Continuing my look at the history of Native Americans Relations between Natives and the English colonists were tenuous at best. In 1607, more than 100 Europeans involved themselves in a private profitable endeavor and were able to navigate 40 miles up the James River and found an English presence in the heart of Powhatan's domain at James Fort, later to be christened Jamestown. Inside a few years, the celebrated pioneer Captain John Smith would be ceremonially introduced into Powhatan culture. Chief Powhatan’s (the dominant leader of a coalition of Algonquian-speaking Virginia Indians) descendant Pocahontas would wed the settler John Rolfe in a pseudo-stately nuptial union actively sanctioned by then governor of the settlement Thomas Dale, and the English and Indians would absorb themselves in a guarded, yet accommodating affiliation. This, unquestionably, is now the substance of widespread American mythology.[1]
17th century America is riddle with “bullet holes” in the veil of English/Indian relations. There were three Indian wars (1622, 1644, and 1675) combined with continuous butcheries and devastations to a lesser degree. There were manhunts instated in 1644 and were unrelenting for some years. Moreover combined with smallpox and other epidemics, and by the overall disheartenment consequential from oppression to the dominant race, the whites, things did not go over well for the indigenous people.[2] The need (or desire) for land was generally all the catalyst needed for bloodshed. Open combat on a great scale was delayed until 1622, when Chief Powhatan had been deceased four years and his brother Opechancanough had flourished in the Indian regime. Pocahontas, for whose sake her father had calmed his own antagonistic sentiment, had died before him. The first massacre took place in Virginia on Friday, 22 March 1622. Chief Opechancanough, the new tribal chief of the Powhatan Confederacy, led an organized sequence of surprise assaults that slaughtered 347 people in the space of a few hours, most of them short of the slimmest chance for protecting themselves.[3] Even though Jamestown was secure owed to a well-timed warning, the Powhatan also laid siege and devastated many other settlements along the James River. These coinciding and unanticipated attacks upon virtually every settlement and farmstead within the bounds of the settlement left only devastation it its wake. On top of the butchery of colonists, the Powhatan scorched households and harvests alike. The English relinquished control many of the lesser settlements after the bouts. Colonists who endured the assaults ransacked the tribes and predominantly their corn crops in the summer and fall of 1622 so effectively that Chief Opechancanough chose to negotiate. Through welcoming native arbitrators, diplomatic deliberations were agreed upon between the two groups. But peace seems to be always chased and rarely ever caught. After twelve years of armistice another Powhatan war began on March 18, 1644, as a final exertion by the fragments of the Powhatan Confederacy, still under control by Opechancanough, to extricate the English pioneers of the Virginia Colony. Diplomatic dealings broke down, the budding tobacco trade soon necessitated the claiming of larger quantities of land, and the dominant chiefdom of the Tidewater eastern area of Virginia, was gone by 1644, even though not without skirmishes. Roughly 500 settlers were slain, but that figure signified a comparatively low percentage of the total populace. Nevertheless, Opechancanough, still favoring to usage Powhatan strategies, did not make any major follow-up to the violence. Some tribes, not unlike the Monacan, kept their distance from the English, or were perchance kept from them by the Powhatan. As an effect, the Monacan has almost been thrown into the obscurities of antiquity.[4] Indians were so reduced in quantities and resources that for more than twenty years there was hesitant respite, when Opechancanough dogged upon an ultimate exertion, though now so timeworn and frail that he was no longer able to walk or even to open his eyes short of assistance. As before, the intensifying arose with an abrupt surprise butchery, April 18, 1644, where the sightless and dilapidated but still un-ruled chief controlled in person, supported by his men. The amount of whites exterminated in this second bloodbath is quantified from 300 to 500, the inconsistency being owing to the detail that the settlement was now so well progressive and they extended out over so much terrain that particular accounting was neither so easy in 1622.[5] Retaliation from the colonists was to be expected. In August 1645, Governor William Berkeley stormed Opechancanough's base camp and apprehended him. All seized male prisoners (who did not meet up with a musket ball) in the village over age 11 were extradited to Tangier Island. Opechancanough, nearly 100 years old, was moved to Jamestown where he was shot in the back by a guard. His demise caused in the dissolution of the Powhatan Confederacy into its constituent tribes. But as to be expected, peace was to be short lived. Animosity smoldered instead of being extinguished completely. In 1676, there was much infighting going on between the Colonists. Thus enters an armed revolt by Virginia colonists directed by the fledgling upstart Nathaniel Bacon against the decree of Governor Berkeley. Berkeley had reduced control over the settlement for the reason that his diminishing esteem and his feeble guidance. The direct reason was his denial to strike back for a succession of Indian assaults on border settlements. Bacon’s own wife writes to a friend her distrust for the indigenous people and the innate fear many settlers felt, whether it was warranted or not: “If you had been here, it would have grieved your heart to hear the pitiful complaints of the people, The Indians killing the people daily the Govern: not taking any notice of it for to hinder them, but let them daily doe all the mischief they can: I am sure if the Indians were not cowards, they might have destroyed all the upper plantations, and killed all the people upon them; the Governor so much their friend, that here would not suffer anybody to hurt one of the Indians; and the poor people came to your brother to desire him to help against the Indians, and here being very much concerned for the loss of his Overseer, -and for the loss of so many men and women and children's lives every day, here was willing to do them all the good here could.”[6] This type of dialogue was infectious to an anti-Indian mob mentality that had not enjoyed its questionable dealings over the past 50 some years. It was grounds for some to revolution; and it impelled some to take difficulties into their own hands. Opening to move against the natives, Bacon and his cohorts laid waste to the neutral and welcoming Pamunkey. The tribe had ironically stayed supporters of the English during other Indian attacks, and they were furnishing combatants to support the English when Bacon took command. After confronting Native Americans, the rebels took to hunting Berkeley out of Jamestown, and eventually incinerating the capital. Ultimately, the settlers did not succeed in their goal of driving Native Americans from Virginia. These events set the stage for the next century (and really beyond) for Europeans and their Native counterparts. Clearly race was an issue, but culture definitely was a driving wedge between them. To say that think went from good to worse is not really a fair assumption; it was really more of a case worse to terrible. Bacon’s Rebellion also upset the balance of power a bit for the colony. The anxiety of civil war among whites alarmed Virginia’s presiding elite, who took strides to combine influence and expand their appearance. For instance, reinstatement of property credentials for balloting, decreasing taxes and implementation of a more hostile Indian strategy. [1] Hantman 676 [2] Mooney 133 [3] Mooney 137-138 [4] Hantman 686 [5] Mooney 139 [6] The William and Mary Quarterly 4
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Ryan LancasterThe internet is a scary place. You don't know who to trust when it comes to information sometimes, especially when it involves history. Well weary traveler, look no further. Professor Lancaster has got you covered. After receiving my masters in American history, I wanted to put that rather expensive piece of paper to use and create a curriculum of my choosing to inform the unwashed masses of their history. Also, I want to be an internet celebrity. Archives
August 2018
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