by James Horn
The Virginia Company adopted much the same rationale for colonization that Ralegh’s circle had put forward twenty years earlier. The conclusion of hostilities with Spain meant that a North American colony would not be developed as a privateering base, but the potential for profits from natural resources and precious minerals remained strong.
Richard Hakluyt the younger continued to champion Virginia, by which he meant the Chesapeake and North Carolina. He had written enthusiastically in 1599 that the interior was “so rich and abundant in silver mines, so apt and capable of [supplying] all commodities which Italy, Spain, and France” produced that even the Spaniards acknowledged it was a more promising region than Mexico or New Spain. It is likely that seven years later he assisted the Virginia Company in drawing up instructions for the expedition to be dispatched to the Chesapeake Bay in the winter of 1606.
The instructions laid out the company’s hopes and priorities. Once the colonists arrived in Virginia, they were to explore the major rivers and establish their settlement on a river that had its source in the mountains or from lakes connected to “the Other Sea.” Company officials believed that a passage to the Pacific Ocean was to be found inland and shared Ralegh’s belief that mines might be discovered in the mountains. They differed from Ralegh, however, in thinking that the passage and mines were located not hundreds of miles to the south in the highlands of Florida, but rather in the Chesapeake Bay region.
The colonists were warned to be wary and vigilant. They should be cautious in their dealings with local peoples in case the Indians proved hostile, and they were told to locate their settlement 100 miles inland to avoid being taken by surprise by the Spanish. The advice was a reminder that although England was at peace with Spain, the Spanish did not recognize English claims to North America and would not tolerate interlopers. Forty years after the destruction of the French Huguenot settlers at Fort Caroline in 1565, the company still referred to the massacre as a reminder that the greatest threat to the colonists was an attack by the Spanish.10
Shortly before Christmas 1606 three ships, the Susan Constant (120 tons), Godspeed (40 tons), and Discovery (20 tons), set sail for Virginia carrying 105 settlers and 39 crew members. Under the command of Christopher Newport, the fleet followed the usual Atlantic crossing via the Canaries and West Indies. After spending two weeks in the West Indies resting and exploring the islands, during which time one of the settlers died, Newport led the three ships along the Florida coast and sighted the Chesapeake Bay on April 26, 1607.
The colonists spent the next week exploring the lower reaches of the bay and then entered the James River to search for a suitable site to establish their settlement. Eventually they chose a marshy peninsula about fifty miles from the coast, which they named Jamestown Island. The colonists disembarked on May 14 and all the men, including the mariners, were put to work unloading the settlers’ gear, putting up tents and temporary shelters, and erecting a light defensive fortification from brushwood around the camp. The defensive work proved completely inadequate, however. Following a large-scale Indian attack later in the month, during which two of the colonists were fatally wounded, the Englishmen built a sturdy, three-sided palisade with bulwarks for cannon.
6.1 John Smith, Map of Virginia, engraved by William Hole, 1612. Smith’s map was the result of his explorations of major rivers and the Chesapeake Bay between 1607 and 1608. Jamestown lies on the James River (“Powhatan flu”) center left. Far left are the lands of the Mangoaks and Chowanocs.
A week after landing, Captain Newport and two dozen men left the settlement on a voyage of discovery. Eager to assess the wealth of the region, they sailed along the James River into the interior in search of mountains and a passage to the South Sea. After about fifty miles, however, when they were a little way above the town of Powhatan (near present-day Richmond), they found only rocks and shoals, which made progress impossible.
Despite his disappointment that the river did not flow farther inland, Newport considered the voyage a success. He now had a good idea of the extent of the river and had encountered many friendly peoples living along its banks who were willing to trade. From them the English had learned of a great chief, Wahunsonacock, who ruled the powerful Powhatan people as well as another thirty peoples. Newport had learned also that the Indians obtained their copper from mountains inland and, as he passed through the fertile lands of the Pamunkey people on his way back downriver to the settlement, he had seen Indians wearing plates of copper and pearls in their hair and as ornaments.11
By the time Newport was ready to return to England with the Susan Constant and Godspeed on June 21, the settlers were confident about the natural wealth of the country. There was an abundance of trees suitable for many different uses. Virginia could supply all the timber, clapboard, wainscot, dyestuffs, and medicinal drugs that England needed. One of the colony’s leaders, Gabriel Archer, believed not only that Virginia could provide many of the crops grown in northern latitudes, but also that the settlers would be able to produce oils, wines, iron, and copper. The great sturgeon found in the rivers would be worth at least £1,000 annually, and enormous quantities of cod and herring taken off the coast would provide a steady income. Most intriguing of all, in the mountains to the west, perhaps gold and other precious minerals awaited discovery.12
Newport arrived back in London in early August and gave a glowing report of the expedition to Virginia Company members. Rumors that the settlers had found gold-bearing ore in Virginia spread rapidly around the city. And even when it was discovered that the barrels of earth brought back by Newport did not contain gold, company investors still remained excited about the colony’s potential. Sir Walter Cope, a leading member, wrote, “Our new discovery is more Like to prove the Land of Canaan than the land of Ophir,” a land of milk and honey rather than a land of gold. But most company supporters had not given up hopes of finding riches and believed there was sufficient good news to justify sending more settlers and supplies. Preparations were soon underway for another voyage.13
While Newport was in London, however, the colony all but collapsed. Throughout August and September many settlers died from a virulent camp fever and diseases that swept through the settlement, as well as from wounds inflicted by Indians in sporadic attacks. By the fall, barely 40 ragged and dispirited men were left of the 104 who had first arrived on the island. As a bitterly cold winter set in, they huddled together in the fort by the frozen banks of the James River, waiting for Newport to return to rescue them.
Along with the threat of Indian attack, the colonists’ most pressing problem was their rapidly dwindling food supply. Knowing their stores would not last much longer, the colonists sent a brash young soldier, Captain John Smith, to get provisions by trade or force from Indians along the James River. Smith was a veteran of wars against the Turks in Eastern Europe and was an ambitious and resourceful man. Invariably convinced that he knew best, he had made enemies of the expedition’s leaders on the voyage to Virginia and had spent much of the passage in the Susan Constant’s brig on charges of mutiny. At the settlement he continued to be a constant source of irritation, rarely missing an opportunity to point out the leaders’ shortcomings in blunt language. By the winter, they sought to rid themselves of him by sending him on missions to get provisions, possibly hoping that he might eventually be killed by Indians. For his part, Smith was willing to go. He was keen to be in charge of a group of men and have the chance to explore the rivers and make contact with local peoples. Besides corn, the Indians possessed much information about the region that could turn out to be valuable.14
If the colonists’ leaders hoped Smith might not return from one of his missions, their wish nearly came true. Initially his expeditions went well. He conducted two successful trading voyages along the Chickahominy River in November, bringing provisions back to the settlement. But then, hoping to discover specific information about a passage to the mountains or riches farther inland, he returned to the Chickahominy early the fo
llowing month to explore the river to its source.
There, far upriver, in a “vast and wild wilderness,” Smith was suddenly confronted by 200 Pamunkey warriors. Using the Indian guide who had accompanied him on his exploration as a human shield, he tried to hold off the warriors long enough to reach his boat, tied up nearby, but as he backed away he lost his footing and slipped into an icy quagmire. He could fight no longer and threw down his pistol and surrendered, at which point the Pamunkeys pulled him out of the swamp and took him to their war chief, an old, imperious-looking man, named Opechancanough.
Face to face with the chief and fearing for his life, Smith considered his best option was to try to persuade Opechancanough that he was a man of power who might be useful. He took from his pocket a compass, which he presented to the chief. Describing how it worked, he talked about the roundness of the earth, and of the sun, moon, and planets in the heavens. He described the extent of the oceans, the different countries of the world, and the variety of their peoples. The ploy seemed to work. The chief restrained his men from killing Smith and he was led away, the warriors keeping a close guard and shouting in triumph as they made their way through the woods to a hunting camp nearby.
Smith was treated well. He was given plenty of food, and the items taken from him during his capture were returned. Opechancanough took delight in quizzing him about the Englishmen’s ships; how they sailed the seas; and their beliefs about the earth, skies, and God. In return, the war chief was pleased to tell him about the Indians’ own country. He told the Englishman that within four or five days’ journey of the falls of the James River “was a great turning of salt water.” He mentioned also that there were “certain men clothed at a place called Ocanahonan, clothed like me,” Smith reported in a detailed account he sent to England in the summer of the following year. What the information meant may not have immediately been apparent to him, but would become clear in the next few weeks.15
Smith was then taken to be questioned by Wahunsonacock. The Indians led him on a long march across the wintry country from the Chickahominy to the Rappahannock River and back to the York River to the great chief’s principal residence at Werowocomoco. The Englishman’s arrival was anticipated. Smith entered the smoky interior of the chief’s longhouse and stood before Wahunsonacock, who lay in pomp on a bed near a large fire. Flanking him, in rows of ten seated on the ground, were his councilors, priests, and wives, all of whom wore white beads and had their heads and shoulders painted red. Smith was impressed by the spectacle and especially by the chief, who displayed “such a grave and Majestic countenance,” he recalled, “as drove me into admiration to see such state in a naked Savage.”
Smith may have been concerned about whether he would leave the longhouse alive, but his mind was soon put at rest. The chief assured him of his friendship and told him he would be released within a few days. After courtesies were exchanged, he asked Smith why the English had come to Virginia. Smith decided to avoid revealing the colonists’ intention of establishing a settlement in the region, because he believed the Indians would be hostile to it. So he concocted a story about having been in a sea battle with the Spanish and subsequently forced into the Chesapeake Bay by bad weather. They had been directed up the James River by friendly Indians, he continued, and their pinnace had sprung a leak, compelling them to camp temporarily on Jamestown Island to make repairs and wait for the return of their leader, Captain Newport, with ships to take them away.
Whether Wahunsonacock believed the story is unclear, but perhaps prompted by Smith, he entered into a lengthy description of his lands and those of neighboring peoples. To the west, far up the James River where storms caused the water to become briny, lived a fierce people called the Pocoughtronack, who “did eat men.” Northward, at the top of the Chesapeake Bay, was a powerful nation whose warriors shaved their heads and carried swords like pole axes, and farther north was a region where “people with Short Coates, and Sleeves to the Elbows . . . passed that way in Ships.” The latter probably referred to French, Basque, and English mariners who sailed every year to the Gulf of St. Lawrence to exploit the rich fishing grounds.
Then the chief told Smith startling news. Two to six days south of Tsenacommacah (the Powhatan name for Virginia) were the lands of the “Mangoge,” “Chawwonock,” and “Roanoke,” and a “people clothed at Ocanahonan.” Beyond, the chief said, “to the south part of the back sea” was a land called “Anone, where they have abundance of Brass, and houses walled as ours.” The Englishman paid careful attention to Wahunsonacock’s description, noting that the information confirmed his earlier discussions with Opechancanough.16
Smith had stumbled upon information that might yet save the colony from failure. Both chiefs had told him about salt water beyond the falls of the James River, which suggested that perhaps within 120 miles of Jamestown there was a great salt lake or an arm of the South Sea. The chiefs may have also revealed the whereabouts of the lost colonists. The “Mangoge,” “Chawwonock,” and “Roanoke” were the Mangoaks, Chowanocs, and people of Roanoke Island and the adjoining mainland (Secotans). Smith had read Ralph Lane’s account of the first Roanoke colony published by Richard Hakluyt, and was familiar with the story of the disappearance of John White’s settlers twenty years before. He would have immediately recognized the names of the lands to the south of Wahunsonacock’s own territory. Finally, references to “people clothed at Ocanahonan” and a land called “Anone,” where there were houses built like those of the English, could only be news of the lost colonists, living somewhere 50 to 150 miles south of the James River.
From Opechancanough and Wahunsonacock Smith had picked up the first credible reports of the Roanoke colonists’ whereabouts since John White’s voyage of 1590. Armed with this knowledge, he was keen to find survivors of the lost colony. He had little doubt that the lost colonists and their children, having lived in the country for twenty years, would have extensive connections with local peoples of the region, who had sheltered them and traded with them. The English and Indian peoples of “South Virginia” (North Carolina) might well know of mines in the interior or of a river passage to the great sea in the west. Smith had uncovered vital information that could lead him to gold and silver mines and possibly a route to the Pacific Ocean; he was determined to make the most of it.17
SHORTLY AFTER Smith’s return to Jamestown on New Year’s Day 1608, Newport arrived from England with fresh supplies and an additional hundred settlers. Newport was delighted to hear Smith’s news and readily agreed to dispatch an expedition south to look for the Roanoke colonists. The English persuaded Wowinchopunck, chief of the Paspaheghs, who knew the lands south of the James River well, to lead the expedition.
The party set off at the end of January. The Paspaheghs and two Englishmen headed southeast toward a place called Pana - wicke, beyond Roanoke, where Wowinchopunck believed many of the settlers were still to be found. They proposed to make their way along the Pagan River to the Blackwater and then head due south to the lands of the Chowanocs. It was the same route, in reverse, that Lane had mapped out following discussions with Menatonan in 1586, by which the English commander connected the Chowan River region to the James.
How far the men traveled south and whether they reached Panawicke are uncertain; no details of the expedition exist. Yet Smith was highly displeased when the men returned only three or four days after setting out. He accused Wowinchopunck of trying to shortchange the English by claiming payment for guiding the search party and then cutting short the expedition. But if Wowinchopunck’s party got no farther than the Chowan River, they must have learned much more about the lost colonists from Indian peoples of the area than they were able to discover for themselves. The information the expedition gathered about where some of the lost colonists still lived was extremely important. Smith had already discovered the general whereabouts of the lost colonists from the two Powhatan chiefs, and now he had specific information about their locations.
Smith incorporat
ed the news in a rough sketch map of Virginia and North Carolina that he drafted over the next few months. The map was sent back to England in June 1608 and surely caused a sensation among Virginia Company members when it came into their hands later that summer. Drawing upon everything Smith had learned about Virginia from his own explorations and conversations with local peoples during the past year, the map illustrated the huge extent of the country from south of Roanoke Island to the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake Bay. Yet the map was meant to be more than an illustration of the geography of the country; it was intended to reveal the secrets of the region’s wealth.18
6.2 John Smith’s sketch map of 1608 (Zuñiga Map). Smith drew the map sometime during the spring of 1608. His knowledge of regions to the north of Jamestown is vague at this point and the rendering of the Rappahannock River and Chesapeake Bay (right) is therefore crude. His depiction of the region to the south of the James River is similarly vague (left), but the map provides vital information about the whereabouts of survivors of John White’s colony that Smith had picked up earlier in the year.
Smith claimed to have found a river passage to the Pacific Ocean. At the head of the James he drew the shore of a sea with the note, “Hear the salt water beats into the river amongst these rocks being the south sea.” Company leaders could not have failed to recognize the significance of his findings. For the first time since John White had worked with Jacques Le Moyne on their map of Virginia and Florida more than twenty years earlier, an Englishman had detailed a route through the American land-mass to the South Sea. His map provided specific evidence that the passage was not to the south along a strait, inland from Port Royal (the short-lived French settlement near the border of modern-day Georgia and South Carolina) where White and Le Moyne had located it. Rather, it was accessible by way of the Chesapeake Bay and the James River, within easy reach of where the English were seated.