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In the summer of 1561, Spanish explorers abducted a Powhatan Indian youth from the Chesapeake Bay tidewater region and brought him to the royal court of Spain. The kidnapping set off a chain of events that would alter the course of American colonial history. The abduction itself wasn’t unusual, since the Spanish in America often trained Native youth to serve as interpreters, or pressed them for information about local peoples and perhaps the whereabouts of gold or silver. But “Paquiquineo,” as Spanish officials rendered the young man’s name later that year, would in time re-emerge as Opechancanough, the most formidable...

The Great Warpath Between 1690 and 1815, hundreds of battles, skirmishes, and raids involving Dutch, French, Indians, Britons, Canadians, and Americans.'Europe has been the territory of war," said Javier Solana in 2003, when he was the European Union's foreign minister, in a speech opposing the invasion of Iraq, "and we have worked to prevent war through building relations with other countries. The U.S. has never been the territory of war; that's why September 11 was so important: it was the first time their territory had been attacked." Even if one ignores Pearl Harbor, which took place within living memory, Mr....

Music of the 17th and 18th century's High Baroque era echoed through the First Reformed Church of New Brunswick, Saturday night, in efforts to raise money for the historic preservation and restoration of the church's grounds and building. The church, located on the corner of Neilson and Bayard Streets, featured musical performances by La Fiocca, a classical music ensemble based out of Bucks County, Pa. and other secular and sacred chamber musical performances. First organized in 1717, the First Reformed Church lost several large parts of the property due to disrepair and faces several structural problems such as masonry walls...

Evidence of slaves' technical skills and religion at enlightenment greenhouse IMAGE: In West African practice, placing metal and pointed objects at the doorway helps deter harmful spirits from entering. These were found buried at the entrance to the slave quarters, until... COLLEGE PARK, Md. – One of North America's most famous Revolutionary-era buildings – a lone-surviving testament to an Enlightenment ideal – has a hidden West African face, University of Maryland archaeologists have discovered. Their excavation at the 1785 Wye “Orangery” on Maryland's Eastern Shore – the only 18th century greenhouse left in North America – reveals that African American...

When the Pilgrims landed in 1620, they established a system of communal property. Within three years they had scrapped it, instituting private property instead. Hoover media fellow Tom Bethell tells the story. There are three configurations of property rights: state, communal, and private property. Within a family, many goods are in effect communally owned. But when the number of communal members exceeds normal family size, as happens in tribes and communes, serious and intractable problems arise. It becomes costly to police the activities of the members, all of whom are entitled to their share of the total product of the...

For decades, the proud seal of New York City, with its depiction of a sailor and a Manhattan Indian, of beavers and flour barrels and the sails of a windmill, has celebrated 1625 as the year the city was founded. There’s just one problem: Most historians say the year has hardly any historical significance. The first settlers arrived in what would become part of New York City on a Dutch ship as early as 1623; some say 1624. The Dutch “purchased” Manhattan in 1626. The first charter was granted in 1653. And the most notable event of 1625? Dutch settlers...

The Death of Certainty -- Crime & Action in the Early American Republic A pattern is emerging in my reading of "then-versus-now." When a series of 1770 colonial newspaper thefts are discovered, the publisher of the paper, (not the 18th century equivalent of an anonymous email poster) calls the perpetrators "mean, low-lived fellows," whose "souls" were not "large enough to be at the trifling expense of a News Paper."When the British parliament lays an illegal tax on British North America, the little town of Exeter New Hampshire, in the officially stated will of the town, doesn't pull any punches in...

The American fight for liberty was not only the domain of John Adams and his fellow Boston patriots — although HBO's miniseries might lead us to believe that. The fight also took place much closer to home in places like Annapolis, where a recently opened archaeological exhibit at the Banneker-Douglass Museum shows how an 18th-century printmaker protested the British Stamp Act tax and how mid-19th-century freed slaves fought discrimination by purchasing brand-name canned goods and bottled libations. "They preferred national brands because of the predictability of price and guarantee of quality," says Mark Leone, founder and director of Archaeology in...

The Roanoke Voyages ended dismally with the entire colony disappearing, never seen again after 1587. But a lesser-known yearlong expedition to Roanoke Island in 1585 may have provided valuable lessons for the colonists who came to Jamestown 22 years later, three researchers said recently in a paper presented at the annual conference of the Society of Historical Archaeology in Williamsburg, Va. "They don't really learn a lot from the Lost Colony, except to be careful," Phil Evans, president of the First Colony Foundation, said in a telephone interview. "Hope you get lucky - and be better prepared." But the 108...

An archaeological study and colonial documents indicate that "Henries Towne" has been found. Construction crews are rebuilding the buildings and fort that made up the colonial village of Henrytowne. (Joe Fudge, Daily Press) Fort Story archaeologists and Virginia officials are building an early colonial town site believed to be Henrytowne, which was founded in 1609 about five miles west of Fort Story in Virginia Beach. Donald Proffett works on the palisade wall. (Joe Fudge, Daily Press) FORT STORY -- Army scientists sifting through a 52-year-old archaeological study and a small but compelling stream of early colonial records have identified a...

Many people in the 1600s and 1700s never learned to read or write. Some towns didn't have schools. And there were no laws that said everyone had to attend school. More men than women were educated; women who received an education were mostly wealthy. Less-fortunate women seldom got the opportunity. Women and girls were less likely to be taught to read because they weren't expected to have careers outside the home. But the Puritans rejected this belief. They were a group that came to the New World from Europe to find freedom of worship. They believed in educating girls and...

Workers digging up Battery Park for a 21st-century subway station keep bumping into the 18th century at every turn. For the second time in a few months, workers have uncovered a stone wall that archaeologists believe has stood near the southern tip of Manhattan since New York was a British colony. Like the one found in November, this wall stands in the way of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's plan to replace the South Ferry station, where the No. 1 train turns around to head back uptown. City officials said they did not yet have a clear idea of when the...

When reflecting upon the momentous battles that shaped America as a country, most go no further back than the Revolutionary War. The French and Indian War, or what British and Canadians refer to as the Seven Years' War, is often relegated to a smaller place in U.S. history. But an upcoming four-part dramatic documentary, Episodes 1 and 3 of which were written, produced and directed by Arlington resident and filmmaker Eric Stange, intends to change perceptions of the 1754 to 1763 struggle. Titled "The War That Made America," the documentary premiering on PBS Jan. 18 and 25 explores how the...

Benjamin Franklin Tercentenary "Dr. Franklin's Profile," by Red Grooms, is on view in Philadelphia. PHILADELPHIA, Dec. 14 -There was something insufferable about Benjamin Franklin, and many of his contemporaries knew it. John Adams wrote, "Had he been an ordinary man, I should never have taken the trouble to expose the turpitude of his intrigues, or to vindicate my reputation against his vilifications and calumnies." Franklin could change positions when they seemed unpopular, compromise on principles and turn statecraft into a matter of personality. snip... In other contexts, Franklin's treatment of family could have made Poor Richard blush through his...

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