William Balderson is the Director of Living History & Historic Trades at Jamestown Rediscovery [Historic Jamestowne] in Virginia. After readings from John Smith's accounts about Pocahontas, the local fauna & corn planting, our guest describes his singular life path as a career living historian. From there Willie illustrates the events leading up to the Jamestown expedition including the infamous Roanoke Lost Colony. On this deep dive, we learn of John Smith's life as a mercenary & slave prior to Jamestown; the Pocahontas legend; John White the 16th-century watercolorist of indigenous life in the Carolinas; Powhatan's eagerness for the technological advantages of trading with the English; and other tidbits from Smith's journals such as raccoon capes, birchbark canoes and a native deer hunting technique. We end this history lesson on a reflective note, as Willie describes the feeling of interpreting the past on the actual site where it took place.

Plan your trip to Historic Jamestowne

Readings from The Generall Historie of Virginia, New-England, & the Summer Isles by Captain John Smith and The Jamestown Adventure: Accounts of the Virginia Colony, 1605-1614 edited by Ed Southern


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