Powhatan, The Supreme Chief Of The Algonquian Indians

English and the North Americans traded, negotiated, cooperated, and intermarried with each other. The settlers came into conflicts over land and their demand for the Native’s land. They also excluded the Powhatan people from their society. Eventually the New World started to flourish once the English accepted the Powhatan people. They became a key factor to the new tobacco economy in colony, changing it to a cash crop in 1613.

Before the arrivals of the Europeans, the Powhatan Indians were a tribe that lived on the coastal parts of Virginia. Their native language was Algonquian, which was used by various tribes along the east coast. The Powhatan tribe had an interesting culture compared to the Europeans. They were a powerful tribe at the time and had control most areas of what is now today Virginia. They were called the Powhatan Confederacy which was a league with over 30 Algonquian speaking tribes. It took one man named Powhatan, as known as Wahunsonacock, to build the most powerful tribes in Eastern America.

Chapter one, entitled Two Worlds, opens with the Wahunsonacock and his brother, Openchancanough. The two were considered the “great Powhatan chiefdom”. Many raids and clashes arose between the different Native groups. The different groups began to spread around the Americas, but the Powhatans usually settled on or near rivers and small estuaries, preferably on higher ground, which gave the Powhatan a great advantage in seeking their enemies and preventing floods. The Powhatan community was designed for war and had

Prior to the arrival of the Europeans the Powhatan’s were far less populated and were far less developed then the Europeans. They were hunter-gatherers, hunting in thick forests during winter or neo-lithic farmers who lived in villages and grew their own crops (such as maize, cotton, medicine and corn) and lived of them during summer and spring. The Powhatan’s believed that land was not to be owned but belonged to everyone and anyone, on that land they built simple tent like houses that they could easily move when they had to. They did not have brick houses and buildings that the Europeans had. The Powhatan’s used sticks, bows and arrows to hunt and not guns and weapons used by the Spanish. In a civilised place a man would do most of the work but women were the ones who built houses, fetched firewood and a lot more (Source 2) which is one of the many reasons why the Europeans thought the Indians were not civilised. There were no real boundaries, tribes were separated by rivers, swamps, mountains, and other natural landmarks (Source 13). The way they fought or killed was brutal,”…two large stones were placed on the ground, Smith’s head was forced upon them and a warrior raised a club to smash in his brain” (Source 4).

This primary source, John Rolfe’s Letter to Thomas Dale about marrying Pocahontas, is from the settlement era and was written in 1614. The European settlers in this era, early 1700s, wanted land and to displace the natives not intermarrying with them. Most settlers remained separate from the Indian society. Some settlers married Native women as a way to gain access to the native societies. It was a way to gain an economic relationship. Indians were being forced off their land because they had no real claim of it. Settlers would establish their towns on sites previously cleared by the Indians. The marriage of John Rolfe and Pocahontas was a rare and unique circumstance in the 1700s. The letter to Thomas Dale is a window to a period of uncertainty between the white settlers and the Native Indians in North America. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the importance of this letter and its effects to the society in the time period after it was written. John Rolfe’s decision to marry Pocahontas proved to be vital at the time. John Rolfe’s letter to Thomas Dale for approval on marrying the Indian Princess Pocahontas reflects on how much society in the early 1610s depended on such thing as intermarriage between a white man and an Indian woman to help keep peace between the white settlers and Native Indians in North America.

In May, the establishment of Jamestown was founded. The men relied on the Indians for food. The settlement suffered from the “starving period” without Powhatan’s help. The settlers held Pocahontas, Powhatan’s daughter, hostage to gain the upper hand in 1613. While they held her captive, she agreed to convert to Christianity and marry John Rolfe. (Norton)

A leader has many responsibilities as a role model and caretaker for their people. Facing hard challenges and knowing how to deal with them is a part of being a great leader all of which are Chief Powhatan showed. Chief Powhatan whose proper name was Wahunsenacawh, was the superior chief of Tsenacommacah, an alliance of Algonquian-speaking Virginia Indians in the Tidewater region of Virginia at the time English settlers landed at Jamestown in 1607. In his address to Captain John Smith Chief Powhatan expresses how he desires peace between the settlers and the Tsenacommacah. He utilizes distinct rhetorical elements such as rhetorical questions, diction and argumentation to further support his view on what he desired to occur between his people and the English settlers.

When the first colonists landed in the territories of the new world, they encountered a people and a culture that no European before them had ever seen. As the first of the settlers attempted to survive in a truly foreign part of the world, their written accounts would soon become popular with those curious of this “new” world, and those who already lived and survived in this seemingly inhospitable environment, Native American Indian. Through these personal accounts, the Native Indian soon became cemented in the American narrative, playing an important role in much of the literature of the era. As one would expect though, the representation of the Native Americans and their relationship with European Americans varies in the written works of the people of the time, with the defining difference in these works being the motives behind the writing. These differences and similarities can be seen in two similar works from two rather different authors, John Smith, and Mary Rowlandson.

The relationship between the English and the Native Americans in 1600 to 1700 is one of the most fluctuating and the most profound relationships in American history. On the one side of the picture, the harmony between Wampanoag and Puritans even inspires them to celebrate “first Thanksgiving”; while, by contrast, the conflicts between the Pequots and the English urge them to antagonize each other, and even wage a war. In addition, the mystery of why the European settlers, including English, become the dominant power in American world, instead of the indigenous people, or Indians, can be solved from the examination of the relationship. In a variety of ways, the relationship drastically alters how people think about and relate to the aborigines. Politically, the relationship changes to establish the supremacy of the English; the English intends to obtain the land and rules over it. Socially, the relationship changes to present the majority of the English settlers; the dominating population is mostly the English settlers. Economically, the relationship changes to obtain the benefit of the English settlers; they gain profit from the massive resource in America. Therefore, the relationship does, in fact, change to foreshadow the discordance of the two groups of people.

After this realization, the natives began attacking European settlements in an attempt to drive them out. Powhatan knew that the Europeans were there to stay and was sure that they were going to be pushed out of their land, so he arranged for his daughter, Pocahontas, to marry John Rolfe. This marriage helped the relations between the two groups for the time being. This false sense of security let the Europeans expand their settlements farther up the James River. This also made the settlers more vulnerable to attacks from the natives. A truce seemed like a great idea, but all it did was force the conflict to build up.

Before the settlers landed in Jamestown, The Indians occupied the land and lived there for centuries. They were the first people to arrive in Jamestown. Some say there were 25,000 Indians; others say around 50,000 of the American natives, who lived on the land. There were about thirty different tribes whom the powhatan chiefdom took charge. However, each tribe had their own chief. In time there would be a change; King James 1 of England granted for another colony to be established under the Virginia Company of London which consisted of many wealthy Englishmen who wanted to invest their money into the company. They expected to

The population of the Indians was decimated by the British, but The Pamunkey and Mattaponi did not give up their reservations and maintained their structure and treaties with the Commonwealth of Virginia (Source 14). The arrival of The English signalled the end of the Powhatan’s way of life as they first took their land and then slowly took away their customs making it impossible for the people to continue living the way they had become accustomed to, thus forcing them to conform into the way of the European thus allowing the history of the Powhatan Indian to fade and become nearly extinct. Bibliography (n.d.). Retrieved March 8, 2015, from http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Indians_in_Virginia (n.d.). Retrieved March 15, 2015, from nps: http://www.nps.gov/jame/learn/historyculture/the-powhatan-indian-world.htm FirstNationsMonday.

The "Salvages" Abby speaks of, were most likely members of one of the Algonquian tribes which occupied the country near Jamestown. These tribes inhabited the land in Virginia east of a line running from Washington, D.C., through Fredericksburg, Richmond, Petersburg, and then turning southeast along the Blackwater River and extending into coastal North Carolina as far as the Neuse River. They also inhabited the two counties Accomak and Northampton in the present Eastern Shore, Virginia. The Algonquians pushed down into Virginia from the north centuries before the coming of the English. Shortly before the English colony was established at Jamestown in 1607, chief Powhatan had brought under his control by conquest most of the Algonquian tribes in the tidewater country. This confederacy was held together by his despotic power. John Smith names twenty-eight tribes

In the early 1600’s, when the European settlers arrived in Jamestown, there were already around 15,000-25,000 Indians living around the area. The leader of the most prominent tribe in the area, Powhatan, stayed in a neutral relationship with the English in the area for the first couple of years after Jamestown following the start of the colony. During the time the Indians

Jamestown, the birthplace of America was the first permanent english settlement in North America. In April 1606, King James I established Jamestown and on May 13, 1607, colonists began to arrive at Jamestown. When establishing Jamestown as a colony, the Virginia Company was in search of economic opportunities. The citizens wanted to escape poverty and prosecution. They wanted to be able to believe in what they wanted. The first month in Jamestown was a struggle for all passengers. The moment the passengers came ashore, they immediately began on settlement. Serious problems soon emerged when about 15,000-25,000 Indians were already living in the Chesapeake Bay when the colony was founded. The Indians were part of the Powhatan Confederacy which was ruled by Powhatan, a powerful leader. At this time, the English settlers were looking for gold that no one was farming. In this situation, Captain John Smith became the colony’s leader and established a “no work, no food” policy. Smith had been instrumental in trading with the Powhatan Indians for food but their relationship was tense in all aspects. After he was injured by a burning gunpowder in 1608 and left for England, the “starving time” began. This was a period of warfare between the colonists and Indians and the depth of many English men