Archaeologists in Jamestown

This trimester, the second grade students are studying the history of what is now Jamestown, VA. They are doing research about what it was like to be a Paspahegh Native American at the time before, during, and after the English settled in Jamestown in 1607. There was much they already knew! For example, the students knew that people fished and hunted for food. They also knew that sometimes there was peace between the Native Americans and English, and that sometimes they could be helpful to one another; however, they also knew that there were many violent times. Here are some of the kids' initial reactions:

A Paspahegh Native American village before the Europeans settled at Jamestown 

The Paspahegh people used their land for hunting and fishing. The Europeans thought they received permission from the chief, Powhatan, to take over the land, but they were mistaken. 

 "I think it is very important that everybody would get along together at that time by getting used to each other." ~Elizabeth

"I think the English people would only shoot if the Native Americans made a threat to them, right?" ~Blake

"If you had a garden and worked hard on it and then someone came and took your food and you didn't have any left, you would feel sad." ~Nick

"Trees are part of nature, living things, and so chopping trees down is bucket dipping. It's not good for the trees or the Native Americans who needed that stuff. It was part of their environment." ~Gracie

The Susan Constant was one of the first ships to arrive at the land that would become Jamestown.

After years of mixed peace and struggles, the Native Americans and English fought again to drive each other out of the land the Europeans called Jamestown. In the end, the English won over the land. Muskets, poisons, and diseases brought over from across the ocean were too much for the Paspaheghs to overcome.

Archaeologists have found lots of evidence about life in Jamestown. The children, pretending they were archaeologists, looked at the artifacts, and used their imaginations to decide what the objects were, what they were used for in Jamestown, who used them, and what it could tell us about what life was like. Dylan saw some arrowheads and wondered if they were tools to carve into rocks for writing and drawing. Skye saw some broken pottery and wondered if there had been a hurricane to break it all. Reid saw some copper pieces and thought they were probably used for money. After all the students had seen and made guesses about the artifacts, the group got together to learn about the clues that history has left us. Ask them about it!