 
Surviving Colonial House
Professors help re-create life in a colonial
village for a PBS experiential history series
by kathleen mcpartland
On the evening of May 17, Don and Carolyn Heinz sat down with friends
in their Chico home to a colonial meal of pease pottage, homemade
bread, blueberry cobbler, and aquavita—equal parts whiskey
and vodka. With a few million other viewers, they watched the first
two episodes of the PBS series Colonial House. The CSU,
Chico professors had a huge investment in how true to the Puritan
period the show would be.
For the re-creation of a 1628 colony, Don and Carolyn had played
the roles of a lay preacher and his wife. There were countless ways
the four months of film could be edited to tell the story in eight
hours. The Heinzes were sure that good TV was the goal; they weren’t
so sure that authenticity and intellectual honesty would be.
Two of 24 colonists selected from thousands of applicants, the Heinzes
were drawn to the idea of replicating 17th-century colonial life
by their academic fields. Don, a Lutheran minister and professor
of religious studies, wanted to see if he could help the program
“get 17th-century religion right.” Carolyn, an anthropologist
who has studied small, primitive communities in her field research,
wondered if she might find clues about what she believes has gone
wrong in America by returning to its roots.
In May 2003, the colonists began two weeks of preparation at Plimouth
Plantation in Boston. Plimouth’s experts on the period trained
them in the use of tools and in the laws, social mores, and religious
ideas of colonial times. On June 7, the colonists traveled by tall
ship to the four rustic dwellings they would call home for four
months.
The authentic life
The colonists were divided into social classes, with the governor
and his family occupying the top rung, the lay preacher (who also
served as assistant governor) and his wife right below them, followed
by the freemen and women, and then the indentured servants. The
houses had one or two rooms, dirt floors, waddle-and-dab walls,
and one or two tiny windows.
The food was authentic, with no possibility of cheating, says Don.
“We had 500 pounds of dried peas, 30 chickens, and six goats,
so we all learned to milk,” he says.
Carolyn became a skilled colonial cook, making bread from coarse
flour that they found delicious. “We also had a little corn
meal; that was a real treat,” she says. “We had barrels
of salt pork, salt beef, and salt cod. Our salt intake was enormous.”
The story was that the colonists were backed by an early venture
capitalist effort, a joint stock company from Bristol, England.
The company paid their way and provided them with goods and food.
The payoff for the company was economic development in the New World.
Unruly colonists
Although the Heinzes were aligned with Governor Jeff Wyers, a Baptist
minister from Waco, Texas, in seeing that the colony’s religious
practices were historically accurate, they were often at odds with
him over other issues. Wyers’ management decisions—to
not allow women at decision-making meetings and to follow a strict
chain of command—were certainly within the guidelines of 17th-century
organization.
“I didn’t mind the patriarchy,” notes Carolyn,
“but I think the producers had a limited notion of how patriarchy
works and how women influence things.”
Don, former dean of the College of Humanities and Fine Arts, believed
that it was possible to have more participation in decision making.
“Original colonists spent much time in discussion, and efforts
were made to develop a consensus,” he says. “To narrowly
interpret a non-democratic hierarchy as one without individual input
is a mistake.”
Several weeks into the experience, colonists were clearly off track:
they were sleeping late, swearing, and refusing to attend Sabbath
services. Consistent with the laws of 1628, Wyers devised a set
of disciplinary actions: scarlet letters worn by rule breakers and
other forms of isolating punishments. While 17th-century colonists
would have been truly shamed, the 21st-century reenactors mostly
laughed them off.
Eventually, Wyers gave up the punishments as being unenforceable,
including punishment for not attending Sunday service. This decision
seemed arbitrary to the Heinzes and set to undermine the cohesion
and the authenticity of colonial life. In protest, Carolyn took
off her mandatory headgear and confronted Wyers, telling him she
wouldn’t wear it until there wasn’t a rule that she
must.
Don points out that some of the colonists made it clear from the
beginning that they were not religious. “The governor and
I, who were responsible for making this a true 17th-century colony,
kept saying to these people, ‘You knew what you were getting
into. If you were this antireligious, why’d you sign up for
the 17th century?’ ” says Don. “And they replied,
‘Because people said it wasn’t going to be an issue.’
Then we would call in the production people, who seemed to have
purposely set up the conflict, and have it out with them.”
It’s good to be governor
Don got the opportunity to be governor twice: both times when the
Wyers family had to return to Texas because of personal tragedy.
In his second term, the last 10 days in the colony, Don appointed
a new council, instituted a more collaborative management style,
and addressed the importance of meeting the colony’s financial
obligations. Spirits rose, and the entire community turned out for
a surprisingly good corn harvest and the celebration that followed.
Don moved the colony into a new intellectual and creative phase.
“Harvard was established in 1636,” notes Don. “I
was committed to a colonial pursuit that allows imagining Harvard
eight years after our colony.” It was inconceivable, he believes,
that there would not be a hint of culture or education in early
colonies.
Governor Heinz excused indentured servant Jonathon Allen from physical
labor to map the colony. Freeman Dominic Muir, an artist, was commissioned
for a portrait of the governor. Don tutored Jonathon and Dominic,
both devout Christians, in ancient Greek and religious history.
The male colonists, who were pushing to chop enough wood for the
winter and complete work to pay off the colony’s debt, resented
the depletion of the labor force. Don Wood, the assistant governor
and labor boss, questioned allowing a few colonists to pursue art
and education while the others worked strenuously.
“We weren’t just looking for people who could plant
corn,” says Don, “but for people who had a larger view.”
Conscience calls
A visit from members of the Wampanoag tribe, a matriarchal society
from the area around present-day Boston, put the reality of life
for Native Americans into perspective for many of the colonists.
In colonial times, distant tribes would travel to the colonies for
trade and to keep a wary eye on the settlers. (In fact, nine Wampanoag
men were kidnapped and taken to Britain in colonial times.)
After meeting among themselves for several hours, the Wampanoag
approached the village. As they walked over a rise and saw the houses
for the first time, one elder said, “It was visceral and sad.
I thought, ‘this was the beginning of the end for our people.’
”
The visit from the Wampanoag was unsettling to the colonists as
well. Carolyn, deeply touched by the encounter, questioned, again,
her participation in Colonial House—this time because
of its relationship to the imperialist expansion in 1700 and its
legacy in 2004. Later that night, she said to other colonists: “There’s
no innocent time in our history. Not then, not now.”
Judgment day
The goal of the colony from its inception was to be viable: pay
off its debt, establish new revenue sources, work well as a community,
and master the demands of everyday survival. This was quite an achievement
in early settlement times, when more than 50 percent of colonies
failed. A 2003 National Geographic article reports that
of the 6,000 settlers sent to Jamestown by the London-based Virginia
Company between 1607 and 1625, 4,800 died—many from starvation,
disease, and Indian attacks.
On the last full day, three “emissaries” from the stock
company came to determine if the colony had succeeded enough to
continue. The colonists had failed miserably at trading; trade for
furs with the local Passamoquody tribe lost the company money but
produced good will, for which the judges gave them credit. They
had a successful corn crop and produced 100 spars to be sent back
to England. They had managed and inventoried their supplies well.
In spite of changes in governance, the colony had come together.
To their credit, the members supported their new governor, even
if not always agreeing with him. The judges noted the conflict that
came from bringing 21st-century people, with their intellectual
freedom and individuality, into a 17th-century society. It was significant
that the colonists were unified in the end. “Look at the spirit
here! They must be getting something fundamentally right,”
said one of the judges.
And so, the colony was deemed a success. It would continue into
the next year. The judges did recommend that a new governor be sent
from England and that Don follow his calling as a lay preacher.
The colonists celebrated one last time together. They were proud
of their hard work and more connected to each other than they had
ever imagined. In the Heinzes’ view, that sense of community—perhaps
the biggest accomplishment for the colonists and the one that almost
all of them said they would take with them for the rest of their
lives—was, for the most part, missing in the finished series.
Back to the future
How, in the end, did the Heinzes feel the show both portrayed them
and stayed true to the period?
“Probably no one in the colony is entirely pleased at how
they were portrayed,” says Don. “In my case, with the
exception of episode seven, the producers had little interest in
my ideas about education, politics, and early democracy, and no
interest whatever in my preaching. I’m guessing they had little
interest in early American religion.”
The Heinzes attributed much of their frustration to the internal
conflict with the PBS producers. “They wanted a real colonial
experience out of us—and they wanted us to squabble and protest
and cry to make good television,” says Carolyn. “Because
of their casting decisions, they didn’t get a real colonial
experience, so they settled for over-portraying the squabbling.”
The Heinzes miss that community—the way they could hear everything
that was said almost anywhere in the village, the trust that developed,
and the long nights spent talking. Although they wouldn’t
trade the experience, in spite of its frustrations, neither Don
nor Carolyn would do it again.
In the last episode, Don captures the sense of how they might judge
themselves as he and Carolyn stand together waiting for the bus,
having walked away from the village for the last time. The cameras
catch him as he leans to her and says quietly, quoting scripture
from the Gospel of Paul, “We ran the race; we kept the faith.”
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