Pirates

Campeche

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The pirates have surrounded the old port town on the Gulf of Mexico, although some of the walls and forts still stand. Hardly anyone lives or works in the pastel buildings of the historic quarter, making the heart of Campeche a ghost town. By pirates, of course, I mean corporate property owners and developers. Once upon a time, the walls were manned to spot approaching corsairs, but now you can’t even see the water from them.

I charged my vehicle at an upscale mall that’s between the Sea Gate and the gulf. There are also two big roads, a light rail station, and at least one big fancy hotel now cutting off the UNESCO world heritage site from the port it was designed to protect. Count me among the disappointed visitors who hoped to wander atmospheric alleys, buy nautical trinkets and have a mug of grog at a salty tavern, only to find a bustling small modern city using the colorful colonial center primarily for parking.

And yet, a short drive southwest of town, another part of the city defenses remains. Fort San Miguel remains intact on a hill with ramparts overlooking the water, and it has a fine small museum dedicated to the Mayan culture that thrived on the Yucatán peninsula many centuries before colonizers fought over stolen gold. At least there I spied children excited to cross the drawbridge, see the cannon and admire beautiful jade masks.

Captain John Smith Chesapeake National Historic Trail

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John Smith was an explorer, adventurer and leader whose stories, maps and detailed descriptions of life in the ‘New World’ helped convince many early immigrants to cross the Atlantic to the colonies. As a young soldier John Smith was held captive by the Turks, as a leader of the first British colony he was captured by the Powhatan, and as an explorer in New England he was held hostage by French pirates. Respectively, he escaped, was saved by Pocahontas (more than once), and negotiated his own release. He learned the local native language, forced upper class colonists to labor for food, and didn’t return to England until after some gunpowder exploded in his canoe.

The affiliated “trail” covers the rivers that flow into the Chesapeake Bay, but to be clear, Captain Smith only explored the rivers as far as he could navigate in his exploratory small ship. His maps show the bays, not the lengths of non-navigable rivers shown as part of the trail. The trail extends far up various rivers, but neither Smith nor crew went to most of those places. I was confused on this point until the Susquehanna visitor center expert answered my questions.

The trail extends from Hampton Roads near Fort Monroe where the bay opens to the Atlantic, up the James River past Jamestowne, past places that would later be Grant’s HQ in Petersburg, the Confederate Capital of Richmond, and across the Appalachian Trail and the Blue Ridge Parkway where the James becomes the Jackson River. The trail goes past Yorktown and up the two rivers that form West Point. And the trail goes up the Rappahannock River past Fredericksburg.

The trail goes up the Potomac, past where George Washington would be born, past Piscataway, Fort Washington and Kenilworth parks, and it continues up past the Jefferson, Lincoln, LBJ and MLK memorials, past Roosevelt Island, next to the GW Parkway, past Clara Barton’s house up to the Great Falls at the C&O Canal. The trail runs up the Patuxent River and up to Baltimore. The trail goes up the Susquehanna River (both branches) past Steamtown and into Central New York State north of the Upper Delaware River. And the trail also covers the Del-Mar-Va side of the bay, where Harriet Tubman was born. Again, Smith went as far as he could, but not past rocky shallow shoals or past any falls.

Smith also later explored and named much of New England, but this Chesapeake trail alone is certainly worthy of exploration. Someday, I’d like to return and see it by boat! And speaking of hopping around the country, Monday posts are going to cover National Parks on the West Coast, while Thursday posts will range more widely, covering more trails across the country. Enjoy!

Fort Raleigh National Historic Site

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As befits any mystery, little remains of the fabled Lost Colony of Roanoke Island NC. There is a map, a cross and “CRO” carved in a post, archaeological remains, and various accounts, both trustworthy and not. The fort above is a reconstruction. The English brought explorers, scientists, soldiers and settlers here in a few journeys in the late 16th century, but the location was deemed a failure. There was little metal, poor soil and no deep water port, and several supply ships were lost in the shallows & storms. Most of the expedition returned to England.

It was however an excellent location for piracy with many hidden coves and inlets behind the barrier islands to wait for the Spanish treasure galleons riding the Gulf Stream back to Spain with stolen Aztec and Incan gold. Many of the last colonists here had wanted to land near Jamestown, but their pirate captain dropped them here instead. When war broke out between England and Spain, Queen Elizabeth kept all English ships at home to protect against the Spanish Armada invasion of 1588. So the colonists were abandoned by the Queen for years, while they were expecting supplies within months.

Likely, they became desperate and split up with a group traveling north and others initially staying behind to wait for help. There are reports that some armed men were killed in Native American skirmishes north of here, so those remaining must have decided to go to a nearby island to seek help from the Croatoans whose chief spoke some English and had been a guest of Sir Walter Raleigh in England for 6 months. The colonists were presumed dead by the English at the time, but much later reports of a few blue-eyed Croatoans suggest at least a few survived. And the cross and letters were likely a shorthand way of letting the English know where they were without letting the Spanish know.

I arrived too early to see the stage performance here which starts in June, and I declined to pay admission to tour the Elizabethan Gardens. But the rangers and museum tell the story, along with more stories about piracy—Sir Francis Drake raided St Augustine in 1586 and brought back some Roanoke colonists on his way home—, about the Freedman’s Colony of 1862 and more modern ventures. Coming from New England, I appreciate the efforts to honor our English heritage, such as the monument here to the first English child born in the Americas. Virginia deserves more credit for being the first English colony, after all, Captain John Smith named ‘New England’ after leaving Jamestown and mapping the north east coast. Still, it would be nice to have more information about what happened to the other ethnicities who lived here, especially the Native Americans.

Here are my visits to all parks in Virginia.

Castillo de San Marco National Monument

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As you approach St Augustine, you may see the signs proclaiming it to be the nation’s oldest city. That’s not true, of course, there are several older, continuously occupied Native American settlements, including Acoma’s Sky City, Taos, Zuni and Oraibi. St Augustine is the oldest continuously occupied city in the US which was founded by Europeans. This euro-centric bias is even more inappropriate when you realize that the fort was used repeatedly by the US military to imprison many Seminole, 74 survivors of the Sand Creek Massacre, and many Apache.

This is my favorite fortress park. Still, too many Americans still haven’t heard of St Augustine, don’t know that the first thanksgiving mass with natives occurred here, that the fort was unsuccessfully besieged by the English (twice) and by the French, and didn’t know that the Spanish were here two hundred years before the US declared independence from England. So, a visit here is bound to be educational. The programs here sometimes include costumed re-enactors, gun firing demonstrations and tours of the various rooms, walkways and defensive lookouts, so it’s fun for kids of all ages. The fort’s strategic location means that it has a beautiful view of the boats traveling through, and years ago my kids enjoyed seeing a nearby museum with pirate treasure.

Here’s the link to my visits to all parks in Florida and to Hispanic heritage parks nationally.