The "War Aims" of Powhatan and the English
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The "War Aims" of Powhatan and the English
The English sailing to Jamestown understood that the occupants of the New World might be hostile. The story of
Father Juan Baptista de Seguera in 1570 may not have been known to the English, but those on the Susan
Constant, Godspeed, and Discovery knew that the Roanoke Colony had disappeared 20 years earlier.
Relations between the English and the Algonquians in Virginia were hostile from the very first day. When the
English first came ashore at Cape Henry, April 26, 1607, two of them were wounded by Native Americans. Shortly
after arriving at Jamestown Island three weeks later, a brief flurry of arrows convinced the Council that a fort had to
be constructed immediately.
The English were worried about more than just the Algonquians under Powhatan's control. Our only contemporary
image of that Jamestown fort comes from the Spanish archives, which retained a copy of the 1608 drawing provided by a spy to
Spanish ambassador Pedro de Zuniga. The English were wise to worry about their European rivals. There really was a threat of
invasion of Virginia by international enemies, in addition to the domestic threat from Native Americans that were being displaced, in
1607.
re-creation in 2006 of James Fort pallisade, along the James River
(the modern John Smith statue faces what would have been the main entrance to the fort)
Under international law as the Europeans defined it in 1607, the English were entitled to claim Virginia by right of discovery. The
European nations knew the lands in the New World were not "empty." However, the Europeans asserted rights to lands that were not
occupied by any *Christian* prince. The English documented their claim to Virginia with a religious symbol, claiming exclusive territorial
title and indicating the English would defend that claim against all other European governments. In addition, Europeans claimed lands
by right of conquest. After the English defeated an enemy, they felt entitled to claim exclusive rights to the lands of the enemy. Think
the Native Americans understood one of those legal niceties?
Tribes in Virginia in 1607
derived from Virginia Department of Historic Resources - First People: The Early Indians of Virginia
Powhatan was the leader of the Virginia tribes who occupied the lands where the English arrived. There were other non-Algonquian
tribes in 1600 west of the Fall Line, and Algonquian-speaking tribes north of the Rappahannock River that did not consider Powhatan to
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be their paramount chief... but the English happened to sail into Powhatan's turf. His "war aims" were to acquire technology from the
English without losing control of his territory to the European arrivals.
Powhatan did not try to expel the English and keep them from living in Virginia. (If you had carved a canoe with shell and fire, you too
might want to keep the strange-talking, light-skinned folks with the sharp iron tools in the neighborhood.) Powhatan's strategy was to
control food supplies in hopes of keeping the English dependent upon him. His tactics - the way he implemented his strategy - was to
mix diplomacy with fighting, rather than to fight 100% of the time.
The English war aims were equally simple. The Europeans wanted to extract wealth from Virginia, preferably in the form of gold, silver,
and jewels that would be valued in Europe. The first settlers were employees of the Virginia Company, hoping to get rich and return to
Europe. They were not religious zealots seeking freedom; the first English immigrants to Virginia were not refugees who never planned
to cross the Atlantic Ocean again and return "home" to England. The English had to defend their new territory to keep the Spanish,
Dutch, and French away - but for those who were planning to be in Virginia only briefly, why fight to acquire long-term title or ownership
of the land from the Indians?
After a few years, the English realized that the Virginia colony was not going to be a source of mineral wealth comparable to the areas
occupied by the Spanish in Central and South America. In 1610, the English completely abandoned Jamestown. All of the colonists
climbed on board their ships and sailed downstream towards England. At the mouth of the James River, they met Lord de la Warre with
a resupply and returned to Jamestown. The English returned to Jamestown, glad that they had not torched their fort and houses as they
had abandoned the town.
Bottom Line: the English decided there was nothing in Virginia worth death from disease/starvation/fighting. Had the retreating English
not met Lord de la Warre's resupply, Powhatan's alternating pattern of hot and cold war would have worked. Powhatan would have
retained control of the Peninsula and the rest of his confederacy, along with the iron tools he had acquired from the English.
Lord De la Warre arrives in the nick of time on ships with cannons, prepared to fight... someone
Source: National Park Service - Sidney King collection of paintings created for the 350th Anniversary of Jamestown
When de la Warre assumed control of the colony in 1610, Powhatan was forced to deal with more agressive occupier. De la Warre
intensified the English military efforts, burning Indian cornfields and towns. His use of scorched-earth tactics was comparable to those
used by the English in Ireland, as the English seized control of that island from the Celtic residents.
In 1613, John Rolfe planted a crop of tobacco with seeds imported from the Caribbean islands. After that crop was sold in Europe for a
high price, the Virginia Company changed its goals for the business venture in Virginia. The compasny's new purpose for investing in
the colony was still to gain wealth, but through agricultural production rather than through mining precious metals. "Virginia leaf"
became more popular in Europe than the harsher-tasting "Spanish leaf" - and in those days, there were no filters or flavorings like
menthol to smooth the smoke, so the quality of the tobacco was critical to the taste.
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Harvesting tobacco leaves on the Peninsula in the 1600's, before drying and "prizing" them into hogsheads (barrels) for shipping to
Europe
Source: National Park Service - Sidney King collection of paintings created for the 350th Anniversary of Jamestown
That's when ownership of land became so important. First the English seized the most-convenient lands for growing a crop - the
existing fields and even towns of the Indians. The Virginia soils on the Peninsula were naturally fertile, but would yield good tobacco
crops for only 2-3 years with no fertilizer. After that, the English needed to occupy other lands that had been controlled by the tribes
under Powhatan's control. (Think that generated a little bit of cross-cultural hostility?)
The English often tried to acculturate the Powhatans and convert them to the English religion and lifestyle. However, the English efforts
at Christianizing the "heathen" were much less intense than the Spanish efforts in their colonies. The Catholic Church was an
independent power that had itsa own desires to increase its influence by winning converts in the New World. The Anfglican church in
England was much more subordinate to the monarch, after King Henry VIII split the English church away from the control of the Pope in
Rome and seized the monasteries. That event, long before Jamestown, may have been a key reason why the English colonists in
Virginia treated the Native Americans differently from the Spanish.
The English tactics were similar to Powhatan's - spurts of overt hostility, mixed in with attempts to replace open warfare with a warm
peace or at least a cold war. Neither side wanted to invest the resources in constant, intense fighting. Powhatan had more people, but
the English had better technology.
The technology-limited Native Americans had to trade with the English for for guns and gunpowder, since they were unable to
manufacture their own. The English needed food and purchased deerskins and other goods for export. had water-based mobility, but
they were not completely safe in their sailing ships. They had to keep a guard against a canoe-based attack, when the sailing ships
were near the Virginia shoreline. Think the English believed their way of life was as superior as their technology, and that the
Algonquians would be willing (or could be coerced) to abandon their traditional culture?
John Rolfe's marriage to Pocahontas was one temporarily-successful attempt to establish peaceful coexistence between the English
and the Native Americans. Powhatan and the English both took a calculated risk when they approved that marriage. The Virginia colony
could have created a blending of two cultures, with the Algonquians adopting English technology and the colonists adopting farming,
hunting, and housing patterns from the Native Americans. Both cultures could have modified their perspective on land ownership and
racial identify, shifting from "us vs. them" to a society where intermarriage and mixed offspring were common.
By 1622, the colonists were encouraging the Algonquians to visit regularly in the English
houses and to adopt English patterns of life. However, Opechancanough's uprising sought to
eliminate the "other" culture from Virginia, and brought an end to the concept of integrating
the Native Americans into English culture. 400 years later, history books are just beginning to
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consider the Algonquian perspective on colonization.
The marriage of Pocahontas and John Rolfe can be viewed as a prelude to the final decision
by the English to suppress the Algonquian culture in Virginia. She navigated the rituals of
English society, in the colony and finally in London. After 1613, it was a one-way street for
Pocahontas to "become English," at least in her superficial characteristics of dress and
language, while her English husband adopted few if any Algonquian habits.
For centuries, English/American artists have emphasized how Pocahontas adopted English
manners and dress. By the time she was captured in 1613, she may have already been
married to an Algonquian named Kocoum and may have had tattoos on her face (a symbol of
high status)... but no English portraits show her with tattoos.
One possibility: Pocahontas may have been happy choosing John Rolfe as her new husband,
rather than returning to her tribe. In her old culture, she was just one of many children
fathered by the paramount chief. Powhatan used her as an ambassador to the Patawomeck
tribe - and when they sold her to Captain Samuel Argall for a copper kettle, Powhatan did not
complete negotiations to ensure her return. In English society, however, Pocahontas was
quickly provided status as someone very special, a "princess" with a father who was the
equivalent of a king. Perhaps she chose, willingly, to switch rather than to fight.
On the other hand, it's an old saying that people fight for "their way of life." Maybe
Pocahontas voluntarily adopted a new culture after her marriage, blending her old and new
culture together so she got the best of both worlds - or she may have simply masqueraded as Pocahontas, on official seal of Henrico
County
English, but was still a fully-Algonquian woman dressed in different clothes. She died three
years after marrying John Rolfe, so there is inadequate evidence to assess her motivations.
It is clear that few other Algonquians chose to trade lifestyles. The Europeans had little
success converting the adult Algonquians to adopt English religion, clothing, or housing though the Algonquians were quite sophisticated in their capacity to acquire and use English
technology, while still living in Algonquian towns, growing crops the Algonquian way, and
dressing in the Algonquian style.
The hard life for an indentured servant in the colony attracted immigrants from England primarily because Virginia offered a chance to
acquire land from Powhatan and his subordinate tribes. To the Algonquians, English title to land they already controlled was no
incentive. The English had a little success with the young Algonquian children that Powhatan and his successors permitted to live in
English households, but that ended in 1622.
how the interior of an English colonist's house may have appeared in 1622
Source: National Park Service - Sidney King collection of paintings created for the 350th Anniversary of Jamestown
By March 22, 1622, Powhatan had died and been replaced by Opechancanough. A "thumbnail" description of the situation by Phillip
Levy summarizes what he faced:1
"The decades following English settlement on the James River had not been the best of times for the areas original Algonkian
inhabitants. English desires for food and land, coupled with a heavy-handed willingness to coerce their wants from the local
Indians, quickly led to armed conflict. War in this con-text was a cycle of raids and counter-raids that finally ground to a halt by
1614. But for the Tidewater's Algonkians, the peace was almost as bad as the war. English tobacco fields continued to sprout up
in Algonkian farms and hunting grounds, and the territorial, diplomatic, and biological conse-quences of English expansion
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continued to disrupt life in Algonkian villages. "
The English did not view Opechancanough as overtly hostile, and the Native Americans retained easy access to the English houses. As
a result, Opechancanough was very successful in surprising his enemies on March 22. The Algonquians were visiting and working as
usual, indoors and outdoors, with the English that day. Starting at noon, however, the peaceful conversation stopped. The Algonquians
started attacking English men, women, and children with knives, hatchets, and farm implements. About 350 English died in the uprising,
which the English labelled a "massacre."
That event marks the end of Powhatan's strategy of accomodation in order to achieve rare goods and technology, while constraining
the English to a small portion of Tsenacommacah. The 1622 uprising also marks the end of English accomodation. For the English,
peaceful coexistence was replaced by a policy of excluding the Algonquians from English settlements, literally building a wall across the
Peninsula. Native Americans were required to wear official badges when trading with the English, in territory once occupied by the
Chickahominy, Paspashegh, Kiskiack, Kecoughtan, and other tribes.
Theodore DeBry engraving of March 22, 1622
Source: Indians of North America - Theodore De Bry Woodcuts
References
1. Philip Levy, "A New Look at an Old Wall: Indians, Englishmen, Landscape, and the 1634 Palisade at Middle Plantation," Virginia
Magazine of History and Biography, vol. 112, no. 3 (2004)
The Anglo-Powhatan "Wars"
Virginia Places
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