Love and Hate in Jamestown

by David A. Price

  West’s departure and embarrassment: Craven (1957), p. 26; West, A Short Relation(1611), reprinted in Narratives, pp. 527–29. Dale’s background: Rutman (1960). Laws called for: Provisions referenced in the text are articles 9, 10, 15, 22, 25, 28, and 31 of the laws “divine and morall” and articles 3 and 34 of the martial laws. They are reprinted in Flaherty (1969), pp. 12–21, 27, 35. Emigration had been forbidden: Va. Co. Recs., vol. 3, p. 68. “Some he appointed”: Percy, A True Relation (1612?), reprinted in Narratives, pp. 517–18. See also Ralph Hamor, A True Discourse (1615), reprinted in Narratives, p. 823. “Continual whippings”: Ancient Planters of Virginia, A Brief Declaration(1624), reprinted in Narratives, p. 900.

  “Trading place”: Rountree (1989), p. 12. Argall who hauled: DNB. “Yea, to this pass”: Hamor, A True Discourse (1615), reprinted in Narratives, pp. 801–802. “Whilst I was in this business”: Letter of Samuel Argall to Nicholas Hawes (June 1613), reprinted in Narratives, p. 754.

  Pocahontas’s abduction: Hamor, A True Discourse (1615), reprinted in Narratives, pp. 802–804; letter of Samuel Argall to Nicholas Hawes (June 1613), reprinted in Narratives, pp. 754–55; Smith (1624), p. 243. Patawomeck god of rain: Spelman, Relationof Virginia (1609), reprinted in Narratives, p. 486.

  Communications with Powhatan: Hamor, A True Discourse (1615), reprinted in Narratives, pp. 804, 806; letter of Samuel Argall to Nicholas Hawes (June 1613), reprinted in Narratives, p. 755; Smith (1624), p. 243. “Would fall to the ground of itself”: Chamberlain (1965), p. 209. “There is a ship”: Ibid., p. 210.

  Regarding the response from Powhatan, there is a conflict in the two surviving accounts written by colonists on the scene, Argall and Hamor. Hamor said the English heard nothing at all from Powhatan until several months after Pocahontas’s capture, and that he returned the seven Englishmen only at that point. Because Argall was directly involved, had no reason to prevaricate on the subject, and wrote his account closer to the time of the occurrences, his account is probably the more accurate.

  “Thus they betrayed”: Smith (1624), p. 243. Alexander Whitaker: Narratives, p. 65. “It was a day or two”: Letter of Sir Thomas Dale to “D.M.” (1614), reprinted in Narratives, p. 843.

  Matchcot: Hamor, A True Discourse (1615), reprinted in Narratives, pp. 807–808; Letter of Sir Thomas Dale to “D.M.” (1614), reprinted in Narratives, pp. 843–44. Smith (1624), p. 258. Sent each of his wives away: Spelman, Relation of Virginia (1609), reprinted in Narratives, pp. 488–89. A handsome man: Woodward (1969), pp. 160–61. Gentle and devout nature: That Rolfe was pious and unusually mild-mannered is suggested by the tone and substance of his letter to Sir Thomas Dale, reprinted in Narratives, pp. 850–56. Manly virtue of superior hunting ability: Rountree (1990), p. 12; Rountree (1989), pp. 38, 90. Married to and divorced: Strachey (1612), p. 54. Divorce: Rountree (1989), p. 91 and n. 25.

  t is sometimes suggested that Rolfe’s wife may have died in childbirth on Bermuda. If this had happened, however, Strachey would have almost certainly noted it, having been the godfather of Bermuda Rolfe. Strachey, A True Reportory (1625), reprinted in Narratives, p. 413.

  Laughingstock, Dale’s reaction, Rolfe distracted: This is clear in various passages of Rolfe’s letter to Dale. Letter of John Rolfe to Sir Thomas Dale (1613), reprinted in Narratives, pp. 850–56. Whitaker’s approving eye: Letter of the Rev. Alexander Whitaker to Master Gouge (n.d.), reprinted in Narratives, p. 848. Looks of Powhatan women: Rountree (1989), p. 65. “No way led”: Rolfe, op. cit., p. 851. See also Robertson (1996), pp. 569–70.

  Pocahontas lived to see the publication of Rolfe’s letter in Hamor’s True Discourse in 1615. If Rolfe had any instinct for self-preservation, he presumably kept the book out of her hands at any cost. Amid his confession of love for her, he argued for the purity of his motives by asserting that if he were merely seeking sensual thrills, “I might satisfy such desire (though not without a seared conscience) yet with Christians more pleasing to the eye and less fearful in the offense unlawfully committed.” Rolfe, op. cit., p. 855. Committing that argument to paper, even for the sake of advocacy in a private letter, was not too brilliant.

  The authenticity of Rolfe’s letter was questioned by some critics, who could not believe that a man in love would write so aridly—until the original letter was located in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. Narratives, p. 794 and n. 1.

  “Oftentimes with fear and trembling”: Letter of John Rolfe to Sir Thomas Dale (1613), reprinted in Narratives, p. 853. Ezra’s warning: Ibid. and Ezra 10:2. That day in Matchcot: Hamor, A True Discourse (1615), reprinted in Narratives, p. 809. Baptism: Letter of the Rev. Alexander Whitaker to Master Gouge (n.d.), reprinted in Narratives, p. 848. Rebecca: Genesis 24.

  Brother of Pocahontas’s mother: Powhatan’s only known brothers or half brothers were Kekataugh, Opitchapam, and Opechancanough. Twenty sons: Strachey (1612), p. 54. He may have had more by 1614. English customs of the time: Pearson (1957), pp. 342–44, 347, 351–57. “Tunic of dacca muslin”: Woodward (1969), p. 165. Powhatan custom: Rountree (1989), p. 90.

  “Ever since we have had”: Hamor, A True Discourse (1615), reprinted in Narratives,p. 809. “Golden age”: Rountree (1990), p. 61. See also Rolfe, A True Relation (1616), reprinted in Narratives, p. 869. Chickahominies: Hamor, op. cit., pp. 809–13.

  An early historian of colonial America, Robert Beverly, interrupted his 1705 history of Virginia with the comment that the English had missed a crucial opportunity by failing to encourage intermarriage well before Rolfe and Pocahontas’s (Beverly [1705], p. 38):

  King James: Willson (1956), pp. 282–83. Hamor and Savage’s visit: Hamor, A True Discourse (1615), reprinted in Narratives, pp. 830–32. Dale was already married: Rutman (1960), p. 292 and n. 34; Dictionary of American Biography. Although it was permissible: Pritchard (1999), p. 27; Stone (1977), pp. 40–44, 408.

  “Who for this purpose”: Hamor, A True Discourse (1615), reprinted in Narratives,p. 833.

  “Further give him to understand”: Ibid., pp. 834–35.

  Intermarriage had been indeed the method proposed very often by the Indians in the beginning, urging it frequently as a certain rule, that the English were not their friends, if they refused it. And I can’t but think it wou’d have been happy for the country, had they embraced this proposal: For, the jealousie of the Indians, which I take to be the cause of most of the rapines and murders they committed, wou’d by this means have been altogether prevented, and consequently the abundance of blood that was shed on both sides wou’d have been saved; the great extremities they were so often reduced to, by which so many died, wou’d not have happen’d . . . and, in all likelihood, many, if not most, of the Indians would have been converted to Christianity by this kind method. . . .

  12: POCAHONTAS IN LONDON

  Within a few months: Letter of Sir Thomas Dale to “D.M.” (1614), reprinted in Narratives, p. 845. Company’s broadsides: Craven (1957), illustrations following p. 28. “Will not give a doit”: The Tempest, act 2, scene 2. Regarding the flying squirrels, Henry Wriothesley, earl of Southampton, wrote to Robert Cecil, earl of Salisbury, in late 1609 (J.V., vol. 2, p. 288):

  Lost all enthusiasm: Willson (1956), pp. 330–31.

  Talkinge with the King by chance I tould him of the Virginia squirrils which they say will fly, wherof there are now divers brought into England, & hee presently & very earnestly asked mee if none of them was provided for him, & whether your Lordship had none for him, saying hee was sure you would gett one of them. I would not have trobled you with this but that you know so well how hee is affected to these toyes. . . .

  Arrival: Letter of Sir Thomas Dale to Sir Ralph Winwood (June 3, 1616), reprinted in Narratives, p. 878. In the hold: Chamberlain (1965), p. 214; letter of Sir Thomas Dale, op. cit., p. 878. “Safely returned”: Letter of Sir Thomas Dale, op. cit. Tomocomo was to count: Purchas (1625), vol. 19, p. 119; Smith (1624), p. 261. Busy port town: Rowse (1971), p. 88. To London by coach: Smith (1986), vol. 3, p. 258 n. 1. Namontack: Pur
chas, Relation of Tomocomo (1617), reprinted in Narratives, p. 880.

  The priest Tomocomo was also known as Uttamatomakkin.

  Around a week: An estimate based on progress of thirty miles per day. A coach in 1661 from Oxford to London traveled at this rate; a coach from London to Edinburgh two years later traveled a somewhat faster thirty-three miles a day. Besant (1903), pp. 340–41. Dirt roads: Ibid., p. 83. Tooth-chattering ride: Coaches of this period had no springs. Ibid., p. 338. What the natives saw: Rowse (1971), p. 67. French visitor: Ibid. Southwark: Besant (1903), p. 180. Severed heads: As represented in the C. J. Visscher engraving of London in 1616. Reproduced in Pritchard (1999), p. 155. London Bridge: Pritchard (1999), pp. 154–55. Streets resounded: Ibid., pp. 156, 164–65; Besant (1903), p. 123. City had grown: Pritchard (1999), p. 152; Rowse (1971), p. 69; Bridenbaugh (1968), p. 164. Commerce: Besant (1903), pp. 195–96. houses: Bridenbaugh (1968), p. 182.

  Wood smoke inoffensive: Rountree (1990), p. 63. Burning coal: Bridenbaugh (1968), pp. 184–85. “Hellish and dismall”: Evelyn, Fumifugium (1661), reprinted in Lodge (1969), pp. 14–15. Air pollution from coal was noticed in London as early as the thirteenth century. Lodge (1969), p. x. Human waste: Kent (1970), pp. 359, 406; Besant (1903), p. 283. Natives did not have domesticated horses: Rountree (1989), pp. 27, 157 n. 21. The Belle Savage: Kent (1970), pp. 297–98; Woodward (1969), p. 175. Belle Savage Inn background: Matz (1922), pp. 61–68.

  When Thomas West sailed: Letter of the Governor and Council in Virginia to Va. Co. of London (July 7, 1610), reprinted in Narratives, p. 454. “Seeing he cannot there”: Purchas (1625), vol. 19, p. 116. The notes he made: See the introductory message by “T.A.,” probably Thomas Abbay, stating “this book may best satisfie the world, because it was penned in the land it treateth of.” Smith (1612), p. 135. “Virginia is a country”: Smith (1612), p. 143.

  “Their buildings and habitations”: Smith (1612), pp. 161–62, 164, 166, 173.

  Background of Map of Virginia and Proceedings: Smith (1986), vol. 1, pp. 122–23, 195–97; J.V., vol. 1, pp. 4–5. Stationers’ Company, had invested: Hayes (1991b), p. 127; O’Brien (1960), p. 141. Stationers’ Company background: Kent (1970), p. 219.

  A third of Strachey’s book: Smith (1986), vol. 1, p. 124. Give the region its name: Bradford (1952), p. 38 n. 5. Voyage of 1614: Smith (1624), pp. 400–402; Barbour (1964a), pp. 306–13. “I have had six or seven”: Smith (1624), p. 405. An engraving of Smith’s 1614 map of New England is reproduced in Smith (1616), pp. 320–21.

  “Accomack”: Smith (1616), p. 340. Popham Colony: Brain (2002); Smith (1624), pp. 397–99. 1615 voyage: Smith (1624), pp. 427–35; Smith (1616), pp. 353–59; Barbour (1964a), pp. 315–23. “to keepe my perplexed thoughts”: Smith (1616), p. 357. A number of details of the encounter with du Poiron, including the loss of his ship, are also recorded in French archival sources; see Barbour (1964b).

  An archaeological effort led by Jeffrey P. Brain at the site of the Popham Colony has excavated remains of its fort, known as Fort St. George, as well as other artifacts of the colony. See Brain (2002).

  Allowance for expenses: Chamberlain (1965), p. 216. “However this might bee”: Smith (1624), pp. 258–60.

  “Pocahontas had many honours done her”: Beverly (1705), pp. 43–44. “Entertained her with festivall state”: Purchas (1625), vol. 19, p. 118. “With this savage”: Ibid.; Purchas, Relation of Tomocomo (1617), reprinted in Narratives, pp. 880–82. Theodore Goulston background: DNB. Goulston (or Gulston) was a friend of Sir Edwin Sandys, an investor who was later elected treasurer of the company; Sandys had credited Goulston in 1614 with saving his life. See DNB entry for Sandys.

  Masques were a form: Lindley (1995), pp. ix–x. Staged in the Banqueting House: Herford and Simpson (1950), vol. 10, p. 569. January 5: Some sources put the date of the masque as January 6, apparently based on the misconception that Twelfth Night fell on the evening of Twelfth Day—January 6. It actually fell on the evening before Twelfth Day. See OED. Ambassadors, “well placed”: Herford and Simpson, op. cit., pp. 568–69. She was accompanied: Ibid.; Smith (1624), pp. 261–62. “Handsome, noble and jovial”: Willson (1956), pp. 167–68. Other descriptions of King James: Ibid., pp. 378–79. Disdain for the female sex: Ibid., p. 196; Besant (1903), p. 359. They had no idea: Smith (1624), p. 261.

  Did not have her husband with her: Neither John Smith nor John Chamberlain includes Rolfe when listing those who accompanied Pocahontas. Repulsed by the tobacco habit: James I (1604), pp. 45, 50. Observed a street scene: B. Jonson, The Vision of Delight (1617), reprinted in Orgell (1970), pp. 149–50. Bare-breasted: This is clear from surviving sketches of other Inigo Jones designs for masques of this period. See part 2 of Strong (1967). An hour or so: One of Jonson’s characters in the 1612 masque Love Restored refers to masques as “the merry madness of one hour.” Bevington and Holbrook (1998), p. 1. “Bright Night, I obey thee”: Jonson, op. cit., p. 151.

  For insights into The Vision of Delight, I am indebted to the commentaries in Herford and Simpson (1925), vol. 2, pp. 303–304; Orgell (1970), pp. 34–35; Robertson (1996), pp. 574–75; and Strong (1967) (no page numbering).

  “Behold a king”: B. Jonson, The Vision of Delight (1617), reprinted in Orgell (1970), p. 157.

  “a Virginia maske”: Smith (1624), p. 182 (marginal note).

  Raise investment money: Barbour (1964a), pp. 332–33. Tomocomo, Pocahontas meetings: Smith (1624), pp. 260–61. “With a well set countenance”: Ibid., p. 261.

  “They did tell us always you were dead”: Smith (1624), p. 261. Preferred to stay there: Chamberlain (1965), p. 215. Coal smoke disagreed: Stith (1747), p. 143. Pneumonia or tuberculosis: Smith (1986), vol. 1, p. xlv; Woodward (1969), p. 184. A native woman of Pocahontas’s retinue who stayed behind in England contracted “consumption”—tuberculosis—several years later. Va. Co. Recs., vol. 1, p. 338.

  Gravesend, George: Smith (1624), p. 262. “All must die”: Letter from John Rolfe to Sir Edwin Sandys (June 8, 1617), reprinted in Va. Co. Recs., vol. 3, p. 71. Funeral: Woodward (1969), p. 185. Bells: Rowse (1971), p. 244. Stukely: Rolfe, op. cit. “At my departure from Gravesend”: Ibid.

  “Much lamented”: Letter from John Rolfe to Sir Edwin Sandys (June 8, 1617), reprinted in Va. Co. Recs., vol. 3, p. 71. “Goes from place to place”: Letter of Samuel Argall to Va. Co. (Mar. 10, 1618), reprinted in Va. Co. Recs., vol. 3, p. 92. “At her returne”: Purchas (1625), vol. 19, p. 118. “Tomakin rails”: Letter of Samuel Argall (June 9, 1617), reprinted in Va. Co. Recs., vol. 3, p. 73.

  Thomas Rolfe did not go to the New World until 1635, long after his father’s death there in 1622. He became a successful Virginia planter in his own right with two thousand acres of holdings.

  ater generations of the Virginia aristocracy would trace their bloodlines back to Pocahontas’s son. To free Virginia’s preeminent families from being classified as mixed race—a serious disability in the segregationist South of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries—Virginia’s laws against interracial marriages would eventually contain a “Pocahontas exception” for whites with small amounts of native blood in their veins. See Tilton (1994), p. 29.

  13: THE FIRST AFRICAN AMERICANS

  “The greatness and bounds”: Strachey (1612), p. 48. When he died: Letter of John Rolfe (June 15, 1618), reprinted in Smith (1624), p. 265. Whitaker... had drowned: Smith (1986), vol. 1, p. lii. John Rolfe had married or was about to: The year of this marriage is unknown, but was evidently between 1618 and 1621 (the latter being the year he and Jane Pierce Rolfe had a daughter, Elizabeth). Narratives, pp. 55–56. One man, “all our riches”: Letter of John Pory (Sept. 30, 1619), reprinted in Va. Co. Recs., vol. 3, p. 221. A newcomer to the colony in 1619: Ancient Planters of Virginia, A Brief Declaration (1624), reprinted in Narratives, p. 908. Tobacco trade statistics: “Lord Sackville’s Papers” (1922), pp. 496–97.

  King James’s opposition: Willson (1956), pp. 303, 331. “We have with great joy”: Letter of the Treasurer and Council for Vir
ginia to Sir George Yeardley (June 21, 1619), reprinted in Va. Co. Recs., vol. 3, pp. 146–47.

  Increased tenfold: Heimann (1960), p. 50. “Because corne was stinted”: Smith (1624), p. 327. See also p. 287. Purchas makes the same point, possibly under the influence of Smith (whom he reprints extensively on other matters). “Some thinke that if corne might there be valued (not at two shillinges sixe pence the bushell) as deere as that which is brought from hence, there would be lesse feare of famine, or dependance on tobacco.” Purchas (1625), vol. 19, p. 150. On the setting of the price of tobacco, see also Va. Co. Recs., vol. 3, p. 162.

  Assignment of private land ownership: Instructions to George Yeardley (Nov. 18, 1618), reprinted in Va. Co. Recs., vol. 3, pp. 100–101, 103. Four “cities or borroughs”: Ibid., p. 100. “Particular plantations”: Morgan (1975), p. 94. Smythe’s Hundred, Martin’s Hundred: Hatch (1957), pp. 38–39, 104. By the end of 1619: Letter of John Rolfe to Sir Edwin Sandys (Jan. 1620), reprinted in Va. Co. Recs., vol. 3, p. 245.

  Sir Thomas Dale had granted the colonists the use of around three acres apiece to encourage planting, but those rights appear to have been rights of tenancy rather than ownership; there is no indication that the colonists had permanent ownership of their plots or that they could buy and sell them. Hamor, A True Discourse (1615), reprinted in Narratives, p. 814; Morgan (1975), pp. 93–94.

  “A forme of government”: Treasurer [Sir Edwin Sandys] and Company, An Ordinance and Constitution for Council and Assembly in Virginia (July 24, 1621), reprinted in Va. Co. Recs., vol. 3, p. 482. This document is believed to be a copy made by Yeardley of the instructions he received in 1618. See Billings (1975), p. 11. Reflected the growing influence: Davis (1955), pp. 97, 280–82. Sandys background: Rabb (1998), pp. 6–10, 13, 99; DNB. Natural rights: Rabb (1998), pp. 30 n. 5, 100 n. 69; Malcolm (1981), p. 301. “There was not any man”: Sir Nathaniel Rich, Captain John Bargrave’s Discourse (May 16, 1623), reprinted in Va. Co. Recs., vol. 4, p. 194. Captain Bargrave’s extreme accusation probably overstated Sandys’s true intentions, but it indicates that Sandys was seen as having democratic motives in governing the company as well as in the parliamentary sphere. Burgesses: Treasurer and Company, op. cit., p. 483. Census taken in March 1620: McCartney (1999), p. 182; Thorndale (1995), pp. 160, 168.