there.
  • In 1634, the English Crown created eight shires (i.e. counties) in the colony of Virginia which had a total population of approximately 5,000 inhabitants.
  • It appears that in 1640 there were 10,400 people in Virginia.
    • Although about 24,000 men and women immigrated to Virginia between 1607 and 1640, in 1640 the population stood at only 8,100. Most of the inhabitants fell victim to disease, although the Indian uprising of 1622 took 347 lives.
census.jpg

According to what I was able to find, there were approximately 5,000 colonists living in Virginia in 1634. With Jamestown being the main settlement, it would probably be fair to assume that a good chunk of those 5,000 colonists could be attributed to Jamestown.
  • Unfortunately I was unable to find any numbers pertaining specifically to Jamestown.
1634 Map
We have this 1636 map of Virginia, engraved by Ralph Hall. The map was originally intended to be included in the first edition of Historia Mundi. According to the source, the map is based in part upon John Smith's 1606 map of Virginia, embellished with a lively and unique ethnographical view of Virginia, shortly after the English established a colony at Jamestown. Hall's map is the earliest map of Virginia based upon John Smith's model and is quite rare on the market.

Jamestown-1.jpg

I understand the "embellished" part, for this is a standard "go to" explanation used by the PTB these days. I believe in this case, the embellishment consists of all the town/city symbols included on the map. Were those supposed to "embellish" Indian wigwam villages? This is what Powhatan people allegedly lived in.

Jamestownsettlement.jpg


This Symbol
As far as I understand, those Powhatan people were all over the place, and they were not exactly the friendliest individuals in the lives of our colonists. What do you think the circled symbols were supposed to signify, when Ralph Hall was "embellishing" this map?

map-1.jpg

One of those symbols is located way up the Potomac river, which is ways out from Jamestown. If there were European settlers there, who was protecting them from the Native population?

map-2.jpg


The Legend
Oh wait, we do have a legend though. The legend is present on the 1606 map, but was replaced by some naked upside down people on the 1636 one.

legend 21.jpg

We either had native kings all over the place, or we had colonists all over the place, or may be we do not know what we had...

Horned People?
And what's up with these individuals below? I understand that we could be seeing a hairstyle, but somehow I doubt that.

map-4.jpg


Fort Algernon or Fort Charles?
And with all of that, the map author forgot to name the so-called Fort Algernon. It was (allegedly) established in the fall of 1609 at the mouth of Hampton Roads at Point Comfort in the Virginia Colony. A strategic point for guarding the shipping channel leading from the Chesapeake Bay, Fort Monroe was built there beginning in the 1830s.
  • The first fort was a wooden stockade named Fort Algernourne, followed by other small forts
  • The fort was very close to the Kecoughtans village, and in one of the acts leading to the First Anglo-Powhatan War, this village was attacked and captured by the English on July 9, 1610, who built then there another fort, named Fort Charles.
  • In mid-1611, a fire accidentally destroyed all of Fort Algernon except for Davis' own house and the storehouse; however, Davis quickly rebuilt it as before.
Fort_Algernon.jpg

Fort Algernon, Fort Charles, Fort George, Fort Monroe... how many forts were there, and which one is it?


KD: Remarkably, it was our future expo area: 1907: Jamestown Ter-Centennial Exposition
  • Anyways, I was just rambling about nothing. Feel free to comment.
 
with mustache seems like an irrelevant dead end of synonymity
Curiously, that Government / Religion book I read in multiple spots notes the “mustache” war paint of the “Virginia Indians.”
 
Curiously, that Government / Religion book I read in multiple spots notes the “mustache” war paint of the “Virginia Indians.”
And all of a sudden, Al-gernon makes a shred of sense. Can you provide a reference?
 
Before a war was undertaken, the king always summoned his great men or werowances to attend the council. At these assemblies, whenever a war was expected, it was the custom of the young braves to paint themselves black, red or parti-colored (e. g. half the face red, half black or white with great circles of different hues around the eyes), to don monstrous moustaches and to decorate the body as fantastically as possi- ble.
Yes. This is on page18-19.

I could have sworn there were a couple of other spots that brought it up, but the author must not have used the word moustache.
 
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2EA58631-1503-4390-8777-83D8F6242EFB.jpeg
Algernon enjoyed some literary use 1520-1525 and again in the late 1500s. Unfortunately ngram can’t scrub books before 1800 it seems
 
Found this interesting excerpt. 33 to 37 covers South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia. Mythology they say.

We cant tell, no evidence, that before 17 centuries there were not any races except 3 different heights greek-like stature people with 15 % (in proportion) more brain space, perfect teeth, no incisors = no modern like people. It seems all of us is a recent product of hybridization, literally started around 1800, continued pretty much till early 1900.
 
Well finally pulled a laptop out and tool a close look through the Smith map dated 1606 and here is what i noticed.

First off it was not drawn by John Smith. He disconered (whatever that means) and detailed it to an engraver.

Screenshot_2022-07-16_06-09-24.jpg
Surely this man on the ground in America Capt John Smith would have given the engraver drawings he had made whilst there but no he describes and details which to my mind throws the artifact itself into doubt and of course its contents. I do not see a man being given verbal description by another being able to put that description into an accurate drawing that resembles what the describer claims to have seen first hand. Certainly there is no way for the engraver to verify anything as to accuracy without first hand on site drawings or sketches provided by the man who was on site.

With that in mind here are the rest of the things I noticed.
Every number on the edge of the map is written normally except one. The 40 is reversed and the 4 is back to front so its a mirror reverse.

Screenshot_2022-07-16_05-48-17.png
Screenshot_2022-07-16_05-49-05.png

There is a single depiction of a row of trees. This is suggestive of man made planting and it is right on the coast.

Screenshot_2022-07-16_06-01-55.jpg

This suggests windbreak perhaps to protect something from the onshore wind. But it is the only sign of possibly European occupation amongst the topographic symbols. I say European because I do not see a reason why anyone native to the land would bother with an artificial windbreak or a lined out orchard which is of course the other possibility for the line of trees. Europeans love straight lines.

It is always read as Jamestown but is it really what is engraved or written on the map?
I compared the only two J's I could find on the entire map.


Screenshot_2022-07-16_05-39-56.jpg
Screenshot_2022-07-16_05-44-20.png

They clearly do not look remotely alike. Not even close.
So here are the other letters and numbers I compared them to in an effort to establish what is actually written.

Screenshot_2022-07-16_06-07-49.png
Screenshot_2022-07-16_06-10-02.png
Screenshot_2022-07-16_06-10-28.png


Nothing conclusive beyond it clearly not being a J. If it were actually a capital J and it wouldn't fit in due to the line of the river then why would the lettering simply not be made a bit smaller?
Well I reckon we are looking at forgery laid over a likely truth.

When I zoomed out it becomes quite obvious that lames towne is written in the only space available for it to be written. See for yourself what I am on about.

Screenshot_2022-07-16_06-12-49.jpg


As you can see all the other space is taken up with topographical symbols and much smaller writing.
You will also notice it is the only recognisable English words in that screenshot.
This leads me to make the observation all of the English names are actually centred on what is named Chesapeake Bay and the shore around it.

There are a couple of English names and a rather odd attempt to show that English people had travelled the hinterland by naming a tree but you can easily see the lines whoever did the later additions used to align their writing.

Screenshot_2022-07-16_05-56-02.jpg
Screenshot_2022-07-16_05-56-46.jpg

Sparkes content, whatever it is referring to is clearly in a different hand and style to Mahajkahod whatever that is referring to. Compare the two letter K's.
There is nothing remarkable about the tree or the content that makes it worthy of naming. I suggest these are examples of forgery.

Here is a range of differences in labelling that is also indicative of forgery.

Screenshot_2022-07-16_07-20-30.jpg

The English names in white boxes are I argue original to the engraving or drawing or whatever it is and the English names added in later are not.

To my mind here is what we are likely looking at.
There never was a Jamestowne. There was someone who was in America and they mapped out the coastline of this area in good detail noting shallows and rapids but I do not think they ventured much beyond the shore and crucially they drew a map and series of sketches of things. They may have explored up the valleys of the rivers that empty into the bay but not beyond.
I say this because of the obvious difference in the level of detail in the waterway edges to the hinterland detail.
All of the named geographical features bearing English names are on the waterways.

It is a map of waterways and coasts drawn by a navigator.. Someone well used to turning what they see from their boat into a usable map.
Over the top of that someone else has written in all of the wordage I have highlighted above. Impossible to say when and by whom it is even just possible it was Capt John Smith who added in the later details (hence the "detailed by Capt John Smith" in the legend) and he was given the map or stole or somehow other acquired it and made it into his own by the use of an engraver to produce this thing we see in front of us and claim it as his own and Jamestowne is or was real and he had been there.

It has to me the feel of something being contrived to give evidence of claim much like the United States said to have laid claim to parts of Antarctica by dropping a flag and a note of claim wrapped round a rock from an airplane.
No way on gods earth for anyone to verify such a thing but sadly this is how land is grabbed.

This map is used for the same purpose as far as I can tell.

Instead of seeing what we are told is there on these things or want to believe is there it behooves us all to individually look at what is actually there. I may be completely off kilter with my findings but Jamestown is a fiction.

Edit to add.
What happens to Fetherstones Bay?
Sparkes Valley or Sparkes Content?

These are screenshots of these two LOC tifs
Virginia
[Map of Virginia] / discovered and discribed [sic] by Captain John Smith 1606 [?] William Hole.

There are very obvious differences between them as you can see.
Both images are the tifs at 100% zoom

bigtif.jpg

smalltif.jpg

Further Edit to add
Blands C : and Downes dale come and go.

gone.jpg

blands.jpg

As does Washbonne C:

nothing.jpg

something.jpg
 
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I was going to leave that one alone (-:

i did get curious as to when “discribed” morphed into “described” though
 
Discouered/Discovered
Grauen/Graven
I did consider it is a u not an n in that legend but the only clear u is in the word leagues in the scale of leagues and the lack of clarity leaves me on the fence. However remiss of me to mention it in the text so thanks for helping me out.

Edit to add
Stopped being lazy and pulled the laptop out. Here are crops of the .tif at 200% zoom.
The u in leagues
u.png

The other two u's?
cour.png
Screenshot_2022-07-24_19-35-57.png


The n in John
ohn.png


A flowery n in Captain?
captain.png

On that evidence the other two u's could well be u's and not n's. It certainly seems its easier for a U to slip to a V in modern english than an N.
 
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Yeah. The evolution (or devolution) the language is certainly worth exploring. Funny how Vs and Us were used quite inversely, but we still call a W a “double u” even though we clearly write it as a “double v” unlike in Spanish, where it’s a “doble v”

again I digress.

with regard to the labeling though, I think we all too frequently mistake the serifs and embellishment as marks of superior penmanship, however it seems to be just as sloppy as many of my notes
 
I've been pronouncing the possibilities in my head. An interesting exercise.
Discovered, disconered, discoured..
They all sound solid English when spoken out loud as well.
Accent plays a key role in hearing the spoken word we never see in the written word and thus the spelling used in the written version of the spoken.
Though how it can be identified or unravelled I know not.
 
I believe the written word follows the spoken word, and the spoken follows the path of least resistance.

in my short time on this planet I’ve seen octopi turn octopuses, the apostrophe adopted by pluralization, and your turn to ur.

imagine what’s happened over centuries.
 
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