Powhatan Roles in Society The Powhatan were a matriarchal society (society ruled by women). Wealth and status were inherited through the female line. Powhatan men were allowed to have more than one wife. It was common for a chief to have many wives. One reason a man wanted many wives was so he would have many children to help him when he was old. Parents would arrange the marriage of their daughter and set a price for the man to pay. The price of the bride might have been deerskins, copper, beads, or other items deemed valuable. When the bride price was paid, the girl traveled to the home of the bridegroom where a wedding ceremony would take place, followed by a feast. A girl married by the time she was 13 years old. The men would be able to marry after they had been accepted as an adult and had saved a bride price. Powhatan men might be married at 15 years old. High honor was given to the families of the chief, especially his wives. The wives of the chief and wives of other rich men had servants who waited on them and did all the work. These wives had fancy cloths decorated with pearls, and they wore lots of jewelry. The common Powhattan women shared the responsibility with her husband and his other wives for the lives of their family. The women did the everyday work associated with caring for the children. In addition, they built houses and grew and gathered the food, firewood, and plants for medicines. They did most of the work involved in growing corn, tobacco, and other crops. The women tanned the deer and other animal skins and used the skins to make clothing, moccasins, blankets, bags and other items. The women produced many products by weaving animal skins, tree bark, brushes, grasses, and Indian hemp into thread, floor coverings, floor mats, baskets, and bed covers. They made household tools, such as needles and spoons from animal bones, shells and wood. The women carried burdens, since the Powhatens had no horses or beast of burden. They would accompany men on long hunting trips, carry supplies, and bring back the game that was killed. The men spent most of their time fishing, hunting, or going to war. They made most of their own tools for these activities. They constructed fishing weirs, and made dugout canoes. In addition, they made bows and arrows, sharp wooden clubs, and tree bark shields that they used in hunting and in war. They helped the women in some of the heavier work involved in building the houses and making stone tools such as mortars. The birth of a baby was a happy occasion. Young children wore little or no clothing. The mothers washed the babies in the river on the coldest mornings so they would become accustomed to the heat and the cold. They helped harden the skin to heat and cold by rubbing the young children’s skin with paint and animal fat. Most of the childhood was spent learning the knowledge and skills one would need as an adult. Boys would learn how to use a bow and arrow, go hunting and fishing with their fathers, and practice the skill of shooting birds and fish. Boys had a formal ceremony to mark their passage from boyhood into adulthood. At age 14 or 15, the priests called boys to the ceremony. The boys bodies were painted, and they sat under a tree and were led one by one through a line of men who hit them with sticks. This was called the gauntlet. Then a group of young warriors would take the boys into the wilderness for 9 months to survive away from the tribe. If they survived this ordeal, they were considered men, given an adult name and they took their place as an adult in the tribe. By the age of 10, girls dressed like their others. A girl was considered a woman when she was old enough to bear children. At this time she was given an adult name. Like the boys, young girls would learn skills that would prepare them for their adult roles. Young children played games, such as lacrosse, and stick counting game. Their entertainment and education came from the tribe’s storyteller. They would hear myths and legends about their people. (Excerpts from the Powhatan Indians of Virginia by Helen Roundtree, 1989). According to research by the National Park Service, Powhatan "men were warriors and hunters, while women were gardeners and gatherers. The English described the men, who ran and walked extensively through the woods in pursuit of enemies or game, as tall and lean and possessed of handsome physiques. Powhatan women were characterized as the gardeners, gatherers, and the caretakers of the home. The women were strong and shorter than the Powhatan men, because they spent hours tending the crops, pounding corn meal, gathering nuts, and performing other domestic chores. They were on their own for much of the time due to the fact that the men were out hunting, so it was an important role for the women to take care of the home front. All of the women of the tribe were responsible for looking after all of the children of the tribe. When the men undertook extended hunts, the women went ahead of them to construct hunting camps. The Powhatan domestic economy depended on the labor of both sexes." Sources: Building a new system, Colonial America 1607-1703 The Native Americans and Illustrated History Powhatan social The Powhatan lived east of the fall line in Tidewater Virginia. They built their houses of poles, rushes, and bark, and they supported themselves primarily by growing crops, especially maize, but they also fished and hunted in the great forest in their area. Social class was determined by decent, wealth that was obtained through warfare and the collection of corn, metal, and skins. All of Virginia's natives practiced agriculture. They periodically moved their villages from site to site. Villagers cleared the fields by felling, girdling, or firing trees at the base and then using fire to reduce the slash and stumps. A village gradually became untenable as soil productivity gradually declined and local fish and game were depleted. The inhabitants then moved on. With every change in location, a village used fire to clear new land and left an even larger amount of cleared land behind. The natives also used fire to maintain extensive areas of open game habitat throughout the East, later called "barrens" by European colonists. The Powhatan also had rich fishing grounds. Bison had arrived to this area by the early 15th century. Powhatan Political Villages consisted of a number of related families organized in tribes that were led by a king or queen, who was a client of the Emperor and a member of his council. Thomas Jefferson estimated that the Powhatan Confederacy at one time occupied about eight thousand square miles of territory, with a population of about eight thousand people, of whom twenty-four hundred were warriors. The Powhatan’s, like many other tribes, saw themselves as a community in which everyone looked after each other. All of the women of the tribe were responsible for looking after all of the children of the tribe. Colonial social The colonists, the first group of whom had originally arrived at Jamestown on May 14, 1607, had never planned to grow all of their own food. Instead, their plans also depended upon trade with the local Native Americans to supply them with enough food between the arrival of periodic supply ships from England, upon which they also relied. This period of extreme hardship for the colonists began in 1609 with a drought, which caused their already limited farming activities to produce even fewer crops than usual. Then, there were problems with both of their other sources for food. Colonial political Prior to arriving in North America, the colonist had been accustomed the politics of England. England had three parts of government: the King, Parliament, and the House of Lords. The Jamestown Settlement was the first permanent English settlement in North America. Named for King James I of England, Jamestown was founded in the Virginia Colony on May 14, 1607. Jamestown was founded for the purposes of a quick profit from gold mining for its investors while also establishing a permanent foothold in North America for England. On July 30, 1619, the House of Burgesses, the first legislature of elected representatives in America, met in the Jamestown Church. Their first law was to set a minimum price for the sale of tobacco and set forth plans for the creation of the first ironworks of the colony. This legislative group was the predecessor of the modern Virginia General Assembly.