Jamestown: The British and The Powhatan

Summary

Jamestown: The British and The Powhatan – Detailed Summary

American History Hit's episode titled "Jamestown: The British and The Powhatan", hosted by Don Wildman and featuring guest Mark Summers, delves deep into the intricate dynamics between the early British settlers of Jamestown and the indigenous Powhatan people. Released on February 10, 2025, this episode offers a comprehensive exploration of the founding of Jamestown, the challenges faced by the colonists, and the evolving relationships with the native population.

1. Introduction to Jamestown's Founding

Don Wildman sets the stage by recounting the arrival of three ships—the Susan Constant, the Discovery, and the Godspeed—to the Chesapeake Bay in 1607. After months at sea, the settlers sought a promising location for a secure and defensible settlement. They initially planted a cross on Cape Henry before moving inland to what is now Jamestown, strategically choosing a peninsula for its deep channel and natural defenses against potential Spanish attacks.

Don Wildman [04:10]:

"From its southern cape looking northward, the Chesapeake Bay stretches endlessly to the horizon and beyond for the haggard cruise of three ships."

2. Understanding the Powhatan Society

Mark Summers, the Educational Director of Youth and Public Programs for Jamestown Rediscovery, provides an in-depth analysis of the Powhatan people. Originating as a single tribe, the Powhatan expanded to encompass about 30 tribes through conquest and tribute, forming a paramount chiefdom under the leadership of Chief Wahoon Sunakok, commonly referred to as Chief Powhatan.

Mark Summers [05:45]:

"We're talking about a paramount chiefdom, a collection of 30 tribes. Many of them have been conquered, and the Powhatan people have strong political leadership."

3. Initial Encounters and Misunderstandings

The first interactions between the English settlers and the Powhatan were fraught with tension and misunderstanding. The settlers, underestimating the indigenous population’s sophistication and resilience, disregarded warnings from previous encounters, such as those from the Roanoke colony. This arrogance led to initial conflicts, including a significant raid where approximately 200 Powhatan warriors nearly decimated the English camp.

Mark Summers [09:14]:

"The Powhatan refer to them by this word 'tisonus,' which means foreigners. They're on the land without permission and look like they're going to be there for a long time."

4. The Strategic Fortification of Jamestown

In response to the Powhatan threat, the English, led by William Wingfield, rapidly constructed a triangular fort with three bulwarks and 14-foot-tall walls within 19 days. Equipped with demi culverin cannons, the fort was strategically designed to defend against both river and land attacks. Archaeological evidence has confirmed the fort’s footprint and defensive capabilities.

Mark Summers [15:31]:

"They wrote about it. And we've done archaeology since 1994 and have found the footprint of the fort and have been able to reconstruct it so we can speak with accuracy."

5. Leadership Under John Smith

Amidst dwindling supplies and mounting hardships during the infamous "Starving Time," John Smith emerges as a pivotal leader. Unlike his predecessors, Smith adopts a more hands-on approach, enforcing strict labor policies and seeking diplomatic relations with the Powhatan to secure vital resources. His pragmatic strategies, though controversial among the Virginia Company, prove crucial for the colony's survival.

Mark Summers [26:25]:

"John Smith does kind of emerge because on the governing council, he's essentially the last man standing that didn't die, quit or got fired."

6. The Pocahontas Narrative

A significant turning point in English-Powhatan relations is the involvement of Pocahontas, Chief Powhatan's daughter. Transformed from a child to a young woman, Pocahontas becomes a bridge between the two cultures through her marriage to John Rolfe. This union symbolizes a temporary peace and facilitates the introduction of lucrative tobacco cultivation, which becomes the colony’s economic backbone.

Mark Summers [43:25]:

"It's the very economic, political and judicial foundation. The United States is already here."

7. The "Starving Time" and Resilience

The colony faces a severe drought coupled with a military siege imposed by the Powhatan, leading to extreme famine. Approximately two-thirds of the population perishes due to starvation, disease, and harsh conditions. Archaeological discoveries, including evidence of cannibalism, corroborate historical accounts of this dark period.

Mark Summers [41:12]:

"We found one individual, a young woman that had eight of the nine criteria for survival. Cannibalism, if you look her up, we named her Jane."

8. Expansion and Escalating Conflicts

Post-crisis, Jamestown expands rapidly along the James River, leading to increased tensions with the Powhatan and other indigenous groups. Overcrowding and resource depletion exacerbate conflicts, culminating in Bacon's Rebellion—a significant uprising that reshapes the colony’s social and political landscape. This period lays the groundwork for entrenched hierarchies and the eventual establishment of a plantation-based economy reliant on indentured servitude and African slavery.

Mark Summers [60:38]:

"There's a rivalry that I find very silly because the rivalry between Plymouth and Jamestown is completely a byproduct of the American Civil War."

9. Legacy and Recognition

The episode concludes by reflecting on the lasting impact of these early interactions. The Powhatan tribes today continue to seek recognition and preserve their heritage, while Jamestown's legacy as the cradle of English America remains pivotal in understanding the nation's origins.

Mark Summers [67:00]:

"The Powhatan Tribe, there are nine that are still recognized today out of the original 30. Many of them died of disease or merged into other existing groups."

Conclusion

"Jamestown: The British and The Powhatan" offers a nuanced examination of the early American colony, highlighting the complex interplay of ambition, survival, and cultural conflict. Through meticulous archaeological research and historical analysis, Mark Summers sheds light on the forgotten and often misunderstood chapters of Jamestown's history, underscoring its foundational role in shaping the United States.

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For more in-depth knowledge and exploration, listeners are encouraged to visit jamestownrediscovery.org and engage with the rich resources provided by Jamestown Rediscovery.

Transcript

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[Don Wildman]

From its southern cape looking northward, the Chesapeake Bay stretches endlessly to the horizon and beyond for the haggard cruise of three ships. The Susan Constant, the Discovery, and the Godspeed. Who just spent months at sea traveling from England. Lush Chesapeake coastline with towering forests and dense shrublands offered the dreamt for promise of safe harbor and stable settlement. Days earlier, they'd first made landfall to plant a cross on the cape, then embarked inland, exploring some 50 miles along a wide, welcoming tributary, one that offered a deep channel able to accommodate their vessels. Searching for suitable anchorage, they opted for a small peninsula connected to the mainland by a narrow land bridge. Here they figured they could settle here, they could expand and grow. Here they could build a strong defense against enemy attack, particularly from the Spanish to the south. But not to mention native peoples believed to inhabit this region, whose hunting grounds the English are about to claim as their own. Hello. Welcome to American History Hit. I'm Don Wildman. Last week, we heard about the historic journey to a land called Virginia in 1607, how some 100 men set sail from London to build a colony, their instructions sealed in an envelope, only to be opened upon their arrival. If you haven't listened to that episode, I invite you to do so. We'll be right here after you caught up. As for today, we rejoin our hundred men on Jamestown island, about 50 miles up from the Chesapeake, on what is now called the James River. As they build upon their new land and a flaw in their grand plan becomes increasingly apparent. These lands, they've been told, are already occupied. So claiming this area won't be as simple as raising a cross or staking a flag. It will lead to conflict, to blood, eventually to the destruction of a population, a nation that will never be the same again. In this episode, I am joined once more by Mark Summers, educational director of youth and public programs for Jamestown Rediscovery. From collaboration to suspicion to outright war, we explore the tumultuous relationship between the British and the Powhatan native to this area.

[Mark Summers]

Mark Summers, welcome back to American history. Hit.

[Friend 2]

Thank you. Appreciate it.

[Mark Summers]

When last we discussed the Jamestown colony, they had just landed, began to clear land, cut trees, begin looking for how they're going to accomplish the task that they've been hired to do. Because this is a company that's being sent over to make money, they are going to encounter some unexpected elements in this new life. Am I right?

[Friend 2]

Well, they're going to be resisted and to backtrack a bit. Even when they landed at Cape Henry, there was a band of warriors that shot at them. And that should have been an omen that perhaps this wasn't going to be so welcoming. But that being said, they do take a few weeks to finally select the location what becomes Jamestown. And they do split their forces and sail farther up the James River. They end up in the site of what's now our city of Richmond. But they're going to be encountered. And one of the things I want to clear up that I'd like to clear up with the public is we've had a lot of films and documentaries, movies throughout the years about Jamestown and other colonies. And there tends to be this cliche in Hollywood that, you know, the three ships come up the river and there's a scary, tense, dramatic music. And they always show the Native American people hiding behind trees, terrified, frightened. The world's coming to the end. Who are these strange, godlike people? And it's really going to be more like, oh, it's those guys again. That is something that I think films never seem to show is that there have been prior contact with Native American people In what's Now Virginia, before 1607.

[Mark Summers]

How much education was done for these new settlers back home? How much did they know about these cultures?

[Friend 2]

Well, even though the lost Connie, Roanoke, of course, disappears, you know, some of the people didn't disappear because they had left before the disappearance occurred. So they had diaries, journals, accounts. They already, for example, knew that Native Americans in this region valued copper, and they should bring copper with them. Metal hatchets, tools, they called them trash and trinkets, we would say, small items. So they knew that there were things they could bring to trade. They knew that even in Roanoke, they were told about the great Powhatan people to the north by the locals. Don't go up there. So even other Native American communities feared the very people that the English and Sixtus said were going to sail right into the middle of. They had no awareness just how vast the local population is going to be and how close they were to them.

[Mark Summers]

They are settling right in the middle of a vast society. Correct?

[Friend 2]

Correct. So a little backstory. You know, we do know from archaeology that Native American people have been in this region as much as perhaps 12,000 years ago. But to cut to the chase, the Powhatan people started out as one tribe. So Powhatan means the Falls of the river in Algonquin. That's the site of Richmond. They grew to six tribes the same way everyone else grows, through agriculture, maize agriculture. They developed a stronger government. But what's often missing is they go from six to about 30 tribes before Jamestown, based on conquering other nations and exacting tribute to them. So we have what's called a paramount chiefdom, a collection of 30 tribes. Many of them have been conquered. The Powhatan people have strong political leadership, bands of warriors that can chase away their enemies, including other Native Americans. The Spanish had run into the powhatan in the 1570s, and their priests were killed. So there had already been. The idea that the English were gods is ridiculous because the Powhatan refer to them by this word tisanus, which means foreigners. And what's happening is the. They're watching the English land, but they're not like, you know, there for a day or two or trading. I mean, that's not a big deal. I mean, think about how many ships go up the River Thames. It's that these people are chopping down trees and unloading months worth of supplies. I use the analogy. It's the difference between me knocking on your door trying to sell you something and me camping out in your backyard and eating all the food out of Your house. That's what's going on here. It's not fear of Europeans, it's not that they're gods, is that they're on the land without permission and they look like they're going to be there for a long time. And they don't have any women and children, which can be interpreted as a war party.

[Mark Summers]

Sure, yeah. The name Powhatan actually comes from an individual, from a chief.

[Friend 2]

So it's a title similar to England. So it'd be like calling, you know, John Howard the Earl of Norfolk. Norfolk is a place. It's also a title and it's sometimes used as a name. So the man that we call Chief Powhatan for simplicity's sake is actually Wahoon Sunakok. He's a paramount chief. So again, he's the head chief. It's like we have a president and 50 governors and each local tribe has their own werowance or local chief. So he has nations that he has to have counsel with and those that he's conquered where he has a lot more political authority over. But he's clearly a 60 year old man. He is somebody who has defeated his opponents. He has strong warriors, he's intelligent. I even call him Machiavellian. I mean, he is almost always two, three steps ahead of the English in this story. And not someone who would fear these people.

[Mark Summers]

Right. How would they compare in scale to say the Algonquin up north? I mean, this is a very widespread group of people and very developed society.

[Friend 2]

Correct. So what's similar to them is they share similar cultures and similar languages. So it's not that the language is exactly the same. But for example, Native Americans along the coast of Maine or the Lenape in what is now New York would be able to communicate with the Powhatan. So they have a dialect of the same language. They hunt, they fish, they farm, they have villages. Now their population is about roughly 20,000, spread between what is now North Carolina border and Washington dc. So the way I describe it, if you're American, if you drive up Interstate 95 and you look to the right, all that land in eastern Virginia around the Chesapeake Bay would be a Palatine land. They called it Cinecomica, the crowded country. Crowded to them, 24,000 people. Today it's 5 million people live there.

[Mark Summers]

Well, but full of resources and also, you know, temperate zone, etc. It would have been very envied, I imagine, throughout the land.

[Friend 2]

And these are people who actually communicate and travel very quickly by canoe. So they navigate those waters in Virginia, they Communicate very quickly. They can strike at their enemies very quickly through raids. They can exact tribute. They're in a very good strategic position. They are, I will say there are more numerous groups, but they are the most complex and politically powerful Native American group for miles and miles around.

[Mark Summers]

Yeah.

[Friend 2]

So the English couldn't have picked a more dangerous opponent than they did.

[Mark Summers]

They have dealt with threats in the past from their own land. Now these folks come across the ocean. What's that first meeting like?

[Friend 2]

Well, there is an attempt. So each tribe has some autonomy, you know, local autonomy. And there's a tribe called Paspahe. It's only four miles up the river from here. They actually come a couple days later by canoe and have a what we would call a sit down with the English. And now, according to the Native American old tradition, the local chief tells them, you know, yeah, we live over here, but you've settled on our hunting ground and you've chopped down trees that don't belong to you. You didn't bring us gifts. And it's interesting because I imagine this very tense scene where there's warriors and soldiers with weapons handy staring at each other awkwardly around a bonfire. The local chief sort of tells them to leave, but of course he does so in Algonquin. And so the English write the same story down. Well, this man is yelling at us. We don't know why they leave upset, but they've been warned to get off. It's much more simple than I think people realize. If you want to know why two high school students fight in a hallway or two guys fight in a street corner, or two nations go to war. It's a sense of disrespect. The local population feels disrespected because these people are camped out where their food is.

[Mark Summers]

This has always confused me because any human being, especially someone who is equipped for war, who walks onto someone else's land, understands the dynamics at hand. You know, it's not like, oh, they're not Christian, therefore we own this place. It's not as simple as that. So that has always confused me, you know, the lack of sophistication in approaching this situation.

[Friend 2]

Yeah, I mean, there's definitely some arrogance here. I mean, and in fact, you know, to be charitable to my British friends, I'm not blaming the average citizen. But if you look at the 400 year old history of the British Empire, this story repeats itself all over the world. Yeah, there are people who are, you know, common soldiers and laborers who kind of get it quicker than the leadership. So I think the Arrogance, the sense of superiority which is already developed in Europe, you can see it in their writings, is that, yes, these people may have warned us, but they simply have bows and arrows, we have gunships and cannons, we'll be able to withstand any assault. And this, of course repeats itself through India, through Africa, Ireland, Lawrence of Arabia. Yes, right, right.

[Mark Summers]

This sort of sense, that's what I mean. It's come down to us as a stereotype, but it's a reason for the stereotype.

[Friend 2]

And I do think, to be fair, that there are fair minded individuals. Richard Hakluyt, who most likely wrote the instructions, kind of a professor type is certainly one, is this, take care not to offend the local population. He does write that. So there obviously are English people self aware not to pick a fight. Yeah, but we're talking about who's sent here. You're talking about investors, soldiers, hardened people, some of them making decisions that, yes, there might be trouble, but it's not trouble we can't withstand. At the same time, there are going to be people on the ground who said, I wouldn't do that if I were you. You know, so again, that's a tough thing about saying, well, the English, right. We're really talking about the people in charge, right. We'll make mistakes and there might be other Englishmen there who said, John Smith is one. We should be better prepared.

[Mark Summers]

And this is the important thing to keep in mind. This is a job they're doing. This is something they've been hired to do. This is a commercial endeavor first and foremost.

[Friend 2]

Right? So if they're thinking that first, right. And I will tell you what shocks them into reality is, is on May 26, 1607, so the English had divided their force and they're going exploring up the river. So think about history, historically speaking, when you want to resist them and you wait for them to divide their force and the local chief comes back with 200 warriors, meaning he went to his neighbors the same way Paul Revere does in 1775. And there are 200 warriors in a crescent formation. And the English haven't built before it yet. And so there's actually this major raid where, you know, the Powhatan warriors may have bows and arrows, but they outnumber English nearly four to one. Their bows and arrows can fire eight times faster. And they use surprise on their side, you know, to get the English to fire a volley and then have another band attack them. Long story short, within about a half hour, the Powhatan have overtaken the English camp and have Nearly wiped them out. Until the English run to the shoreline and call for help. And the ships unload their artillery and fire small shot, golf ball size shot and bar shot looks like aerobics weights to chase off the palatin. So the importance is the English arrive, underestimating the palatin. They've been warned. They've had that first encounter in Virginia beach and now they have this raid where they nearly get wiped out. Only the ships save them. And that's important because they tell you how after the battle is over, we build a triangle shaped fort with half moons for bulwarks in 19 days. See, when we land the English and then they build the fort, we're missing a very huge part of the story.

[Mark Summers]

Yeah.

[Friend 2]

And that is they build the fort quickly based on the resistance of the Palatine.

[Mark Summers]

Wow. Okay. Tell me about that fort, the design of it, the whole concept.

[Friend 2]

Well, one of the things especially any potential Irish or British audience might be interested in is the design of the fort is carried out by Wingfield, the president. And he had served in Northern Ireland. So they used a design similar to what was going on in Ulster. And I really do think that the roadmap for the Powhatan is the English occupation of Ireland. There's a lot of similarities. They're going on simultaneously. So they're going to build this fort because they built a triangle shape for several reasons. It's a quick and easy design. It also takes advantage. You'd have to almost stand here with me to see it, but it takes advantage of the landscape. And it's built with three bulwarks where they had 12, what's called demi culverin cannon, basically eight pound shot. That's the same cannon that took down the Spanish Armada. Now when you stand here, you actually can tell. The English put their cannons in the perfect location to prevent a Spanish attack. From the east, a Powhatan canoe can act. To the west and to the north, they have cannons in case they come by foot. So they pick high ground. They have perfect places for their cannons and they build a fort where the walls were 14ft tall. Now, why do we know this? They wrote about it. And we've done Archaeology since 1994 and have found the footprint of the fort and have been able to reconstruct it so we can speak with accuracy about where the fort was, where the cannons were, and how strategic it was from a military point of view. It is an amazing fort. It is top of the line. It is well thought out. It is an amazing design and they are well Defended from the Powhatan once.

[Mark Summers]

The fort is up and how big an area, Square footage wise, it's about.

[Friend 2]

The size and shape of a baseball field. That's kind of the analogy. It's not very big, but it is in a good location.

[Mark Summers]

Are there shelters built for these people to live in?

[Friend 2]

So they're mainly relying on tents at first, and that's going to end up being a problem because over time the tents will rot away. I don't think they're planning to build long term structures, to be fair, because many of the men thinking, well, they're going to get rich quick and go home in a year or so. Okay, so imagine a kind of campsite that's attacked. Now, they have a palisade around it and they have well placed cannon. So militarily speaking, there's not an issue. But it ends up becoming a triangle shaped coffin within six months. Because the fatal flaw, and I do actually train military groups today, you know, I don't train military groups to come to the park and learn about statues or firing muskets. But the lesson we can still teach today is you can have the best fort and the best weapons, but if you can't provide food and water to your men, it's rather irrelevant. So they were so obsessed with finding the militarily financially secure location, they didn't consider there was no fresh water source above ground.

[Mark Summers]

Oh, interesting. So if I'm standing outside, if I was a Paladin standing outside looking about this and thinking about attacking it, how big are these bulwarks? How tall is the wall?

[Friend 2]

Yeah, so the walls are 14ft tall. And each corner again has four cannons that allow for crossfire. We've also done some research, indicated there were various moats and ditches. We also have the archaeological evidence of caltrops. They look like, you know, metal spikes. These have been found outside the walls of the fort. So no one's going to sneak up on the place and no one is going to get close enough to be able to raid it. In other words, the Paladin themselves are quite aware after failing to wipe out the English in this raid, it would not be successful to try to attack the fort directly. So the English are. Their bodies are safe from arrows, essentially.

[Mark Summers]

Once they're in the walls and the ships stick around. Right.

[Friend 2]

For a few weeks. They're here for a few weeks. I've always conjectured that, most likely because we know the sailors were here for six weeks, they're most likely the men. They're actually building before because they would be under orders. And they also have the carpentry skills. Now, they don't say this. We do have other records of sailors building buildings at Jamestown. So my guess is the sailors would allow for them to build this palisade within 19 days.

[Mark Summers]

How long does it take before a more peaceful contact has been made? When do things calm down?

[Friend 2]

It never really does completely. There's always a. We will use the term detente that goes on from time to time. But to fast forward a bit, what kind of happens is the Powhatan. I like looking at their strategy once the English build the fort, because think about the news of this raid reaches Chief powhatan. He's about 20 miles away. Well, as someone who's 60 years old, who understands and has seen Europeans before, he also recognizes, well, the English have settled on ground that doesn't have fresh water. So essentially he can sit back now. He attempts to spy on the English. We do know the Powhatan were hiding in the grass, counting their numbers, watching their patrols, we would say, gathering intelligence. But for the most part, they're going to confine any attacks on the English when they leave the walls. But to oversimplify, they're sitting back and perfectly content to let the English kill themselves off.

[Mark Summers]

How did they not identify a water source? That's weird.

[Friend 2]

Well, the mistake they make is we do have a large swamp that's above ground, and they know not to drink out of the swamp. They also brought beer with them to drink. So this beer, it's low alcohol content. We know from Europe you drink beer rather than water. It's safer. It also keeps on a voyage. Well, they run out of the beer. Their resupply ships are going to be delayed because, remember, they landed much later than they expected, so they're going to run out of supplies quicker. So they have to look for a source of water. Well, they begin to drink out of the James River. I mean, we are literally next to the James River. And so the James river is a little tricky because it's brackish.

[Mark Summers]

Yeah.

[Friend 2]

And it is far enough upriver where you don't always taste the salt, but it's got enough closeness to the Chesapeake Bay where there's a salt content in the water. One conjecture is that there's a lot more snow back then than now because of the mini ice age. And so perhaps a lot of the snow melt in the spring has masked the taste of the water. So they're not where right away, just the salinity levels that they're going to find out.

[Mark Summers]

Wow, interesting. But they would have understood title that they were in an estuary and all that.

[Friend 2]

Right. I mean, very quickly they realized the mistake. So what they're going to try to do very quickly is try to get to an aquifer to dig a well. And they will dig a well. And the problem is we know that there's a drought going on. We know from tree ring studies. One of the things your listeners might be not aware of is that we now know scientifically the worst drought in the last 800 years of Virginia history occurred during the first few years of Jamestown. Wow. The second worst occurred during Roanoke. So one can look at tree rings to predict violence between Native Americans and Europeans. And periods of peace correspond with rain.

[Mark Summers]

Yeah.

[Friend 2]

The other problem with that is if you have a lack of rain, your well water, your aquifer is going to start sucking in swamp water, river water. And we can also find E. Coli bacteria from human animal waste. All of that is causing dysentery, typhoid, salt poisoning, arsenic poisoning. And all of the people who work here argue over what killed the English the most. I, as a political historian, would argue it's bad leadership. But clearly there's all these factors.

[Mark Summers]

Well, that leads to a lot of bad choices. But climate is a huge factor even then.

[Friend 2]

Very huge factor.

[Don Wildman]

I'll be right back after this short break.

[Mark Summers]

Meantime, if you'd like us to cover anything specifically, if you have any ideas.

[Don Wildman]

Of subject matter we should be looking.

[Mark Summers]

At, send us an email at. Ahh, history hit.com we'd love to hear from you.

[Flight Attendant]

Ladies and gentlemen, we are now boarding. Group A, please have your boarding passes ready to scan. If your phone is cracked old or was chewed up by your Chihuahua travel companion, please refrain from holding up the line and instead simply go to Verizon and trade in any phone in any condition from one of their top brands. For the new Samsung Galaxy S25 plus with Galaxy AI on Unlimited ultimate and Watch or tap also on them Service plan required for Watch or Tap, trade in and additional terms apply. See verizon.com for details.

[Friend 2]

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[Friend 1]

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[Mark Summers]

Tell me about how Captain John Smith, who he really emerges as a much more sophisticated guy than people thought of him at the time. Right?

[Friend 2]

Correct. So he's going to be to answer, you know, an earlier question, I mean, like well how. How did they get better? Because I'm just naming all the mistakes that kill off two thirds of the people the first year. Yeah, well, to just list them, they're dying of disease, they have poor supplies, they have a king who doesn't care, a company pressuring them for money, a hostile relationship with the local population. And their first two leaders, Wingfield and Radcliffe, are fired essentially for incompetence. So John Smith does kind of emerge because on the governing council, he's essentially the last man standing that didn't die, quit or got fired. And he sort of, even before he officially becomes the boss, he becomes a de facto kind of strongman. Now why? Right, because one of the things a lot of Americans don't know about John Smith, because he's seen as this romantic figure or he's seen as somebody in a cartoon. Well, I had teachers who didn't like him because he wrote six books, books about himself. He is from Lincolnshire for your non UK audience. He's from the most rural county in England. He is a small farmer's son. He's Luke Skywalker who wants off the planet. He becomes a soldier of fortune. He survives three wars by the time he's 25. He fights the Turks in Romania and gets a coat of arms by beheading three Turks in duels. That's a gruesome reminder. Don't mess with me.

[Mark Summers]

Yeah.

[Friend 2]

And he's very American in the sense because he is a nobody trying to become a somebody. Therefore he's obnoxious, he brags about himself, he's self made, he's likable today for many Americans, but at the time he's a threat and a danger to the class system. But in a rural environment, away from London, John Smith's negatives in England, rural, lower class, origins, self made, ambitious, those very traits become useful positive traits in Virginia.

[Mark Summers]

Yeah. And that vibe certainly is felt among his fellow settlers, but also is felt by the native people who come and meet him. Right, right.

[Friend 2]

So I mean, he's seen already through, you know, remember the Palatine have a pretty good intelligence network. They recognize this guy seems to be a stronger leader. For example, Smith. And I'll switch to the Palatine in a minute because the Smith does orchestrate the building of army barracks when you mentioned what were they living in? So he purries the favor of his own troops. He also has a work order that he that will not work shall not eat. So a lot of the gentlemen weren't willing to do labor. He's going to force them to do labor. But the problem with Smith is he has fixed the labor problem and he's fixed the housing problem, but he has to find a source of food. Now you can rely on London gentlemen to grow crops, but he knows that's not a good idea. He's always, by the way, complaining about Londoners. He is somebody who's aware that the supply ships might be too late if they show up at all. So he recognizes he needs to trade with the Powhatan. The Powhatan can easily give the order. Don't trade with the English. Now, as a betting man, he says, well, there's 30 tribes I bet I could find one I can play ball with. And he does.

[Mark Summers]

We've already mentioned the late arrival of these ships. That's going to affect everything from, certainly the growing of crops. You know, getting crops into the ground, which I suppose was the idea, right, that they would get there in the early spring and suddenly in the summer they'd have plenty to eat. But that doesn't really happen that way, does it?

[Friend 2]

Right. They're kind of suggested to trade with the locals, but they also know that that's a bad policy because you can't rely on the friendship of others who may not want you there. So they're supposed to very quickly get their own crops together. I think the problem is in the recruiting. They recruited too many urban people. And actually, it's funny because Smith does say this. He says, can you please stop sending me people from London? Send me people from Lincolnshire, Lancashire. So I tell Americans, John Smith is essentially. Who's the modern John Smith? If he was American, he would be a staff sergeant from Alabama who's done three tours in Iraq. He hates the Pentagon, and he's saying, stop sending me New Yorkers or people from L. A. Give me some guys from Montana and Arkansas. I mean, that's what he's kind of saying, you know. But the problem is that's not who they recruited. And so they. I. I think more than even the lack of experience, it's not recruiting the right people. It's relying too much on gentlemen, relying too much on people whose families are connected. And I think that's a fatal mistake. The wrong people are here.

[Mark Summers]

You mentioned the supply ships. When are they supposed to have come?

[Friend 2]

There's usually a cycle every four to six months that they should expect supplies. But remember, I think a lot of people aren't aware just how much corruption there is. Sometimes sailors would trade away the food. They would pilfer it. There were also occasions where ships could be late, they could wreck in a hurricane. I think we've even seen this in recent times. You know, think about the fear that people have when they're stranded on a space station. Too much. It requires constant resupply. Now, we live in a world, we have communication, and if there's A problem, it instantly can be solved. But imagine 400 years ago, if a ship is late, you don't know, you can't guarantee where your next meal is coming from and you don't have the people to be self reliant yet. So this is why Smith is going to do what to many seems rash, which is to engage the Palatan people, which will lead to a great story about his capture.

[Mark Summers]

Exactly.

[Don Wildman]

Before.

[Mark Summers]

I just want to understand the logistics. By the fall, have they kind of settled into a routine? Because it's going to be a couple years before anybody goes home. Right.

[Friend 2]

They're supposed to follow its own routine. But the problem is the fall of 1607 is when they're. They lost two thirds of their people.

[Mark Summers]

Oh my goodness.

[Friend 2]

There seems to be a lot of malaise, almost an emotional death. There seems to be. You know, I can't just blame the laziness on the class system. I think it's partly sickness, it's weakness, it's fear being ripped off. I think a lot of people aren't aware that when people wrote letters complaining about Jamestown, the company would censor the mail because they didn't want the investors to pull out. I think the real flaw in Jamestown is in the boardroom when they first planned it. And I think what makes Smith remarkable is I think he's saying, I don't care what they say, we gotta survive and this is what we gotta do. So I think that Lincolnshire, rural education. I also think that time being a mercenary, he had once been enslaved by the Turks. I think those life experiences have sort of taught him we can't be listening to the company. If we want to survive, we gotta do this. He does attempt to trade. There's a tribe called Chickahominy. They're very close by. James Dam. Long story short, they're neutral. They're not officially Powhatan yet. So that's a smart move, engage them, trade copper for food. He does it several times. But on his last journey to them in December 1607, he hires a couple men to be his guides. There's a couple Englishmen with him. They're in a small little boat rowing up the river. It's called the Chickamanee river. It's about 20 miles from Richmond. It's funny because there's a gas station there. Anyway, we have a lot of gas stations on history sites. But what he does is he stops the boat, gets out, takes one of the guides with him, says, okay, you guys stay here by the stuff. You don't know where this guide is taking you. And Smith is wearing armor, probably a red cape, a big feather in his helmet and he's going through the woods. If I'm the guide, I might be taking this guy intentionally to his death, we don't know. But they cross a border into the tribe called Pamunkey. And they're the most powerful Palatan nation. Opechankanu, Palatan's brother, is the war chief. They're out hunting and Smith is surrounded by what he calls 200 warriors. And he claims that he used his guide as a shield and fought them off by himself for several hours. You know that he's exaggerating, but if he's taken prisoner, it's because he's high ranking. And they take him after a 60 day period to a place called Wermacomoco, that's Powhatan's village where he meets the great chief. Now that's the story that many people know. They know a very famous legend I'm about to mention. And it's Smith spends his time in this large village that we know in archaeology existed for 600 years. It's palisaded. He sat on the floor of a large house so there's enough food to feed a hundred men. And he sees Powhatan, 60 year old Palatin with his feathers, with his deerskin robe, with his copper and his pearls sitting above him the way a king sits above a commoner. Now Smith claims I'm charming the old man, but he also claims in a later book that he was dragged out of the village about to be murdered. And of course 10 year old Pocahontas, daughter of the chief, comes out of nowhere. And I'm saying this facetiously, I as a kid, you know, supposed to believe that 10 year old Pocahontas throws off full grown warriors like NFL defensive end and scoops up Smith into her loving arms. Daddy, don't kill him.

[Mark Summers]

Sure.

[Friend 2]

Of course the real story is probably more interesting, whatever it is, because there's various versions, but I liken it to more like this. Chief Powhatan can snap his fingers and kill Smith and he can snap his fingers and rescue Smith. It's a power move. In other words, to borrow from a film, I'm going to make you an offer you can't refuse. I'm going to provide you with food, but I want you to know you, the English are a conquered people. In other words, you are being absorbed by my empire. I'm your king, not James. You pay me tribute. So when the English start Being fed by the Powhatan, which we know from oral history, written history, and physical archaeological evidence. We do know they're being fed corn, beans, squash, venison, turkey. Never make the mistake of thinking that's free. Yeah, all conquered peoples pay tribute. The English are supposed to give up copper, metal tools. And of course, the Paladin want their guns or at least access to them. That's how Powhatan and Smith keep the peace.

[Mark Summers]

Right. Peace through strength, I suppose, is the old cliche.

[Friend 2]

Right, right. And it's trying to remind Americans not to see the Palatin as weak because there's a tendency to say, well, they're innocent people in the forest, you know, yes, they were victimized by this story, but they weren't weak and they weren't going to lay down. These are people who resisted, but they also are in a stronger position early on. Just because we know the end of the story doesn't mean we know the beginning. They're playing a political game where the English might be annoying, but they have a source of copper and they have a source of weapons we might have access to. So feeding them temporarily is not a bad move. If you can control this, I liken it to controlling a fire. Just make sure you don't have that. Fire burned down the forest. And to seal that deal, both sides would trade boys to serve as translators, since young people can learn a language quicker. So this is how Smith is really a good leader, despite his negative qualities until his removal.

[Mark Summers]

And how there are long, sustained periods of peace. Right. The conflict continues, but it will come up and down based on who they're dealing with, Right?

[Friend 2]

Correct. Because Chief Powhatan is always reminding the English to his translators, I gave you a good deal.

[Mark Summers]

Yeah.

[Friend 2]

I'll let you live on my land. I overruled my local chiefs. You had to pay me tribute. Smith's a tough warrior. He can run you. He's like a chief of mine. Yeah, that's how he sees it. But, you know, remember, the Virginia Company doesn't see it that way. They see the English attempts to trade with the Palatine as a weakness. They see the attempts to negotiate his weakness. They see Smith's leadership as actually a negative, not a positive. And he will be fired for it.

[Mark Summers]

It's got to be reassuring that there aren't many ships coming and many more men getting off these ships and settling. It's not a growing colony through these years.

[Friend 2]

Correct. And I think you have to keep in mind the Palatin worldview is going to be limited in what they know. I mean, they know, I don't want to oversell this. They are aware of Europeans, they are aware of different tribes of Europeans. They know the Spanish and English aren't the same. But they don't get the full intelligence of who they're dealing with until several years later. A couple Powhatan advisors are sent on the ships with the English. And one makes it back and lets Chief Powhatan know. I've seen London, there's more people than the stars.

[Mark Summers]

Right.

[Friend 2]

You don't know who you're dealing with. And POW10's politics shifts radically once he gathers intelligence about who he's really dealing with. Oh, they're more dangerous than I thought.

[Mark Summers]

There's a fateful explosion, isn't there, in the fall of 1609.

[Friend 2]

Correct. If I want to be safe, I'll call it an accident. But I don't always like to be safe because I think that it's very suspicious. I want you to know that Smith has been fired from his position by the Virginia Company. But his replacement has not arrived.

[Mark Summers]

Why was he fired?

[Friend 2]

Well, I mean, they mentioned that he, you know, he's making the sons of noblemen work with their hands. He's very heavy handed. He's negotiating with a foreign prince. They use an uglier word. I think in many ways they see the very things I just praised him for as weakness. But obviously he also made very powerful enemies. Imagine making somebody's nephew work really hard. And they have connections, sure. So there's lots of factors, but he's removed from power. But the key words is he refused to leave and then he ends up on a small boat and his gunpowder just happens to blow up. And the official report says it's an accident, but I'm very suspicious of that accident. So there is an accident and his number one enemy, George Percy takes command. Now to be conspiracy theorist. Percy has two relatives involved in the gunpowder plot against King James. So I don't know, but it does seem suspicious. Now to be fair, Smith doesn't die. They ship him back to England. But it does explain why he spends the rest of his life writing books. Pretty negative about Jamestown. He's still upset about what happened.

[Mark Summers]

Well, he leaves in October 1609. Things get really bad in the following year.

[Friend 2]

Right. So I consider that two things are going on. The Powhatan recognize the English aren't worth the trouble. In other words, the fire is burning out of control and Smith is gone. So obviously there was some respect of Smith's ability as a leader and a warrior in Many ways, I think the Palatin respected him more than English. And the fact that they wait for his departure is very telling. And essentially, they throw down a siege. The English ships are gone. They throw down a siege outside the range of the guns and cannons. They patrol the river, and anyone attempting to leave will be shot. And so this, more than even the climate, is the true cause of what's called the starving time period.

[Mark Summers]

And describe what happens during that period. It's due to a drought, right?

[Friend 2]

Drought is a factor. Military siege is a factor. Incompetent leadership is a factor. All those are factors. Right. But what you also have is there was a fleet that was supposed to resupply Jamestown that wrecked in a hurricane. So six of the nine ships make it with a bunch of civilians, including now women and children, without any supplies. So you have a worsening food situation. You have a leadership vacuum. You have an angry Powhatan population. There are too many people in around the fort. Once the food is cut off, once the trade is gone, and once the siege is set, that population of over 3 to 400 is whittled down to 60 in 60 months. And we are told by the survivors, they ate cats and snakes, rats, dogs, mice, even our dead fellows. And I will assure you that all of that evidence, including cannibalism, has been proven by archaeologists in the last decade.

[Mark Summers]

Wow. Through digging up what you know to be those people at that time, we.

[Friend 2]

Found one individual, a young woman that had eight of the nine criteria for survival. Cannibalism, if you look her up, we named her Jane. We don't know her real name. Found in a cellar in 2012. This is the same year the English found Richard III. It was the same story, same time period, and found through the markings on her skull, in the context that she was a victim of cannibalism. And we have horse bones and dog bones by the dozens. So the physical evidence and the written evidence, even without the physical evidence, as an historian, when six writers all tell you something that makes them look bad, you know, people don't tend to make up bad things about themselves. So all of that was proven 10 years ago.

[Mark Summers]

So somehow 60 people, hang on, they finally broker a piece. Is that fair to say?

[Friend 2]

Well, with the siege ends, because technically the palatin have to lift the siege to go back to farming. I think they assume they've killed the English off. And those that survived just happened to get rescued in the nick of time in May to June of 1610. It's also a complicated story. So when he mentioned the Fleet of nine ships. Well, one ship called the Sea Venture missed the starving time because they crashed in Bermuda. And this is the founding story of why Bermuda is still British. Took them eight months, they built a couple ships there. They arrived to find the colony in disarray, and they attempt to feed these people. And then they want to abandon Jamestown. What's very complicated is yet another fleet arrives in June of 1610. Says, you're going back where you came from. It's led by a titled lord named Lord Delaware. And this man, Thomas West, Lord Delaware, is going to give the order to clean up the fort of its garbage, which is why we have all these artifacts today. Introduce martial law and essentially treat the Paladin like the Irish. By engaging in catter insurgency, by knocking out every village within 20 miles of Jamestown, it will start a major war.

[Mark Summers]

This is. We've already mentioned her. Pocahontas, related to the John Smith story, which is a legend in itself. But the Disney version of Pocahontas begins at this point. Many years have passed, or several years have passed. We're down the road. Explain before we get into this very famous episode, what are the relations with the native population at this point?

[Friend 2]

They're going to be pretty much bad from 1607 to 1614 with the brief period of peace when Smith's running the show. In other words, when there's trade, there's peace, but there's more conflict, sporadic conflict. Pocahontas pops in and out of the story. So she's involved with Smith, as he refers her, like a precocious child, not as someone he's in love with. She's a little kid, but she certainly is a curious child. She seems to be a diplomat of sorts that go between the English and the palatan. But by 1610, what's happened is its gloves off. It is direct counterinsurgency warfare against the Powhatan. And the Powhatan do the same thing in response. They take to the forest, they ambush the English. And what happens is from 1610 to 1614, we don't hear from Pocahontas much because they're not trading anymore. There's this constant warfare, like Southeast asia in the 1960s, where there's no front lines, where anyone can be a target, whatever gender, whatever age, whatever ethnicity is not a constant war. But there's a threat and there's these reprisals and counter reprisals, and it's bad for business on both sides.

[Mark Summers]

What a misery. I mean, it just sounds awful, right?

[Friend 2]

So what ends up happening is Pocahontas comes back into our story. In 1613, during the war, Pocahontas was, according to Palestinian oral tradition, married to a Native American man in what's called the patawmac village near D.C. potomac, probably to bring that tribe into Powhatan's orbit. She's now about 17. An English privateer essentially uses gunboat diplomacy to capture her and hold her hostage. So her father will negotiate and Powhatan won't negotiate for his daughter's release. Well, he'd have to give up so much, he'd lose face. So it puts Pocahontas into the hands of the English during the war longer than she was supposed to. Long enough for her to learn English language. She wears English clothing. She's baptized as an English Christian. The problem with that is we don't know her point of view. We know the English point of view, that she's become one of us at that moment. John Rolfe, he missed the starving time he was in Bermuda, who happens to be the same fellow playing the tobacco that will make this colony successful, says he falls in love with her. Now, whatever she thinks about him politically, and I'm a political historian, if you're Chief Paladin and if you're the English in command at Jamestown and you both need the war to end.

[Mark Summers]

Yeah.

[Friend 2]

And you both need to save face. Allowing Rolf and Pocahontas to marry is the perfect way for both sides to leave behind the weapons, go back to business, and either one looks bad.

[Mark Summers]

It's an old story.

[Friend 2]

Yeah. So it's just like what would happen to Europe. It's a political union. And it does happen on the 5th of April, 1614. And we know the spot where it happened. We found the site.

[Mark Summers]

Wow. Really? Where is it?

[Friend 2]

So it's in Jamestown's first church. There's other candidates, but they mention having the wedding at the church at the Capitol. And there is a 60 by 24 foot outline we found of Jamestown's first church. And the wedding would have occurred there, probably because it's political and there would have been Powhatan and English people in attendance. So I think it's interesting to notice that the war began when Lord Delaware made a speech in the same spot. In other words, we could show you the spot where the war began and ended on the same spot in a four year period.

[Mark Summers]

Wow. And does she end up back in London?

[Friend 2]

Right. So it ends up. You know, you got to think what a PR move this is for the English. So Rolf and Pocahontas, marriage, whether it's a love story or not does lead to seven years of peaceful relations. It also is the peaceful relations that allows for the English to expand their population, make a whole lot of money off tobacco, and create a representative government in 1619. In the process, though, Right. If you want to curry favor with the English people, Rolfe and Pocahontas go to England and what we would call today a PR trip. They're trying to get money from the church. They didn't really mention the church much earlier. Now we've converted the daughter of a king to Christianity, the church might end up kind of helping to sponsor this colony. She meets the king and queen. There's a play written in her honor. She's a celebrity, just like when Elizabeth ii came here 15 years ago. Problem is, they already have a child named Thomas Rolfe. On her way back to Virginia, she's sick on the Thames river and she dies and is buried in graves in England, which is in Kent, England. Her actual gravesite not known, but that is what happens to her. And she dies in England at the age of 22.

[Mark Summers]

Was she a charismatic woman? Did she engage with the society or.

[Friend 2]

Yeah, I think she's seen as very charming. I mean, I'll put it this way. Even though a lot of her story is legendary in conjecture, what we do know about it is when people quote her second hand, she seems like someone who speaks very regally, you know, thinks before she says something politically, but is also somebody who seems to be able to charm the King and Queen of England. Rolf is seen as a commoner, so she is seen by the English people as much higher ranking than John Rolfe. And she might be seen as more higher ranking than her own culture does.

[Mark Summers]

She's a princess, Right?

[Friend 2]

Right. The English see her as that. And I definitely think the English see her as a PR opportunity for their purposes.

[Mark Summers]

Does Rolf go back after he comes back with her or not?

[Friend 2]

Yeah, he's a businessman. I mean, anyway, he leaves his child to be raised in England. He comes right back here. You got to keep in mind, in this timeline, they plant to back in 1612, shipped 400 pounds a year in 1614, and by 1620, they're shipping 25,000 pounds.

[Mark Summers]

Wow.

[Friend 2]

So Rolf is somebody who, long story short, goes from a nobody to a somebody very quickly.

[Mark Summers]

Yeah, I mean, he's really the reason that tobacco takes off in England. Right, right.

[Friend 2]

We are tied to a cash crop that remains Virginia's number one money making crop until something like 2006, 7, 9, something like that.

[Don Wildman]

That's incredible.

[Friend 2]

There's consequences to that, but foreign.

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[Mark Summers]

Powden the chief that we know Powhatan through most of the story actually passes away. He was a 60 year old guy when they arrived. He is replaced by a man named I'll leave the pronunciation to you, Opechankanu.

[Friend 2]

Yeah, this is another thing. So Opechankanu is not exactly next in line. He's a War Chief. He's a George Patton. He's William Wallace. He's Crazy Horse. He's a War Chief. Every culture has them. So there's a brother called Apichapan that's supposed to be in charge, but you can get the impression he's pushed aside by Opechancanoe. Right. And that should have been a signal to the English. This isn't good because he is a war chief. He captured John Smith. He has a reputation for being a fighter. He's over six feet tall. He's a tough guy. Now I swear to you, it's almost as if the man read Sun Tzu. Because one of the principles of Sun Tzu is if you want to defeat your enemy, convince him of your weakness. Sure.

[Mark Summers]

The art of war, Right?

[Friend 2]

Right. And so Opechanguru visits Jamestown. Unlike his brother, he visits four times. And basically every time, he tells the English, I will be your friend till the sky falls. He tells them, your culture, your religion, your language, all your ways are superior to ours. We should be more like you. And you can read the English letters where they completely buy it.

[Mark Summers]

Yeah.

[Friend 2]

Oh, well, see what the good we're doing. But he's got something he's planting.

[Mark Summers]

They had already been planting tobacco, obviously. I mean, that's where the English learned it from. Had they been growing it on a large scale, did they see what the English were doing with it and understood the threat?

[Friend 2]

Yeah. This is another thing that's kind of not always taught in Virginia. So there already is tobacco in Virginia. And that's a good point. It's called rustica. It had a bitter flavor, and it was mildly hallucinogenic. So the English didn't care for the local brand. They were, since 1560, interested in the milder Caribbean bread. But the problem is they're addicted to something sold by the number one enemy. The Spanish had cornered the market. So once Rolf finds the Spanish tobacco seeds, we don't know where. I guess it's probably Bermuda. Once he cultivates it in Virginia and realizes that this milder, more popular blend, well, think about it. You can cut the Spanish out of the business now. It's a business with a reputation, and I mean this very carefully, since my own grandfather was a tobacco inspector. But, you know, in England, it did have a drug business reputation. The king wrote various pamphlets against its usage. But you got to think of it geopolitically. If we have our customers in England buying it from the Spanish, that's not good. We got a source in Virginia, then we can basically corner the English smoking market in Virginia alone. And that's why it's so successful.

[Mark Summers]

And this mercantile leap forward we can chalk up to the marriage with Pocket Haas. It was that peace that came in because of her and John Rolfe marrying that allowed this new business to take hold over time, Right?

[Friend 2]

Correct. Right. Because you're acquiring new land, you have peace of relations. You now have a guaranteed way to make money. I should say they abandoned martial law. They returned to common law, which we still have the United States representing a government. We still have the United States. All of this is tied to reforms based on making Money off tobacco and maximizing the amount of people willing to come here so they can grow it and profit off.

[Mark Summers]

Wow.

[Friend 2]

No one wants to come here and starve and no one wants to come here live under military rule. And no one wants to come here when there's a major war going on. So if you have peace represented government and you reform the charter, allow for private land ownership, you can see why. Now people in England see it as a more attractive opportunity, of course, but.

[Mark Summers]

This new chief is going to stand up. A new wave of resistance will happen around 1622. So there was this peaceful almost 10 years, eight years at least, of time, thanks to Pocahontas and Rolfe and other events as well, that allowed for the growing of tobacco. Sort of an entrenchment of a new kind of business model. And off we went. At that point, Opochenko Nu launches an attack.

[Friend 2]

Right now you gotta think that he's probably bided his time for several years. Remember, he spent years convincing the English of the peace and his own weakness. But you have to keep in mind that, you know, all the stuff I mentioned is a great deal for the English. It's a fantastic deal for the English. It's the very economic, political and judicial foundation. The United States is already here. But it's a bad deal for the Powhatan because the simple question is, where's the land coming from? Yeah, right. And so as the population pushes, by the way, they go from Jamestown to a 90 mile stretch of the James river between what is now Virginia beach and Richmond within a decade. That's an enormous fast rate of growth. If you are the Palatin leadership, you see this as a long term threat. You ultimately can't win. So you have to use this last ditch effort. And what that is, is the English were used to it. There's a lot of these western settlements west of here. They were used to seeing Palatine warriors eat breakfast with them. They were used to the sight that they may have known these people by name.

[Mark Summers]

Sure.

[Friend 2]

March 22, 1622, 8 to 8:30 in the morning on a 90 mile front along dozens of settlements. Simultaneously, these warriors took weapons, BL instruments and killed every English person they found, man, woman and child within a couple hours.

[Mark Summers]

300 settlers killed.

[Friend 2]

Yeah, it was nearly a third to a fourth of the population nearly instantaneously. And the targets selected were economic targets like the ironworks, political targets such as this school that was being used to teach Palatan children Christianity. But again, negative connotations with the parents losing their children. And also Jamestown was attacked, but it was worn ahead of time. So Jamestown managed to survive, but the outlying settlements were wiped out within a day.

[Mark Summers]

And this initiates a period of war of 10 years. Right, right.

[Friend 2]

I mean, again, there are so many global parallels today and in the past. But what tends to happen is the English initially are shocked. Right. One can't blame them. Shock, saddened, all that. But then, of course, that sense of anger grows. First they start blaming their own leaders for failure. But what happens is King James finally steps in and says to the Virginia company, any weapon you want in the tower of London is yours. They start recruiting more people in London. All these genealogies people bring to me, why'd my family come here in 1623? They're recruiting people to replace those who died. And if you hit us, we're going to hit you back times ten. Search and destroy. So it escalates to a major counter attack.

[Mark Summers]

But important to keep in mind, the backdrop of this is in England, that's not doing well. You know, civically. It's in the midst of wars. The civil war period of England is going on at this time.

[Friend 2]

Oh, it's coming. Yeah. I mean, all this. I think it's interesting to note that it is interesting to watch James finally care. And perhaps it's. His name's on it. Perhaps it's the reputation of the English. Perhaps they've made so much money, they don't want to give it up, because I think they assume that if they ever leave, the Spanish will swoop right in or the Dutch or something, because all those other countries are aware of the Chesapeake. So much money has been invested, so much blood has been invested. This is the moment where no, we're going to counterattack and see this through. You know, had this uprising occurred 10.

[Mark Summers]

Years earlier, they would have wiped them out.

[Friend 2]

It's probably more successful. Yeah.

[Mark Summers]

There's another big attack, 1644. Another three to 400 people killed out of, at that point, 800 settlers.

[Friend 2]

There's a huge population growth that does occur. I think what's ironic is Opechenkuru was presumed to be dead. And in 1644 tradition is that he was carried in a stretcher in his 90s and launched an even bigger attack. He was captured in this last war and put to death by his guard illegally. And the reservations we have in Virginia today date from 1646, that very war.

[Mark Summers]

Wow. So at that point, when Opicenkanu dies, what then happens? Is there a brokered peace? Is it really official that way? Or just things keep going?

[Friend 2]

Oh, it's official. Yeah. Would say is this is similar to even British history. So you've conquered the Powhatan, they become vassal states.

[Mark Summers]

Oh, okay.

[Friend 2]

So there's a treaty where the surviving tribes essentially are under the protection of the English Crown. They have designated reservation lands, and of course, the lands that are taken over by the English then get carved up into new settlements. But the surviving Palatin tribes are essentially client states of the English. And what ends up happening as time goes on is there's other encounters with other peoples. For example, the Susquehannocks and others to the west and north. And the surviving Powhatan nations will end up eventually being caught in the middle of conflict between westward pushing settlers and incursions from other Native American groups. But the Palatin do not rise up against the English ever again after 1644.

[Mark Summers]

What is the relationship between Jamestown and, say, Massachusetts Bay Colony and the other English settlements?

[Friend 2]

Yeah, they're more aware of each other. So, you know, maybe your listeners are thinking, well, I learned about Plymouth. I didn't learn about Jamestown. If you're from the American south, it's the same thing in reverse. You know, we never learned about Plymouth. Well, anyway, we have this rivalry that I find very silly because the rivalry between Plymouth and Jamestown is completely a byproduct of the American Civil War. It is not a rivalry at the time. It is simply another settlement. There were several people at Jamestown that ended up in Plymouth. My own ancestor, Stephen Hopkins, is on the Mayflower. He was at Jamestown. John Clark, the pilot of the Mayflower, was once a river pilot in Virginia. And the Eilerton family had a son and ended up becoming a Virginia tobacco planter. So there's actually several people that trade colonies. It's like if you had two corporate space stations on Mars. They might be funded by different sources, but they're going to talk to each other, they're going to share people. They're going to be from the same country. So I don't think there's this rivalry. In fact, when 1622 happens, the pilgrims in Plymouth actually learn from it and say, we might want to improve our defenses. Even though those two, those are not linked with the Native Americans in New England, they kind of say, well, maybe we don't want to fall into the same trap. So they are clearly aware of each other and they are communicating with each other.

[Mark Summers]

And right in the middle, there's the Dutch New Netherland right there.

[Friend 2]

It's a land grab. Once this foothold of Jamestown is there, it's very quickly Lots of Europeans get into the game.

[Mark Summers]

It is the success, particularly the tobacco, that encourages other colonists to say, hey, we can do something. In the Dutch, it's of course, furs and that sort of thing. But that's the idea is that they, they can do this and make money doing it. So for 30 years or so, things settle down. Lands are subdivided, estates are started. I imagine we have what's called Bacon's Rebellion, 1676.

[Friend 2]

So one thing that might help your listeners and I do this with teachers and students, is I want you to think of Virginia history as a very big book. And I want you to consider the Jamestown story. When we say Jamestown, we catch all mean the 17th century, I should say. But think of it as the first three chapters of that book. And most what we've talked about in this podcast or even at our park is really chapter one. John Smith, Poconos, there's a fort. Chapter two is the 1620s. They turn into a wooden town. Tobacco grows. So I want you to think of chapter three. Jamestown proper becomes a brick city. The Palatine had been defeated. The colony essentially spreads to all of eastern Virginia. You also have the rise of indentured servants doing most of the labor. You have Africans being forced into slavery, even when it's not quite legal yet. So you have this growing black population, this poor white population. You have people moving farther west who are poor because the rich people had the better land. That's going to push people who are native north and west and south, and that's going to lead to tensions. Now all this is connected because what you have is you now start having older families become kind of a gentry and an elite. At Jamestown, the establishment, if you want to call them that. You have poor people, white and black and middle class, pushing to the west. You have new groups of Native Americans feeling offended by this land grant. And you have this sense that people in the frontier aren't being listened to by the people in the urbane part of eastern Virginia. Again, there's so many parallels today. But anyway, what happens is, and it's a very complicated story to me, as complicated as the Russian Revolution or Mexican Revolution. But my Cliff note version will be there are raids by small tribe called the Doegs from Maryland. The English in Virginia and them are accusing each other of stealing. The English try to kill them and end up attacking Susquehannocks by mistake, which leads to this. And that's the last group you want to offend.

[Mark Summers]

Yeah, right.

[Friend 2]

Large scale attacks on the western frontier. It's the poor people being Killed in the west, by the way. Wild west means Richmond and Fredericksburg. And what is the government going to do about it? We'll build you forts, we'll raise your taxes. We're not going to let you have a militia. And what ends up happening is the frontiers people, the rural people, and rural and urban politics. Whatever side you guys are on has always been very similar, rural versus urban. So the rural people are like, we're gonna kill these people ourselves. The establishment under Governor Barclays. No, you're not. And they end up fighting each other in what's called Bacon's Rebellion. Again, very simplification. It leads to the burning down to Jamestown, which it never really recovers from. The rebellion is crushed, but it leads to all this upheaval. It's when laws are passed to separate white and black. It's when the final treaties with the Powhatan are actually negotiated, where the English government apologizes for everything they did, which has never happened before. And it's where, long story short, the 17th century Virginia becomes the 18th, 19th century Virginia that you recognize. In other words, the American south as you know it is being born out of the ashes of this Civil War. So Virginia could have turned out to be more like New England or some other place had this Bacon's ability not transformed the racial, political, social laws into a more aristocratic version.

[Mark Summers]

Amazing. Incredible how the name Bacon has been such an important Daniel Bacon.

[Friend 2]

Yeah, it wasn't over food, it was just the guy's name. But yeah, but definitely. And it's interesting to note the English Civil War certainly is being paid attention to in Virginia. And I definitely think the rebels here see what Cromwell does and says, you know, we could do the same thing to our aristocrats. So there is connections. Those news stories are getting there and inspiring people to rebel.

[Mark Summers]

But at heart, it's a class warfare, is it not?

[Friend 2]

There's a lot of that, even though Bacon himself was upper class. How many times are rebellions of the poor led by aristocrats? They used to say condescend to the poor. That's a classic story, but Bacon is a very self interested man. I don't know if he would have kept his promises to the servants and slaves he intended to free. Whether he's self interested or he really does care about the people. But the people are angry for a reason. And you know, the government rightly doesn't want to escalate a war either for a reason. But it just shows you that actually there's more upheaval when the English fight each other. In Virginia than when they're fighting anyone else.

[Mark Summers]

Wow. Interesting. So what's the upshot of this period of time, you say an entirely new kind of governance takes place.

[Friend 2]

Yeah. So by the 1650s and 60s, post English civil War, many of the people in Virginia supported the crown during the English Civil War. The Cavaliers. That's when the Lees, the Carters, the Washingtons, these famous families get here. They're royalist refugees. One reminder is the University of Virginia is known as the Cavaliers. And our nickname, the Old Dominion State, comes from Charles II telling us we're loyal to.

[Mark Summers]

I didn't know that.

[Friend 2]

Yeah. So those are little anecdotes, but the poor were a little different on that. And I definitely think people who are not well to do noticing that. Yeah. Well, if a king can be beheaded in England, what's the governor? What's a tobacco planter? I've noticed that during the English Civil War period, there was a rise in indentured servants and enslaved Africans rebelling and running away. So people are clearly hearing, you don't like people in charge, you can do something about it. Well, at the end of the day, eventually the aristocrats win. And when they win, they create a social, political, plantation order that by the end of the 1600s, looks like the antebellum self. That's what emerges. But see, early Jamestown didn't have to turn out like that. So the early period is interesting because this whole story could have turned out much differently.

[Mark Summers]

So it's really the English Civil War that creates the fundamentals of the plantation system in the South. Tobacco is at first, but then that's replaced by cotton. And there you go.

[Friend 2]

Yeah, because all these other southern colonies were instantly peel off. Virginia.

[Mark Summers]

Yeah.

[Friend 2]

I mean, you know, those elements we mentioned are already there, social and economic. But the separation of people into races, slavery being legalized, the putting people on reservations, having a 5% elite, and everybody else is poor. Notice how different this is going to turn out than those New England colonies.

[Mark Summers]

Right.

[Friend 2]

So you start to recognize the aristocratic Virginia, the stereotypical plantation gentility culture, all of that. That's being born out of the refugees of the English Civil War who have their own civil war and win and creates a very different society than those New England colonies that will have. I'll put you this way. Winston Churchill once said that the American Civil War was caused by the English Civil War, and he made a very good argument of how. And if you go back to Jamestown, you will see it.

[Mark Summers]

I just put a big piece of the jigsaw puzzle in There and went, wow. There I did the sky. Tell us where it lands. All for the Native American tribes, though, at this point, because we've talked so much about poetry.

[Friend 2]

Sure. It ultimately is the beginning of the end of the Powhatan culture. So the Powhatan Tribe, there are nine that are still recognized today out of the original 30. Many of them died of disease or merged into other existing groups. Two to this day, have reservations, but they never rise up against English again. Nevertheless, you know, their history in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries is one of trying to remind folks we're still here. And in many. For many decades, Virginia did not recognize Native American as a racial category. Many Palatin descendants up until 1970 could not go to high school in Virginia or college. So many of them went to North Carolina or Pennsylvania to boarding schools or married into Cherokee families. Many Palatan descendants ended up in Philadelphia during World War II. It's only in the last decade that our Virginia tribes have been getting federal recognition and actually sending people to college and law school and getting land back. But it's only been within the last few years. And notice how even people like me are telling better stories based on being more aware of that oral history and tradition. Because we're having conversations with people from this background where a. In 1970, at Jamestown, that wasn't happening. You weren't getting that point of view.

[Mark Summers]

Had there originally been an expectation that the Native. The indigenous populations would become the labor force for the expansion of this white kingdom that was going to be planted here?

[Friend 2]

Right there seems to be. It's part of why the English are writing down so many Palatin words. For example, many of your audience don't realize how much Algonquin they speak. Moccasin, powwow, tomahawk, raccoon. Those words enter the English language at Jamestown, these trade words. There's a guy called William Strachey who writes a dictionary of about 600 words or so. He's starting to write. This is ironic. The English are saying we should be more like the Spanish. You know how like they always said, we'll never be the Spanish. Some of them start saying we need to be more like the Spanish. Again, complicated subject, but what's called the encomienda system, which. The best way to describe it, it's Mexico. If we knock out the Native American leadership but keep the Native American base population, then our tribe called the English, becomes the top of the pyramid, and that labor and resources goes up to us. That's not what ends up happening in Virginia, but the Fact that there are people saying that's what we should do shows you really what's behind the law of the trade and even the conversion of Pocahontas is to attempt to, irony of ironies, be more like the Spanish when they spent decades saying, we'll never be the Spanish.

[Mark Summers]

But it's the resistance of those tribes that prevents this from happening.

[Friend 2]

Correct? That and the use of English servant labor. But also Africa.

[Mark Summers]

That's what I'm saying. The door is open for the need for labor. And that's all been established down in the Caribbean. So that's brought up. And suddenly we have the real building blocks of what becomes the 18th, 19th century.

[Friend 2]

Right. And again, this is, again, a whole nother episod. Caribbean actually has a huge influence. Barbados and Bermuda have a huge influence on Virginia policy. We always presume that we're telling them what to do, but it's actually, in many cases those Caribbean colonies are influencing Virginia's racial and economic policies as time goes on.

[Mark Summers]

Mark, this is such exciting stuff. I am writing down notes as I go here because that's why we're drilling down on this subject, because Jamestown is so fundamental to the building of this country. We're not even at the point of it becoming, you know, the beginning of Williamsburg and all of that. That's to come in a couple new episodes that we're next. But that's how important this is. What we all think of as being the Pocahontas legend is actually an incredibly important part of the building block of this nation. Thank you so much. Can you hear me sputtering? I'm so excited about this.

[Friend 2]

Yeah, there's probably two years worth of stuff. But I appreciate you. You try your best to get. It's such a complicated.

[Mark Summers]

Well, you're talking to a guy whose father dragged him down there when he was 10 years old. And I walked around, I got on the ship, and, you know, these sort of, like, infantile memories are all I have of Jamestown. Of course, I was raised in New Jersey. That's why. But now here I am, late in life, finding out that without Jamestown and an education about it, you really don't understand how America really got started.

[Friend 2]

Yeah, it is fundamental. And even though I grew up here, it wasn't until I worked here that I really, totally got it.

[Mark Summers]

Thank you so much, Mark. Mark Summers is the educational director of youth and public programs for Jamestown Rediscovery. What is Jamestown Rediscovery, Mark?

[Friend 2]

It's the name of the archaeological team that takes curators, historians and scientists and archaeologists to work together to find the historical records but also the physical evidence of Jamestown. So it's a fun team to be a part of.

[Mark Summers]

This is a gigantic day, if one did spend a day there. Because there's so much to see in this place, isn't there?

[Friend 2]

There's lots of artifacts you can see. During the warmer months, you can watch archaeologists find things that we usually do about two tours a day. Historical, archaeological. We have so many different interests. If you're more scientific, more historical, political, whatever side you're on, whoever you are, you existed 400 years ago here. And that's why it's a good place to begin your American journey.

[Mark Summers]

What's the website?

[Friend 2]

Www.historicjamestown with an E on the end of it.org There you go.

[Mark Summers]

Check it out, folks. Thanks, Mark.

[Friend 2]

I appreciate it. Thank you so much.

[Don Wildman]

Thanks for listening to this episode of American History hit. Coming next in this Jamestown series, we explore what life was like in colonial Jamestown. Spoilers Moldy grain, disease and martial law. Sounds like a fun place to be. In the meantime, don't forget to check out our back catalog and like and follow us wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you very much.

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