After The Fact Serving Time In Virginia Summary

The chapter demonstrates the aspects of comparative historical research. In the first part of the chapter, After the Fact, Serving Time in Virginia, various research methods used to verify what happened in the early Virginia colony by evaluation of Captain John Smith’s original narrative written to his published narrative, the research to seek historical evidence to verify names, dates and people, interpretation of anthropological facts about Algonquin Indians, and evaluation his writing style. As the chapter continues, it delves into historical analysis of economic and cultural growth of the Virginia colony reverting to what the author calls “most basic tactics of sociology” (After the Fact 6). The early colony failures were identified by historian’s research of documents from Colonial Virginia such as Smith’s writings; land company charters, written policies, and letters all reveal details about the colonies economics; trade company involvement, survival rate for new colonists, and identify innuendo’s of slavery and indentured servants. Historic research of these documents allows the author to make inferences about economic growth and how it relates to the cultural growth of the Virginia colony.

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Does the authors’ analysis change your mind about the subject in any way? Do you agree or disagree with their analysis? Explain why.
The author’s analysis on the documents that are presented in the text about Captain John Smith changed my mind on how historical documents need to be analyzed. The author talks about how Captain John Smith wrote down all of his observations in 3rd person which makes it very confusing as a reader to analyze what he is trying to say especially with the archaic dialect of the time. I agree with the author’s analysis of the documents and I also agree with him because after reading the historical document myself I was rather confused about the events that occurred in the historical