Page 65 - American Stories, A History of the United States

2.1 Read the Document Chief Powhatan, Remarks to
Captain John Smith (c. 1609)

2.2

2.3

2.4

powhatan CEREmoniaL CLoaK In 1608, Powhatan, the father of Pocahontas, gave this shell-decorated
ceremonial cloak to Captain Christopher Newport, commander of the fleet that brought the first English settlers to
Jamestown.
SOurCE: Ashmolean Museum/The Art Archive at Art resource, NY

political decisions affecting the colonists rested with the company, a fact that had not
been made sufficiently clear in the 1606 charter. Moreover, in an effort to raise scarce
capital, the original partners opened the joint-stock company to the general public. For a
little more than £12—approximately one year’s wages for an unskilled English laborer—
a person or group of persons could purchase a stake in Virginia. It was anticipated that
in 1616 the profits from the colony would be distributed among the shareholders. The
company sponsored a publicity campaign; pamphlets and sermons extolled the colony’s
potential and exhorted patriotic English citizens to invest in the enterprise.
The burst of energy came to nothing. Bad luck and poor planning plagued the
Virginia Company. A vessel carrying additional settlers and supplies went aground
in Bermuda, and while this misadventure did little to help the people at Jamestown, it
provided Shakespeare with the idea for his play The Tempest.
Between 1609 and 1611, the remaining Virginia settlers lacked capable leadership,
and, perhaps as a result, they lacked food. The terrible winter of 1609–1610 was termed
the “starving time.” A few desperate colonists were driven to cannibalism, an ironic situ-
ation since early explorers had assumed that only Native Americans would eat human
flesh. In England, Smith heard that one colonist had killed his wife, powdered (salted)
her, and “had eaten part of her before it was known; for which he was executed.” The
captain, who possessed a droll sense of humor, observed, “Now, whether she was better
roasted, broiled, or carbonadoed [sliced], I know not, but such a dish as powdered wife I
never heard of.” Other settlers simply lost the will to live.
The presence of so many Native Americans was an additional threat to Virginia’s
survival. The first colonists found themselves living—or attempting to live—in terri-
tory controlled by what was probably the most powerful Indian confederation east of
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