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Chesapeak Bay and Jamestown

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It is evident that every culture is affected by the environment in which said culture evolves. Whether these effects can be observed in the gods differing societies worship, or by the way in which resources are accumulated, the reasons are all the same. How each society and culture interacts with its environment dictates its development and growth. There is no more evident an example of this than the Chesapeake Bay area, pre, mid, and post colonization, using the colony of Jamestown as an model for contact interactions between two distinct cultures, and how these relations can be dictated by the environment. In the period termed pre-contact the indigenous peoples living in the Chesapeake Bay region were known collectively as the Powhatan people. This name was used for the collective of the Algonquian speaking tribes in the Chesapeake Bay and, during the time of interest, was led by Chief Powhatan, who took his tribe name as his ruling name. Chief Powhatan inherited the rule of six tribes when he became chief, as well as having accumulated a multitude of tribes during his reign to create the Powhatan confederacy. Within this confederacy, each distinct tribe was responsible for providing military support when requested, as well as were required to provide taxes in the form of pelts, food, copper and pearls. Notably, at no point was gold objectively mined by the Powhatan people. These people left no written records and thus the information available in modern times about the

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