Love and Hate in Jamestown

by David A. Price

  The hunting party, minus one, eventually made it back to camp. The voyagers left Mona in the afternoon on April 9 for the adjacent island of Monito, followed by another tough climb up that island’s hillside. When the men reached higher ground, they encountered a typically fertile Caribbean scene, but this one was already inhabited—by an enormous flock of wildfowl, their squawking so loud that the men couldn’t hear one another speak. “Wee were not able to set foot on the ground,” Percy reported, “but either on Fowles or Eggs which lay so thicke in the grasse.” The men filled two large barrels full of the birds, which they caught from the bushes with their hands, and hauled them to the ships.

  Monito was their last stop in the West Indies; the men spent the night and then set sail northward for the presumed utopia of the North American mainland. When ten days went by without sight of land— three days longer than the sailors had reckoned for their arrival—John Ratcliffe of the Discovery became agitated and pressed for the fleet to head back to England. He wasn’t alone. It was four months since they had left Blackwall, and Ratcliffe and other gentlemen decided they had had enough. The idea of returning home was being seriously considered when fate stepped in: a powerful thunderstorm opened up, lasting through the night—and forcing the mariners to bring down their sails and wait while the colonists cowered below decks. The experience led the men to think twice about recrossing the Atlantic, and so they decided to give the search for land a little more time.

  A few days later, on April 26, at around four in the morning, the travelers saw land in the distance. From their latitude of around 37 degrees, they assumed they had reached Virginia, and they were right. The ships entered the Chesapeake Bay and dropped anchor near a spot they called Cape Henry, after one of King James’s sons. Newport chose a party of thirty to join him in going ashore, the party being weighted, of course, toward the socially exalted rather than the experienced; John Smith remained on board the Susan Constant and had his first sight of North America as an unfree man.

  At the same moment in Christopher Columbus’s first voyage, eyewitnesses would recount Columbus “kneeling on the ground, embracing it with tears of joy for the immeasurable mercy of having reached it.” His officers and crew, meanwhile, hailed him “with as much joy and pleasure as if the victory had been all theirs.” There was evidently no such exuberance when the landing party from the Susan Constant, the Godspeed, and the Discovery reached North American soil. Despite the successful conclusion of the four-month voyage, the surviving accounts don’t indicate any rejoicing at all over landfall: exhaustion appears to have won out over celebration.

  The men landed on a sandy shoreline and hiked to the crest of the sand dunes. From there, they took in the view of Virginia’s woodlands and fresh water. They spent the rest of the day exploring the area, most likely in hopes of encountering a taste of the gold and silver they had just traveled thousands of miles to find. In that, they were disappointed. “Wee could find nothing worth the speaking of,” Percy wrote, “but faire meddowes and goodly tall Trees.”14

  But there was more to the woods than the men realized; they had not been alone. That night, as the party headed back to the ship, a detachment of five native warriors followed them, unnoticed, toward the shore. With arrows clenched in their mouths, the native men crept down the sand dunes on their hands and feet, expertly keeping themselves invisible in the darkness.

  When the natives closed in and began their charge, they probably did not seem to the English like terribly formidable attackers. Granted, they were physically more massive than the English, both taller and stockier. The flashes of war paint on their cheeks and foreheads might have been disconcerting at first. But the English knew that they alone had guns; the natives’ arrows, with their heads crafted from sharpened bone or a splinter of stone, were rudimentary in comparison.

  What the English did not yet realize is that those arrows, in the hands of an experienced native archer, were deadly accurate at forty yards. The native men could shoot down birds in flight. Not only were the arrows more accurate than English muskets, they could be fired more rapidly. During the short encounter on Cape Henry, Gabriel Archer, gentleman—like Gosnold, a Cambridge graduate—was shot through both hands. Mathew Morton, a sailor, was shot “in two places of the body very dangerous,” as Percy later put it. Newport fired at the attackers, who withdrew after expending the last of their arrows. Archer and Morton survived their injuries.

  Of the two detailed eyewitness accounts of the attack, only one shows any recognition that the natives with their bows and arrows might be a real match for the English guns. In the account of George Percy, one of the better sort, the skirmish ends “after they had spent their Arrowes, and felt the sharpnesse of our shot.” But in another, more discerning version, Newport “made a shot at them, which the Indians little respected, but having spent their arrowes retyred without harme.” That account was John Smith’s, watching from shipboard, and the subtle difference in his interpretation of events here foreshadowed his coming disagreements with the others over the colony’s life-or-death question: What stance to take toward the natives?15

  3

  HAVE GREAT CARE NOT TO OFFEND

  The Virginia Company had commanded that its mysterious sealed orders be opened within twenty-four hours after the expedition arrived on the Virginia coast. Once the men made their way back to the ships after their first foray onto the American mainland, the time had come for the captains of the ships to gather—probably on the flagship Susan Constant—and unfasten one of the three boxes containing duplicate copies of the directives.

  Inside the box was a list of the seven men who would govern as members of the colony’s ruling council. Most of the names were predictable: Edward-Maria Wingfield, the investor; Christopher Newport, who had commanded the Susan Constant; Bartholomew Gosnold, who had instigated the creation of the Virginia Company and who was in charge of the Godspeed; and John Ratcliffe of the Discovery. Also unsurprising were the names of two well-connected colonists: George Kendall was a protégé of secretary of state Sir Robert Cecil, the earl of Salisbury, a Virginia Company leader and major investor; John Martin was the son of Sir Richard Martin, master of the mint and Lord Mayor of London, and a brother-in-law of Sir Julius Caesar, master of the rolls.

  The remaining name, however, must have caused some faces to darken, and some Anglo-Saxon expletives to reverberate against the walls, when the captains relayed the list to the other gentlemen of the journey. The name was that of John Smith, the riffraff who addressed these Cambridge and Inns of Court graduates as if he were their equal, if not their superior. He was still a prisoner on the ship for plotting insurrection in the West Indies. For the time being, that is where he would stay; the news of his appointment to the council was not enough to set him free—not yet.1

  Next came the reading of the company’s detailed instructions. Many of the instructions were sensible and well informed, and probably had the benefit of suggestions from participants in earlier English missions. Take your time in selecting a site, the instructions advised; “for if you make many Removes, besides the loss of time, you shall greatly spoil your victuals and your casks, and with great pain transport it in small boats.” The site should not be too heavily wooded, the company said, since you do not have enough labor to clear a forest. One of the three ships, the diminutive Discovery, would remain with the colonists for use in exploring; when it is idle, keep it tied up close by, and bring its anchors and sails ashore, “least some ill disposed persons slip away with her.”

  The company urged the colonists to “have great care not to offend the naturals”—that is, the natives. It was eminently good advice for an outnumbered contingent in a distant land, and consistent with the hopeful attitude and kindly intentions that were prevalent at the time. Although you came over with food supplies, the instructions continued, you should still begin trading immediately with the natives for more food, “not being sure how your own seed corn will prosper the first year.�
�

  If you hire natives to serve as guides when you explore, be alert in case they try to leave you stranded. For added safety, bring a compass along “and write down how far they go upon every point of the compass; for that country having no way nor path, if that your guides run from you in the great woods or deserts, you shall hardly ever find a passage back.” And to keep the natives intimidated by English firearms, never let novices shoot in their presence, “for if they see your learners miss what they aim at, they will think the weapon not so terrible, and thereby will be bould to assault you.”

  On the dubious premise that the colonists would conduct themselves inoffensively toward the natives and stay vigilant, the company assumed that the natives would not be a significant threat. A different danger was uppermost in the minds of the English: namely, their Old World foes, the Spanish. Do not be surprised, the company exhorted, “as the French were in Florida by Melindus,” meaning Don Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, the Spanish commander who wiped out a nascent French settlement of about three hundred at Fort Caroline, Florida, in 1565. To reduce the chance of a Spanish surprise attack, settle the colony far from the ocean, preferably a hundred miles or so upriver from the Chesapeake Bay. Place an outpost at the mouth of the river with a light boat for the lookouts, “that when any fleet shall be in sight, they may come with speed to give you warning.” Finally, do not allow any of the natives to “inhabit between you and the sea coast,” or else they may serve as guides to foreign invaders.

  Once the colony’s leaders chose a site and landed the voyagers there, the instructions continued, the colony was to start seeking a return for the investors right away: Newport should take forty of the men to explore upriver for a route to the “Other Sea” (as the Pacific was called) and to look for minerals. Then, with its final two instructions, the company struck an ominous note: One, that no man would be permitted to return to England except with the permission of the president and the council—but who would want to leave paradise? And two, the public at home was not to hear bad news; no one would be allowed “to write any letter of any thing that may discourage others.”2

  The next morning, the men built a small boat, called a shallop, from pieces that had been carried aboard one of the ships from England. The boat was, in essence, a kit. It had room for two dozen men. For Newport’s exploring party, the shallop would be easier to maneuver than the Discovery. While the assembly of the shallop was progressing, another group hiked eight miles inland to get an idea of the territory. They did not see any “savages” in the course of their outing, but they stumbled across evidence that they were nearby: a fire with oysters roasting on it.

  When preparing to eat, the natives had obviously heard the Englishmen coming and left in a hurry. The colonists looked at the oysters and said to themselves, Why thanks, don’t mind if we do, and proceeded to take what they saw. A member of the party remembered the oysters as “very large and delicate in taste.”

  On the following several days, April 28 to April 30, the colonists explored the coast of the bay and erected a cross near the site of their landing. On the third day, as the men were approaching the opposite shore of the bay in the three ships, they saw five native men there carrying bows and arrows. Newport and a small party went ashore in the shallop. As a witness recalled it, Newport “called to them in signe of friendship, but they were at first very timorsome until they saw the captain lay his hand on his heart.” Then the natives put down their weapons and made signs for the English to come to their town. Newport agreed, and the colonists’ first visit to the natives was soon under way.

  None of the colonists had come face-to-face with a Virginia native before, apart from the brief skirmish four days earlier. The five men they had encountered were from a tribe known as the Kecoughtans, numbering fewer than a hundred. Newport’s group landed and followed the men to the town, which was also called Kecoughtan. There, they found the natives making “a dolefull noise, laying their faces to the ground, scratching the earth with their nailes.” The English gathered that they had arrived in the middle of a religious ceremony. Once the ceremony ended, the natives went to their homes and retrieved mats to spread on the ground. The highest-ranking of the tribe seated themselves on the mats, while the lesser ones set out a welcoming repast of “such dainties as they had,” together with corn bread. The drink of the day was water; the natives had not learned how to make wine and other alcoholic drinks, which the English would introduce to their diet later.

  Some of the English, already in the habit of grabbing at the natives’ food, apparently reached for a helping of the Kecoughtan meal before even sitting down. This the Kecoughtans refused to allow, insisting that the English could eat only upon sitting with them on the mats. They readily, and hungrily, complied.

  The meal had one awkward aspect, which was that neither side could communicate with the other in its native tongue. The Kecoughtans did not yet have reason to know English, and no one in Newport’s party appears to have had any knowledge of the Algonquian language of the region. Thomas Hariot, a member of the first Roanoke expedition, had compiled an Algonquian phrase book; if any copies of it came over with the Jamestown colonists, though, they were not on hand that day. Communication took place by “signs”—that is, with gesturing. If the Kecoughtans were unable to ask Newport’s men about their long-term intentions, at least it saved the English the trouble of dissimulating.

  The native men at the table were naked except for a leather covering, probably deerskin, over their privates. Their coverings were adorned with small dangling bones or animal teeth. Some men had painted their bodies black, and others red, decorated with bright colors—“very beautifull and pleasing to the eye,” one colonist thought. Birds’ legs hung from their ears. Their black hair was shaven (using shells) on the right, and grown long to three or four feet on the left; at the end of their hair was a knot with feathers.

  Amid the eating and polite gesturing, the visitors would have noticed the natives’ homes, which were made of reeds covered by tree bark for the walls and thatch for the rounded roofs. Mats, rather than doors, covered the entryways. Most of the homes were built under trees or groups of trees to shelter them from foul weather. The walls had no windows—logically enough, since bare openings would expose the interior to the elements, and the natives did not know how to make glass. Outside some of the homes were scaffolds hung with mats overhead to serve as covered porches. Newport’s men perhaps noticed, too, that all of the houses were built alike; some were larger, some smaller, but the design did not vary—even for the chief’s. “Who knoweth one of them knoweth them all,” an English observer later wrote.

  The English ate with the Kecoughtan leadership until their stomachs were “well satisfied.” After the meal, the Kecoughtans continued the hospitality by presenting a dance. A group of native men formed a circle; one man in the center kept time by clapping. For a half hour, the visitors watched the men “shouting, howling, and stamping against the ground, with many antic tricks and faces, making noise like so many wolves or devils.” With the stomping of their feet, the native men were in perfect unison—but with the movements of their hands, their torsoes, and their distorted faces, each man’s dance was distinct. For the English, the performance was at once mesmerizing and thoroughly alien.3

  The Kecoughtans viewed the performance as entertainment for honored guests. The English evidently saw it as further proof of the “savage” nature of the Virginia natives—primitive, un-Christian, childlike. After the dance concluded, Newport gave the dancers “beades and other trifling jewells.” From accounts of the Roanoke expedition, the English knew that the natives were fascinated by European baubles.

  The colonists spent roughly the next two weeks scouting up and down the river, the present-day James River, for a settlement site. Newport sought “the most apt and securest place, as well for his company to sit down in as which might give the least cause of offense or distaste” to the locals. Along the way, they called on several other
tribes: the Paspahegh, the Rappahannock, and the Appomattoc. The Paspahegh seemed to welcome them warmly, though one tribal elder “made a long oration, making a foule noise, uttering his speech with a vehement action.” The English could not understand what he was saying, and shrugged it off.

  At the Rappahannock village, the tribe’s chief, or weroance, met them on shore himself, with others of the tribe behind him. He left a bemused impression. “The werowance comming before them playing on a flute made of a reed, with a crown of deares haire colloured red . . . with two long feathers in fashion of a pair of hornes placed in the midst of his crowne.” He received the English with great pride and majesty, “as though he had beene a prince of civill government.” His body was painted red, and his face blue—dotted, the colonists noted hopefully, with what they assumed was silver ore.

  The Appomattoc proved less receptive to foreigners, meeting the English at the waterfront with a contingent of warriors bearing bows and arrows and swords. The commander stood with his arrow notched in his bow and spoke angrily; the English took him to be asking why they were there and telling them to go away. The English responded with gestures of peace, which the man eventually accepted, permitting them to land for a brief visit.

  On May 12, the ships stopped at a point on the James that the colonists called Archer’s Hope, presumably because Gabriel Archer had been the first to notice it. (“Hope” in this context meant “inlet.”) The colonists still did not have a place to put down stakes, and Archer’s Hope seemed ideal. It would be easy to defend against a Spanish incursion: unlike much of the frontage on the winding James, it afforded an unobstructed view of the river, and thus of any approaching ships, for miles downstream. The soil was rich. Rabbits, a staple of the English table back home, were abundant, as were turkeys and turkey eggs.