Blue Highways: Wanchese, North Carolina

Unfolding the Map

Click on Thumbnail for MapIf Manteo is the flash and glitz that recalls the Elizabethan era, then Wanchese is its groundling cousin, with emphasis on fishing and hard work.  At least that's how it appeared to William Least Heat-Moon (LHM) 30 years ago.  Where is Wanchese?  Click on the map to find out.

Book Quote

"In 1584, Philip Amadas and Arthur Barlowe, the leaders of Raleigh's first colonial exploratory expedition, returned to London from Roanoke with tobacco, potatoes, and a pair of 'lustie' Indians to be trained as interpreters.  Their names were Manteo and Wanchese.  The Virgin Queen and the courtiers in their lace ruffs were fascinated by the red men.  Months later when the Indians returned to the sound, Manteo, the first man baptized by the British in America, was on his way to becoming a proper English gentleman.  But Wanchese, after seeing London, came back an enemy of 'civilized' society.  Four hundred years, the towns carrying their names, sitting at almost opposite ends of the island, still show that separation."

Blue Highways: Part 2, Chapter 10

Harbor at Wanchese, North Carolina

Wanchese, North Carolina

Two men, removed from their lives and taken to a far off place.  Each spends a few months there, objects of curiousity and also of English intent in the New World.  And each comes back to their home with two very different views of their hosts/captors and the world they have seen.  Manteo wants to emulate the people he spent time with, and Wanchese wants nothing to do with them and their civilization.

It's a great story because I think it approximates the human condition, at least in some part.  In every civilization are found people who embrace it and its accomplishments and its progress fully; however you also find people who are uneasy about it or even fear it.  And the truth is, most of us lie somewhere in between on that spectrum.

Think of all the great accomplishments that our own civilization has wrought.  An obvious example is today's technological achievements, particularly in communication technology.  No matter where we go, it is possible today for every man, woman and child to be connected.  Cell phones, just 15 years ago still somewhat of luxury, now are in the hands of most people.  Not only are they simply phones, but they are "smart" phones, allowing us to be even further connected by offering us access to the Internet and allowing us to send text messages and photos.  My wife will often ask me, even when we are going out to the same place together, if I have my cell phone.

It's great to have such a resource at my disposal.  It comes in handy when I have an auto emergency, or quickly need to contact someone.  I remember the days when one had to search for a pay phone, and hope that the correct change was at hand.  I remember pulling out long-distance cards in airports, calling an 800 number and then plugging in a 16 digit number plus the area code and the number I was calling.  It is now incredibly convenient to have a phone on my person where I can make a normal call.

But when my wife asks me if I have my cell phone, my eyes can't help rolling a little and a sarcastic retort comes into my head.  "Whatever did we do before we had our cell phones?"  Because there is something disturbing to me still about being so connected.  There is something a little strange to me still about always being available to someone and that to completely disconnect is not an automatic option connected with leaving the home and office anymore, but involves a conscious choice to turn off my cell phone or power down my computer.

I have no doubt that Wanchese came back and made use of the new things that he had learned about the English and their ways to try to stave off the encroachment of this new people and civilization.  But, Wanchese was also the last chief of his tribe, which disappeared into the mists of history. Manteo became the first Native American nobleman in America.  In the end, Wanchese's tribe succumbed to the forces of progress, and Manteo might have been better off embracing them.  Should we all just unquestioningly embrace change?

I know younger people do not have this inner dichotomy at all.  In fact, they embrace the chance to be connected one hundred percent of the time.  But this older guy has a little bit of Manteo inside me, that wants to embrace that which is new and which, in a way, seems better.  But I also have a bit of Wanchese in me.  I sometimes look at progress and is in some ways deeply disturbed.  Corporate greed in the name of progress has led to billions of people in hardship.  America's technological prowess and might have come at great expense to world resources and world environmental health.  I ride a bike to work instead of using a car, I recycle, and I try to be as energy efficient as possible.  But it's a choice I have, not an imperative.  I do not have to try to feed a family on a dollar a day.  I do not want to minimize what progress has done to make my life healthier and easier.  But, I am aware that even my acts of deprivation in attempts to be a good world citizen are luxurious.

As William Least Heat-Moon was writing, the same forces are at work upon the two towns.  Manteo embraces what will become the new economy geared toward tourism by playing up its Elizabethan roots.  Wanchese remains the fishing town, whose gritty working class mentality is under siege by the forces of progress.  Later in the chapter, he writes of loading crabs on a truck and watching as a man who brings in a load of crabs on his boat is turned away and ends up dumping his load back into the sea.  And a chapter later, he speaks to an older man who is deeply distrustful of the forces of progress represented by banks and corporate leaders far away who make decisions.  Where I grew up, the fishing industry was decimated, along with the lumber industry - just two casualties of progress.  People cannot make a living fishing out of my town anymore, and the harbor is strangely silent where when I was a child, a hundred fishing boats left the harbor every morning.  Our neighboring town embraced arts and its attraction to well-heeled tourists, and is thriving, while ours still tries to find its identity, caught between its working class roots and the demands of a new time.

Two minds, Wanchese and Manteo, and two different interpretations of the same experience.  Two different outcomes.  They are fascinating symbols of both our curiousity and our uneasiness with the new.  Yet for now, progress marches on.

If you want to know more about Wanchese

The Coastal Explorer: Welcome to Manteo and Wanchese
Wikipedia: Wanchese

Next up: Fort Raleigh National Historic Park, North Carolina

Blue Highways: Manteo, North Carolina

Unfolding the Map

Click on Thumbnail for MapWe've gone from Columbia, Missouri to an East Coast barrier island at the edge of the Atlantic Ocean.  That's a long way, and yet we're still not even close to finishing our round the country trip.  Click on the map to get your bearings, and read my musings on places being unique.

Book Quote

"'The sea never forgets where it's been, and it's been over that land many times.  We haven't had a major hurricane in nearly twenty years, when we used to have a hard blow every few years.  New people don't know that.  They come in and see open beach and figure they've found open land.  But the Banks aren't ordinary islands, and that's why they've been left alone.  People didn't used to build much they couldn't afford to see washed away, because sooner or later most most things out there get washed away.  I know -- I've lived there.  It's always been a rough place.  Land pirates, sea pirates.  Blackbeard was killed down at Ocracoke where my family comes from.  One of my ancestors was on the Arabian ship that wrecked and spilled the Banks ponies that used to run wild.'" 

Unnamed man in Manteo, North Carolina
Quoted in Blue Highways: Part 2, Chapter 8

 Street in Manteo, North Carolina

Manteo, North Carolina

Reading up on the Outer Banks, where Manteo is located, I find myself intrigued by its history and its culture.  It is a place set apart from the rest of the United States geographically and culturally, though historically it may be one of the most important places.  Reading William Least Heat-Moon's account of going to Manteo, and then Wanchese and Fort Raleigh National Historical Park, just the cadence and pattern of speech that he captures suggests something a little different about the place.

One thing that intrigues me is that it evidently is a place where some say that the speech is possibly very close to that of Elizabethan England.  I am really fascinated by accents.  My wife likes to joke that I immediately fall in love with women who have some sort of accent, and I guess it is really true.  For me, the accent sets a person apart, suggests different experiences and places other than the ones I know, and I suppose also that women with accents call to my mind the exotic and maybe even the erotic.  I don't understand it, but it's probably best I don't try too hard.

If you love Shakespeare and his plays, it cannot help but be of interest that the people who live on the Outer Banks may speak a language that is the closest we will ever hear to Shakespeare's time.  Is it possible that if one were to secretly listen to two young lovers on the Outer Banks today, one would see shades of two star-crossed lovers on a balcony in the Globe Theater in 15th century England?

My experience with living in a culturally unique place that gets battered by hurricanes every so often was when I lived in New Orleans.  Of course, New Orleans is a city and the Outer Banks are islands with small towns.  But in a lot of respects, they are similar.  They both have a sizable part of their economies that depend on the sea and fishing.  Both, for much of their history, were disconnected from the rest of the country by their geography.  The Outer Banks for centuries could only be reached by boat, and New Orleans sits surrounded by difficult-to-traverse wetlands, swamps and marshes.  New Orleans developed a culture and language that was distinct from the rest of the United States, and I imagine the Outer Banks have as well.  In New Orleans, it really doesn't matter what's going on in the rest of the country - what matters are the things that happen in New Orleans.  The Outer Banks are probably similar.

And of course, there are the hurricanes.  Both areas are very vulnerable.  Both sit along likely paths of storms.  Both are vulnerable to the erosive effects of both natural origin and of human activity.  Both have borne the brunt of hurricanes recently.  Of course, Katrina and Rita battered New Orleans and Louisiana a few years ago, and just within the past month of writing this post, Hurricane Earl brushed the Outer Banks, not scoring a direct hit but bringing rain, wind and flooding.  Both also depend on the Army Corps of Engineers to build both protective defenses and to help control the damage.  In the case of New Orleans, the Corps may have made some major mistakes that may have contributed to the flooding.  In the case of the Outer Banks, they have been called in to fill channels created by direct hits by hurricanes.

I told my wife we should try to visit the Outer Banks.  She informed me that she will attend a conference in Asheville, North Carolina next year, and suggested I meet her and we make the trip.  Her conference will be in October, right in the middle of hurricane season.  Maybe I'll get to see all aspects of the Outer Banks that make them so intriguing.

If you want to know more about Manteo

Elizabethan Gardens
North Carolina Aquarium at Manteo
Outer Banks of North Carolina
Outer Banks Sentinel (newspaper)
Town of Manteo
Wikipedia: Manteo
Wikipedia: Outer Banks

Next up: Wanchese, North Carolina