Historic Surveyors Cleared of Cannibalism
The legend that 18 th -century surveyor John Savage – likely namesake of Mount Savage, Savage Mountain, Savage River, etc. – narrowly missed being killed and eaten by his cannibalistic companions originated with one of his contemporaries, the Virginia planter William Byrd II, known reverently in his time as “William Byrd of Westover.” A prolific writer of fact and fancy intermixed, Byrd reads in the 21 st century like the quintessential Southern slaveholding plantation owner, a matter-of-fact chronicler of all the cruelty, sadism, sexual predations and general cluelessness endemic to the species. His writings also ooze sarcasm for those he considered less worthy than himself – which was just about everybody. Here is the relevant John Savage passage just as Byrd wrote it, complete with the then-standard “f” for “s.” Byrd describes the 1736 expedition that surveyed the upper reaches of the Potomac River – an expedition that Byrd and other officials had commissioned – then adds this ...