A Zombie's History of the United States Read online

  —William Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, March 10, 1621

  In 1603, Queen Elizabeth I died. James VI of Scotland, who was upgraded to James I of England, succeeded her. This meant that when English gold hunters founded the first settlement in the Colony of Virginia in 1607 it was not christened “Elizabethtown.”

  Jamestown—or James Towne, as it was originally named—had a rocky start. The settlement was built on Jamestown Island to protect against zombie attacks, with which the terrified English were still uneasily coming to grips. Unfortunately, the swampy island was not ideal for most farming, and starvation, illness, hostile relations with Indians, lack of profitable exports, and periodic zombism spreads all threatened the survival of the fragile population. Then, in 1612, colonist John Rolfe, future husband to Pocahontas (who was lover to John Smith only in literature), introduced a strain of tobacco that would change the fate of the colony—and England’s investment in America. Now with Jamestown’s blossoming success, the riches and opportunities of the New World brought new waves of English settlers.

  In November 1620, the English Separatists (later known as the Pilgrims) found themselves not at the mouth of the Hudson River, their intended goal, but off Cape Cod. Deciding to forgo their original destination, for which they had a land patent, the plucky Pilgrims drafted the Mayflower Compact, which they felt gave them the right to claim whatever land they so chose.

  After signing the Mayflower Compact, the Pilgrims were delayed for two weeks in what is today Provincetown Harbor, Massachusetts, because their shallop (a smaller ship used to get to shore) had been damaged in transit. While waiting for the shallop to be repaired, a small party led by Myles Standish—an English soldier hired by the Pilgrims—waded to shore to survey the surroundings and search for supplies. Here they encountered a small native village, no more than a handful of structures, all of which seemed eerily and recently abandoned. Separatist leader William Bradford later recorded the event in his journal, Of Plymouth Plantation:…ther they found many Indean’s houses covered with mats, and some of their implements in them, and recently cultivated feelds; but the people had run offe and could not be seene nor appeared when the men called for them. They also found corn, and beans of various colours. These they broughte away, intending to give them full satisfaction when they should meet with any of them… Then Hopkins’ man Doty [Edward Doty, a servant of Stephen Hopkins] found an artificial mound which he in due course uncovered and found to be an Indean grave. Drawn to the Indean corn placed amongste the corpse, which Doty wanted as seed for planting, Doty claims his wrist was seized by the occupante of the grave when he drew his hand in. Doty says he surely would have gone in were it not for the large stone placed on the gruesome man’s chest, weighting him down. I scarce not believe such a tale, yet Standish and the other tell the say tale. At least a full hand’s count of other such mounds were discovered and unearthed, each with its own ghoulish inhabitante pinned beneath a heavy stone. Standish and the men tried speaking with the pitiful men and women, but best they could form were gutturals and shrieks.

  Needless to say, the Pilgrims determined this might not be an ideal place to make a settlement. Some wished to return to Europe, religious persecution suddenly seeming not so unbearable, but such a trip would have been unfeasible given the weary state of their supplies. So they ventured westward. On December 17, 1620, the Mayflower dropped anchor in Plymouth Harbor. Whether or not the first piece of land they set foot upon was Plymouth Rock, as legend purports, we cannot truthfully say, but we do know what was waiting for them there.

  On December 23, construction began on permanent structures for the settlement. The first was a common house, with a planned nineteen other residences to house the different families. On January 7, 1621, as the finishing touches were being placed on the common house, some unwanted visitors arrived. As Bradford records:

  HOW TO BURY YOUR UNDEAD?

  It is uncertain which tribe had originally inhabited the village Bradford describes, but burying the undead by pinning them down with large stones was practiced by several Native American tribes in a variety of areas. Many Indians believed zombies to still be connected to their living spirits. A zombinated member of the community posed a problem then, for killing them was no less a crime than killing that same individual when they were human.

  The Tanaina people affixed zombies to trees with stakes and ropes. The Caddo tied zombies to wooden planks, which were then set free into the river. The famed Captain John Smith reported the Powhatan sinking “rabid” members of their tribe into a lake with stones fixed to their limbs. One group of the Tonkawa nation kept zombinated family members latched to posts within the village so their spirits could be close to loved ones.

  Sketches made by William Bradford regarding various native burial customs for zombies.

  A crye went up, “Indeans, Indeans.” The Indeans were of beastely look, bloode and some with missing partes. They carried no weapons, many naked. We fired a volley and struck severale, but nun fell.

  Those working ashore were forced to flee for the Mayflower, where the women, children, and ill had been residing while the settlement was built. The men scrambled for the shallop, many not stopping to help carry it into the water, instead simply diving into the ocean and swimming for the ship. The zombies pursued them hungrily into the waves, pulling men from the shallop to their doom and biting others. As no firearms had been left aboard the ship, the women and children had to watch powerlessly as the men struggled back. Eventually the zombies were shaken free in the deeper water and the men returned to the safety of the main ship. Or so they thought.

  The Pilgrims learned then that those bitten by zombies became zombies in due course. After the initial confusion of fighting their own men, everyone—including the women, children and indisposed—were now forced to flee back to the shore and seek shelter in the mostly complete common house. It was pure, terrified chaos. The zombie attacks continued off and on for the duration of that winter. During the lulls, the Pilgrims attempted to build more and sturdier structures to hold back the undead menace. By spring, only seven of the nineteen planned residences had even started construction and a staggering 47 percent of the Pilgrim population had either been lost to zombie devourment or succumbed to a zombie bite. Were it not for the intervention of the famous Squanto and the Wampanoag Indian tribe, the remaining 63 percent would likely have perished as well.

  Early Thanksgiving celebrations used to include zombie imagery to honor the Pilgrim’s friendship with the Wampanoags, with men dressed as zombies, Indians, and settlers acting out mock battles and victories. This practice died out by the end of the 17th century after King Philip’s War, also known as Metacomet’s Rebellion (1675-1676), which was a bloody clash between New England settlers and the Native Americans lead by Metacomet (who was called King Philip by the English), the son of Massasoit, who somewhat ironically had been chief of the Wampanoag tribe that saved the Pilgrims.

  Artist’s rendering of the so-called Massacre at Plymouth Rock. Here the Pilgrims are shown returning from the Mayflower to fight back the undead horde.

  Zombie Trials

  Those Inquisitors, wishing with their whole hearts

  and strength to put a check unto the walking dead

  and to counteract such dangers, have with much

  study, much research, and much labour, indited and

  composed a certain Treatise in which they have used

  their best endeavours on behalf of the integrity of the

  Catholic Faith to such abominations.

  —Jacob Kramer, “Letter of Approbation” from the Mortuis Malleus, 1600s

  The early settlers could not fully comprehend what a zombie was. They understood the basics—a zombie bites you, you become a zombie; zombies can only be de-animated by destroying their brain—but the nature of the zombie proved somewhat unknowable. Native American spirituality better suited the zombies. They viewed the undead as a part of the world, a dangerous part l
ike the grizzly or the alligator, but a part nonetheless. While zombies were a quandary to the Christian Europeans, they were quick to a solution regarding the zombies’ origins…the devil.

  While the witch trials of New England in the early 1690s have endured in legend and popular fiction—especially the famous Salem Witch Trials immortalized by Arthur Miller in his play, The Crucible—forgotten is the role zombies played. The Mortuis Malleus, Latin for “the Hammer of the Dead,” was a popular treatise on zombies written in the mid-1600s by Puritan minister Jacob Kramer. Kramer’s intended and stated purpose of the Mortuis Malleus was systematically to refute all arguments claiming that zombies do not exist, to prove that women (as witches) were the root source of zombies, and to educate magistrates on the procedures to discover who was a zombie and convict them. The key to understanding what Kramer is arguing here is that he felt (as did many) that only certain people became zombies. These people were already zombies while they were alive, and then in death they would rise again as creatures of the undead.

  The first section of the book begins:Whether the belief that there are such beings as the undead is so essential a part of the Christian faith that obstinately to maintain the opposite opinion manifestly savours of heresy. It is argued that a firm belief in the undead is not a Christian doctrine. Whoever believes that any creature can be changed for the better or the worse, or transformed into another kind or likeness, except by the Creator of all things, is worse than a pagan and a heretic. And so when they report such things are done by the undead it is not Christian, but plainly heretical, to maintain this opinion.

  A long and somewhat illogical book, it is yet no less fascinating—and also incredibly misogynistic. The bulk of the book is made up of its second section, where Kramer argues that “witches, by the power of devils, change men into the undead (for this is their chief manner of transmutation).” The devil’s power is greatest when sexuality is involved, and women are more sexual than men, according to Kramer. Libidinous women would slink off into the woods in groups and have sex with the devil, thus becoming witches. “All witchcraft comes from carnal lust, which is in women insatiable,” Kramer claims. These women in turn would seduce unsuspecting men into sexual relations, like a succubus, consuming their soul and turning them too into a servant of the devil by making them undead. These men did not always know they were undead either.

  As to the judicial responsibilities regarding zombies:The first question, then, is what is the suitable method of instituting a process on behalf of the faith against the undead. In answer to this it must be said that there are three methods allowed by Canon Law. The first is when someone accuses a person before a judge of the crime of being undead, or of protecting undeads, offering to prove it, and to submit himself to the penalty of talion if he fails to prove it. The second method is when someone denounces a person as undead, but does not offer to prove it and is not willing to embroil himself in the matter; but says that he lays information out of zeal for the faith, or because of a sentence of excommunication inflicted by the Ordinary or his Vicar; or because of the temporal punishment exacted by the secular Judge upon those who fail to lay information. The third method involves an inquisition, that is, when there is no accuser or informer, but a general report that there are undead in some town or place; and then the Judge must proceed, not at the instance of any party, but simply by the virtue of his office.

  Like witch trials, most evidence presented against someone accused of being a living zombie (as it were) was simply hearsay and eyewitness testimonies. Those men believed to be undead often partook in extramarital affairs or other sinful practices. There were also superstitious telltales, such as sleepwalking or allergies to cats and dogs (which were generally believed to be able to sense evil). If multiple men had been rounded up, with one or more believed to be zombies, a “dead cake,” it was believed, could be used to discover the guilty member or members. The cake would be made of rye meal and urine from the accused men. The cake would then be fed to a dog. Once consumed, the dog would supposedly be able to point out which of the men was a zombie.

  In the more fanatical cases, the most conclusive way to determine a man’s innocence of being undead was simply to kill him and see if he rose from the dead. Those found guilty by “fair” trial in court were burnt at the stake to make sure they did not rise from the grave, which also conveniently made rising from the grave impossible, of course. Eventually there was a public backlash to “undead hunts.” Many of these so-called trials were hasty and built on flimsy evidence, and became increasingly polarizing. By the early 1700s there was a major shift away from the kind of beliefs propagated by people like Kramer. That isn’t to say Christians stopped believing zombies were the work of the devil, but they did not necessarily believe that a man could secretly be a zombie; at least not enough people believed this for it to pose a problem to colonial sleepwalkers. Many cities and courts even (posthumously) overturned rulings against convicted zombies, in some cases, even financially compensating their families.

  Settling In and the Undead Act

  To the matter of whethnot the Abominations have souls; No. They mock the very gifts of God in their rude mummery of Life.

  —Cotton Mather, Puritan minister, 1698

  Even if living zombies were not actually trying to seduce lonely farmers’ wives, zombies were posing a very real problem for the early English settlers. Already strained by an unprepared workforce, the colony was losing people, and not just to zombie attacks. Many settlers chose to defect to the safety of the Indian tribes. The Indians knew how to work the land for food and, more importantly, they knew how to deal with the zombie population. This bred a sort of resentment in many of the colonists, who believed themselves to be more civilized than the Indians.

  In 1676, Nathaniel Bacon lead an uprising of frontiers-men, slaves, and servants against the governor of the Virginia Colony, in what became known as Bacon’s Rebellion (the first rebellion in American history). Settlers who had been overlooked when huge land grants around Jamestown were given away had gone west to find land, and there they encountered zombies. The uprising began with conflict over the colony’s refusal to send support to help fend off these zombie hordes. The rebellion was ultimately suppressed but it showed colonial leaders that zombies needed to become their concern too. It also encouraged people to move into cities, thinking they served as better protection against zombies.

  By the turn of the 18th century, Scotch-Irish and German immigrants were joining the English settlers. Black slaves were pouring in by the boatload. The big cities—Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Charlestown—were doubling and tripling in size. Of course, the increase of food supply—the food here being us—saw a sharp increase in the zombie population too. Though exact numbers are difficult to gauge, it is estimated that zombies made up 1 percent of the population in 1640. By 1740, the number had jumped to a staggering 9 percent. Of the 1.04 million people living in the English colonies, 93,600 of those individuals weren’t quite living.

  Newspapers wrote about the swelling “Number of wandering Dead.” Demand arose for institutions to contain the “many Grotesque individuals daily suffered to walk about the Streets seeking to bite and otherwise molest.” A New York City Council resolution read:Whereas the Necessity, Number and Continual Increase of the Misdead within the City is very Great and… frequently Commit diverse misdemeanors and graver acts within the Said City, who living Idly and unemployed, seek to devour and otherwise Dismember the Good citizens. For Remedy Whereof… Resolved that there be forthwith built a good, Strong and Convenient House and Corral.

  The resulting two-story structure was called the Dead House. By the mid-1700s all the big cities built dead houses, though soon they became home not just to zombies, but the elderly, widows, cripples, orphans, the unemployed, and new immigrants—many of whom were regarded as no better than the flesh-hungry zomboids. These unfortunate souls would generally became zombies themselves soon enough in such an environment, fu
rther contributing to the problem.

  A sharp class division was forming in regard to zombie defense. Put simply, those with money could afford the architectural and manpowered security required to guarantee their family’s safety. Those who didn’t have the money could not and were left to the dangers of attacks. Even at the very start of the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630, the governor, John Winthrop, had declared the philosophy of the ruling class:…in all times some must be rich, some poore, some highe and eminent in power and dignite, others meane and in subjection and fodder for the foully Resurrected.

  In other words: the lower classes were zombie chow.

  This class separation saw the rise of a powerful middle class. New Yorker Cadwallader Caulden, in his Address to the Freeholders in 1747, attacked the wealthy as tax dodgers unconcerned with the welfare of others and the growing zombie problem. Nathaniel Prestwood, a prominent Virginian tanner, even went so far as to travel to England where he pled directly to King George II for more assistance against the zombies. Prestwood’s efforts, among others, finally led Parliament to pass the Undead Act of 1749.

  The Undead Act had the opposite effect of appeasing the colonies. Not only did it prove to be very unpopular, it was met with outright protest in many areas. The crux of the act was the Church of England’s proclamation that zombies were an affront to God. This required all the dead houses to be closed and all the zombies within, and roaming the streets, be destroyed. The problem was that Parliament provided no funds or extra military support to assist their command, forcing the colonists into unwanted confrontations with the zombies.