Common-place: Meeting, Merriment, and Massacre

Common-place: Meeting, Merriment, and Massacre When three English ships sailed into the Chesapeake Bay in late April 1607, they did so amid a soundscape of groaning masts and spars, crew members heaving on the capstan and furling the sails, and the strains of song and instrumental music. This simple claim reminds us that music provided one of the most significant yet underreported dimensions among the first encounters between indigenous and invading cultures as the English established a permanent presence on the western shores of the North Atlantic Ocean. The 2010 commemoration of the 400th anniversary of the founding of Hampton, Virginia, the oldest continuous English-speaking settlement in North America, was also the 400th anniversary of the dispossession of the Kikotan people, routed in a military attack enabled by a musical ruse.