Long before highways, smartphones, and state lines, the American continent was a vast and untamed frontier shaped by conflict, courage, and contradiction. From peculiar pilgrim beliefs to brutal bounty systems and geyser-powered laundry hacks, the story of early America is filled with unexpected twists and little-known truths. In this collection, we’ve gathered 50 surprising, strange, and sometimes shocking facts that shed new light on the people, places, and events that helped shape a nation. Whether you’re a history buff or just curious about the wild origins of the United States, these bite-sized stories offer a fresh and fascinating look at America’s earliest days.
1 When Isolation Drove Settlers Mad
Prairie Madness deeply affected settlers-especially immigrants to the USA -living in the prairies during the 1800s. The extreme isolation of remote life triggered mental breakdowns. Fortunately, the condition largely disappeared once telephones and railroads connected these regions.
2. Honeybees are not native to North America. When Europeans introduced them, they spread faster than the colonists themselves. As a result, Native Americans came to view the arrival of the “white man’s fly” as a sign that European settlers were approaching.
3. Catholic pressure led to early laws against the exploitation of Native Americans in the colonies, beginning as early as 1512. Eventually, the Pope entirely outlawed their enslavement and encouraged even more pro-Native legislation. However, settlers largely ignored or actively opposed these laws.
4. Most of North America’s earthworms are non-native. An ice sheet wiped out the native species about 10,000 years ago. Later, settlers introduced European earthworms in the 18th century, and most earthworms today descend from those introduced species.
5. Early American colonists once stood in awe at the sheer abundance of fish. One settler marveled, “There was as great a supply of herring as there is water. In a word, it is unbelievable, indeed, indescribable-as also incomprehensible-what quantity is found there. One must behold it oneself.”
6 Squirrel Scalps for Taxes
Squirrels plagued colonial America as voracious pests. In response, colonies imposed bounties to reduce their numbers, and some even accepted squirrel scalps as tax payments. Over time, colonists became such skilled marksmen from hunting squirrels that they later proved devastatingly accurate against British troops during the Revolution.
7. As many as 30 to 60 million bison once roamed the North American plains. Tragically, that number plummeted to just 1,000 before conservation efforts helped the population recover to around 500,000 today. The U.S. government had actively encouraged bison extermination to starve Native Americans and force them onto reservations.
8. Rough-and-tumble fighting, also known as “gouging,” emerged as a brutal martial art in rural southern and frontier areas during the 18th and 19th centuries. Fighters often aimed to mutilate their opponents, making it one of the most disturbing combat practices in early American history.
9. The real Johnny Appleseed did plant apple trees across the American frontier. However, settlers primarily used those apples to produce hard cider, as clean drinking water remained scarce. Consequently, cider became a safer and more popular beverage.
10. Twenty-six families from the Mayflower are known to have left descendants. Today, over 30 million people are believed to trace their ancestry back to those original Mayflower passengers.
11 Burning the Pope Annually
Colonists in pre-Revolutionary America celebrated Guy Fawkes Night by burning effigies of the Pope. They called the event Pope Night, and it served as both a public spectacle and a show of anti-Catholic sentiment.
12. Pemmican, a survival food made from crushed dried meat, suet, and berries, played a vital role for early Canadian settlers. In fact, its importance was so great that conflicts and even wars erupted over access to it.
13. John Rolfe became the first settler to successfully cultivate commercial tobacco in Jamestown, Virginia, in 1609. By 1614, he had shipped the first batch to England. By 1638, annual exports reached 3 million pounds, and by the 1680s, Jamestown was producing over 25 million pounds for export to Europe.
14. The Spanish were the first Europeans to settle the Florida Keys. When they discovered a burial mound on one of the southernmost islands, they named it Caya Hueso-Spanish for “Bone Island.” The name was later Anglicized to Key West. Spain officially ceded Florida to the United States in 1821.
15. Early Spanish explorers traveling through what is now the Eastern United States described large Native American towns centered around massive earthen mounds, ruled by a leader known as the “Great Sun.” Tragically, by the time British settlers arrived, disease had already decimated these original civilizations.
16 Wampum Inflation Crashed Currency
Wampum, strings of beads used by Native Americans for trade, diplomacy, and storytelling, also functioned as currency. When colonists adopted the practice, they discovered how to mass-produce wampum, which led to inflation and eventually made the currency obsolete.
17. Lobsters were once so abundant when early European settlers arrived in North America that massive piles-reportedly up to two feet high-would wash ashore, shocking newcomers with their sheer numbers.
18. Dutch settlers most likely named Coney Island in New York City after the large population of rabbits-called “coneys” in archaic English-they found along the island’s coastline.
19. One of the few reliable historical accounts of Pocahontas includes a vivid memory: she reportedly performed naked cartwheels to amuse and entertain the settlers.
20. The first Polish settlers arrived in Jamestown in 1608-twelve years before the Pilgrims landed in Massachusetts. Captain John Smith brought them over for their skilled craftsmanship. When they were denied voting rights in 1619, they organized a strike-the first documented labor protest in U.S. history.
15 Most Controversial & Costly Blunders in History
21 Skies Darkened by Pigeons
The passenger pigeon, once the most abundant bird in North America during the 19th century-with an estimated population of 5 billion-moved in flocks so dense they darkened the sky for days. Hunters pursued them relentlessly for sport, ultimately driving the species to extinction. The last known wild bird was shot in 1901.
22. Life in Puritan New England proved so harsh and rigid that many children abducted by Native Americans refused to return to their colonial families, choosing instead to remain with their captors.
23. Cheyenne Chief Black Kettle, a strong advocate for peace between Native Americans and white settlers, suffered betrayal twice. Despite agreements of non-hostility, American troops attacked his village on two occasions, ultimately killing and mutilating him along with over 200 Cheyenne villagers.
24. In 1780, an eerie event known as Dark Day plunged New England into darkness. Wildfires in Ontario, combined with unusual atmospheric conditions, blackened the sky so thoroughly that residents needed candles during the day. In parts of New Hampshire, ash blanketed the ground up to six inches deep.
25. One early Spanish explorer of the American Southwest encountered a Native man they called “The Turk,” who spoke of a rich land to the east. He later confessed that he invented the story to lure the Spaniards away from Pueblo communities-hoping they’d perish from starvation on the plains.
RE: Fact #45 (Boobies Named for Clumsy Ways) – That’s also why someone might be called a boob.
RE: Fact #1 (When Isolation Drove Settlers Mad) – That place looked totally deserted. Even in old pictures and films, I’d never want to live there. Just you, the plains, and the buffalo.
Man, those Santa Ana winds in the LA hills were brutal. My old wooden house sounded like it was going to fall apart!
Wind really chills me out. Probably ’cause I grew up in super windy southern Alberta.
RE: Fact #39 (Pilgrims Fled Dutch Tolerance) – They weren’t escaping religious persecution; they were looking for a place where *they* could persecute others.
That made me think of a line from Eurotrip. America was started by a bunch of prudes who fled Europe to escape all the wild sex. Now I, Cooper Harris, am going back to my ancestors’ land to claim my birthright – a whole bunch of crazy sexual adventures.
It’s pretty clear how they acted once they arrived.
Or how things work these days. Lots of people still do it that way.
RE: Fact #49 (Puritans Banned Christmas Celebrations) – Christmas wasn’t always the family-friendly thing we know today. For a long time, it was more like a crazy party with pranks and lots of drinking – way wilder than even the wildest office party now.
RE: Fact #49 (Puritans Banned Christmas Celebrations) – They left England for a reason, alright? They weren’t just a bunch of reasonable folks who got a raw deal. They were fanatics, total nutjobs nobody could tolerate.
So that’s why they left Holland—they could do their thing there, but nobody else was interested.
Their kids were becoming Dutch, that’s why they really moved.
RE: Fact #34 (Newark: A Puritan Ark) – It’s become a really impure city!
RE: Fact #25 (The Turk Tricked Explorers) – Maybe he was guiding them toward the Mississippian people – those folks were famous for their metalwork, remember the Spanish were crazy for gold? And he was also trying to steer them away from the Pueblos.
RE: Fact #17 (Lobsters Piled on Shorelines) – Whoa, Carl! Don’t eat that giant water bug!
Nah, just kidding, they cost a fortune these days.
RE: Fact #16 (Wampum Inflation Crashed Currency) – Let’s bring back the wampum standard.
RE: Fact #6 (Squirrel Scalps for Taxes) – Womp rats are to Luke Skywalker as squirrels are to colonists.
RE: Fact #33 (Pilgrims Settled Ghost Village) – Early on, Europeans and Native Americans bumped into each other—fishermen, mostly. Basque fishermen might have even cooked up a simple way to talk with the locals.
The difference in population before Europeans arrived is pretty clear if you read about Jacques Cartier and Samuel de Champlain. Cartier described the St-Lawrence Iroquois village of Hochelaga, which was gone when Champlain got there. It seems like tribal fighting over a key spot was the reason.
RE: Fact #7 (Bison Massacre by Design) – Buffalo were wiped out for a bunch of reasons, none of them good. It was a total disaster.
The government wanted to starve out Native Americans, especially the Sioux and Lakota, by killing off their food source.
Railroads also hated buffalo. A single buffalo wasn’t a big deal, but entire herds would wreck trains. And while there were train hunting parties, they weren’t as common as people think because leaving all that meat to rot was a waste of money.
Buffalo hides were super valuable – about a week’s wages for a factory boss. They were fashionable in Europe, but even without that, factories needed the leather. Plus, there were butchers who processed the meat and others who collected bones for fertilizer.
Lots of Civil War vets, many with PTSD, took these jobs. It was good money for a while, but some thrived, and others… well, let’s just say they didn’t always make it to retirement.
Finally, settlement and new technology finished them off. Barbed wire stopped the buffalo from roaming, and as railroads spread settlements, farmers fenced off land, blocking the buffalo’s migration routes.
RE: Fact #4 (Earthworms: Foreign Invaders Beneath) – Since they are not native they’re causing real trouble. They mess with the underground fungus networks that trees use to talk to each other, making northeastern trees die much sooner. It might be happening elsewhere, but I haven’t looked into that yet.
RE: Fact #1 (When Isolation Drove Settlers Mad) – Michael Lesy’s 1973 book, *Wisconsin Death Trip*, paints a grim picture of life in Black River Falls from 1890 to 1900. It uses photos by Charles Van Schaik and newspaper stories about all sorts of bad stuff – epidemics, suicides, bank failures, the whole shebang. The title and the book itself reflect the vibe of the time and are all about understanding what made those people tick back then and there.
Apparently, Prairie madness was really tough on women who were used to the finer things in life – tea parties and all that. It was also a struggle for immigrants because of the language and cultural differences with the other settlers.
RE: Fact #8 (Fighting Meant Eye Gouging) – Backwoods fighting in the southern and western US was brutal. The main thing was really messing people up—tearing them apart. But the absolute best move was gouging out an eye; it was like a knockout punch in boxing. The real pros were good at other fighting stuff too. Some even sharpened their teeth to make biting off limbs easier. Getting an eye out fast was the quickest way to win, the ultimate bragging right. This spread as far west as Missouri, where a skilled fighter could pop someone’s eyes out with just his thumbs. Getting your eye taken out was a big shame.
RE: Fact #5 (Colonists Drowned in Fish) – Historical animal numbers are seriously depressing.
Thinking about how things have changed lately is kind of a bummer. I used to see tons of fireflies every summer, whole swarms of them! Now, you’re lucky to see a couple in a backyard.
Back in Tanzania, giraffes and zebras were common sights on the way to the national parks—even elephants sometimes! Now you have to drive miles before spotting any wildlife. The change is crazy, even though I’m only in my thirties.
Elk used to roam almost everywhere. Big herds of them.
I was at a museum on the California coast, and saw these old black and white photos of fishermen with boatloads of fish – seriously, tons of them! The pictures were from about ninety years ago. The museum said we only have about 3-4% of the fish population they had back then.
I looked it up online later, and it seems that’s right. In fact, they found that ninety years before *those* photos, there were five times as many fish! That means 200 years ago, there could have been 400 times more fish than today. Now we’re down to a measly .25%.
RE: Fact #3 (Colonists Ignored Papal Orders) – The Pope’s Sublimis Deus bull said enslaving Native Americans was wrong because they were people, not property—a sin! This led to new Spanish laws trying to stop the abuse, but the landowners weren’t happy about it.
RE: Fact #31 (Samoset Asked Pilgrims for Beer) – Handy phrases to know when learning a new language: “Where’s the loo?” and “Can I get a beer?”
RE: Fact #15 (Mound Cities Lost to Time) – Did Native Americans have any diseases that Europeans caught? Seems weird it was one-sided, right? Honest question.
Nope, the disease spread was mostly one-way – from Europeans to Native Americans. Deadly viruses often start when an animal virus (like a cow’s cold) jumps to humans, causing big problems because of the difference in their bodies. Europe and Asia had tons of domesticable animals, giving them ages to build up immunity to viruses that later hit the Americas hard. Native Americans only had a few domesticated animals, mainly in the Andes, so there weren’t as many chances for viruses to jump to people.
RE: Fact #13 (Tobacco Empire Began in Jamestown) – Back then, it was against the law to take tobacco plants or seeds out of the Caribbean, so he basically snuck them out.
Bringing tobacco to Virginia had some major downsides: it led to a big jump in slavery and really hurt the small farmers. Plantations using slaves could out-compete the small guys who couldn’t afford slaves. Tobacco farming was a lot of work, so having slaves was a big deal for the big tobacco growers. Where the plantation was also mattered—land along the river was best because they didn’t have to haul the tobacco far to get it to the ships. And tobacco farming is rough on the soil, so the huge plantations could just move to a new spot when they needed to.
It’s like what happened with tea and China. Britain really wanted in on the tea trade, but China kept a tight lid on the seeds to control everything. Eventually, the Brits snagged some seeds and, after a lot of trial and error, ended up growing most of their tea in India.
RE: Fact #12 (Pemmican Wars in Canada) – That’s what those Antarctic explorers lugged around, right? Light as a feather, but packed with calories.
That’s about it.
It was pretty gross, actually, even though it was good for you. We made some in Scouts when I was a kid.
RE: Fact #9 (Cider, Not Apples, First) – He was farming that land, so he also claimed it – I think there was a Missouri law saying something like, “If you farm it, you own it.”
Thanks, Appleseed, for playing by the book, even if the rules are kinda messed up.
RE: Fact #35 (Blackbirds Blocked Bachelor Marriages) – Did the guys just start keeping the birds in their barns and houses, feeding them until they needed six?
It was a handy excuse for guys who weren’t keen on marriage.
Lots of gay guys would probably be like, “Yeah, I guess I’m a terrible hunter. Guess I’ll never get married, oh well.”
RE: Fact #7 (Bison Massacre by Design) – For every buffalo that died, an Indian was lost.
RE: Fact #23 (Peaceful Chief Black Kettle Betrayed) – Check out a map showing Native Americans before and 80 years after European arrival—it’ll really hit home how devastating things were. They were almost completely wiped out. Think going from a whole loaf of bread to just a few crumbs.
Diseases were the main cause.
RE: Fact #11 (Burning the Pope Annually) – Early Americans didn’t like Catholics much.
RE: Fact #6 (Squirrel Scalps for Taxes) – The British usually stood and fought in lines, while Americans preferred using cover, popping in and out to fight back when outnumbered.
Most battles were fought in lines, not by squirrel-hunting irregulars like some people think. That’s a myth about the Revolutionary War.
RE: Fact #30 (Seneca’s Adopted Colonial Girl) – Indians committed many terrible acts, including kidnapping, rape, and the scalping of children.
RE: Fact #33 (Pilgrims Settled Ghost Village) – Back in the mid-1500s, European explorers along the New England coast saw smoke everywhere—from the forests, all over. Native Americans paddled up to their ships in canoes, sometimes even hopping on board to trade. The ship captains wrote all about it.
Fast forward to the early 1600s, and the English arrived to settle. Their records tell a very different story: a nearly empty land, a few “savages,” and perfect forests—not realizing the Native Americans had been managing the land for ages by clearing underbrush and trees to make things easier for hunting and travel.
Turns out, archaeology shows way more Native Americans lived there before the Europeans first showed up. Those early encounters brought disease, which really hurt the Native American populations before the English came back to settle. The English thought they’d hit the jackpot—a land ready-made for them.
What I learned in college was that after Europeans arrived, the Native American population plummeted—like, a 90% drop in the first hundred years. Mostly because of disease. Measles was a killer; it’s super contagious—hang out near someone sick for fifteen minutes, and you’ve got a 95% chance of catching it. With no immunity, it wiped people out.
We hear a lot about diseases wiping out huge numbers of people in the Americas after arriving from Europe. Did anything ever go the other way?
It’s a shame we don’t have any writings from Native Americans about this. They probably wouldn’t be easy to read, but they’d be really impactful.
RE: Fact #25 (The Turk Tricked Explorers) – That old “the grass is always greener” thing.
Let’s get this over with and go to Greenland. Then it’s on to Iceland, where we’ll suffer!
I read it in a book, and I looked up the website to check it out. He told them about fish the size of horses! After he fessed up, the Turk got killed. Coronado got in trouble for messing up his trip, and it took the Spanish another 40 years to go back to Pueblo land.
RE: Fact #25 (The Turk Tricked Explorers) – new evidence shows Marcos de niza may have split south of the Chiricahuas with a band of Pima and headed northeast towards Arizona while Coronado and his group continued north toward the Pueblo lands. The Turk may have been killed for his efforts but Coronado and his group were decimated before they eventually gave up and returned to Mexico. It is pretty interesting though that several names in those groups were also on the popes order of execution shortly after Coronados expedition left the conquistadors in Mexico that several Sephardic Jewish families that had disguised themselves as Catholic joined the expeditions and escaped the Inquisition and stayed in New Mexico living in the Pueblo lands. Best I have been able to track Three of my ancestors were on that list
RE: Fact #28 (Jack O’Lantern’s Irish Roots) – That’s a bit tricky.
Yeah, people used turnips way back when. But jack-o’-lanterns actually started with will-o’-the-wisps—those spooky lights you see floating over swamps and lakes. That’s also where the Stingy Jack story comes from.
Stingy Jack is this old Irish legend about a drunk who made a deal with the devil and now wanders around with a hollowed-out turnip for a light.
Will-o’-the-wisps are pretty rare these days since most swamps have dried up. You still see them sometimes, but they’re often mistaken for fireflies. There’s no good video of them, as they don’t last long and disappear if you get close. It’s a totally natural thing, and every culture has its own weird beliefs about them. Where I grew up, people thought they were the souls of unbaptized kids.
RE: Fact #29 (Napoleon’s Grape Colony Failed) – It’s weird how the French managed to get a colony going in Louisiana, but completely flopped in Alabama.
Honestly, even after 250 years, Alabama’s still having trouble producing anything really worthwhile.
RE: Fact #10 (30 Million Mayflower Descendants) – My Mayflower ancestors didn’t last long after landing. Their grown son stayed behind in England, but came over later. So, I’m kind of technically a Mayflower descendant, I guess?
Basically
RE: Fact #16 (Wampum Inflation Crashed Currency) – That bit about settlers and hyperinflation? It came from a self-published ebook on Bitcoin, which itself pointed to some random stuff on a “Nakamoto Foundation” site – also self-published. Yeah, I’m calling that one dubious.
RE: Fact #20 (Polish Strike Rocked Jamestown) – It wasn’t a work stoppage about pay or conditions; they were striking for voting rights.
RE: Fact #49 (Puritans Banned Christmas Celebrations) – Washington figured Christmas Eve was the perfect time to hit the Hessians at Trenton because it was mainly a German holiday, so they’d be less prepared.
RE: Fact #10 (30 Million Mayflower Descendants) – My family’s been here since 1652! We’ve got a huge family tree – like, 9,000 people – and I’m the 13th generation. So it makes sense that so many people are related to those early families.
My ancestor, thirteen generations back, was involved, so it’s totally possible.
My wife bombed her high school genealogy project—she couldn’t trace her family past her grandparents. Her step-grandpa helped out, though, and gave her info going back five generations. The teacher flunked her because it wasn’t *her* family, so they had to get the principal involved.
Sometimes, people were adopted and the old records don’t say anything about it. It just lists the household members—like, “[this person], [that person], and [these people].” Or something similar.
RE: Fact #26 (Jamestown’s Starving Time ) – I did some research, and a few things stand out: farming an established farm and homesteading are totally different ballgames, and some colonists were seriously clueless about that. New colonists often showed up super late for planting—a major problem even for established farms. A lot of them thought the Powhatan were sitting on a gold mine and would hassle, even capture, Native Americans to get it. And searching for gold means less time farming. Plus, constantly beating up your neighbors doesn’t win you any friends. If you have a bad harvest, they’re just going to watch you fail. And settling in a malaria-infested swamp? Not exactly a recipe for success.
So, picture this: a bad drought hits, half the colony’s off digging for gold, the locals are hostile and want nothing to do with you, AND the supply ship crashes in Bermuda… yeah, things are gonna get rough.
RE: Fact #22 (Puritan Kids Chose Captors) – That’s wild, right? Looking into my family history, I found out a relative on my mom’s side was snatched by Iroquois when he was around eight. His mom and sister were killed, the baby sister was brutally murdered. His brother and some other kids were held captive for two years. The brother tried to run away, got caught, and was burned alive to make an example. After three years, my relative finally escaped. I wonder if that whole “burning alive” thing was about kids trying to escape? It’s probably just the white guy’s version of events though, so who really knows what went down.
RE: Fact #34 (Newark: A Puritan Ark) – It’s funny, because Newark’s never really seen much in the way of divine intervention.
RE: Fact #2 (The White Man’s Fly) – Lots of people who like nature focus only on honeybees, ignoring all the other bees that are super important for our local plants. Even a small patch of native plants in your yard helps a lot—and you can probably fit them in even if you have a homeowners association.
People really don’t get bees and wasps. We all know honeybees and bumblebees, or yellow jackets and paper wasps, but those are just a few examples of a huge, diverse bunch. There are over 20,000 bee species—most are loners or live in small groups, not like honeybees or bumblebees. And wasps? There are over 100,000, maybe even 500,000 species! Most are tiny or look totally weird; you wouldn’t even recognize them as wasps.
It’s even trickier because some wasps look like bees, some bees look like wasps, and then there are flies copying both! The easiest way to tell them apart, without fancy equipment, is by watching how they act.
Stingless bees are awesome! Their hives look like tiny alien nests—so cool!
RE: Fact #10 (30 Million Mayflower Descendants) – Guess what? In middle school, we had this assignment to write about a family member who came to America. Another kid in my class picked the exact same Mayflower person as me! I was totally shocked.
Wow, me too! Small world.
RE: Fact #32 (Plague Cleared Pilgrim Land) – Before Europeans arrived, there were already people here. That plague? It came from rats on European ships.
RE: Fact #15 (Mound Cities Lost to Time) – Smallpox wiped out way more people in the Americas than the Black Death did.
RE: Fact #23 (Peaceful Chief Black Kettle Betrayed) – Black Kettle sure didn’t learn his lesson – don’t negotiate with terrorists.
RE: Fact #37 (German Utopias Ended in Famine) – The Harmonists, a group from southwestern Germany, moved to western Pennsylvania and really took off! They made silk, tools, and beer, shared everything, even kids, and invested their money in the railroads. They got super rich, but eventually died out because they didn’t have any kids and left all their money in trust for the two towns they built.
RE: Fact #18 (Coney Island’s Furry Namesake) – Samwise Gamgee would’ve been right at home there.
RE: Fact #5 (Colonists Drowned in Fish) – Someone said you could cross the Chesapeake Bay by walking on the backs of all the crabs—totally unbelievable, of course! But wouldn’t it have been incredible to see the bay bursting with life like that?
RE: Fact #12 (Pemmican Wars in Canada) – Learned that from Rimworld.
Me too! I’d never heard of it until I played RimWorld. That game’s awesome.
Don’t eat it standing up.
I’m totally gonna be out of it for three days – my tiny bedroom’s driving me crazy!
RE: Fact #30 (Seneca’s Adopted Colonial Girl) – I don’t get why people make this seem romantic. It was a huge case of Stockholm Syndrome! She was kidnapped, and her whole family was murdered right in front of her. Seriously.
So, it wasn’t actually the Seneca who killed her family. She was treated pretty much like any other woman in their society. Yeah, her early life was probably rough, but once she married into their culture, she became one of them. Still a sad story, but not quite as simple as you’re painting it.
This story’s seriously messed up.
So, Ben Franklin said it was almost impossible to get anyone back once they’d been taken. No matter how they got there, most people just wanted to stay put.
RE: Fact #17 (Lobsters Piled on Shorelines) – I need some proof. It’s awfully convenient there weren’t any cameras around when stuff like that happened, huh? History gets a little too pretty sometimes.
RE: Fact #24 (New England’s Eerie Dark Day) – I’ve got an old book, printed way back in 1876, that covers what people then considered the biggest deals in the US’s first hundred years. It calls one event the “Wonderful Dark Day”— “wonderful” back then just meant something amazing, not always something positive.
RE: Fact #5 (Colonists Drowned in Fish) – The Mortal Sea is a great book that talks about this. New England and Nova Scotia weren’t unusual – they had tons of fish. European colonists were just used to their own fished-out waters back home, where things like river weirs had already wiped out lots of fish.
RE: Fact #29 (Napoleon’s Grape Colony Failed) – Some fancy French folks who escaped the revolution ended up in a special colony in northeastern Pennsylvania. There was a rumor Marie Antoinette might join them, but she never did.
RE: Fact #19 (Pocahontas’ Earliest Account) – Twelve-year-old Pocahontas played with the other kids in the colony—everyone was doing cartwheels! Where she came from, kids didn’t wear clothes.
So, get this—those uptight Puritan settlers? They totally fell for the Native way of life. Loads of them ditched their old ways and went full Native American, even when they had the chance to go back to Europe. It happened whether they’d been captured or gone willingly.
Roanoke is a prime example. The settlers vanished, leaving only “CROATOAN” carved on a tree. And years later? Lots of Native folks on Croatoan Island had light skin and blue or green eyes.
So, there’s this really cool book, “The Life and Times of Rembrandt van Rijn,” I snagged a used copy ages ago – it’s on archive.org if you want to check it out. It’s mostly about the 1600s, written by Rembrandt’s doctor. There’s a part where a Jewish guy leaves the Netherlands to live with Native Americans… he talks about wanting to be just a man, not defined by his religion. It’s a great read, seriously.
RE: Fact #14 (Bone Island Became Key West) – Lots of place names in the southern USA are Spanish. Think Los Angeles (The Angels), Amarillo (Yellow), Sacramento (Sacrament), Santa Fe (Saint Faith), Los Alamos (The Poplar Trees), and Nevada (Snowed). And don’t forget all the places with “San” (Saint) or “Santa” in their names, like San Diego, San Francisco, and Santa Barbara.
RE: Fact #1 (When Isolation Drove Settlers Mad) – Fifteen-year-old Laura Ingalls Wilder witnessed a schoolteacher’s terrifying knife threat and breakdown out on the lonely prairie.
RE: Fact #8 (Fighting Meant Eye Gouging) – Cormac McCarthy’s *Border Trilogy* has a really detailed scene like that.
Dang, Dan and that giant in Deadwood, too!
I was just remembering that muddy brawl early on in Blood Meridian.
RE: Fact #26 (Jamestown’s Starving Time ) – So, I’ve been reading about early American colonization, and starting farms was a ton of work. People were told to bring enough food for several years to get by while they learned to grow crops.
I don’t have my books handy, but I think it took at least three years for a farm to produce enough food to really live off of.
That’s one reason why New World crops became so popular – they’re much easier to grow. Maize, beans, and squash can grow around tree stumps; you don’t need to plow the land.
And those crops produce way more food than Old World crops, plus they’re easier to plant, harvest, and store.
Three Sisters Guild is still awesome in the Northeast! They all get planted together, saving space and adding nitrogen too.
Mom’s growing the Three Sisters in the garden—corn, beans, and squash. We’ve got different kinds of corn (including some for making cornmeal!), pumpkins, zucchini, and lots of beans and peas. The cool thing about the Three Sisters is how they help each other out: the corn stalks support the beans, the squash keeps the weeds down, and the beans put good stuff back in the soil. It’s what Native Americans on the East Coast relied on—add some meat and greens, and you’re good to go. I hated them as a kid, but now I get why they were so important to my family. Hopefully, we’ll always have enough to eat.
RE: Fact #8 (Fighting Meant Eye Gouging) – That sounds really brutal!
RE: Fact #27 (Corn Killed Without Limewater) – also known as hominy…mmm