Cannibals At Jamestown Colony...!

The harshness and hardships of the first colony in Jamestown is a matter of record, but I wonder if we realize just how rough it really was.

A recent discovery shows clearly that times were more desperate than we ever could imagine. From Listverse this the hard truth.

A Cannibalized Body At Jamestown

Jamestown, Virginia, is known as the first permanent English colony in America. It is now one of the most revered historic spots in the United States, and many researchers still go there to unlock more secrets from that time.

However, in summer 2012, historians made a disturbing discovery in a hole that contained butchered horse and dog skeletons. They knew immediately that this hole had probably been dug during a severe famine, but what they found when they dug deeper only shocked them further.

The body was that of a 14-year-old English girl who had undoubtedly died in winter 1609. The winter was so harsh and the food supplies so low that it became known as the “starving time”. It was well-documented how far the colonists of Jamestown went. In 1625, George Percy, governor of Jamestown during the starving time, wrote a letter describing how colonists ate their horses, vermin, and even leather boots. He then went on to say that some had even dug up the dead in desperation.

The young girl found in 2012 was the victim of this starvation. There had been strikes to the back of her head to get to her brain, which would be the most desired tissue. The attempts were clumsy by whoever was trying to harvest her flesh. It was clear that the person had never done this before.


I'd say that the main reason for the failure of the colony had to be very poor planning on the part of the leaders. Now days we know to plan for the worse, and hope for the best!

\Coffee in the kitchen this morning. Several more inches of rain are headed this way.