The Birth of America
Struggling from one peril to the next, the Jamestown settlers planted the seeds of the nation's spirit
Faulty notions. All along, the danger of Indian attack competed with disease and hunger as the No. 1 threat to the colony's survival. On their first night in Virginia, two colonists were wounded by arrows shot by painted warriors hiding behind the Cape Henry dunes. Days later, however, colonists and Indians were dining together on corn bread and water, seemingly confirming the English notion that the natives lacked only a civilizing influence. Thus the settlement that sprouted at Jamestown did so without a protective wall of logs around it. Yet, within a month, hundreds of Indians attacked the outpost, killing two settlers. A strong wall was built quickly, forming a triangular fort.
The American Indians, the English believed, would quit being savages"—their usual word for Indians—once they learned English manners. But Smith was convinced that Englishmen, too, had a lot to learn: The natives, he wrote, were "our enemies, whom we neither knew nor understood." The English even thought Indians were born white, with skin darkened by paints and dyes.
The Indians likewise guessed wrong about the English. Initially, they did not deem the settlers a threat. Powhatan, the region's powerful chief, expected the intruders to either die off or leave. When their numbers were small, he seemed pleased to swap furs and food for pots and tools. But as ship after ship brought new settlers, including a few women, the chief sensed ominous change. "Your coming hither is not for trade," he suspected, "but to invade my people, and possess my country."
Neither side felt secure. Some mornings found the Indians bringing corn to the settlement. On other days, they peppered the fort with arrows and picked off settlers who ventured outside its walls. In one instance, seven settlers in a boat spotted several native women on a riverbank. When the squaws returned their smiles, the men scrambled onto land, only to be confronted by warriors who had been hiding. Six of the seven managed to rush back to the boat. The straggler was stripped naked and tied to a stake, around which a fire was set. His tormentors used mussel shells to saw off his fingers and toes and skin him. He died as they danced around the flames.
Another ambush landed Smith in the most famous predicament of his life. While ashore during a trip up the Chickahominy River, he was surrounded and captured by hundreds of warriors.
Christmas of 1607 found him being led from village to village as a showpiece. Finally he was brought to a large lodge where a man in a raccoon-skin robe with the tails still attached was sitting. The man was Powhatan, chief of a confederacy of two dozen tribes and 200 villages spread over much of what is now eastern Virginia.
Smith in time would give two very different accounts of what occurred next. The first version, written soon after the event, had the two men discussing their intentions. The chief invited the captain "to live with him upon his river" and engage in trade, Smith wrote, and "this request I promised to performe." Smith, according to this account, then was set free. No role was mentioned for Powhatan's daughter Pocahontas, then 10 or 11 years old.
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