Ambiguity in William Byrd's Two Texts

William Byrd wrote the “History of the Dividing Line” for some Virginians who wanted him to survey the people and the land in North Carolina. “The Secret History” is more of a personal journal that is compromised of William and his comrades’ sexual escapades among the North Carolinian women written mainly for his intimate friends. As these two texts are juxtaposed in our reading, it is easy to see the duplicity of William Byrd. For instance, in paragraph 17, Byrd elaborates on a particular provinces’ apathy towards God and religion, “They do not know Sunday from any other day.” Byrd’s religious observation is contradicted by his own playful innuendos, “She asked me very pertly who was to keep an account of the evil? I told her she should be my secretary for that if she would go along with me.” As the latter example comes from “The Secret History,” and the former example comes from
“The History of the Dividing Line” one begins to think that Byrd is wearing a façade for the Virginian people, when in actuality his sexual interests make him as unworthy as the North Carolinians without religion. Byrd’s ambiguous lifestyle becomes more complex with his regard for the Indian women as dark angels. This oxymoron can be looked at in two different lights. Firstly, the fact that he calls the dark angels means that this could refer to evil or demonic influence. This interpretation of the connotation would coincide correctly with a consensus view on Indians in the colony at that time. This connotation would also please the Virginians for whom Byrd was writing the “History of the Dividing Line.” On the other hand, the oxymoron could also mean that these women are angels with a dark complexion, but still rather pleasing to the eye. This meaning of the connotation would fit nicely with “The Secret History” and Byrd’s sexual exploits. The ambiguity of this oxymoron parallels the ambiguity of Byrd’s two texts. The subject matter of this oxymoron, dark Indian women, reflects the source of the ambiguity of Byrd’s character, which is sexual pleasure.
In Thomas Jefferson’s query “Aborigines,” he reflects a superior attitude towards the Natives through his diction. Jefferson calls the Pamunkies tolerably pure because they have intermarried with people of a lighter skin tone. However, Jefferson shows concern for the disintegration of the Native’s identity. He recognizes that the Colonials had failed to learn anything about the Native’s or their language. He says, “It is to be lamented then, very much to be lamented, that we have suffered so many of the Indian tribes already to extinguish, without our having previously collected and deposited in the records of literature, the general rudiments at least of the languages they spoke.