An Entry into Native Americans and my Colonial State & Local ED History
Obviously, this topic-theme is of great importance to our history and to that of colonial and present-day America. How we dealt with indigenous people exposes the nature of our character, morals, and our policies and their implementation. As I write this extended module, the subject matter of Native Americans is controversial, multi-faceted, and quite layered with a moralistic prism that deeply permeates the content and meaning of the European and Native American interaction; it is deeply concerned, appropriately, with the consequences of that interaction.
My prism is more specialized, toward policy, the events of historical experience and how they shaped and embedded themselves in the structures and political culture of state and local policy making. I leave to others, of necessity, and my desire those topics require a more profound sensitivity and knowledge than I possess. Without doubt in my mind is the Europeans settled in the midst of Indian land; Jamestown was not all that far from Powhatan’s capital in 1607. True the Europeans came with a missionary bent, a bent which carries its own baggage, but trade with the resident Indians was also a core strategy of the trading factory, and for staples in its self-sufficiency strategy.
Still it is fair to say, my treatment of Virginia has been entirely focused not on the Indians, nor their displacement, not even the war and peace that characterized their relations over the first decade. The London-Jamestown connection has been paramount, as has been the simple effort not to starve or be wiped out by disease and swamps. While mentioned as needed in these task, we have put aside the larger topic until this module. This history will cull from the great issues and questions involved in European-Native American colonial relations those which I have deemed essential for understanding colonial economic development policies, and the policy-making that produced them–including the setting of the agendas of each.
The role of Native Americans in our history starts with Virginia and Jamestown, but it will, of course, it will deepen as we move to other states and sub-topics of interest. As I do with almost all my dynamics and key themes discussed in the history, I will “layer” my treatment of the larger topic by building on past comments, and adding to them as I focus on the matters at hand in the particular module. In his module, I introduce my concept of site control, explore a few characteristics of the Powhatan policy system relevant directly to Jamestown, and narrow down to descriptions-dynamics underlying the First and Second Powhatan Wars. Because the latter ends somewhere between 1629-32, this module’s time period carries over into post-Company Virginia. The next module will pick up themes and dynamics that are associated with Virginia economic and political-institutional development, including the fleshing out of Virginia local government.
For me It is hard not to think of Indian-European relationships in the colonial period as something other than a geographic and cultural zero-sum conquest by Europeans and self-defense by Native Americans. There was never in my mind any moral mission or economic purpose that justified this seizure of land; the English landed there, established a settlement and grew that settlement–pushing out and marginalizing Native Americans as they did so. Might does not make right, and the ends do not justify the means. The Native Americans resisted, attempted in some instances to coexist (as did some colonists–William Penn, and even elements in the Virginia Company).
In essence it is no difference in this and the Anglo-Saxons conquering of Celtic England, the conquistadores in West indies, Brazil and Central America, and Caesar’s genocidal conquest of Gaul–or the thousands of other examples of one people invading and dispelling others. It is a logic of migration; some are violent, others less so, but in all cases coexistence-tolerance is a hope but not the default outcome. At its basic level it is the conquest of some geography by an outsider, and the attempt by those Native to counter it. In this module it is the English and the Powhatan “Confederacy-people”.
The English needed site control for the development of their first colony–and they took land from the Indians to do so. They got on a ship, sailed across the Atlantic, and with minimal exploration, got off at a spot of their choosing, and started building a fort. If the Indians resisted, the English “defended themselves”–and off we go to the “site control” races. There will be good guys and bad guys and the reader is welcome to decide which and when.
Without any doubt, morality and human experience will be stripped away in order to express my focused, matter of fact description of the English effort to establish geographic site control in Virginia–an effort that encompasses genocidal repossession of land, amazingly enough a “college” to Christianize the Indians, and the establishment of a “reservation”. In this sad tale I shall provide such background as deemed necessary to provide the context for these programs, strategies, and the policy process that produced them–and will matter of fact describes wars, massacres by both sides, and simple barbarity that will become an almost permanent feature of frontier life on the American periphery.
Rather than devote a chapter on this one topic, this history deals with Indian affairs, as it does with the other key and hugely important and complex topics-issues encountered in our chapters-modules, by “layering” our discussion though seceding module series and chapters. We do not wish to overwhelm the reader, nor do we want to separate this critical topic from the normal description and analysis offered in each module-module series. We greatly respect time/then-current context and its effect on the making of policy, as much as we want to distinguish the effects of changing circumstances and cohort-generations.
The policy process evident at the time of initial policy-making is what has usually been lost in the fog and darkness of long-passed history. Also all to often such policies and strategies have often been collapsed into a form that emerges after sometimes considerable period in which the policy has matured and evolved–losing a great deal of understanding, and leaving the reader with an imprecise and probably distorting picture-impression of a policy and its effects over a considerable period of time. Colonial America makes and remakes policy throughout its duration. The original intent and what causes change from this is what we seek. We can best see how policy builds and changes over time by following the extent possible the time periods so that we do not look back, but rather look forward into the strategies and the effect of institutional change in their adaptation and adjustment. We avoid whenever we can (failing sometimes sadly) a summarizing smush that obscures what actually happened–or at least as close as I got to it.
Jamestown was first settled on May 13 1607–the 133rd day of the year in the Georgian calendar: Sunday. This is the calendar we use today, and have used since 1582. The colony, for all practical purposes until around 1611-12, was its trading post-port city, Jamestown, and its near environs with a few observation “forts” upstream to the Atlantic. After 1610 it moves downstream a bit towards the James River Fall Line and establishes a second, and later third outpost-hamlet in Henrico and Charles City and the Bermuda Hundreds. Neither was particularly successful, although Rolfe in 1611 started his experimentation seriously around Henrico.
The take away is the colony was geographically small, by today’s standards–but lacking convenient/safe land passages overland access was seldom timely, safe, or much used. Hence, we have referred to this as the shredded community, with each settlement and plantation “isolated” from the surrounding area and Jamestown. With no standing militia, one was on their own when leaving the palisaded Jamestown fort-port. Even the fields around Jamestown were subject to attack by Indians–which after all is the purpose of this geography lesson. In past modules we have constantly alluded to the lack of “effective capacity” enjoyed by the Company officials, and their “provincial administration”. One can see why.
The Europeans were willing and somewhat able to reach into the hinterland to establish its initial permanent settlement, we are talking about 1614-1619, post 1619 when the Greate Charter made a formal strategy commitment to distributing the population and establishing a permanent economic base, principally around tobacco plantations. I believe it was the commitment to that strategy that triggered a break with the resident Native American tribe, the Powhatans, and it is that story we mostly focus on in this module.
The James River was the primary mode of communication, politics and economics, and along it the Europeans ventured into its hinterland. The James and its tributaries (Appomattox), and later the York and the Rappahannock and Chesapeake Bay and the Eastern Shore were the geographies that were settled in the time periods of this module. This is the principal geography for both the First and Second Powhatan Wars. These river basins became, for our purposes at least, the core of what we will call Virginia’s Tidewater region. That region, the first of three we will focus upon (Piedmont and Shenandoah the other two) in our history of colonial Virginia.
The Context—
It is not our purpose here, or even elsewhere in this theme-based colonial history, to begin at the beginning, so we content ourselves with dealing with the tribes the Virginia colonists collided with during this period. As Colin Calloway introduces “the tiny settlement nestled on the edge of an Indian world”, he notes that resident there were an Algonquian-speaking tribe, he labels the Powhatans; they were in effect an “Indian-style empire” assembled by a great chieftain, who dominated the area south of the Potomac River. We know this man as Powhatan, but that is a European invention; his real name was Wahunsenacawh. We will call him Powhatan in deference to my spell-checker.
His Indian-style empire is now referred to as the Powhatan Confederacy, but John Smith reported it as “amongst [the Powhattan] such government , as that their Magistrats for good commanding [their leadership], and their people for du subjection [the masses], excell many places that would be counted very civil. The form of their Common wealth is a monarchicall gouernement, one as Emperour ruleth ouer [over] many kings or governours [he ruled over six tribes, but “held sway” over about thirty]. His empire ranged over most of our Tidewater–from the south side of the James River, northward to the Potomac, and included the Eastern shore [99] Wesley Frank Craven, White, Red, and Black: the Seventeenth Century Virginian (W. W. Norton & Company, 1971), p. 43.
Smith, a soldier of fortune, had served for, and against, several empires (against the Ottoman, and fought for Henry IV of France, the Dutch Republic, and the Hapsburgs). Well-traveled, and familiar with European policy systems, I value his comparison of Powhatan with an monarchical Emperor, presiding over a decentralized fiefdoms. His mention of several classifications of lower level leaders sensitizes us to Native American preferences for leaders closer to them, but respect and deference to powerful charismatic leadership at the top. One can see the Iroquois and the Covenant Chain in the Powhatan “Confederacy”.
The authority of Powhatan and his werowances was absolute. He coerced some tribes into fealty; others he defeated in quick decisive battles. Occasionally he executed tribal leaders. Usually he removed the defeated chieftains to his own villages and appointed his brothers, sons, and trusted lieutenants as the new werowances. Those that challenged his authority as did the Chesapeake tribe in 1607, suffered horrible and brutal consequences. It is less certain whether Powhatan’s authority extended to positive actions such as unified attacks against enemies–the Sioux tribes [to the west] and the English. [99] Grizzard Jr., and Boyd Smith, Jamestown: a Colony, p. xxx
In any event Smith’s insight into the Powhatan policy system respects the dominance Powhatan held over his fiefdoms, yet the autonomy of each component within his Empire. There were distinctions among these tribal groupings, some had more autonomy than others, some paid tribute, and some appeared to be only loosely tied to his confederation (100 x 100 mile). One of the larger tribes, the Chickahominy, smack dab in the middle of the Confederation, were largely independent, unresponsive to Powhattan’s orders. This tribe played an important role in the Second Anglo-Powhatten War (1622-32, if only because they were located on Jamestown’s hinterland. For various reasons, they proved to be the most friendly in the very early years.
As described by Smith Powhatan himself was “neare sixte”, tall and very able and hearty body [capable] of enduring heavy labor. He was/is estimated to have had one hundred wives. I suspect Pocahontas was not his only daughter! One might suspect that marriage was one of the “techniques” that established and maintained the viability of his empire.
A matriarchical society, Powhatan inherited leadership of his first six tribes from his mother. His use of his daughter as a political contact and negotiator strongly suggests governance did include female input. The role she played in Jamestown-Indian relations was pivotal for nearly a decade. Her marriage to Rolfe cemented the peace treaty–and the attempt by Governor Dale to also marry another of Powhatan’s daughters, while rejected, it suggests the political role of marriage in this empire, and the willingness of the English to oblige.
Unlike the Iroquois, however, the Algonquians had long resided along Eastern Canada, American Midwest and Atlantic coastline to the Carolinas. Likely their descendants had lived in this area for literally thousands of years. This stability is reflected in their network of established and walled settlements (an estimate 160 such small town urban areas are known to have flourished in Powhatan’s realm). The Palisade followed a circular pattern and on its inside fringe were the permanent housing, the yehakin, of each residents household. The center of the settlement was a common area with a large fire as its ceremonial and decision-making center.
… the Indians were, for the most part, town dwellers. The great body of contemporary graphic depictions in French Spanish, and English sources of the sixteenth and seventeenth century shows substantial dwellings, palisaded villages, well-planned streets, garden plots, civic, and religious centers. Indeed, through most of the seventeenth century in Virginia the only true town dwellers were the Indians; the English lived together compactly, only during the fearful early years [99] Wilcomb E. Washburn, “the Moral, and Legal Justifications for Disposing the Indians”, included in James Morton Smith (ED) 17th Century America: Essays in Colonial History (Institute of Early American History and Culture, University of North Carolina Press, 1959), pp. 23-4
Extensive use of agriculture, their cultivation of many staples, and fishing, hunting characterized their economic base. They employed various tools, and developed sophisticated agricultural practices. They did not live in wigwams but constructed housing from natural composites such as tree bark and marsh reeds, with “roll able blinds-like walls to cope with summer heat. They were not nomads, and their system of government, urban-centered, conducted by local leaders or satraps appointed by Powhatan, called “werowances”, typically one a female and another male).
The take away of note is the Powhatan culture, society, economy and policy system should not be compared to those of the Western plains with which we are most familiar. Except for gunpowder, muskets, ship-building and more sophisticated tools, the Jamestown colonists did not enjoy any serious cultural or policy advantages over the Powhatan tribes, and the economic base of the latter was obviously far superior to anything the colonists would create for a decade or more. When one considers the size of population, however, there was no balance at all.
The Powhatans totaled an estimated fourteen thousand, and Powhattan claimed a territory of about 150 towns. Powhattan collected tribute, and his capitol, wherever it was, was apparently the hub of their policy-making system; he certainly had a level of predominance in its foreign policy that was enjoyed by no other subordinate in that confederation [99] Colin G. Calloway, the Indian World of George Washington: the First President, the First Americans, and the Birth of the Nation (Oxford University Press, 2018), p. 22. It is estimated by some that he could assemble a force of 2,500 warriors. Jamestown had 104. Still, I have also cited commentators who question his powers and role in these areas. I fall back on his announcement of a Jamestown ceasefire in 1607–a ceasefire that was honored by the various tribes in the area. I suspect, without grounds, that the responsibility for the initial May 1607 attack may lay directly or indirectly with him.
That initial attack occurred only a few days after arrival (May 18-20), starting when the werowance of the neighboring Paspahegh tribe (part of the Powhatan empire) arrived to negotiate with 100 armed warriors. The meeting did not go well and the Indians left in anger. A subsequent attempt by the Indians two days later to restart talks seemingly did not go well either. When an exploratory party comprising nearly half of the Jamestown garrison left on ships downriver, a semi-palisaded Jamestown was attacked by a force estimated at 400 drawn from a variety of tribes (May 26). Several were killed/wounded on both sides, but the attack failed. For the next several weeks Jamestown was encircled and under virtual siege. The siege ended on June 15th when Powhatan himself called a ceasefire.
[999] To the north, , the Rappahannock River, and that he Potomac River to its north, appears to have been the heartland of Native American Virginia settlement. Calloway estimates twelve Algonquian- speaking tribes. The Powhatans therefore are located in the southern extent of this tribal grouping. It appears from Calloway’s numbers the Powhatans were the largest and most cohesive element in the grouping at that time. In all of Virginia in that time, it is estimated that around 21,000 Native Americans lived [99] Keith Egloff and Deborah Woodward, First People: the Early Indians of Virginia (University Press of Virginia, 1992). This is a small percentage of an estimated 500,000 Native North Americans that lived around the Appalachians and east. [999]
His capitol in 1607-09 was about twenty of so miles from Jamestown, possibly around Gloucester Point (across the bay from Yorktown), or was located approximately in today’s downtown Norfolk/Virginia Beach. In the time period under discussion, the capital was moved twice, ultimately to near Richmond. There were settlements and towns throughout the entire area, along the James and Virginia’s eastern coastal lowlands east of the Fall Line. Accordingly, by accident Jamestown was in the heart of Powhatan’s empire, where presumably his influence and authority was most secure.
After the ceasefire, with the intermediary mostly being Smith, Powhatan did trade corn in the difficult first year of settlement, and a number of negotiations on various topics–including trading guns and having four German artisans from Jamestown assigned to build him a house. Smith’s famous meeting with Pocahontas and Powhatan (and the latter’s half-brother, Opechancanough) occurred in December, 1607. From that point on Pocahontas did seem to be employed as an intermediary with the English–although she still was a very young lady, probably not yet in her teens. The atmosphere during 1607-8 described by Smith is fragile and bordering on unproductive, with both parties not always negotiating in conventional good faith. Powhatan moved away in 1608 and established more distance between him and Jamestown.
This first year experience, I think, suggests (1) that Powhatan had little trust of the English, (2) was curious about them and their technologies, and (3) probably had no great fear of their ability to do him or his people harm. The Powhatans had memories and knowledge about Roanoke (they claimed to and the Roanoke tribes in 1585-9 were either in the Confederacy or about to be. Powhatan also had rather negative contact with the Spanish previous to the English.
His half-brother is believed by Carl Bridenbaugh to be “Don Luis”, a Powhatan who was voluntarily sent to Spain, and who upon return was vehemently anti-European. He replaced Powhatan on his death in 1618, and in 1622 launched the Second Powhatan War. Other historians make a case Don Duis could have been the father of Powhatan/Opechancanough or a brother. It does appear Don Luis was likely a member of Powhatan’s immediate family. If any of this is reasonably accurate (interestingly it was Opechancanough who first captured John Smith and took him to Powhatan for his famous meeting with Pocahontas), one can be reasonably certain the “emperor” and his “magistrates” were of one mind in their view of the English.
I suggest the pre-First Powhatan War was a period of “watchful waiting” [[99] by both parties, one in which both parties did little to foster an atmosphere of trust and coexistence.[This is asserted by Frank Wesley Craven, White, Red and Black, p. 46. Likely well-aware of the near death experience suffered by the colony in this period–and the horrendous death rate evident in Jamestown’s cemetery outside the compound, Powhatan felt little fear of imminent attack of consequence–or if he did feel threatened could not mobilize support among the local tribes. Personally, I do not think the latter. It is possible Powhatan’s relationships with other non-Powhatan Indians north of the Fall Line made it inadvisable to chance a major attack on a weakened Jamestown. Congruent with any of these may be that he believed “no attack was necessary” … the white men never seemed to have survived long in one place. Thus Powhatan’s initial instinct was to expect Jamestown to wither away [as it very nearly did in 1610] [[99] Grizzard, Jr., and Boyd Smith, Jamestown: a Colony, p. xxxi. Nevertheless, events reached a breaking point in 1609 when he First Powhatan War commenced–at least officially.
First Powhatan War 1609-1614
There was no formal declaration of war by either party, and so what we see is the escalation of events and actions during 1609 that marked what historians have called the First Anglo-Powhatan War. Two events overlapped: (1) the Jamestown colonists faced drought and a “cold winter” and under pressure they more or less compelled adjacent villages to “donate” corn and staples to Jamestown-conflicts resulted; (2) either as a result of this, or for his own reasons, Powhatan ordered a “virtual siege of Jamestown by the fall and during the winter of 1609-10. [99] https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/first-anglo-powhatan-war-1609-1614/.
This was the winter that came to be known as the starving time–which in the spring resulted in the Jamestown colonists abandoning Jamestown and heading back to England. The timely arrival of De La Warre while the fleeing colonists were en-route, aborted the attempt, and with his reinforcements, Jamestown was restarted. Lord Delaware and his Deputy, Thomas Gates, a former military leader, assumed the Governorship in 1610 following the departure of Lord Baltimore. Subsequently followed what Craven described as a war against Powhatan’s tributary tribes, and a friendship with his enemies (the Chickahominy). [99] Frank Wesley Craven, White, Red, and Black, p. 46. Gates was able to subdue Indian opposition from the immediate vicinity, and to establish some secure use of the James River.
It is unclear the extent to which the tributary tribes pursued uniformly the struggle against the English. It is here the autonomy of each tribe can be observed. Powhatan’s warriors attempted no formal assault, which likely was not an Indian military strategy/tactic, but instead used sudden raids against weaker parties. He also waged war with his hinterland Sioux opponents, and several supposedly tributary tribes, as well as his traditional foe, the Chickahominy. It remains unclear as to whether the struggle with the English was regarded by Powhatan as a “war” as defined by the Englishmen. Armed conflict of Indians against other Indians may have developed for many reasons.
Because of this uncertainty, many historians are reluctant to claim this war was actually the very first European-Native American war in North America. Calloway, for example, posits that Powhatan “watched the English and waited”. Despite their advantage in firearms and shipping, their settlement was so precarious it seemed of little threat.. “During the early years of the colony, the Powhatan and the English adjusted to each other’s presence and each made efforts to impose their ways on the other … Sporadic fighting broke out when the English began to push up the James River, took hostages, and seized supplies of corn”. [99] Colin G. Calloway, the Indian World of George Washington(Oxford University Press, 2018), p. 22.
Still, from the English perspective, it was a war. Jamestown launched a number of expeditions against Indian villages, and raids of Indian tribes by 1610-11. In 1611 one of these expeditions (led by Captain Radcliffe) ended in their capture and Radcliffe’s death by gruesome torture. Still aside from the adjacent tribe, outright hostility to the English manifested itself in specific events, and not in daily warfare. From time to time the colony survived from food procured from the Indians. Calloway was a bit generous in this description, I think, as English and Indian raids persisted through this period, making any diffusion from the ill-located capital both dangerous and unproductive. Hostages were taken, and they fueled retaliation.
On another expeditionary raid conducted by (ship) Captain (and future governor) Samuel Argall in 1613, Argall captured or kidnapped Pocahontas. Taken to Jamestown and used as a hostage in negotiations with her father, Governor Dale tried, clumsily, to make peace, and end the conflict-raids. During that period. it happened, John Rolfe, an important officials beyond his tobacco experimentation, and she met and fell in love (1614) (he was about 28 years old, about twice her age). Rolfe petitioned Governor Thomas Dale for marriage and it was granted. [99] See letter by “John Rolfe to Sir Thomas Dale Petition for Marriage” in Warren M. Billings (Ed), the Old Dominion in the Seventeenth Century, p. 216ff. On the basis of this marriage, it seems Powhatan was willing to agree to peace with the English in 1614, ending the First Anglo-Powhatan War. A peace agreement with the Chickahominy was also negotiated. Governor Dale even made an effort to marry another of Pocahontas’s “favorite” daughters, but the elderly chieftain would not consent. He sent the offer back to Dale with the comment that Dale “need not distrust any injury from me or my people … for I am now old, and would gladly end my daies in peace“. Craven discounts the key role played by the marriage of “his favorite daughter” (which Craven counters by asserting that Powhatan had “a way of coming up with a favorite daughter whenever it was convenient”); in his opinion, the war, of whatever it was, had been costly to the Indians, as well as to the English … Perhaps most of all he wanted to renew a trade with the English [99] Craven, White, Red, and Black, p. 47-8.
Still, what was to follow, at least through 1618 or so, was the short-lived golden era of Jamestown-Indian relations. If only the Company had reached an internal agreement among its contending factions–the civil war within the Company developed shortly after Pocahontas’s death.
The marriage, in my opinion, possessed serious elements of being a political marriage as well as a loving one. She lived on his estate, joined with him in his tobacco experiments, and bore him a son. Her English taken name was Rebecca. Her subsequent trip (and death, smallpox, on the return trip in 1617) to England.
the Drift to the Second Powhatan War
Powhatten died in 1618 and after a short interlude our old friend Opechancanough seceded him as chieftain. Opechancanough had seemingly been close to Powhatan, with whom Smith reported he had a special confidence; he was chieftain of the Pamunkeys–an older and well established tribe, perhaps the most powerful of the tributaries. As half-brother to Powhatan, it is likely that Powhatan appointed him. Also in his last years, Powhatan traveled a bit, in a seeming semi-retirement, during which he turned over affairs to Opechancanough. [99] Craven, White, Red, and Black, p. 47-8. In any event after short interlude Opechancanough formally assumed the title and role Powhatan had held and exercised.
The Greate Charter period produced General Assembly legislation intended to lessen tensions that had increased with the spread of tobacco plantation-saturation of the James, and which had also moved up the Eastern shore, along the Chesapeake Bay, up the Rappahannock, and into the Appomattox basins. Despite their good intentions, the legislation did not appear to have been well-enforced and local compliance is at best uneven. Legitimate trade between the two peoples developed, as well as lawful purchase of Indian lands by prospective plantation owners. But as we shall see below all was not well along the James.
The Greate Charter agenda included at least one major initiative affecting the tribes’ culture and potential inclusion into the English system: the college. The Virginia Company had always embraced its role of Christianizing Native Americans, and the task was picked up by Sandys, himself the son of the Archbishop of York (second highest in the Anglican hierarchy), and an well-reputed and published scholar of religion was an “ardent proponent” of “converting the Indians to Christianity”. Accordingly, his Greate Charter “college” initiative included a sincere and significant element dedicated to their conversion and, if you will, “inclusion” of Indians into the colonial system.
George Thorpe, the executor of the college and its building program, a former M.P., member of the city council of London, and a minister was specifically entrusted to lead the “catechization” effort, and to commence the adoption of Indians by English as household “servants”, the first step into their admission to English way of life. It was reported some English boys were sent to live in several Indian villages. From 1619 through 1621, the college project, at Henrico, was constructed, as part of the estates public initiative, with fifty indentured servants doing the clearing and construction. Officially the college “opened” in 1621.
The initiative, however, was not well-regarded by the Powhatans, who felt it was intended to undermine Indian culture, religion, and way of life. As such, it was yet another tension that developed between Powhatan and the English during this period. [99] Gizzard Jr., and Boyd Smith, p. l. Calloway is more damning of the Christianity initiative, and its inherent linkage with the standard practice of settlers in using Indian corn to supplement their insufficient production of staples so necessary for self-sufficiency: Steal your corn and convert to my religion amazingly did not work, he asserts.
there was a collision between the two cultures competing for the same fertile lands. In 1618 there were 400 English people in Virginia; four years later there were about 1,240. They needed the Indians’ lands and since most opted to plant tobacco for profit rather than plant enough corn for food, they continued to depend on Indians’ corn, acquired through trade or force if necessary. As Englishmen endeavored to establish [their] dominion in Virginia, they not only claimed Indian lands for the Crown, but also attempted to impose their Christianity and forms of property, gender and social organization on Indian peoples. They invoked the Indians cultural resistance as justification for dispossession: people who refused religion and civilization had no right to the land. [99] Calloway, “the Indian World of George Washington” (Oxford, 2018), p. 23.
Despite an increasing number of incidents that involved stealing of Indian land and foodstuffs, evictions from villages, mistreatments English settlers associated with the expansion of tobacco and the founding of plantations, and specifically, the expansion of the Bermuda Hundred whose location closely overlapped with Indian towns and settlements in what was a very prolific and fertile tribal farming area, Opechancanough between 1619 and early 1622 rhetorically at least, pursued a policy of friendship with the English—to the extent of signing a peace treaty with them in 1621, Wyatt, the new governor who replaced Yeardley, took him at his word.
If there was a chronic reason for the attack that followed, it was tension caused by expanded diffusion of English settlers and their cultivation of tobacco. This appeared unstoppable despite Greate Charter General Assembly approved legislation intended to address Indian complaints, mitigate trading inequities, and most importantly discourage the planting of tobacco, requiring in its place homestead production of staples, and formalized its opposition to tobacco by restricting its planting. There is little record to support any serious compliance to these initiatives resulted. Whatever was said and done by the Company in Jamestown seemingly exerted little observable effect on the behavior at the plantation level. To the watching Indian observer aware of the Company initiatives, one must suspect they questioned the Company’s ability to govern effectively.
the ‘superior English’ forgot the lessons of the starving time even though they were carving out farms on grounds of Indian gardens. They forgot the necessity of growing corn for sustenance, choosing to plant every available acre in tobacco even in the streets of Jamestown. As a result the settlers resorted to old tactics forcing the Indians under a veiled threat of violence to trade corn for beads and copper. Growing weary of the English demand for corn, Opechancanough … complained to Governor Yeardley in 1619 to end this coercion.
The newly established General Assembly dealt with Opechancanough’s complaint by restricting the Indian trade to licensed and bonded merchants. Two years later the Assembly tried to lessen land pressure … by restricting the planting of tobacco … the assembly hoped the reduction would increase the output of corn and improve the relations with the Powhatten. [99] Ronald Heinemann et al, Old Dominion: New Commonwealth, p. 30
Richard Middleton cites the role of George Thorpe and the Christianization initiative as a major factor in triggering the 1622 attack–and the final last straw was the murder of a werowance in early 1622 in which “no address by the Company was forthcoming” [99] Richard Middleton, Colonial America, 3rd Ed, p.59.
the 1622 Massacre
Virginius Dabney depicts the pre-events and the conduct of the Massacre that commenced on March 22, 1622. Without doubt Opechancanough plotted and planned the affair. On that day, a coordinated attack by multiple tribes along the entire 140 mile stretch on both sides of the James—commencing at exactly 8AM on Good Friday morning. This was a real Pearl Harbor-like affair as far as the English construed it, and the consequences were equally disasters.
Opechancanough unmistakably intended to destroy the colony through a single coordinated assault upon plantations stretched out along both banks of the James, in a dangerously dispersed pattern of settlement that the English had allowed to develop over the course of the preceding four years. It cannot be said that the warriors he deployed that morning represented the full-force of the so-called Powhatan Indians [99] Craven, White, Red, and Black, p. 51-2.
Before sunset that day, an estimated 350 settlers were killed-somewhere around one-third to one-quarter of those English living at the time. Jamestown only was spared because they received forewarning just previous to the attack. “The worst carnage was at ‘Martin’s Hundred where seventy-six were killed”, and twenty-two indentured servants were killed on lands under construction for Sandy’s proposed college. [99] Virginius Dabney, the New Dominion, pp. 35-8. Six delegates (of twenty-seven) to the General Assembly were killed. Probable, but not confirmed, John Rolfe was killed in the attack (he died that year with no cause attributed). Killed also was George Thorpe, the minister in charge of Christianization and the college project [99] Craven, the Southern Colonies, p. 161). After a month Opechancanough ceased his attacks, believing the point had been made and the English would abandon their colony.
News of the Massacre traveled quickly. In London the Virginia Company initially suppressed the news, but “amazingly” it leaked (somethings never change) , with disastrous effects on the shareholders and the various factions engaged in the Company’s ongoing civil war. Indeed, the Company continued to send over its trickle of new settlers despite the likely adverse effect on population recruitment.
London ordered local Company officials to reestablish control, collect any debts owed-not exactly supportive of the beleaguered locals. More salient to the future political Virginia politics was the London Company’s ignoring their pleas for help and military equipment so to restore safety and their control over the James. King James did not step to the plate either, choosing instead to ramble about the Palace compound and sending over some old cannons he found in the Tower of London. It is quite likely that the investigations, the Company civil war, and de facto fiscal bankruptcy precluded and response to the Massacre–but the rather insensitive blaming of domestic local company officials and the general population for the disaster–which no doubt was the prime cause–had to have hit domestic Company leadership hard.
D. Alan Williams, in his “Introduction” to the Grizzard Jr., and Boyd Smith’s 400 Year Centennial to Jamestown, goes so far as to blame Sandys for this negligence; citing Andrews he asserts that Sandys was “high-spirited, something of a visionary, a tolerationist, and a liberal by temperament. When convinced of the rightness of his course, he could become intolerant and obstinate in seeking his ends” [99], Jamestown: a Colony, p. lii. At this point, to the extent anyone was directing Company affairs, it was Sandys and the Ferrar brothers, and it was they who issued these responses.
Truly insulting and demoralizing was London’s attribution of blame for the Massacre, not to the Indians, but to the the resident Virginia Company officials whose “sinful transgressions brought down the heavie hand of Almightie God” [99] Grizzard, Jr., and Boyd Smith, Jamestown: a Colony, p. li. If there were any set of actions, non actions and verbal pronouncements which vividly display the gap that had already opened up between the Virginia Company officials and their London superiors–and the almost complete incapacity of the Company to respond to a truly life and death situation that threatened the existence of its colony, their response to the Massacre in 1622-and after–had to be it. If as Grizzard and Boyd Smith stated that “the massacre marked an irreversible turning point in Indian-white relations” [p. li], it also likely marked an equivalent turning point in the autonomy from London by the Virginia resident Company officials as well.
In the main, I accept the proposition made by Calloway that “After the war of 1622 a new class of leaders came to dominate the colony. Under Governor Sir Francis Wyatt, they dominated the Council of State at Jamestown, replaced the stockholders of the Virginia Company as the major policy makers, and developed aggressive new policies for dealing with the Indians, warring against those they perceived as enemies, trading with those they saw as allies … and their brutal campaigns against the Indians earned them respect and following among the ‘lower-born’ [99] Colin Calloway, the Indian World of George Washington, p. 24.
From this point on, as the reader will see in the next module, strong evidence exists the Virginia-based officials of the “Company” institutions, along with membership of the great institutions of Company governance (Council of State and General Assembly) most importantly developed their own sense of “identity”, and developed their own “mission”, as autonomous, although theoretically subordinate actors, responsible for the day to day governance of the colony. They from this point took independent action, asking for approval from London at a later point. Their institutions assumed authority and powers as they thought necessary and prudent, and from this point on they created and fleshed out the capacity of the [formerly] Company institutions as if they were the actual government of the colony–at the minimum co-sovereign with the London shareholders, and, of course, always subordinate to the King and conforming to his sovereignty as primary .
The Company commanded that the Powhatans should “no longer be allowed to live ‘as a people vppon the face of the Earth‘–a remarkably genocidal sounding call to action. To which the local officials declared a responding state of “perpetual enmity”, and committed themselves to field for as long as necessary military expeditions “whose task was systematically was to cut the Indians’ corn in the field, burn his villages, destroy his fishing [nets] and subject him to every possible harassment” [99] Craven, White, Red, and Black, p. 55. That the Company set the tone on their own initiative reflects their actions previous to any knowledge of how the Company would act:
“the settlers and provincial government regrouped, set up stronger defenses, pulled back from exposed areas, and organized their resistance and conduct “a perpetual warre without peace or truce”. So desperate was the colonist need, the Company petitioned the King for old armor and firearms from museums to be sent over—and the king consented. They were used against the Indians” [99] Andrews, Vol. 1, pp. 142-3.
In their minds the seemingly unprovoked and treacherous attack gave the Virginia Company legal rights to defend themselves, and that meant disciplined, coordinated attacks on vulnerable Indian towns and settlements. “During the summer and autumn the English killed more Indians than they had in all previous engagements. Under company orders, Governor Francis Wyatt and his soldiers destroyed Indian fishing weirs , ruined their cornfields, and burned their towns.”. One of the lowest points during the war was an episode where the English tricked some tribes into peace negotiations, got them drunk, slaughtered and scalped them. The method was horrendous, and the author of the slaughter was physician (graduate of Oxford), John Pott, who had served as the Company’s physician in Virginia since 1619. Pott’s breakthrough claim to fame was his spiking the liquor with poison at a 1623 Indian peace treaty, leading to the death of an alleged 200 Indians. He was cleared of this charge (as local defender’s proclaimed “he was by far the best physician in the colony … skilled in epidemicals” (don’t ask)), and restored to office. He entered the Governor’s Council after the Company’s fall in 1625. In the Company’s aftermath, Potts arguably was among Virginia’s most influential elites.
Annual expeditions against the Indians followed until in 1624, an Indian army of about 800 were routed by 60 of his troops. [99] Ronald Heinemann et al, Old Dominion: New Commonwealth, pp. 31-2.
The immediate aftermath of the Massacre was for the English a regrouping into a few large plantations along the James and Eastern shore primarily. The “petty plantations” were abandoned, but still exceptions to this were no uncommon. While the Governor remained the central coordinating authority, sufficient isolation between the large plantations and the smaller stubborn ones was fragile. With fields destroyed and life reduced to the subsistence level, the English colony reverted to a second “starving time”, rife with disease, and further deaths due to sporadic Indian raids. Most historians concur more deaths ensued from this than from the Massacre itself. Vulnerable plantations in the hinterland were exterminated—and the incredible loss of population caused by the massacre was followed up be an even more devastating summer sickness in that summer-a endemic that killed an estimated five hundred more settlers that year. The winter of 1622-3 was also labeled the “starving time” as still more colonists died.
By the spring of 1623, it was likely that less than 1,000 colonists, probably fewer than 800, were left alive. Insolated in small, fortified settlements and surrounding plantations, within which population clustered, the colony persisted. The Company sent new batches of servants over, and some individual settlers immigrated in 1623 and 1624. In February, 1625 a local census found 1,095 settlers [99] Virginius Dabney, p. 39.
During this time, bereft of their own corn, the surviving plantations simply raided Indian fields, confiscating green corn if necessary to feed themselves. One such raid was led by former Governor Sir George Yeardley; this action both increased his own standing in the colony, and set a model for others to follow. As Opechancanough had pulled back his unified force, the various Powhatan tribes had to cope with these raids as they could. But in counter to the Native American propensity to avoid chronic warfare, the English mounted additional raids each year, and over the next few years were able to both clear their immediate areas of the adjacent tribes, and destroy a considerable part of the Indians staple economy and smaller villages.
Sporadic fighting followed after that, but the raids on Indian cornfields and their economic base wreaked havoc on the Indians ability to winter. Opechancanough was taken prisoner and confined to Jamestown, where he in essence served as an intermediary with the tribes. In 1626, with both sides exhausted, a peace treaty was signed—ending the Second Anglo-Powhatan War–except, of course, it really didn’t. Heightened tension, punctuated by irregular raids and incidents persisted at least through 1630.. By that time the Virginia Company was no more, and a royal governor had replaced the Virginia Company. In 1632, a second peace treaty was signed by the independent Chickahominy, and that may be a more accurate date for the end of the Second Anglo-Powhatan War.
Peace did not bring peace, however. I’m not sure it even brought coexistence. A third Anglo-Powhatan War in 1646 followed, led by our aged Opechancanough, who replicated his Pearl-Harbor surprise attack, again with devastating results. We will discuss this in a later module.
Implications and Observations—The obvious consequence of the Second Anglo-Powhatan War was the devastating effect it had on the implementation of the Sandys-Dale settlement strategy. Smashing into tatters the various non-agricultural joint stock diversification initiatives—and the the college as well (Neither ever really got off the ground before the attacked wiped them out). Virginia evolved deeper into the tobacco monoculture. This period was arguably the nadir of the colony thus far. The Second Powhatan War greatly affected the development of Virginia’s sub-provincial government, and cast a peculiar quality on the plantation elites that survived and led the desperate resistance against the Indians thereafter. That will be elaborated upon in the next module. Like a fire, it forged a unity at the local level, around semi-charismatic plantation elites, that sustained life in Virginia well into the 1640’s. That it weakened provincial government, and rendered its dependence on local elites more pronounced will also be apparent when we take up that topic in the next module series. County-level government would rise in this context.
From the perspective of the Native Americans, Opechancanough’s counter-punch could have been, maybe should have, put an end to the floundering colony and company. It didn’t. By not following up on his initial devastating attack, he missed what was the Native American’s best opportunity to rid itself of English colonial intrusion–perhaps in the entire of American colonial history. To be realistic , while it was possible to have ended English colonial aspirations–given the erratic and inconsistent administration of the pre-Civil War Stuart dynasty, the question as to whether to call it quits was not seriously considered, and instead it offered an opportunity to redefine the colony’s governance and begin a new start.
Aside from revealing a rather dark side of the English colonists and their leadership, it demonstrated the stubborn resistance seemingly inherent in the British character (if WWII and Churchill is an example). From this point on, the English in Virginia’s Indian policy was bitterly antagonistic, and congruent with many of the descriptions of its treatment of the Native Americans that are cornerstones of which of the Indian-American colonial literature. .
These Anglican settlers were not Quakers (as we shall see in Pennsylvania chapter), and the lessons learned from the 1622 massacre were not lost on the Puritans in New England. That these policies over the next fifty years or more, resulted in not only the removal of the Powhatan from the Tidewaters area, but came very close to genocidal. By the fifties, many an Indian was a slave on the tobacco plantation fields. By the end of the 17th century, noted Virginia historian of the period (Richard Beverley) would lament their “passing”.
Defense-Justification—Simply put, how did the Europeans, the English in Virginia’s case, justify their right to sail up the James River and establish either a trading post or permanent settlement? That this led to the disposing of Indians from their land was probably inevitable once the legitimacy of settlement had reached a consensus-paradigm .[99] Wilcomb E. Washburn, “the Moral, and Legal Justifications for Disposing the Indians”, included in James Morton Smith (ED) 17th Century America: Essays in Colonial History (Institute of Early American History and Culture, University of North Carolina Press, 1959), p. 19 offers some excellent straight-foreword, minus the usual virtue-signaling, rationale that crushes current descriptions of that paradigm.
Legality by western or religious authority by kings, the exigencies’ of empire-building, “discovery”, and simple power-conquest site control are considered in their turn. They all were used by each, and he summarizes them as they seemed evident in 1959 as simply “an English invasion of the North American continent .. the establishment of a military beachhead. The assumption [was] general that the Indian was a hostile occupant of the territory which the English proposed to settle”. That, of course, does little to explain the Indian position, especially in light of the cultural fact, the Indian did not conceive of empires and land ownership in terms similar to the English and Europeans. On top of that one can add into the mix, the huge chasm in cultural values and practices, technology imbalances, and a nomad-agricultural economic base.
Indian Relations during the Second Powhattan War
The war with the Powhattan (the Second), started in 1622, and a peace treaty was not signed until 1628-but repudiated in 1629 and sort of continued through 1632 or so, depending on the tribe. Hence, the reader should assume that through this first phase, the English Virginians were at war with the Powhattan Virginians, at least at some level, and that Indian war was the issue of most obvious priority.
As one might expect, immediate reaction to the sustained March, 1622 Indian attack came from those under attack, in the individual plantations, Jamestown and other hamlets, and hundreds. Local leadership made such decisions as considered by residents as reasonable, including as we shortly see tobacco head taxes to pay for self-defense. The “commander’ who became the top leader varied, planter, former soldier, or some sort of official or high status, including burgesses or council member could wind up with the position and authority. Other offices, such as the lieutenant, and a variety of others followed almost instantly as tasks were doled out.
Thus the first to feel the pressure to respond and develop capacity of governance was the hundreds, the bastion of the province’s military self-defense (militia and its commander). While mentioned only in Dale’s Gift creation of the Hundred in 1613-4, the chief official of a Hundred was intended to be an officer entitled as “the commander” (sometimes referred to as “the marshal”). After the Massacre, William Tucker was appointed by Yeardley as the colony’s sort of commander-in-chief, and although no records exist, almost certainly local commanders were appointed. [99] Phillip Alexander Bruce, Vol II, pp. 15-16. The most logical appointee was the largest-wealthiest and/or most experienced of the plantation owners in the particular Hundred. Through 1624, the local commanders secured the safety of their Hundred through the erection of palisades around dwellings, the plantation manors and its complex, and at various strategic points, forts to be manned by militia—there were no British soldiers in the colony.
The reader should note the infusion of power to large plantation owners. What formerly had been an economic and private function, however, the plantation changed, in a period of crisis to a more political unit than ever. The status and formal power of a plantation owner of consequence in the isolated shredded community, who now managed or actually held key self-defense offices were further drawn, of necessity more than plan, into civil and judicial matters. In that the governor was empowered to administer military affairs and policy, the chain of command to the provincial level was through the governor. Hidden in plain sight over these three years previous to the assumption by James-Charles of royal administration of Virginia was a fairly radical transformation of its local elites, into something akin to a planter oligarchy with an amazingly tight control over provincial governance.
Ron W. Coan 