Virginia’s Cultural Landscapes Play
Characters:
- Girl
- Boy
- Narrator
- German woman
- Scots-Irish man
- Englishman
- Native American
- African
Girl: Do any of you have any special holiday traditions that your family does? (pause and wait for hands to raise) Wow, so do I!
Boy: That’s great. Put your hands down and listen to how traditions have changed Virginia’s culture over time.
Narrator: Whenever people settle an area, they change the culture and the landscape to reflect their beliefs, customs, and architecture.
Boy: Does landscape mean mowing the grass?
Narrator: Not just mowing the grass but how everything looks outside around us—our roads, buildings, and yes, of course the scenery.
Girl: What are customs?
Narrator: A custom is an accepted or a practice that people do as a habit all the time.
Boy: Oh, I get it—like brushing your teeth!
Narrator: Yes, I guess that could be considered a custom. I was thinking of something more like taking your shoes off at the front door before walking through the house or something like that.
Girl: So after the English settled Jamestown, what happened? How did the culture and the landscape of Virginia change?
Narrator: Well, several groups of people migrated to Virginia.
Englishman: Like more people from England, of course.
German woman: Germans!
Scots-Irish man: The Scots-Irish!
Native American: And the Native Americans were still here!
African: And the Africans were shipped over as slaves.
Boy: Wow, what a big mixture of people!
Girl: yeah, you can say that again.
Boy: Wow, what a big mixture of people!
Girl: Not like that… (rolls eyes)
Narrator: Let’s start with the Native Americans. They had already been in Virginia the whole time. They came way before any other people came. How about you tell us a little bit about that? (look at the Native American)
Native American: Well, as many of you know. The Virginia Indians spoke 3 main languages: Algonquian, Siouan, and Iroquoian. The Powhatan language was Algonquian, and it hasn’t been used in centuries although some Powhatan do continue to speak the language during cultural and religious ceremonies today.
Boy: Are you a Powhatan?
Native American: I am! Examples of Powhatan words include: ump-suh-quoth, which means moon and met-cher, which means eat.
Boy: I want to met-cher right now!
Girl: What did your settlements look like back then?
Native American: We lived in organized villages near coastal waterways, as well as in woodlands, and mountain valleys. We planted corn, beans, and squash.
Boy: C-B-S
Native American: That’s definitely a way to remember it. The American men hunted for deer, turkeys, and small game and also fished along the shores. Basic American goods included soup, corn, and stews.
Boy: Yummy!
Narrator: We are learning that culture includes customs as well as religious beliefs. Weren’t the Native Americans polytheistic?
Girl: What is polytheistic?
Native Americans: Polytheistic means that we put our faith in a number of different gods and spirits. We believed the world was created by a Great Spirit but different tribes had various creation stories and traditions.
Boy: Wow, that’s cool!
Native Americans: What’s interesting is that after 1607, when the Europeans arrived, many of the tribes converted to Christianity.
Girl: You mean they changed what they believed once they met different groups of people?
Native American: yep! Sometimes that happens.
Narrator: Thank you for sharing with us. Now let’s move on to the immigrants.
Boy: What are immigrants?
Narrator: Immigrants are people who move from one country to live in another country.
Boy: You mean kind of like Super man once his first country had been destroyed?
Narrator: Kind of! Yes.
Girl: Who were the first group of immigrants to settle in North America?
Englishman: The English of course! Remember Jamestown? That was the first permanent English settlement in the New World, and we are proud of it!
Girl: You should be. Jamestown was a great accomplishment for England.
Boy: I heard that many Englishmen became rich. Is that because you finally found gold?
Englishman: Brown gold! We became rich by using slave labor to work in our tobacco plantations.
Girl: What were your religious beliefs?
Englishman: We followed the Church of England with the king who was in charge.
Girl: So whatever he says goes?
Englishman: Pretty much! Some people had a big problem with that. Because that meant that the king and his officials told people how they were supposed to worship God.
Boy: What if people didn’t want to do what they said?
Englishman: Sometimes they went to jail. That’s called religious persecution when people are mistreated or punished for believing a certain way.
Boy: Was it like that in Virginia?
Englishman: No. That’s one reason more English and other Europeans came! Remember the Pilgrims? And the reason they came to Plymouth? Thanksgiving?
Boy: Oh yes, I love turkey.
Englishman: Well, the Pilgrims were English people who wanted religious freedom. That’s the whole reason they came to the New World.
Narrator: They had actually meant to land in Virginia, but a storm took them north to Massachusetts. SO that’s why Plymouth Rock is famous today up there.
Girl: Was there a certain place where the English people settled in Virginia?
Englishman: There sure was! The English people settled in the Tidewater and Piedmont regions mostly. There is a special town that is now your state’s capital that was named after a town in England.
Boy: What’s that?
Englishman: Richmond.
Girl: You mean there is a Richmond, England?
Englishman: Yes, it’s right outside of London.
Boy: Wow, so there’s two Richmonds, then. One here in Virginia and one in England! Cool!
Narrator: Now let’s talk to another immigrant. Where are you from ma’am? (pointing to the German woman)
German Woman: Germany. It is a country in Europe.
Girl: Where did your people settle?
German Woman: In the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia and also in Pennsylvania.
Boy: Pennsylvania is north of here, right?
German Woman: That’s right. We originally settled the town of Philadelphia in Pennsylvania.
Boy: Isn’t Mr. Knecht from Pennsylvania?
German Woman: Yes, indeed. Did you know his last name Knecht is a German last name?
Boy: No, wow. I learn something new everyday!
Girl: What was the migration route called form Pennsylvania to Virginia called?
Boy: I know! I know! We learned this yesterday—the Great Wagon Road!
Narrator: How did Germans change Virginia’s landscape when they came?
German Woman: Well, for one—we built two-story barns called “bank barns,” because many of us were farmers.
Boy: Bank barns? Was there money in them?
German Woman: No, not quite. Just lots of room for farming stuff! German barns definitely changed Virginia’s architecture.
Boy: What is architecture?
Narrator: Architecture is the way that buildings look on the inside and the outside.
Girl: Oh yeah, that’s right! And the people who design buildings for their jobs are called architects.
Narrator: The 3 main architectural examples of the cultural landscape are:
Girl, Boy, and Narrator TOGETHER: Barns, Homes, and churches!
German Woman: German people changed the architecture of Virginia with their barns, stone and log homes, and churches. We wanted to make our buildings look as much like our home back in Germany as we could. But there were different building materials we had to use here in Virginia. Because Virginia doesn’t have the same stuff as in Germany.
Girls: Was there anything unique about your homes?
German Woman: Oh yes. Absolutely! Stoves! We used stoves to heat our houses instead of fireplaces. We also do a lot of cooking…sauerkraut, scrapple, and raisin pies.
Boy: That makes sense, because Mr. Knecht’s favorite breakfast food is scrapple!
Girl: What was the Germans’ religion?
German Woman: They were Christians who built Lutheran churches.
Narrator: How did Germans feel about slavery?
German Woman: They did not like it at all. We were so sad to see human beings being owned by other people and being forced to work against their will. We did not think it was right.
Girl: I don’t think that slavery was right either.
Englishman: But remember the culture was different back then. And many people thought slavery was ok, because they were making lots of money and getting rich off of what the slaves were doing for them. SO they did not want it to end or they would not be rich anymore. Their whole farming way of life would not have been as successful.
Narrator: Thanks for bringing that up. That leads us into another culture that was present in Virginia—the African culture.
African American: Most people think of slavery as taking place only during the Civil War times, but it was a legalized practice way, way before then.
Narrator: Slavery was something that happened in every colony in the New World. The majority of black people living in the colonies in the 1600s were slaves.
Boy: Wow, that’s kind of sad.
African American: yes, it is. Most of the African Americans worked on tobacco plantations and large farms. Tobacco was the cash crop that used a lot of slave labor. The slaves who lived on farms or plantations were able to live in family units. They often had Sundays off.
Boy: Where did the Virginia slaves come from?
African American: The first Africans arrived in Jamestown in 1619. Portuguese sailors captured African men and women from what is present-day Angola. Some of these captured people were shipped to Virginia to work as slaves.
Girl: How did the African culture affect the customs and landscape of Virginia?
African American: Well, we brought parts of our African heritage with us when we came even though we were not free. Slaves spoke all different languages, but we had to learn English to communicate with each other. Various African cultural traditions included music, dance, and religious and healing practices. Folklore mixed to form a new African-Virginian culture that affected European cultures as well.
Narrator:Now let’s turn our attention to the next group of people who migrated to Virginia, the Scots-Irish.
Scots-Irish Man: Did someone call my name?
Narrator: Yes, I did.
Boy: Who were the Scots-Irish?
Scots-Irish Man: Glad you asked! They were Scottish people who had first moved to Ireland. Ireland was a country of unrest and fighting.
Girl: Sounds like Ireland was a bad place to live back then.
Scots-Irish Man: It definitely was, and that is why people wanted to leave and find a better place to live.
Boy: And they came to Virginia? Which part?
Scots-Irish Man: They moved to the Shenandoah Valley. You see, the Scotch-Irish people also used the Great Wagon Road to travel south to Virginia.
Girl: What kind of people were the Scots-Irish?
Scots-Irish: They were hardy people who could live in the wilderness. We were frontier people. We lived in between the English and the Native Americans.
Boy: What’s the frontier?
Scots-Irish man: It just means land that has not been claimed by anybody and has not been farmed on before. We liked that land and felt like it was ready for us!
Girl: What was the religion of the Scots-Irish people?
Scots-Irish Man: We were also Christians and we built Presbyterian churches.
Boy: Wow, I have learned so much from all of these different kinds of people.
Girl: Me too. I just have one more question. What is a cultural landscape?
Narrator: Good question. It’s the way people act and the way the area where they live looks.
Boy: That’s why Virginia became a mixture of all different kinds of cultural landscapes, since so many different kinds of people were living all over the same place!