The Jamestown Experiment (23 page)

After the Spanish prisoners were taken, the colony was on high alert throughout the summer. In early August, Dale received word
from the forts at the mouth of the James that six more ships had been spotted. He knew that Gates was expected at any moment with a relief expedition, but he also feared that the Spanish might reappear to attack the colony and liberate the prisoners. The marshal sent two officers and forty men to the bay to discover the identity of the strangers. When they did not return in a timely manner, Dale feared “they were either surprised or defeated” by a Spanish fleet. Therefore he “drew all his forces into form and order ready for encounter” and called a war council to “resolve whether it were best to meet them aboard our ships or to maintain the fort.”
⁴²⁸

As the men were scrambling to prepare the ships and the defenses in the fort, word arrived that Thomas Gates was leading the incoming fleet. The colonists were relieved to see their countrymen and stood down. Gates’s fleet landed at Jamestown that evening, and the ships were unloaded while more than three hundred new settlers came ashore to bolster the growing colony. Gates resumed his position as governor, and Dale brought him up to speed on the state of the forts, the crops that were planted, the Spanish prisoners, and relations with the Indians. Roughly 750 colonists now inhabited the colony. The situation was decidedly more favorable than the last time Gates set foot on Virginia and a few dozen starving, desperate colonists greeted him.

Dale and Gates decided to send the first group of settlers to reside permanently at the falls. In early September, Edward Brewster marched about two hundred settlers overland, with a contingent of soldiers to protect them. Dale then sailed up the James accompanied by a small company of men. Wahunsonacock learned of the march, and his warriors ineffectively attacked the column of settlers several times. Although the fierce Nemattanew—whom the English named “Jack of the Feathers” because he went to war “covered over with feathers and swan’s wings fastened unto his shoulders as though he
meant to fly”—led the Powhatan warriors, they could not stop the procession of well-armed and armored Englishmen.
⁴²⁹

The settlers arrived at the area where they wanted to build a fort and town named Henrico, in honor of Prince Henry of Wales, a supporter of the company and Dale’s patron. They had “diverse encounters and skirmishes with the savages,” but the work proceeded nonetheless. The Powhatans continued to apply pressure on the English to prevent the settlement from being erected, “shooting arrows into the fort” and wounding several men. The Indian warriors also killed those who were sent on errands outside the fort. Yet they were simply no match for the English and did not have the firepower to assault the fort directly. They were powerless to stop the English from finishing the fort except to harass them and pick off a few settlers. De La Warr’s and Dale’s use of overwhelming force with superior technology had sufficiently turned the tide against the tribes, and the English could expand their colony almost at will.
⁴³⁰

The settlers built “at each corner of the town very strong and high commanders, or watchtowers, a fair and handsome church, and storehouses.” When these were completed, they constructed “three streets of well-framed houses, a handsome church, and the foundation of a more stately one laid—of brick, in length a hundred feet, and fifty feet wide.” They planted a “great quantity of corn” and erected an Anglican church. Proceeding with their relentless expansion, they planned other settlements. Dale wrote letters to England, imploring the Earl of Salisbury and Thomas Smythe to send two or three thousand settlers to Virginia and promised that “in the space of two years render this whole country unto His Majesty, settle a colony here secure for themselves, and ready to answer all her ends and expectations.” Dale wanted credit for subduing the native peoples and putting the colony on a firm footing for imperial greatness and significant financial returns.
⁴³¹

From Henrico, Dale was able to launch attacks against any neighboring Indian peoples to secure control of the James River. He invaded the Appomattoc village to “revenge the treacherous injury of those people done unto us.” The English destroyed the village and took the corn. Dale surveyed the now empty land and “considering how commodious a habitation and seat it might be for us,” decided to occupy it and rename it New Bermuda. Relations with the Indians would soon take an unexpected turn when Pocahontas again affected the course of the Jamestown colony.
⁴³²

In 1612, the company made Samuel Argall an admiral and sent him to Virginia. When he arrived, he explored the Chesapeake Bay to the Potomac River and established trade relations with the Patawomecks for corn. In the spring of 1613, he chanced upon a very surprising opportunity when he stumbled across Pocahontas, who was staying with the Patawomecks on her own trade mission to “exchange some of her father’s commodities for theirs.”
⁴³³

She was “desirous to renew her familiarity with the English, and delighting to see them would gladly visit” with Argall and his companions. The Englishman, however, had more sinister motives in mind. He met with “an old friend and adopted brother of his, Iapazeus, how and by what means he might procure her capture.” Argall hoped to use her as a prisoner to “redeem some of our Englishmen and arms now in the possession of her father.” Argall assured Iapazeus that he would treat Pocahontas well. The Patawomeck agreed to help Argall to kidnap the young woman, and the pair worked out their stratagem.
⁴³⁴

Iapazeus and his wife would bring Pocahontas to Argall’s ship, and his wife would feign a “great and longing desire to go aboard and see the ship.” Iapazeus would pretend to be angry with his wife for wanting to go without the company of another woman. His wife
would shed crocodile tears, and he would accede to her request, provided that Pocahontas accompany her.
⁴³⁵

When the Indians were aboard Argall’s ship, they had supper with the captain. After their meal was complete, Pocahontas was “lodged in the gunner’s room” while Iapazeus and his wife departed in secret and were rewarded “with a small copper kettle and some other less valuable toys.” Argall came into the room and informed Pocahontas that he would not free her because “her father had then eight of our Englishmen, many swords, pieces, and other tools, which he at several times by treacherous murdering our men taken from them, which though of no use to him, he would not redeliver.” She became disconsolate because of her captivity and was brought back to Jamestown as a prisoner.
⁴³⁶

The governor was very pleased with Argall and immediately sent a messenger to Wahunsonacock with the “unwelcome and troublesome” news that his beloved daughter was being held hostage by his enemy. The messenger also presented the werowance with the terms of her redemption, including the English prisoners and captured weapons and tools.
⁴³⁷

Wahunsonacock carefully weighed the diplomatic ramifications of negotiating the release of his daughter. Clearly, the English had the advantage and would further dominate the relationship if he surrendered his prisoners and cache of English weapons. He deliberated for as many as three months while his daughter was a captive at Jamestown, and the English suspected that he sought the “long advice” of his council.
⁴³⁸

Finally, Wahunsonacock agreed to the Englishmen’s conditions, although he tried to gain some wiggle room and not abjectly submit to their demands. He “returned us seven of our men, with each of them a musket,” although each of the weapons was broken and “unserviceable.” Moreover, Wahunsonacock stipulated that when his daughter was released, he would offer the English five hundred
bushels of corn in payment for the “rest of our pieces” which he would keep and were supposedly “broken” anyway.
⁴³⁹

Gates, Dale, and the other Jamestown leaders saw through their adversary’s ruse and retorted that they knew “that the rest of our arms were either lost or stolen from him.” They informed Wahunsonacock that “till he returned them all we would not by any means deliver his daughter.” The English also delivered a warning that “it should be at his choice whether he would establish peace or continue enemies with us.”
⁴⁴⁰

The English did not receive an answer to their counterdemands from Wahunsonacock for almost a year. He recognized that the English were in control of the relationship and that surrendering his trophies was akin to admitting defeat and appearing weak in front of his own people and subjects around Virginia. Nevertheless, silence was hardly the best means of recovering the control he had over the colony during the starving time. Essentially, he admitted defeat and acquiesced to their rule.

While she lived among the English as their prisoner, Pocahontas was sent to Henrico, where she received instruction in the Christian religion from the Reverend Alexander Whitaker. There she also met with John Rolfe on several occasions, and the pair became close and fell in love. The Englishman agonized over his feelings for the native woman and wrote to Dale, “Nor was I ignorant of the heavy displeasure which Almighty God conceived against the sons of Levi and Israel for marrying strange wives.” He rigorously examined his feelings that would provoke a love for a woman “whose education hath been rude, her manners barbarous, and her generation accursed.” He felt a Christian duty to convert her to his religion, especially since she had a “desire to be taught and instructed in the knowledge of God.” Rolfe asked Dale for permission to marry Pocahontas, and it was granted.
⁴⁴¹

But in March 1613, the English tired of waiting for Wahunsonacock’s response and forced the issue. The bellicose Thomas Dale armed 150 men for war, their weapons and armor glinting in the sun as they embarked in Argall’s ship and some other vessels. The fleet sailed to the York River. Pocahontas was on board the flagship, frightened for the fate of her father and people. Dale wanted to force the issue, “either to move them to fight for her, if such were their courage and boldness…or to restore the residue of our demands, which were our pieces, swords, and tools.”
⁴⁴²

The Indians who delivered the corn that Wahunsonacock had promised to Jamestown traveled with the English company and evidently showed “great bravado all the way as we went up the river.” They bragged that they had always bested the English soldiers “in that river” and reminded them of the brutal death of John Ratcliffe and his men. The Englishmen tired of hearing such bluster and replied that if their werowance did not do as the colonists demanded, they intended to “fight with them, burn their houses, take away their canoes, break down their fishing weirs, and do them what other damages we could.” They were armed with cannons, muskets, pistols, and pikes and protected by metal armor.
⁴⁴³

The Powhatans drew first blood when they shot arrows at the ships from the cover of the woods, according to their way of war. The English responded with overwhelming force. They “went ashore, and burned in that very place some forty houses; and of the things we found therein made freeboot and pillage.” They killed five or six Indians for “their presumption in shooting at us.”
⁴⁴⁴

Dale’s men continued on their brief journey upriver and the next day made contact with Powhatans who demanded to know why the English had attacked them. The Englishmen agreed to a temporary truce of twenty-four hours to send messengers to Powhatan to get a response to their demands. The next day the colonists received
a message from Wahunsonacock that the prisoners he held had come of their own free will to escape the brutal laws of Jamestown. He also promised to send the weapons and tools the following day. They never arrived, however, and the soldiers went directly to one of the Powhatans’ main towns. The Indians put on a show of force, greeting the Englishmen with four hundred warriors armed with bows and arrows.

The soldiers of the rival armies stood nose to nose, each proclaiming that they were ready to go to war. If just one soldier on either side fired their weapon, a terrible bloodbath would follow. In this tense atmosphere, Dale had Pocahontas brought forward as proof for two of Wahunsonacock’s sons that she was unhurt. Her brothers rejoiced that she was well and went to relate this good news to their father.

Dale sent two Englishmen, including John Rolfe, to negotiate peace with Wahunsonacock. Although the werowance did not grant them an audience, they were able to conclude a pact with his brother, Opechancanough. It was a sign that the aging Wahunsonacock, whose authority was successfully challenged by the English, would be replaced by Opechancanough. The English saw that he was “one who hath already the command of all the people.”
⁴⁴⁵

Opechancanough and Rolfe consented to the terms and concluded their peace. The Powhatans would return the weapons and tools as well as any colonists who had run away to the Indian villages. There was an additional provision that Pocahontas would be allowed to live among the English. Rolfe pledged that the colonists would not attack if the terms were observed. Opechancanough made an honorable peace that apparently met with the approval of his people. Meanwhile, the English had won a great deal of territory and established a half dozen settlements and forts away from Jamestown through war and aggressive expansion. With a better survival rate (which was by no
means guaranteed even away from Jamestown Island) and additional settlers, the English colony would continue to grow. What the rising Powhatan leader’s response would be was anyone’s guess.

On April 5, in the wake of the peace pact, John Rolfe married Pocahontas at the church in Jamestown. Dale had given his consent to the union, as did Wahunsonacock. One of Pocahontas’s uncles came to Jamestown to give her away, and two of her brothers attended the wedding as witnesses. The marriage was a union of two people in love that touched the core of the English mission in Virginia.
⁴⁴⁶