How to Survive in the Roanoke Colony-Chapter 64: Great Chief’s Realm (2)

The people of this tribe found it hard to believe whenever the 'Great Chief' sent gifts. In a situation where everyone was starving, unable to find food, they continuously produced numerous fruits, as if molding them from clay.

After the envoy they sent left, everyone from the chief to tribe members hurriedly ate potatoes and grapes.

The beginning of everything was when they carelessly accepted the massive gift for the first time.

The pain of famine continuing for years, hunger, disease—these things changed them again.

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Many tribe members now don't bother with farming that's about to fail anyway and just roam around to obtain precious fur pelts. It's easier to exchange them with the Great Chief for food.

The days of making gift ornaments in spare time after farming and hunting are gone. Now they only sow seeds and hunt meat if they have time after making ornaments.

It wasn't just them.

Some spend the entire day mining pearls.

Some spend all day grinding coral to make beads.

Some live day by day brushing fur pelts until they're beautiful.

It was unprecedented.

Europeans would call this 'division of labor,' but the Algonquians in this region found the current situation so unfamiliar that they couldn't even find a word to describe it.

Of course, they still don't 'buy and sell' things like Europeans. They still only exchange gifts.

More fur pelts for more potatoes and grapes, then even more fur pelts for even more potatoes and grapes. No one is bound by contracts.

They are still free.

But, indeed, everything has changed.

The wars that used to break out during famines are gone.

They picked up thread, needles, and traps instead of bows, spears, and clubs.

As a result... they gained peace instead of fighting.

"And, life instead of death."

"Don't say that. Don't we now have to go deeper into the forest to get fur pelts? And we quarrel with other tribes there."

"Hmm... that's true."

"Additionally, mining jewels has become increasingly difficult. Soon we'll starve to death! We must leave this area!"

"...No. That's not the case."

The chief shakes his head at his son's worried words and says:

"I've heard that instead of recklessly killing large beasts, the Great Chief's tribe tames them, increases their numbers, and then eats them."

"...What?"

"Why don't we do the same? Tame foxes and eat their meat. And get fur at the same time."

So, using foxes as livestock.

As someone who has only tamed small animals, the son found the proposal absurd.

"We, we've never done that before, have we? First of all, don't foxes eat meat? Moreover, will foxes adapt well and live in the places we've prepared..."

"We have to try. We'll probably face failure for several years."

The chief's eyes shine.

"Aren't unprecedented things happening constantly? We must change too. Or at least change our hunting methods."

"But..."

"Have you ever seen a being like the Great Chief before? Why are you trying to respond in the way you know to a situation you don't know?"

"..."

"If it really doesn't work, we'll just lead the tribe members to the Great Chief's land. Remember that a chief must make decisions that save the tribe members above all else."

"..."

Anxiety was visible in the son's eyes.

It was the look of someone afraid of change.

But when days get shorter, there are no trees that keep summer-like fresh leaves even when snow falls.

Everything must change according to approaching changes.

That's how to survive.

Regardless of what his son thought about the Great Chief... the chief somehow felt his heart toughen when thinking about the Great Chief whose face he had never seen.

"Originally... you would have died fighting by now."

"What?"

"I would have starved to death."

"..."

"But look. We both live to enjoy the night. The bonfire still burns, and the moon and stars blaze in your eyes.

Don't you know who it's all thanks to?"

No one starves, no one dies.

Even if there are no foxes left in this land, and all the rubies in surface mines disappear, they won't starve to death.

The Great Chief they've heard about in rumors always welcomes new people.

He's someone who doesn't let anyone who enters his embrace die carelessly.

So they will survive.

Thanks to a grape farmer they've never even seen.

According to rumors, that grape farmer is a spirit who descended from heaven. That's why he's so wealthy, having brought heavenly treasures.

According to more unbelievable rumors, that grape farmer is a being who doesn't experience death.

Honestly, the chief didn't believe even half of these rumors.

But regardless of which parts are true and which are false.

Hundreds of thousands of lives owed a great debt to that grape farmer.

Originally, around this time, the population in this area would be wiped out by smallpox.

The population in the southern Mississippi River basin dies from epidemics transmitted from Spanish colonies, people nearby move north, and amid many people starving due to abnormal weather, the chaos in this region intensifies.

The Powhatan Confederacy begins to rapidly expand while fighting wars with strange tribes that came down from northern New York and Pennsylvania to escape drought and famine.

And after several decades, various tribes are defeated in wars with white people and fall.

The same is true for the seemingly massive Powhatan Confederacy. They seem to succeed in mediation under the famous name of Pocahontas, but eventually collapse due to white invasions, and many tribes under them are forcibly relocated.

Defeat, massacre, forced relocation, extinction, downfall. The history of native tribes in this region that follows is summarized like that.

And they disappear from history as nothing. In the gorgeously bound volumes of American history, they are relegated to an area of just a few pages. Just as they lost their homes and were driven out.

They were driven out not only from space but also from time.

But now that won't happen.

Thanks to the existence of one grape farmer.

This was a debt that couldn't be repaid with any amount of gifts.

If this unprecedented drought continues.

The refugees heading toward Nemo's land would swell to hundreds of thousands in an instant.

That's why that grape farmer was called their Great Chief.