The winter of 1609-10 was an especially harsh one for the colonists at Jamestown. Called "The Starving Time" settlers were forced to eat whatever they could get their hands on. It was well known that the colonists ate dogs, horses and mice in these trying times. A recent discovery by forensic anthropologists from the Smithsonian Institute suggests the colonists also had a more ghastly meal, a 14-year-old girl.
Whether or not the desperate colonists resorted to cannibalism has long been a subject of debate among historians. Forensic anthropologist Douglas Owsley told The Smithsonian recently discovered remains end the debate.
"Historians have gone back and forth on whether this sort of things really happened there," Owsley said. "Given these bones in a trash pit, all cut and chopped up, it's clear that this body was dismembered for consumption."
Little is known about what exactly lead to the girl, researchers are calling her Jane, becoming sustenance for the colonists. Researchers have no way of knowing who the girl was, whether she died of natural causes or was murdered or who exactly consumed her. What researchers can tell by the remains is that butchering a human was not something the colonists were comfortable doing.
"The chops to the forehead are very tentative, very incomplete," Owsley said. "Then, the body was turned over, and there were four strikes to the back of the head, one of which was the strongest and split the skull."
The winter of 1609-1610 was a particularly different one due to increased hostilities with the Powhatan Confederacy and desperately needed supply ships from England getting lost at sea, according to The Smithsonian.
In 1625 George Percy, the president of Jamestown during the horrific winter, wrote a letter detailing the ordeal the colonists went through:
"Haveinge fedd upon our horses and other beastes as longe as they lasted, we weare glad to make shifte with vermin as doggs, Catts, Ratts and myce... as to eate Bootes shoes or any other leather," Percy wrote in the English of the day. "Notheinge was Spared to mainteyne Lyfe and to doe those things which seame incredible, as to digge upp deade corpes outt of graves and to eate them. And some have Licked upp the Bloode which hathe fallen from their weake fellowes."
Percy's letter, among other factors, fueled speculation that cannibalism took place at Jamestown but there was never any hard evidence of it until now.
Owsley does not suspect that the girl was murdered in order to be eaten and that hungry colonists did what they were forced to do given the circumstances, according to The Smithsonian.
"I don't think that they killed her, by any stretch," Owsley said. "It's just that they were so desperate, and so hard-pressed, that out of necessity this is what they resorted to."
The entire article is a fascinating read and can be found here.
