The Jamestown Experiment (9 page)

Two days after the spirited young girl saved Smith from death, Wahunsonacock “disguised himself in the most fearful manner he could…made the most doleful noise Smith ever heard. Then Powhatan more like a devil than a man, with some two hundred more as black as himself, came unto him and told him now they were friends.”
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Wahunsonacock invited Smith and the few dozen English
settlers to forsake their people and live among his people in harmony and bounty. The werowance asked in return that they provide him with copper and hatchets. He astutely wanted to control the trade for useful raw materials that could strengthen his control of the area. He also sought the powerful cannons of the English so that he could maintain the dominance of his empire and expand it.

As a captive, Smith was in no position to refuse the conditions that his adversary offered, but he discerned an opportunity to arrive at Jamestown and reject the offer simultaneously. Wahunsonacock promised to make Smith a chief and grant his release in exchange for “two great guns and a grindstone” that twelve warriors would carry back to Werowocomoco. Smith readily agreed, chuckling inward at his own joke. Back at Jamestown, Smith offered the party a one-thousand-pound cannon, although as he wryly put it, “They found them somewhat too heavy.”

He scared them off yet again with a blast of the guns, which were filled with stones. The shot splintered some great trees covered in icicles. The “ice and branches came so tumbling down that the poor savages ran away half dead with fear,” and without the werowance’s prized weapons. After a great laugh, Smith called the Indians back and gave them a few trifles for their women and children.
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The powerful leader of the Powhatans had seized up one of the most formidable Englishmen in Virginia and released him. Perhaps he found Smith a man worthy of mutual admiration or of possible use in maintaining control over the extensive Powhatan empire, especially since the settlers’ numbers were dwindling and soon might be easily taken over and integrated into the Powhatans. Whatever the reason, Smith was free and faced numerous troubles among his own people.

When Smith returned to Jamestown on January 2, 1608, he discovered that escaping captivity and death at the hands of the Indians
was the least of his problems. Only forty colonists were still alive. Moreover, President Ratcliffe and newly elected councilman Gabriel Archer were leading a plot of several gentlemen to commandeer the pinnace
Discovery
and return to England to escape the suffering, but they would be leaving behind the rest of the colonists to face “the fury of the savages, famine, and all manner of mischiefs and inconveniences.” Smith explained, “Now in Jamestown they were all in combustion, the strongest preparing once more to run away with the pinnace for England.” In a daring move, Smith ordered the cannon and muskets pointed at the ship to keep it in Virginia. Smith forced them to “stay or sink.”
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The first seven months of the colony were an abject failure. Diseases had ravaged the settlement. The land was not nearly as bountiful as they described in their promotional letters to investors in England. The native peoples recognized the difficulties of the colony and used it to their advantage, threatening Jamestown and dominating trade or helping it survive for their own benefit. Moreover, the settlers fought as much with one another as they did with the Indians. Ambitions and intrigues drove the Englishmen apart. The reality of the colony hardly matched the grand expectations of the investors little more than a year before. Their salvation seemed imminent when Christopher Newport’s ship put in at Jamestown during the frightful cold of the winter. Newport landed the same day that Smith returned to Jamestown. It was fortuitous timing for John Smith, for his life hung literally in the balance.

Chapter Six

C
hristopher Newport was shocked by the condition of the colony when he returned, as he had left the settlement in good shape in late June. He now witnessed the hunger that had plagued the colony. The few surviving colonists were also at each other’s necks. Former president Wingfield was suffering from months of confinement. The colony had sunk into anarchy.

Newport’s ship, the
John and Francis,
carried five dozen colonists and copious provisions for the settlement. In early December they had sailed up from Puerto Rico and sighted America on December 24. A dense fog rolled in, causing them to lose visual contact with a sister ship, the
Phoenix.
After a voyage of thousands of miles together, the pair became separated only ten to twelve leagues from the wide mouth of the James River. The sailors on the
John and Francis
had “no further news of it” and its forty settlers. Newport decided to sail up the James when the fog lifted, fully expecting the
Phoenix
to join him shortly at Jamestown.
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When Newport and the settlers disembarked from the
John and Francis,
the captain immediately conferred with the president and the council. That same morning, January 2, Smith had returned from captivity. Rather than being relieved that a member of the council was alive after weeks of going missing with the other men, the council accused Smith of the deaths of Thomas Emry and Jehu Robinson. In a matter of hours, he was tried, convicted, and sentenced to hang. “Great blame and imputation was laid upon me by them, for the loss of our two men which the Indians slew,” Smith reported. The council convicted him in accordance with the scriptural “eye for an eye” principle of Leviticus 24, which says that a man who slays another must be put to death. Although Smith did not kill the men, he was held responsible for their deaths. For the second time in less than a year, he was awaiting execution. Newport’s ship arrived that evening, and Newport ordered Smith released, barely saving his life. Smith was even restored to the council.
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Newport brought sixty more settlers and months’ worth of provisions to keep the colonists alive through the winter. Intent on finding gold to satisfy investors in England and to pay for the steep cost of the provisioning expedition, the new settlers included two refiners and two goldsmiths among many artisans who were to do various tasks around the colony. Yet the arrival of so many colonists further strained the housing shortage, so Newport ordered the new men to build a storehouse, a stove, and a church. They worked quickly, finishing “cheerfully and in short time.”
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Unfortunately, on January 7 one of the houses erupted in flame and smoke. Sparks leaped to the thatched roofs of nearby dwellings. The heat of the conflagration rapidly grew more intense. Panicked men yelled a warning to the others and quickly ran to safety. They desperately attempted to quench the flames with water, but it was
an impossible task. The blaze even claimed the wooden palisade that surrounded the settlement as their main protection. From a distance, the settlers watched in silence as the fire consumed the storehouse, their homes, and all their earthly possessions, including their food and clothing.

One of the new settlers had accidentally set fire to “their quarters and so the town, which being but thatched with reeds, the fire was so fierce that it burnt their palisades, though eight or ten yards distant, with their arms, bedding, apparel, and much private provisions…Our preacher lost all his library and all he had but the clothes on his back, yet none never heard him repine at his loss.” They looked over the pile of ashes and the three surviving houses that was their colony. When the fire waned and the last embers burned out, they shivered in the frigid cold.
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The fire was particularly disastrous for the colony to experience in the middle of the brutally cold winter that had settled in Virginia. Although Wahunsonacock kindly sent supplies of “deer, bread, and raccoons” to help feed the colony, several settlers died from exposure in the wake of the fire.
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At the time, the world was experiencing a little ice age in which global temperatures dropped by a few degrees for a few centuries, which affected crop yields and led to dramatically cold and snowy winters. “It got so very cold and the frost was so sharp that I and many others suffered frozen feet,” a colonist reported. There was a great deal of frost and snow on the ground. The cold became so intense that “the river at our fort froze almost all the way across, although at that point it is as wide again as the one at London.”
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The situation had been desperate before Newport arrived; now it was dire. They had virtually no food and no means of acquiring enough to feed everyone in the colony. They slept in the freezing cold, exposed to the elements. It was a battle for survival in which
they were completely at the mercy of the Powhatans, just as Wahunsonacock had hoped.

When he sent provisions to Jamestown, Wahunsonacock also invited Christopher Newport to come to Werowocomoco, as Wahunsonacock wanted to meet the “father” he considered the leader of the English. Continually importuned by messengers and presents of food, Newport finally agreed to travel to Werowocomoco. A few weeks later, Newport set out from Jamestown in the pinnace with John Smith, Matthew Scrivener, and thirty to forty armed guards. Smith urged Newport and his men to go heavily armed.

The group traveled along the James, around Point Comfort, and up the Pamunkey River toward Werowocomoco. Because of his mistrust of Wahunsonacock, Smith went ashore first with twenty men to discover the leader’s intentions. Smith and his men were kindly received and marched to the town with a large escort of more than two hundred warriors. Smith suspiciously watched for any sign of danger, either a sudden ambush by his host or booby-trapped bridges that would collapse and catch the English in a treacherous predicament. He sent the Indians first over the bridges as a precaution and to test the strength of the spans. Keeping a wary eye open at all times, Smith was led to the werowance without incident and grandly welcomed by the werowance
.

Wahunsonacock and his people greeted the former captive and his men with shouts of joy and great orations. In stark contrast to the dire food shortages at Jamestown, he offered a feast of almost endless platters of meat and bread. The werowance sat down on a large pillow of pearl-embroidered leather and was himself adorned with a fair robe of furs. His female attendants and hundreds of warriors stood at his side.

Finally, Wahunsonacock spoke to Smith. “Your kind visitation
doth much content me,” the werowance began, “but where is your father whom I much desire to see? Is he not with you?” Smith replied that he would be arriving the following day. After Wahunsonacock considered this, he remarked on the joke that Smith had played on him about the guns he promised from their last encounter. Since the guns Smith had offered his Indian escort at Jamestown were much too large to transport, Wahunsonacock asked for “some of less burden.” He also requested that the Englishmen lay their arms down at his feet “as did his subjects” as a sign of submission and trust. Smith refused, saying, “That was a ceremony our enemies desired, but never our friends,” showing that he was no fool.
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Smith raised the question of trade and asked “for the corn… he promised me.” Wahunsonacock did not enter into negotiations quite yet, offering to fill the Englishmen’s baskets with as much bread as they could carry to their vessel as a present to Newport and a gesture of good faith.
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Smith and Wahunsonacock conversed for hours, and the dancing, singing, and feasting continued into the night, until everyone finally retired. It was a lavish entertainment for the settlers who were starving and freezing to death, as well as a sign of Wahunsonacock’s power and wealth vis-à-vis his visitors. Smith stated that he witnessed “such a majesty as I cannot express, nor yet have often seen, either in pagan or Christian.”
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Christopher Newport came ashore the following morning, and Wahunsonacock entertained him with celebratory feasts and entertainments lasting three or four days. During that time, Newport offered a teenage boy, Thomas Savage, to Wahunsonacock to learn their language and their ways. In exchange, the Indian leader offered Namontack, “his trusty servant and one of a shrewd, subtle capacity,” to go among the English and learn about the strangers. The cultural exchange might help each learn the ways of the other
to facilitate trade and foster a relationship between the two peoples while also gaining for each side valuable intelligence that might be used to their advantage.
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Knowing that he held all of the power in the trade relationship with the English and that they survived at Jamestown at his whim, Wahunsonacock finally allowed the subject to be broached. He addressed his counterpart with respect and an apparent willingness to get down to business: “Captain Newport, it is not agreeable to my greatness in this peddling manner to trade for trifles, and I esteem you also a great werowance.” Wahunsonacock shrewdly invited Newport to “lay down all your commodities together. What I like I will take, and in recompense give you what I think fitting their value.”
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Smith immediately saw through Wahunsonacock’s strategy and turned to confer with Newport, whispering that “his intent was but only to cheat us.” Smith was hardly about to reveal his hand and lay down “all our hatchets and copper together” for his trade partner to see. Wahunsonacock’s strategy was “that ancient trick the Chickahominies had oft acquainted me,” although Europeans were not ignorant of this common method of gaining an upper hand in trade. Newport, though, was a proud man who foolishly believed he could outwit those he considered savages. He haughtily “thinking to outbrave this savage in ostentation of greatness, and so to bewitch him with his bounty,” rashly acceded to Wahunsonacock’s wishes. Smith was beside himself with frustration at how poorly Newport understood trade with the native peoples.
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Because of Newport’s careless trading, Wahunsonacock predictably offered Newport a trivial amount of corn for the settlers’ goods. “We had not four bushels,” Smith complained, “for that we expected to have twenty hogsheads.” He rescued what would have been a disastrous move that might allow his Indian adversary to dominate their trade relationship for a long time to come. Smith helped win
better terms when he introduced blue beads into the negotiations, which Wahunsonacock highly prized as great jewels. Smith thought he tricked the Indian with “many trifles,” although the Englishmen were similarly mesmerized by the sight of pearls and what they considered to be precious metals. Regardless, Smith apparently steered the negotiations back to an equal footing, and the English left with a few hundred bushels of corn for the settlement.
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The leaders discussed the possibly of an alliance to fight the Powhatans’ enemy, the Monacans. Newport, wishing to learn more about the possible location of gold and “to discover the South Sea” (which Smith deprecated as a “fairy tale”), almost agreed to such a joint venture. They took their leave of Wahunsonacock and went to Opechancanough to trade for more corn. Smith went off to “dig a rock, which we supposed a mine,” and brought the ore and what he thought was twelve weeks’ worth of provisions back to Jamestown in March.
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Despite the relative success Smith and Newport achieved in trading with the Indians, the colonists continued to suffer wretched conditions in the razed settlement. By staying for fourteen weeks, the sailors on the
John and Francis
consumed much of the provisions—the “beef, pork, oil, aqua vitae, fish, butter and cheese, [and] beer”—intended for the colonists. In exchange, the sailors charged exorbitant prices, gouging the survivors of the calamity and forcing them to trade their “money, spare clothes…gold rings, furs, or any such commodities” for a decent meal. The supplies, which they had to “buy…at fifteen times the value,” John Smith reported, “could not be had for a pound of copper which before was sold us for an ounce.”
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