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A Skeleton, a Catholic Relic, and a Mystery About American Origins
A newly discovered artifact buried with one of Jamestown’s most prominent leaders
suggests he could have been a crypto-Catholic.
By Adrienne La France TheAtlantic.com July 28 2015
After 400 years in the Virginia dirt, the box came out of the ground looking like it
had been plucked from the ocean. A tiny silver brick, now encrusted with a
green patina and rough as sandpaper. Buried beneath it was a human skeleton.
The remains would later be identified as those of Captain Gabriel Archer, one of
the most prominent leaders at Jamestown, the first permanent English colony in
America. But it was the box, which appeared to be an ancient Catholic reliquary,
that had archaeologists bewildered and astonished.
“One of the major surprises was the discovery of this mysterious small silver
box,” said James Horn, the president of the Jamestown Rediscovery Foundation.
“I have to say, we’re still trying to figure this out. You have the very strange
situation of a Catholic reliquary being found with the leader of the first
Protestant church in the country.”
The finding is a historical bombshell, unearthed in a grave on the site of what
was once the first church built at Jamestown. Which means researchers may have
just discovered proof of an underground community of Catholics—including
Archer and perhaps the person who buried him with the relic—who pretended
to be Protestants.
“The first settlers there were mostly members of the Church of England,” said
James O’Toole, a history professor at Boston College who focuses on the roots of
American Catholicism. “While they didn't have the same active hostility to
Catholics that the slightly later Puritan colonists in New England did, they were
not particularly welcoming to Catholics. If there were Catholics in Tidewater
Virginia ... that would be news.”
It’s the kind of discovery that makes historians, anthropologists, archaeologists,
and other academics giddy with curiosity. But it raises even bigger questions,
too—ideas that could rewrite our understanding of the intersection of religious
and cultural identities in colonial America.
The English settlement of the New World is most often remembered as a
Protestant endeavor. But if indeed there were Catholics at Jamestown, then, from
the very beginning, it was a project pursued by those of multiple faiths, seeking
new opportunities.
“There is this sense that American Catholic history begins in the 19th century
with a wave of immigrants from Germany and Ireland in the 1820s and 1830s,
but there is a history of earlier Catholicism,” said Maura Jane Farrelly, an
associate professor of American studies at Brandeis University. “What’s
captivating about it is the notion of the secretive nature. If he’s secretly Catholic,
what does that faith mean to him that he’s willing to hold onto it even though it’s
dangerous?”
Researchers believe the box was buried with Archer after his death between 1608
and 1616—which would mean the person who buried him would have known
the significance of the artifact. Archaeologists and historians announced their
discovery at the Smithsonian on Tuesday, along with the identities of three other
key Jamestown leaders whose remains were buried nearby. All four men were
“involved in all of the major decisions that took place during the first four years
of the colony's history,” Horn said in a video about the discovery. Researchers
sussed out their identities from a list of several dozen high-status men who could
have died in the early 1600s—a particularly chaotic period at Jamestown that
included what’s known as “the starving time,” a grueling winter when threequarters of the colonists died, and some resorted to cannibalism. Along with
Archer, researchers found the remains of Reverend Robert Hunt, the first
Anglican minister at Jamestown; Sir Ferdinando Wainman, a high-ranking
officer who was in charge of horses and artillery for the colony; and Captain
William West, a nephew of the governor of the Virginia Company that funded
the establishment of Jamestown and other colonies in the New World.
“The discovery brings us back, in a very powerful way, to looking at individuals
and personalities that were at Jamestown,” said William Kelso, the director of
archaeology for the Jamestown Rediscovery Foundation. “The story gets
personal, and therefore you can have more empathy toward what people were
up against, what they succeeded in doing, and what they failed in doing.” The
presence of the relic in Archer’s grave also calls into question some of what
researchers previously believed—their understanding of Archer as an individual,
and of Jamestown and the trajectory of Catholicism in America more broadly.
Possible Responses:
1. Explain why this new discovery is so important to historians.
2. What would it mean to US history to know there were Catholics at Jamestown?
3. Speculate about the life of Gabriel Archer. What educated guesses can you make
about his life and death?
3. Select any passage in this AoW and respond to it