There can be no doubt that Pananuaioc and Panauuaioc were names for the same place and that its location was somewhere between the present-day Pamlico and Neuse Rivers, although, as Barbour noted, its precise location has not been determined. On the portion of the White/de Bry Map above, for example, Panauuaiock may refer to the name of a particular Indian town or village, as illustrated by the circle, but it could also refer to the tribe and territory, or “countrey” as the area between the two rivers was called in the Amadas-Barlowe account. This tribe would later be known as the Pamlico Indians.
It is important to note here that “Panauuaiock” and its variations, “Panawicke,” “Pananiock,” and “Pomouik” must not be confused, as Hamilton McMillan did,9 with the village of “Pomeiock,” which White visited and sketched in 1585. Both Panauuaiock and Pomeiock are shown on the White/de Bry map above at two different locations entirely, with Pomeiock placed near present-day Lake Mattamuskeet.
Obviously, most of the confusion regarding 16th and 17th century English place-names has to do with the variety of spelling inconsistencies found in the different source documents. As mentioned earlier, for example, there was a contradiction between the name “Pananiock” used on the Zúñiga Map and the name “Panawicke” used in A True Relation, but they both clearly refer to the same place. Spelling discrepancies were plentiful in the Roanoke and Jamestown accounts, particularly when it came to place-names, which were mostly Anglicized forms of Algonquian words. English spelling, of course, had not yet been standardized, resulting in various forms of the same word, found even within the same text, penned by the same author. Fortunately, in the case of Pananiock and Panawicke the spelling variations were not simply arbitrary. Both of these words very likely underwent a discernable spelling transition during the transcription process, and that process can further demonstrate linguistically that Pananiock, Panawicke, and Panauuaiock were identical locations.
In 16th and 17th century English orthography, the classical digraph “double-u” (uu), from which our “w” derives its name, was still being used on formal documents and maps, such as the White/de Bry, even though the letter “w” had been used in informal writing for quite some time. When words with the “double-u” digraph were copied from these maps, the “double-u” was usually transcribed as the more common and concise letter “w” and then often mistaken for letters with similar strokes as the word was subsequently recopied. As Jonathan Culpeper put it in his History of English, “The problem with double was legibility. The characters
Consequently, Smith’s “Panawicke” and the Zúñiga Map’s “Pananiock,” as they were written in 1608, can easily be seen as later versions of the “Panauuaiock,” which appeared on the White/de Bry “Americae pars, Nunc Virginia” map published by de Bry in 1590. Substituting the original double-u digraph, “Panawicke” becomes “Panauuicke” and “Pananiock” becomes “Panauuock,” or perhaps at some point “Panauiock,” all of which closely resemble the original “Panauuaiock” on the de Bry map. This transition from the double-u digraph demonstrates that Panauuaiock, Pananuaioc, Pananiock, and Panawicke are all variations of names designating the same location, the area between the present-day Pamlico and Neuse Rivers.
The documentary and linguistic evidence disputes the aforementioned opinions about Pananiock’s location, and also casts doubt on Millers’s suggestion that the translation of the Algonquian “Panawioc” as “Place of Foreigners” was “an apt name for a site where they reported our men to be.” A connection to the 1587 colonists in the meaning of the word “Panawioc” would only make sense if the location received its Algonquian name after “our men”—i.e., the “foreigners”—arrived there. However, both the name and general location of Panawioc/Pananiock had been known to the English in its earlier spelling—Pananuaioc—about a quarter century before the Zúñiga Map was produced, and several years before White’s colony ever arrived at Roanoke. It would also seem probable that the name must have been in use among the Algonquians long before the English ever arrived, certainly before the Amadas-Barlowe voyage in 1584, when it was first mentioned. It is difficult, then, to see how the meaning of the word “Panawioc” could relate in any way to the Lost Colonists.
John Smith’s own map on the following page of “Ould Virginia” in his Generall Historie also illustrates Pananaioc. The map is not perfect (the villages of Secota and Setuoc—“Setuook” on the White/de Bry—have been incorrectly switched), but it does place Panawioc/Pananiock between the Neuse and Pamlico Rivers, where it was known to be from 1584 through the Jamestown years. Smith’s Generall Historie was not published until 1624, but it is clear that Pananaioc and its general location were well known.
The Zúñiga Map’s reference to “our men” at Panawioc could very possibly be connected to Englishmen who had been in that area previously, if not to the Lost Colonists themselves. In July of 1585 Grenville and a party of about forty men explored Pamlico Sound before continuing on to Roanoke. It is not known exactly how far south they traveled, but they went at least far enough to discover the native Indian village of Secotan on the Pamlico River, where they “were well entertained there of the Sauages.”11 Ralph Lane also reported that he explored “from the Island of Roanoak … into the South…” as far as Secota, “being by estimation fourescore [eighty] miles distant from Roanoak.”12
John Smith’s map of “Ould Virginia” from his Generall Historie (published in 1624) showing the location of Pananaioc (Panauuaiock).
Furthermore, the 1587 Lost Colonists must have explored this region during their search for a suitable mainland settlement site. As noted earlier, the area between the present-day Pamlico and Neuse Rivers is directly across Pamlico Sound from Ocracoke/Wokokon inlet, which had very likely influenced the colonists’ choice of their mainland settlement site in 1588. As discussed previously, those potential settlement locations on the mainland can reasonably be narrowed down to the area south of the Pamlico River where the Pomouik, Neusiok, and Cwareuuock dwelt in 1588. That area would include present-day Pamlico County and the southern portion of Beaufort County, where Panawioc appears to have been located.
It is also possible that surviving colonists traveled to Panawioc from their mainland settlement after the hurricane surge in 1589. That mainland settlement, as previously suggested, may have been located in the aforementioned counties or on the peninsula just south of the Neuse in present-day Carteret County. The hurricane surge would have driven the surviving colonists and Croatoans farther inland, and they could have joined with the Pomouik/Panawioc/Pananiock tribe. Of course by early 1608 when Smith was recording the information about the men “apparalled” at Panawioc/Pananiock, the Lost Colony had been missing for more than two decades. Even if Wowinchopunck’s information actually was a legitimate Lost Colony clue, it almost certainly was not current, just as the information about “men cloathed” at Ocanahonan and Pakrakanick was many decades old. At best it can probably be concluded that “our men” may have been at Pananiock at some point in the past, but one can only speculate about whether or not any signs of the colonists still remained there in 1608. What is certainly true is that—other than the English who were involved in the Roanoke voyages—there were no known Europeans in the area of Pananiock from 1584 to 1608, when Smith’s A True Relation and the Zúñiga Map were composed.
It is curious that the planned trip to Pananiock never took place, considering that its location was known, at least generally, and that Pananiock was the place where “the King of Paspahegh reported our men to be….” An agreement had been made by Smith and possibly Newport with Wowinchopunck “to conduct two of our men” to Panawicke (Pananiock), which was “beyond Roonok.” The trip began at Warraskoyack, where the Pagan River empties into the James. What happened next is not clear. All we know is what Smith wrote about the king of Paspahegh, that he, “playing the villaine, and delu
ding us for rewards, returned within three or foure dayes after, without going further,” and Panawicke/Pananiock was not mentioned again.
Relations with Wowinchopunck and his Paspahegh tribe were never good. To begin with, the English established their new colony of Jamestown in Paspahegh territory, about six miles south of their main village, and this was seen by the Paspahegh as an unwarranted encroachment. Ten days after the arrival of the English Wowinchopunck sent two messengers with the promise of a deer, which twenty Paspahegh Indians delivered a few days later. However, they were clearly feigning friendship in order to scout the settlement, because six days later the Paspahegh attacked Jamestown with 200 fighters. As time passed, Smith traded for corn on several occasions with the Paspahegh, but their dealings were always marked with suspicion, and he considered them a “churlish and trecherous nation.” He also learned from other surrounding tribes “that Paspahegh and Chickahammania did hate us, and intended some mischief.”
It is possible that Smith dismissed the entire story about surviving colonists at Pananiock as nothing more than a deception engineered by the villainous Paspahegh king for no other reason than to gain “rewards” from the English. On the other hand we don’t know the identities of the “two of our men” who apparently accompanied Wowinchopunck, and we know absolutely nothing about what may have occurred during the “three or foure dayes” that they were gone. We also don’t know Wowinchopunck’s true motive for abandoning the search, but, based on the poor relations with the English at Jamestown in 1608, he may not have been very anxious for them to make contact with more potentially troublesome Englishmen rumored to be—or to have been—at Pananiock.
The Paspahegh tribe’s seemingly instinctive animosity towards the English at Jamestown may also have been rooted in their decades-old experience with Europeans. Paquiquineo, a young native Indian who was taken by the Spanish—it is not clear whether he was abducted or went voluntarily—near the York or James River in 1561, was believed to have been the son of the Paspahegh chief. Paquiquineo spent nine years in Spain and Mexico, during which he was eventually baptized and took the name of his sponsor, Don Luís de Velasco. After convincing the Spanish that he would help establish a Christian mission in Ajacán, which he called his old tribe’s territory, Paquiquineo and a group of eight Jesuits landed at the James River in 1570 and in short time established a settlement probably closer to the York River. Paquiquineo soon deserted the Jesuits and, after returning to his Indian family, reverted to his tribal customs. When three of the Jesuits came to the village for food in early 1571, Paquiquineo killed them and then led an assault on the mission, killing the remaining Jesuits except for a boy named Alonso de Olmos. After Spaniards on a resupply ship learned that the Jesuits had been murdered, a punitive expedition was sent to the James River in 1572. A number of Paquiquineo’s tribesmen were killed or captured and eight were hanged, one for each of the Jesuits, from the ship’s spars. The Spaniards rescued young Alonso de Olmos, but Paquiquineo was never found.
Jesuit authors Clifford M. Lewis and Albert J. Loomie proposed that Paquiquineo was directly related to Powhatan and his brother Opechancanough, perhaps being their uncle, which would establish his status as a chief’s son and future tribal leader.13 Colonial historian Carl Bridenbaugh suggested that Paquiquineo actually was Powhatan’s brother, Opechancanough, who led the Powhatan chiefdom after his brother’s death and orchestrated the massacre of the English colonists in 1622.14 That does not seem possible, partly because Opechancanough would have been about seventy-five in 1622. Furthermore, Bridenbaugh’s suggestion is effectively challenged by Smith’s interaction with Opechancanough in December of 1607, when Smith was captured by him “with 200 men.” According to Smith, Opechancanough “tooke great delight in understanding the manner of our ships” and “I presented him with a compasse diall, describing by my best meanes the use therof, whereat he so amazedly admired, as he suffered me to proceed in a discourse of the roundnes of the earth, the course of the sunne, moone, starres and plannets.”15 Paquiquineo, having lived and traveled among the Spaniards for nine years in Spain and Mexico, would not have been mystified or amazed by English ships or a compass dial.
Nevertheless, Paquiquineo would have been about sixty years old in 1607, and certainly could still have been alive. In any case, his experiences with the Jesuits and the Spaniards’ retribution in 1572 would have left a lasting impression on the Paspahegh tribe regarding Europeans. To the Paspahegh, the lesson of Paquiquineo’s story would have been that Europeans bring nothing but trouble and must be avoided at all costs and actively resisted if necessary. Avoidance was not possible, since the English had planted themselves in Paspahegh territory, and consequently resistance was the only option. That belief might account for their initial and seemingly natural hostility towards the English, and it could explain why Wowinchopunck did not complete the journey to Pananiock. It would have been unwise and dangerous for the Paspahegh to have the Jamestown colonists make contact with other kinsmen to the south.
Unfortunately for the Paspahegh, the lesson of Paquiquineo’s story would prove to be all too true. In August of 1610 the new and ruthless Jamestown governor, Lord De la Warr, ordered an attack on the main Paspahegh town, during which the village was destroyed, the crops ruined, and most of the Paspahegh were killed. In the aftermath, one of Wowinchopunck’s wives and her children were also brutally killed. Wowinchopunck was killed the following February, by which time the Paspahegh tribe had virtually disappeared.
It should be emphasized here that the false assumptions about Lost Colonists at Ocanahonan and Pakrakanick were not found in the information that the Powhatans related from their collective memories and oral traditions. The mistakes were entirely due to Smith’s and others’ misinterpretation of that information. There were, in fact, “men cloathed” and “people with short Coates, and Sleeves to the Elbowes,” and “houses walled as ours,” and structures “one story above another” at distant places with strange names like Ocanahonan. It was Smith and later Strachey, not the Powhatans, who misinterpreted that information and jumped to the erroneous conclusion that the “clothed men” were Lost Colonists. It is very possible, then, that there were also “many men … apparelled” at Pananiock at some point in time. Wowinchopunck may have had good reasons for abandoning the search, and, as suggested above, Smith may have subsequently rejected the story of appareled men at Pananiock because he considered the “churlish and treacherous” Paspahegh—and their reports—to be untrustworthy.
Smith would later dispatch two other searches to find “the lost company of Sir Walter Rawley,” but it is not surprising that they found nothing, since they were sent where the 1587 colonists had never been. Michael Sicklemore and two guides searched Chowanoke, “but found little hope and lesse certaintie of them were left by Sir Walter Raleigh.” Nathaniel Powell and Anas Todkill were guided far west to the Mangoag (Mongoack), possibly in search of Ocanahonan, “but nothing could they learne but they were all dead.” Unfortunately, the most promising location—Pananiock—was never searched. One cannot help but wonder what an expedition there might have turned up.
16
John Smith and the Powhatan-Slaughter Myth
1608–1609
The Third Institutionalized Assumption
In early 1609 the Royal Council in England received the shocking word from Jamestown that Wahunsunacock, Chief Powhatan, had slaughtered the 1587 colonists. There is some question as to the source of this stunning news, but the evidence indicates that it had to have come from John Smith. Quinn believed that the information must have arrived in the form of a letter from Smith, now lost .1 Christopher Newport had reached Jamestown with the so-called “second supply” in early October of 1608, and he returned to England in late December or early January with a Powhatan Indian named Machumps, brother of Winganuske, one of Powhatan’s many wives, as well as a second Indian named Namontack. Since the news of the slaughter was not known in England before 1609, it almost cer
tainly must have been brought aboard the Mary Margaret on the aforementioned voyage to England captained by Newport.
It has been suggested that the news of the slaughter came from William Strachey via a conversation with Machumps,2 the Powhatan Indian mentioned above, after his arrival in England with Newport, but that is not at all likely. There is no evidence that Strachey had any contact with Machumps until after the departure of the Sea Venture on June 2, 1609. Strachey signed on with the Virginia Company for the “third supply” to Jamestown, where he hoped to become a chronicler and perhaps secretary of the new colony, but that hope would not be realized until May of 1610. The post of Colonial Secretary had been held by Gabriel Archer since 1607, except for Mathew Scribner’s brief stint in 1608–9 during Archer’s trip to England, and it was for that reason that Strachey could only enlist with the Virginia Company as a planter.3 It was partly because the position was not available, by the way, that Strachey’s good friend, the poet John Donne, lost interest in the Virginia venture. As noted, the first Secretary of the Jamestown Colony was Archer, who held the post—with the exception of the interlude above—until his death in the winter of 1609–1610 during the “starving time.” Despite the reference to Strachey as “The First Secretary of the Colony” on the title page of the Hakluyt Society’s publication of The Historie, Strachey was not appointed to that post until June 13 of 1610, several weeks after the Sea Venture’s shipwrecked company finally arrived at Jamestown.
Moreover, Strachey spent most of the winter of 1608–9 and into the spring with his wife and sons at his father-in-law’s estate in Crowhurst, some fifty miles from London. London’s periodic plagues had struck again in the summer of 1608 and persisted through May of 1609, closing theaters and sending those who could afford it out of London to the countryside.4 There would have been no incentive to return to London until the Sea Venture was prepared to depart for Jamestown. It is unlikely that Strachey could have had any access to or contact with Machumps until it was time to board the Sea Venture, which he did three days before the ship weighed anchors and cruised down the Thames River. The Privy Council had been informed about the slaughter long before then and had already prepared written instructions for the new governor, Thomas Gates, regarding the slaughter. Strachey would have had opportunities for conversation with Machumps after the Sea Venture’s wreck at Bermuda in July 1609, but there is no mention at all of Machumps in Strachey’s A True Reportory, an account of the time period between June of 1609 to about mid–July of 1610. A True Reportory is a detailed account of the time spent on Bermuda, including the shipwreck and hurricane, which some believe Shakespeare used as a background for The Tempest. All that can be said with reasonable certainty is that Strachey’s interviews with Machumps occurred at Jamestown between May of 1610 and the summer of 1611, and that he recorded the additional Lost Colony slaughter details at that time.
The Lost Colony of Roanoke Page 21
