The Extraordinary Journey of David Ingram An Elizabethan Sailor in Native North America Dean Snow Full Chapter PDF
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THE EXTRAORDINARY JOURNEY OF DAVID INGRAM
THE EXTRAORDINARY JOURNEY OF
DAVID INGRAM
AN ELIZABETHAN SAILOR IN NATIVE NORTH
AMERICA
DEAN SNOW
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the
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Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press
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© Oxford University Press 2023
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reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department,
Oxford University Press, at the address above.
You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same
condition on any acquirer.
CIP data is on file at the Library of Congress
ISBN 978–0–19–764800–1
eISBN 978–0–19–764802–5
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197648001.001.0001
To Janet Charlene Snow
Contents
Preface
1. Introduction
2. Ingram in the 1560s
3. Ingram in Africa
4. Ingram in the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico
5. The Long Walk: Autumn 1568
6. The Long Walk: Winter 1568–1569
7. The Long Walk: Spring 1569
8. The Long Walk: Summer 1569
9. The Return: Autumn 1569
10. Ingram in the 1570s
11. Ingram in the 1580s
12. Ingram’s Legacy
Appendix
Notes
Sources
Index
Preface
The Interrogation
On a day in late August 1582, Ingram found himself seated before a
panel of distinguished gentlemen. They were a mix of officials from
the court of Elizabeth, some promoters of colonization in America,
and a few less prominent men who had some firsthand knowledge
of the things that were to be the subjects of Ingram’s interrogation.
Ingram was facing Francis Walsingham, the queen’s intimidating
secretary of state, arguably the second most powerful figure in
England, and a panel of other leading men. Walsingham had learned
that Ingram purportedly knew much about the people and the
resources of the east coast of North America. The interrogation was
scheduled for late August and early September 1582.2
George Peckham, a wealthy Catholic investor, was the second man
certain to have been in attendance at Ingram’s interrogation. He
reappears repeatedly in Ingram’s story. The adventurer and would-
be colonist Humphrey Gilbert and his employee John Walker were
probably present for at least part of the interrogation. Richard
Hakluyt, or his agent, was also there. Miles Phillips, another survivor
of John Hawkins’s third voyage who had recently escaped from the
Spanish, was probably present at the interrogation. Phillips was
educated and able to vouch for what Ingram said so far as what had
happened before they parted company in October 1568. For what
happened after that, Phillips was as dependent on Ingram’s
testimony as anyone else present.
Walsingham had brought a list of seven questions to Ingram’s
interrogation:
Certain questions to be demanded of Davy Ingram, sailor, dwelling at Barking
in the county of Essex—what he observed in his travel on the North side of
the River of May, where he remained three months or thereabouts.
1. Imprimis: how long the said Ingram traveled on the north side of the River of
May.
2. Item: whether that country be fruitful, and what kind of fruits there be.
3. Item: what kinds of beasts and cattle he saw there.
4. Item: what kinds of people there be and how they be appareled.
5. Item: what kinds of buildings and houses they have.
6. Item: whether there is any quantity of gold, silver and pearl and of other
jewels in that country.
7. Item whether he saw a beast far exceeding an ox in bigness.3
1582 Background
David Ingram was born in 1542, when the future Queen Elizabeth
was nine years old. Ingram was a commoner, destined for little or no
education and a career as an ordinary sailor. When he was born,
England was ruled by Henry VIII (1491–1547), the second Tudor
king, about whom much has been written. Henry famously had six
wives, more or less one after the other, and Elizabeth was the
daughter of Anne Boleyn, the second of them. Elizabeth had an
older half-sister, Mary, the daughter of Henry’s first wife, Katherine of
Aragon, whom Henry had divorced. Ingram grew up in these
tumultuous years, reaching manhood by 1558, when Elizabeth
became queen of England. By 1582, at the age of 40 and his long
walk in North America a dozen years behind him, Ingram found
himself seated before a panel of powerful men, some of whom
served the queen and some of whom sought her favor.
The cultural and political circumstances that surrounded David
Ingram in 1582 were largely the consequence of events during the
reigns of King Henry VIII and his successors (Figure 1.1).7 Henry
had quickly married Katherine of Aragon, his first wife and his
brother Arthur’s widow, when he had become king in 1509. This kept
the alliance between English and Spanish royalty alive. Katherine
was 23 years old when the two set about the task of producing a
new heir to the throne, which did not go well. Katherine gave birth
to a stillborn girl in 1510. A boy, promptly named Henry, was born
the next year, but he too died seven weeks later. These disasters
were followed by two stillborn sons, until finally their daughter, Mary,
was born in 1516. As a girl, Mary was not an entirely satisfactory
heir, but she had the advantage of being a survivor.
Figure 1.1. Henry VIII. Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons. Hans Holbein,
the Younger, around 1497–1543—Portrait of Henry VIII of England.
Henry VIII and Katherine were practicing Catholics. For the time
being the reciprocal mechanisms by which church and state
reinforced each other in European countries continued to function
for them, while monarchs engaged in various political and military
competitions. Katherine’s failure to produce a viable male heir helped
lead Henry to become enamored with the much younger Anne
Boleyn, the queen’s lady-in-waiting. Anne’s sister Mary had been one
of Henry’s mistresses, but Anne was made of tougher stuff and
refused to follow her sister’s example. She held out for a legitimate
role. Beginning in 1527, Henry undertook to divorce Katherine. He
sought a papal annulment on the curious grounds that his marriage
to his brother’s widow had been against biblical law in the first place.
Pope Clement VII balked for a variety of political considerations that
were concealed behind pious arcane reasons.
The political rise of Thomas Cromwell in 1532 provided Henry with
the ally he needed in Parliament, and Henry formally separated the
Church of England from the Catholic Church in Rome.8 Henry thus
became the head of a new independent Church of England. As the
new master, he could now marry Anne Boleyn, which he hurriedly
did in January 1533. His marriage to Katherine was officially annulled
after the fact a few months later. Anne gave birth to daughter
Elizabeth in September. The timing explains why Henry was in such
a rush to marry Anne before his divorce from Katherine was
finalized. The dodges and trickery that surrounded both of Henry’s
first two marriages would eventually lead to claims that neither of
his daughters, Mary or Elizabeth, was legitimate and thus was not
eligible to inherit the throne. But these problems would not be fully
deployed by English politicians until another two decades had passed
(Figure 1.2).
Figure 1.2. The Tudor line from Henry VII to Elizabeth I. Figure by author.
Henry soon tired of Anne Boleyn, who, like his first wife, failed to
produce a male heir. Anne was executed in 1536 for alleged adultery,
along with several other members of the court. In that year, Thomas
Cromwell began dissolving monasteries across Henry’s realm, a
program of confiscation that brought huge new wealth into the
king’s coffers. Henry’s greed trumped his piety, and heads rolled as
Henry presided over the elimination of leading Catholics.
Henry married Jane Seymour soon after Anne’s execution. Jane at
last produced the male heir, Edward, whom Henry so keenly desired.
She died in childbirth, thus escaping whatever awful fate Henry
might have later concocted for her. Henry went on to marry and
divorce Anne of Cleves, to marry and execute Catherine Howard,
and to marry Catherine Parr. The last Catherine, the most durable of
his wives, had been twice widowed before marrying Henry, and she
married again after his death in 1547.
It was into this context that David Ingram was born in Barking,
Essex, in 1542, near the end of Henry VIII’s reign. Barking, now a
suburb of eastern London, afforded employment opportunities for
people of the lower classes even in the sixteenth century. Nothing is
known of Ingram’s early years, but he grew up during the chaotic
politics that followed the death of King Henry, his life conditioned by
the politics of the remote Tudor monarchs of his time. Ingram might
never have come in contact with any of them or their peers if not for
the events of his career at sea.
Henry was succeeded by his son from his third marriage, Edward
VI, but Edward lived only a few years as king. Edward’s older half-
sister, Queen Mary I (1517–1558) succeeded him and ruled from
1553 to 1558, during which time she earned the epithet “Bloody
Mary” (Figure 1.3). Like her mother, Katherine of Aragon, Mary was
a devout Catholic, and she attempted to roll back the religious
reforms made by her father, Henry, and her half-brother Edward.
The year following her accession she married King Philip II (Felipe)
of Spain. While this was a powerful union that revived the English-
Spanish alliance, Mary made sure she ruled England in her own
right, the first woman to do so. This was facilitated partly by the age
difference between the two: Mary was 37 and Philip 26.
Figure 1.3. Mary I. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons. Antonis Mot, Museo
del Prado.
A Legacy of Doubt
Nearly all later historians have preferred to use Hakluyt’s 1589
publication as the authoritative version of Ingram’s testimony. Even
though it was published in now unfamiliar Gothic font, and it
contains many exotic spellings and punctuation, it is much easier to
acquire, read, and quote than are the original manuscripts from the
1582 interrogation. Later historians also have tended to accept
Samuel Purchas’s 1625 condemnation of Ingram at face value. Few
have looked at the original manuscripts, and there is no evidence
that any of them have done so critically enough. The truth is that
Hakluyt bungled his task and that historians have subsequently
faulted Ingram rather than Hakluyt. This is despite evidence that
Hakluyt also embellished or misrepresented some other accounts by
changing, adding, subtracting, and rearranging narratives written by
their authors, all of them firsthand observers.18 Because Ingram
apparently could not write or correct it himself, Hakluyt’s inept
compilation of Ingram’s story had all these problems and more. The
Ingram enigma was of Hakluyt’s making.
Richard Hakluyt would leave Ingram out of a 1598–1600 second
edition of his magnum opus. Hakluyt died in 1616, and Samuel
Purchas took over the editing of the Principall Navigations. Purchas
did not publish his explanation for Hakluyt’s decision to cut Ingram
out of the 1598–1600 second edition until 1625. He wrote, “As for
David Ingram’s perambulation to the north parts, Master Hakluyt
published the same but it seemeth some incredibilities of his reports
caused him to leave him out in the next impression, the reward of
lying not to be believed in truths.”19 This statement condemned
Ingram as a travel liar, and this has been the lead followed by a
majority of historians for nearly four centuries.
For a start, the distance Ingram and his companions must have
traveled has seemed too great for many historians to believe.20 The
landmarks mentioned in his testimony have seemed too few to
reconstruct his route. The details of what he said he had seen often
seemed too ridiculous to be believed. If he was telling the truth,
Ingram’s account of his long walk in eastern North America was
vitally important then for the anticipated English colonization, just as
they are important now to our understanding of the history of the
Age of Discovery. But if his accounts could not be trusted, they were
worse than useless, both to officials then, and to historians now.
Few have looked at the manuscript evidence, and scholars are
reluctant to impugn the work of Richard Hakluyt, in whose honor the
Hakluyt Society was founded in 1846. To carry out its mission, the
society has published over 350 edited volumes of primary historical
documents as its main activity over many years. A dozen of those
excellent sources have been cited in the bibliography of this book.
However, the sources of the “incredibilities” mentioned by Purchas
turn out to have included the court recorders and Hakluyt, but not
Ingram.
Spain mainly colonized well west of the Tordesillas line from Cuba
southward through the Caribbean. The north coasts of Colombia and
Venezuela became the Spanish Main. Their efforts in Florida and
northward would prove to be too expensive to maintain for long. The
gap between Spanish and Portuguese interests in South America
eventually allowed for the establishment of the three Guianas by
English, Dutch, and French colonists.
Coastal Newfoundland was already dotted with multinational
fishing stations that no monarch claimed. Jacques Cartier explored
and colonized the St. Lawrence River west of Newfoundland for
France starting in 1534, so that region was taken from a European
perspective. But the long coast between Newfoundland and Florida
had received much less attention from the French.
For the time being, the attention of English royals was on political
turmoil that began during the reign of Henry VIII, and the
consequences of that turmoil for his successors. That tumultuous
history retarded full English participation in the Age of Discovery. It
also conditioned opportunities for a sailor like Ingram as he reached
maturity.
English exploration was mostly left to fishermen and privateers for
the time being. For their part, English seamen and their investors
were often content to prey on the ships of other nations, particularly
those of Spain. Spanish fleets returning from the Americas were
often loaded with gold, silver, and other treasure extracted from the
peoples of Peru and Mexico. Consequently, early proposals for
English colonization were typically framed in terms of establishing
outposts from which royally authorized piracy could be more easily
deployed against Spanish assets. To these efforts were added
England’s entry into the slave trade, in which huge profits were
possible even without seizing Spanish treasure.
Race-Based Slavery
The world’s dominant religions share much of the blame for general
acceptance of slavery as a legitimate institution. Christianity was
familiar with slavery from its earliest roots in the Greco-Roman world
that fostered its development, and there is plenty in the Bible
condoning it. Islam neither explicitly approved nor condemned the
practice, but Muhammad was himself a slave owner and trader. The
Quran does have much to say about the proper use of slaves. Martin
Luther did little to improve matters in the Reformation, saying,
“Sheep, cattle, men-servants, and maid-servants were all
possessions to be sold as it pleased their masters.”1
Prince Henry the Navigator of Portugal (1394–1460) is often
celebrated today for his promotion of marine exploration. However,
as historian Will Durant pointed out decades ago, “The first major
result of Henry’s labors was the inauguration of the African slave
trade.”2 The Muslims of North Africa were already old hands in the
acquisition of slaves from sub-Saharan Africa, but they were equal-
opportunity slavers, reticent only when it came to enslaving fellow
Muslims. The Portuguese were not as fastidious, allowing that
Christians could be slaves so long as they were also black. By
midcentury there were thousands of slaves in Portugal. It was all
made clear and official by the Catholic church. The papal bull,
Romanus Pontifex, which was issued in 1455 by Pope Nicholas V,
sanctioned the purchase of black slaves from infidels so long as they
were converted to the Catholic faith.
We remember 1492 as the year Columbus first sailed to America,
but it was also the year that Moors and Jews were rounded up and
executed, enslaved, converted, or expelled from Spain, depending
on local circumstances. Slavery remained potentially open to all, but
while other slaves had some hope of redemption, blacks were
condemned to hereditary servitude. It was a convenient distinction
because while masters and slaves in Europe tended to look alike
prior to the Age of Discovery, it was now easier to distinguish at a
glance between white masters and black slaves. Heredity made the
distinction permanent and conventional. Blacks thus came to be
regarded by most whites as irredeemably less than fully human.
Bartolomé de las Casas, who sailed with Columbus in 1502, was a
Dominican friar who was appointed protector of the indigenous
Americans around 1516. Las Casas took this appointment seriously,
and he did what he could to argue for the abolition of the
encomienda system, which had legitimized the enslavement of
indigenous Americans. As a consequence, the Spanish emperor, King
Carlos V, issued “New Laws of the Indies for the Good Treatment
and Preservation of the Indians” in 1542. These Leyes Nuevas
forbade the enslavement of American Indians. However, the new
laws were resisted in the colonies by ecomenderos who were
profiting from the exploitation of indigenous Americans, so the
effects of the new laws proceeded slowly. Las Casas published A
Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies in 1552, and the
gradual abolition of the encomienda system quickened. Las Casas
successfully argued that indigenous Americans were fully human. No
such reprieve was in store for Africans, at least not yet.3
Enslavement and the introduction of Old World diseases ravaged
indigenous American populations in the decades following the
voyages of Columbus. It appeared that even if indigenous American
slavery were curtailed, the populations of these groups would
continue to decline due to epidemics. Las Casas suggested that the
negative economic effects of the end of Indian slavery could be
offset by encouraging Spanish peasants to migrate to the Spanish
colonies in America. But there were insufficient numbers of them in
Spain to make this a realistic solution. Ferdinand and Isabella had
granted permission to the colonists of the Caribbean to import
African slaves in 1501, and subsequent Spanish monarchs continued
this policy. As the encomienda system faded and immigration from
Spain failed to make up the difference, the Spanish colonists came to
rely on the increased importation of African slaves. It was a
loathsome practice but a successful business plan, and in Plymouth,
England, John Hawkins took the lead in exploiting it for his own
profit. Hawkins became a major influence on the life of David
Ingram.4
— Olen tehnyt jotakin, johon minun enään olisi pitänyt pyytää teiltä
lupa. Menen heti noutamaan kirjan, jonka olen varastanut
huoneestanne ja jota siellä teidän poissa ollessanne olen vähän
silmäillyt.
Milloin ilma oli kaunis, oli pastorilla aina hämärän aikana tapana
käydä kävelemässä kirkolle päin. Oltiin lokakuun lopussa; lunta ei
ollut vielä maassa, joka kuitenkin oli jäätynyt kovaksi, niin että oli
hyvä kävellä. Stella aikoi vain kääriä ympärilleen saalin, mutta kun
pastori huomautti, että ulkona puhalsi kylmä viima, heitti hän kaapun
yllensä.
— Toivotin kyllä. Mutta… ei… sitä en sano teille. En, vaikka mikä
olisi.
Ensi kerran Stella kieltäytyi ilmaisemasta hänelle ajatuksiansa ja
tästä pastori niin ällistyi, ettei hänkään tullut mitään sanoneeksi.
Ehkä Stellan vastaus johtui jonkinmoisesta epäselvästä ja kainosta
aavistuksesta siitä, että hän ainakin yhdessä suhteessa oli pastorista
riippumaton nainen, ja kentiesi tämä vastaus hänessäkin herätti
samallaisen aavistuksen, ehkäpä vielä selvemmässä muodossa.
— No, olkoon niinkin. Mutta nytpä ette enää saa minua oikaista,
nyt tahdon kertoa… Ilveilijäjoukossa oleskeli yhteen aikaan hyvin
kummallinen, Giuseppe Fiamma niminen mies. Muuten hän oli hyvin
siivo ja surumielinen, ja kun hän osasi ennustaa tähdistä, pitivät
toiset häntä suuressa arvossa.
— No, mitä hän siis ennusti sinulle?
Hän pisti kätensä hänen kappansa alle ja lämmin verivirta sai sen
heti punaiseksi.
Sitten hän heti pani noutamaan lukkaria, joka oli seudun ainoa
haavalääkäri, ja vaikka tämän taito olikin hyvin epätietoinen, hän
kuitenkin päätti jättää sairaan toistaiseksi hänen hoidettavaksensa.
Sillä välin hän vanhan Reginan avulla hyvin varovasti koetti riisua
Stellan yltä vaatteet, kastaen vedellä hänen ohimoitaan ja käyttäen
kaikellaisia pieniä kotilääkkeitä, joista ei ainakaan ollut vahinkoa,
elleivät suuresti auttaneetkaan. Kaikki heidän puuhansa olivat
kuitenkin pastorin mielestä aivan turhia nyt, kun jokainen
silmänräpäys oli kallis.
— Missä olen?
Vaikka Erkki oli pappi, vieläpä parhaimpiakin, niin hän ei nyt olisi
tahtonut kuulla puhuttavankaan kuolemasta. Ja jos hänen nyt olisi
pitänyt valmistaa joku kuolemaan, niin hän ei olisi sitä voinut. Nyt
hän ei ollutkaan pappi, vaan ihminen.
Ja mitäpä hänen valmistuksensa tällä hetkellä olisikaan
hyödyttänyt? Ja olisiko Stella sellaista kaivannutkaan?
Vaikka hän niin mielellään olisi kuunnellut tytön heikkoa ääntä, niin
hän kuitenkin rupesi häntä estelemään.
— Lauantai.
— Mutta jos nyt kuolen, Erkki… emmehän sitä tiedä… niin enpä
mielelläni kuolisi, ennenkuin olen kysynyt teiltä jotakin. Miksi ette
koskaan ole pyytänyt suudella minua?
Silloin lumous katosi. Tyttö eli vielä, mutta oli ehkä pian muuttuva
enkeliksi. Eikö hän, kurja, silloin katuisi, ettei ollut häntä suudellut…
Tiesikö hän edes mitä teki? Mitä vielä! Taikka tunsiko? Tunsi kyllä.
Näkikö ihanaa unta? Ei… sillä sehän oli täyttä totta, vaikka tuntuikin
unelmalta!
XI.
ERÄÄN SAARNAN VAIKUTUS.