US History

Colonization and Settlement (1585-1763)

Native Americans

This collection uses primary sources to explore the encounter between the Powhatan people and the English at Jamestown.

A “New Map of Virginia” (with images of Powhatan), 1633 or 1636.

This map shows the location of the villages in the Powhatan Confederacy, as well as new English settlement. Notice the enormous number of Native settlements, the English mapmaker’s attention to natural resources, and the meaning of the English names recorded on the map.

Translation:

Title: A New Map of Virginia 
Top left: The rank/condition of the king Powhatan when the officer Smith was given as a captive to him 
Top right: key: Kings house; ordinary house/settlement; places brought to light (i.e. “civilized” by the English) 
Furthest right: British royal crest, with old French motto "shame on him who thinks ill of it" 
Bottom left: Virginia Sea 
Bottom: at Amsterdam from the workshop of Henry

The town of Pomeiock, reproduced by Spencer Nichols from a 1585 watercolor by John White.

This illustration shows an Algonquian Indian village in what is now North Carolina. John White was an English colonist who sailed to North America in 1585, returning to England in 1586. In 1587 he became governor of the second attempt to create a colony at Roanoke. Despite White’s attempts to secure supplies for the second colony, it too failed.

Secoton, an American Indian community in North Carolina, engraved by Theodor de Bry in 1590, based on John White’s watercolor of 1585.

Theodor de Bry learned to engrave copper plates—from which illustrations were printed in books—from his father and grandfather. Between 1585 and 1588 he lived in London and collected stories of European exploration of the Americas. Note the many activities of the people in this community, as well as the three fields on the left showing corn in different seasons.

Theodor de Bry’s engraving of John White’s illustration of the first Englishmen arriving in Virginia in 1585.

This illustration is captioned “Arriual of the Englishemen in Virginia.” Note the geography of settlements like Roanoke and Secoton, and their location relative to the treacherous Atlantic ocean.

A 1617 illustration of John Smith, the first leader of Jamestown.

John Smith was a soldier who became the primary leader of the Jamestown colony of Virginia in September 1608. He oversaw some of the worst years of in the colony’s history, including the deaths of almost half the colonists during the severe winter of 1608. Smith left Virginia in 1609 after he was badly injured in a gunpowder accident.

Transcription: 

These are the lines that shew thy face but those 
that shew thy Grace and Glory, brighter bee 
Thy Faire-Discoveries and Fowle-Overthrowes 
Of Salvages much Civililz’d by thee 
Best shew thy spirit and to it Glory wyns 
So thou art Brasse without-but Gold within

An illustration of Pocahontas created in England in 1618.

After she lost her first husband, Kocoum, and after she was kidnapped and held hostage by the English in their attempt to persuade her father to be lenient to them, Matoaka (or Pocahontas) converted to Christianity and received the name Rebecca. In 1614, she married John Rolfe, an Englishman from the Jamestown colony. In 1615 Rolfe took Matoaka to England, where she became sick and died.

Transcription: 

Matoaks Als Rebecka daughter to the Mighty Prince 
Powhatan Emperour of Attanoughakomouck als virginia 
converted and baptized in the Christian faith, and 
wife to the worthy Mr. John Rolff

Excerpts from a pamphlet published in 1609 in favor of English settlement in Virginia.

This pamphlet describes “Nova Britannia: offering most excellent fruits by planting in Virginia, exciting all such as be well effected to further the same.” Note how the pamphlet promotes natural resources that were in short supply in Europe.

A nineteenth-century artist imagines what the early days of Jamestown might have looked like.

This engraving is titled “The Settlers at Jamestown.” Notice the absence of women in this picture, and the number of well-dressed men as opposed to working men.

An excerpt from *A True Relation by Captain John Smith*, 1608.

This book includes John Smith’s first account of being captured and released by Powhatan. The English used in this account is typical of the early seventeenth century, and uses spellings different from those used today. As you read, try taking the ‘e’ off the end of a word to see if it makes more sense without it.

An excerpt from John Smith’s second account of being captured and released by Powhatan, published in 1624.

This excerpt comes from *The Capture and Release of Captain John Smith Including His Rescue From Death By Pocahontas*, “in his own words from *The Generall Historie of Virginia* as published at London in 1624.” The language used is quite old. Use an online dictionary when you come across words that you don’t recognize.

Questions

1. Compare and contrast the [excerpt from *A True Relation by Captain John Smith*](https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/powhatan-people-and-the-english-at-jamestown/sources/1405) and the [excerpt from John Smith’s second account](https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/powhatan-people-and-the-english-at-jamestown/sources/1406) of being captured and released by Powhatan. Why do you think the accounts differ? How do the other sources in this set help explain the differences?
2. What can you tell about life for Native communities on the east coast of North America by analyzing the illustration of the [town of Pomeiock](https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/powhatan-people-and-the-english-at-jamestown/sources/1398) and the engraving of [Secoton](https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/powhatan-people-and-the-english-at-jamestown/sources/1399)? How did people live together? What did they eat? What occupied their time?
3. Analyze the [excerpts from a pamphlet in favor of English settlement in Virginia](https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/powhatan-people-and-the-english-at-jamestown/sources/1403) for what it tells us about the things that were important to the English as they looked at Powhatan’s territory.
4. What do the “[New Map of Virginia](https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/powhatan-people-and-the-english-at-jamestown/sources/1397)” and the [engraving of the first Englishmen arriving in Virginia](https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/powhatan-people-and-the-english-at-jamestown/sources/1400) suggest about what the English wanted from Virginia? If you were a member of the Powhatan people, how would you react to newcomers in your midst with these ideas?
5. Consider the [illustration of John Smith](https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/powhatan-people-and-the-english-at-jamestown/sources/1401) and the [illustration of Pocahontas](https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/powhatan-people-and-the-english-at-jamestown/sources/1402). What are some similarities and differences between the ways that English artists depicted John Smith and Pocahontas? Why does the language used on each illustration differ and why? What markers of status does each person carry in the picture?

Activity

Ask students to use sources in this set to explain why things did not go well for the English when they first arrived in Powahatan territory. Divide the group into two teams, with one team approaching this question from the perspective of the Powhatan people and the other from the perspective of the English. After students have spent time thinking, bring the teams back together to talk about who bears responsibility for the situation in Jamestown. 

Teaching Guide: Exploring the Powhatan People and the English at Jamestown

Resources

1. “[The First Residents of Jamestown](https://www.nps.gov/jame/learn/historyculture/the-first-residents-of-jamestown.htm),” National Park Service. 
2. [Archaeology](http://historicjamestowne.org/archaeology/), Historic Jamestowne. 
3. [Virtual Jamestown](http://www.virtualjamestown.org/). 

Overview

In 1607, a party of Englishmen landed in a place they called Virginia. They followed in the footsteps of Sir Walter Raleigh, who had visited Virginia (which, at the time, included North Carolina) with a party of settlers in 1585. The colony founded by Raleigh’s party failed, weakened by lack of supplies and irregular contact with England.

To the people who already lived in the area, this was the land of the Powhatan Confederacy, a vast regional network of allied communities living under the leadership of Wahunsenacah (also known as Powhatan). Contact between the English and the people of the Powhatan confederacy was fraught with misunderstanding and conflict. This owed a great deal to the fact that the English were in the Americas to form a colony and make money for the Virginia Company of London, the corporation that had launched them on their voyage west. The Powhatan, on the other hand, lived out their values of kinship, allyship, and reciprocity in a way that was at first incomprehensible to the English, and that later they firmly rejected. 

The English made their first settlement at Jamestown, a swampy post a short distance from the main villages of the Powhatan confederacy. One of their leaders was John Smith, who infamously recounted a story of being saved from certain death at Wahunsenacah’s hands by his daughter, Matoaka (more commonly known in US culture as Pocahontas). The real story is more complex, and likely Smith misunderstood a ceremony intended to adopt him into the community—he was not, at that moment, at risk of dying.

This primary source set explores contact between the Powhatan and the English in the first years after English settlement. 

English

Powhatan People and the English at Jamestown

jamestown_02_3f144856d6cc71e6a7df2e3969142beb.jpg

Courtesy of Smithsonian American Art Museum via Smithsonian Institution.

Nichols, Spencer, “The Town of Pomeiock,” Digital Public Library of America, https://dp.la/item/3f144856d6cc71e6a7df2e3969142beb.

The town of Pomeiock, reproduced by Spencer Nichols from a 1585 watercolor by John White.

Cite this item

Tips for Students

Item 2 of 10 in the Primary Source Set Powhatan People and the English at Jamestown