The early settlers who migrated to Virginia from England brought with them horses, but new research has revealed that they also had donkeys.
Unfortunately for both animals they were likely butchered and eaten by the desperate newcomers to North America during the ‘Starving Time’ in the winter of 1609 – 10.
Starvation weakened the colonists and led to sicknesses such as dysentery and typhoid. The colonists ate shoe leather and butchered seven horses brought from England the summer before on the ill-fated fleet. Percy wrote, “Then, having fed upon horses and other beasts as long as they lasted, we were glad to make shift with vermin, as dogs, cats and mice.” There were charges of cannibalism: Starving settlers dug up “dead corpses outt of graves” to eat them, and others “Licked upp the Bloode which ha[d] fallen from their weake fellowes.” Jamestown Rediscovery archaeologists in 2012 uncovered the first forensic evidence of survival cannibalism in a European colony in North America. – Historic Jamestown.
New research by the University of Florida and the University of Colorado Boulder have been examining the bones of the slaughtered donkeys.
John Krigbaum, Ph.D., professor and chair anthropology at the University of Florida explained:
“There are no written records of donkeys on ship manifests and reports, yet evidence suggests they were valued as dependable work animals.
“Ancient DNA points to Iberia or West Africa, which is consistent with its isotope signature, but the isotopic evidence is also consistent with Trinidad and Tobago, which is not far off the route sailed.”
Wear and tear on the bones showed evidence of bridling, suggesting their use as work animals. Ancient DNA and bone chemistry analysis of the isotopes in tooth enamel suggested that the donkey did not originate in Great Britain but was picked up by settlers along the route of their transatlantic journey.
Examining the wear and tear on the samples also revealed a tragic end for many of these animals. Faced with hunger during the Starving Time and having soured their relationships with nearby indigenous people, settlers were forced to eat their animals and, in the direst situations, their dead. While we have records that horses were consumed during this time, this can also be observed with other samples, including donkey remains.
“They show that adult horses were eaten, butchered and cooked or boiled, with most elements split open to extract even the minutest nutritional resources including dental pulp,” the team wrote in their study.
For Krigbaum and his colleagues, the Jamestown assemblage is just the beginning. Their next project will examine horse remains from the 16th century Spanish settlement of Puerto Real, in the Caribbean, to uncover further evidence of how horses and donkeys helped shape the earliest chapters of American history.
Click on this link to access, Early transatlantic movement of horses and donkeys at Jamestown, published in Science Advances.
As the settlement developed, black slaves were brought to Jamestown. That story is also being uncovered through the work of archaeologists.
Fiona Grahame