Did you know that North America once had a widespread and thriving population of jaguars, or "leopards," as the first European colonists called them? In my research for Weroansqua, I have come across several references to large spotted cats in Virginia and North Carolina as late as the 1700s.
The explorer Johann Lederer, who traveled in 1670 from present-day Petersburg, Virginia westward to the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains and then south into the North Carolina piedmont before returning to Virginia along the coastal plain, wrote that, "The Highlands [Piedmont] . . . [are] over-grown with underwood in many places, and that so perplext and interwoven with Vines, that who travels here, must sometimes cut through his way. These Thickets harbour all sorts of beasts of prey, as Wolves, Panthers, Leopards, Lions, &c . . . ." and, "Small Leopards I have seen in the Woods, but never any Lions, though their skins are much worn by Indians." (The Discoveries of John Lederer. 1672. Sir William Talbot, trans.) Earlier, William Stratchey, one of the Jamestown colonists, had observed the treasure house of Chief Powhatan and noted, "At the corners of this house stand four images . . . . set as careful sentinals (forsooth) to defend and protect the house (for so they believe of them): one is like a dragon, another like a bear, the third like a leopard, and the fourth a giant-like man, all made evil favored enough according to their best workmanship." (The Historie of Travaile into Virginia Britannia. 1612.) While the exact origin of the dragon or the giant-like man are difficult to pin down, the bear and the "leopard" were not creatures of legend to the Powhatan peoples; they were fearsome predators of the forest, known and sometimes hunted. John Lawson, a surveyor-general of North Carolina who traveled widely throughout the colony in the early 1700s, described one large wild cat as a "tyger." He explained that,"Tygers are never met withal in the Settlement; but are more to the Westward, and are not numerous on this Side the Chain of Mountains. I once saw one, that was larger that a Panther, and seem'd to be a very bold Creature. The Indians that hunt in those Quarters, say, they are seldom met withal. It seems to differ from the Tyger of Asia and Africa." (A New Voyage to Carolina. 1709.) From Lawson's account, we also hear the first suggestion that habitat loss may have contributed to the disappearance of the jaguar in the East: "never met withal in the Settlement." However, jaguars hung on in the Southwest into the 20th century, but were believed extinct there since the 1960s. Then a few intrepid jaguars made the difficult journey north from Mexico, starting in the late 1990s. Today, efforts are being made to repopulate the jaguar in the wildest parts of the Southwest, though not without debate regarding the jaguar's rightful claim to US soil.
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