Love and Hate in Jamestown: John Smith, Pocahontas, and The Start of a New Nation

Like John Smith, Pocahontas is a figure shrouded in myth, a romantic figure fit for treatment as a Disney princess—her true story being difficult to pin down.

Pocahontas’s status as Powhatan’s favorite daughter is debatable; it’s clear Powhatan had many daughters by many mothers, none of whom had any special status. From a young age, Pocahontas seemed extraordinarily precocious and curious, as evidenced by the legend of her interceding to save John Smith from her father. If Price’s sources are to be believed, the girl often risked her life to dwell among the English. As Pocahontas grew older, she became estranged from her own people; there was a rumor that she married and separated from a Powhatan man prior to marrying John Rolfe. Her tour of London with Rolfe and an entourage of a dozen Algonquin men is ripe for cinematic treatment. Yet, London was a place decimated and rebuilt by various plagues, plagues unknown to North American shores. Pocahontas succumbed to a disease resembling tuberculosis, dying on March 21, 1617, far away from her birthplace, at the age of 20 or 21.

Powhatan is a figure who changes depending on depiction, sometimes appearing as a chieftain of immense power and resources, and other times, a comical foil for English misadventure. He is at once exceedingly honest and gullible. Whoever he was, he is mainly a creation of his adversarial biographers.

One thing is certain: Powhatan was a matter of obsession for the English, the focal point of their struggle for survival. The highborn men who refused to work to feed themselves depended on Powhatan (or nearby enemies of Powhatan) in lopsided trades for beads and tools. The Algonquin leader’s obsession with English artifacts (i.e., an English-style home) may have been an intelligent bluff, mirroring the English’s own negotiation style. In either case, it was clear that Powhatan was a stabilizing force. After his death in 1618, the leadership of his people became more desperate.

Edward Maria-Wingfield, Christopher Newport, George Yeardley, and a host of other highborn leaders are nearly interchangeable in their negative impact on Jamestown. They owed their positions not to merit, but rank. Each man is distinguished by incompetence, but none failed so crucially as George Percy during the winter of 1608-1609.

Following John Smith’s competent interim rule, Percy wasted time collecting denunciations against Smith should he tell tales upon his return to England. Percy was determined to keep a large pantry “for gentlemen of fashion” when his stock of food was low and fishing nets rotten from disuse (123). It was under his rule that the “Starving Time” and its depredations came to pass. He nearly destroyed the colony and everyone in it—but for this, he was awarded a captaincy.

As a successor to Powhatan, Opechancanough inspires fewer myths and more skepticism than his famous brother. The schemes that brought him to power were nearly as Machiavellian as those found in Europe. Opechancanough’s elderly brother, Opitchapam, was to lead the Powhatan, but the younger proved more competent and ruled in an unofficial capacity for years. Powhatan’s negotiations always included mostly feigned suggestions of violence (mirroring that of the English). By contrast, Opechancanough feigned cooperation that ended in a final strike, one particularly devastating during the Starving Time of 1609. Ten years later, with the English thriving and the rudiments of their economic engine in place, Opechancanough’s attack was reframed as pretense for an inevitable war.