Jamestown Part Five

This was the first time a group of Indians had seen England's various countries characterized by distinctive landscapes, communities, and agriculture.

The journey that they took from Plymouth all the way to London, all the way through Devon and Somerset, where they saw fertile low coastal lowlands and river valleys lined with orchards and rich pastors, past ancient castles and cathedral towns, across the great open expanse of Salisbury Plain, the ts vistas of wheat fields and sheepwalks, and then of course all through the woodlands, through the Thames Valley and on

to London. The Bahatans were amazed quote at the sight of so much corn and trees end quote Throughout the journey. Although Indians had been seen in London before, Pocahontas's prestigeous Wassenahuk's daughter, together with the port of her marriage and conversion, were positively electrifying to the crowds that turned out to see her. The high point of her stay came when the King and Queen received her at a banquet shortly after Christmas for one of the highlights of the yearly

calendar in England, Twelfth Night. To publicize Pocahontas's appearance in England and to attract investors, the company commissioned a young Dutch graver, Simon ven dis Pay to sketch her portrait, which was then rushed into print. This is the famous portrait that if you look up, Pocahontas still today stares back at you from the page. It's an intriguing image layered with both contrast and symbolic meaning. She's wearing expensive clothes. The fine lace and tall hat proclaim her as a

wealthy english woman dressed in the latest fashion. She has pearl earrings, which signified that she was from America, and more particularly from Virginia. Her fan of ostrich feathers denotes royalty. She's well dressed but not extravagant, and her careful attire was designed to suggest affluence but not access. Most striking of all is the representation of Pocahontas herself. Van de Pessi made no attempt to give her features a European

look at all. Instead, she has the high cheekbones and dark hair typical of the indigenous peoples of her part of America. Although she was dressed as an englishwoman, as clear she's not English, exactly the message the company wanted to convey. They wanted to explain it was possible to civilize quote unquote the Indians to make them English less. Predictably, Pocahontas does not look modest at all. The dutiful appearance of a convert and a wife are nowhere on this page.

Look as long as you want, you'll never find them. Instead, she proudly looks back at the viewer, as if to say, it's me the daughter of a king. Now. Captain John Smith might have been in Plymouth when the treasurer docs, but if he was. He didn't do anything to greet Pocahontas or John Rowl for anyone else for that matter. In fact, it would be months before the two would actually meet. Her. Arrival in England may also have stirred

up mixed emotions in Captain Smith. If things had might worked out differently, perhaps he could have occupied Rolfe's position. He could have been received by the King and Queen. You'd have been the star of the company. But it wasn't. The years since his return to England had been deeply frustrating. Despite his eagerness to go back to Virginia, the company

refused to re employ him. His Map of Virginia and Proceedings of English Colony in Virginia, both published in sixteen twelve, which together provided the most detailed account of the colony, had failed to bring him any tangible mark of favor. Fairly or not, Sir Thomas Smith and his associates held him partly to blame for the turmoil of Jamestown's first few years, a consequence they believed of Smith's headstrong temperament. Spurned by the company, Smith eventually managed to line employment

in the spring of sixteen fourteen. In charge of two small vessels chartered for a fishing trip to North Virginia. Taking full advantage of this opportunity, he turned the venture into a voyage of exploration, carefully mapping the coastline and the major rivers of the land that he called New England. Thereafter, he had thrown himself with all his old enthusiasm into promoting the establishment of a settlement to the north that he believed would be more successful in the long run

than the ailing colony on the Chesapeake Bay. As Smith busied himself to raise funds for a second boy, he heard news that Pocahontas had arrived in England. Here in the company of some friends. Shortly before he was about to embark to New England, Smith arrived to pay his respects to the Indian princess taken him back after seeing him for several years. She was initially able to speak to him, and only after a couple hours alone she was sufficiently composed to speak to Smith. What followed was

a difficult and awkward exchange. Pocahontas began by saying, quote, they did tell us always you were dead, and I knew no other untill I came to Plymouth. He made no reply. He had not tried to contact her since he left Virginia, probably had not given it much thought, considering such a move would have been politically unwise and practically impossible. But she continued rather forcefully. You did promise Pohawden what was yours should be his, and he the

like to you. You called him father, being in his land a stranger, and by the same reason, so must I do you. At this Smith kind of mentioned that he quote Durst not allow of that title because she was a king's daughter, and quote Pocahontas rebuked him instead, now saying, were you not afraid to come into my father's country and cause him fear in me and all his people? And I fear you here and call you father. I tell you here and now that I will call you, and you will call me child, and so I will

be forever and ever your countrymen. Smith was no doubt puzzled at this point. He hadn't had any contact with Wasasahonas since the spring of sixteen oh nine. What was the meaning, though, then, of Pocahontas's reference to Smith and her father's pledge to each other. Was it an echo of an agreement about what had happened while she was

in captivity and he was also in cactivity. She obviously assumed that there was still a relationship between the two of them, that there was a special bond that united them. For her, the intervenings years, Smith's falling out with her father, his departure from Virginia, and even her marriage to Rolfe had not diminished that commitment of support. Now, in all likelihood,

for Smith there had never been such a commitment. He may have been fond of her, but that was as far as his connections to Pocahontas went, and for Smith that was also kind of the end of the story. Smith would never see her again after this single meeting in England. In March of sixteen seventeen, Pocahontas died of an illness, probably tuberculosis, possibly pneumonia. She was on a start of the way back to Virginia, but she would

never see the continent that she was born on. Instead, Pocahontas was buried in a chancel of the parish of

Saint George. Interestingly, even with Pocahontas present, there was no major upsurge in interest in Virginia and that kind of makes sense given the perilous straits that the company was in, I mean more than fifty thousand pounds of staggering some for the time have been invested in the venture since sixteen oh nine, but at the end of the seven year term placed on the joint stock company there was

little to show for it. Though. There was one thing that came with Pocahontas that everyone was very wrong to immediately dismiss the use of, and that was quote exceedingly good tobacco end quote. Tobacco had come with Dale and Pocahontas back from Virginia. Introduced into England half a century before by sailors would sail to the Americas with John

Hawkins and Sir Francis Drake. Tobacco had become popular with fashionable glants and the well to do during the fifteen eighties and fifteen nineties after smoking was taken up by prominentent then Elizabethan courtiers like Sir Walter Raleigh. Depending on its quality and condition, leaf imported legally or sometimes smuggled from Spanish counties could cost anywhere from two to four pounds per pound. It was a significant amount now Despite

this expense. Smoking spread rapidly from the gentry to the lower classes, so much so that by sixteen fourteen, according to one source, there was not a groomsoe Bass who quote comes into an alehouse to call for his pont, but he must have his pipe of tobacco end quote in London alone. The same source claimed there were some seven thousand newly erected tobacco houses, where the sales amounted to nearly three hundred and twenty thousand pounds per year.

All of this quote spent in smoke end quote, in taverns and inns, during public hangings, floggings and their spectacles. Everywhere the English were smoking constantly. Now among those who enjoyed a pipe of good tobacco was none other than John Rolfe, already a confirmed smoker when he left for Virginia with the Gates Fleet in sixteen oh nine. Not long after arriving on the James River, he had the

idea of raising tobacco on a commercial basis. In the summer of sixteen twelve, using seeds imported potentially stolen from Trinidad and Venezuela, Rolph began experimenting with varieties of a mild Spanish leaf, anticipating that this crop would produce a leaf more suited to English tastes than the indigenous plants smoked by the Indians, which had a rather acrid flavor.

The challenge was not only to raise a type of plant best suited to local conditions, but also to determine how harvested leaf could be cured and transported to England without spoiling. Whether he learned the art of mystery of tobacco husbandry himself or possibly was taught by friendly Polhattan's were not really sure, but after a couple of years John Rolfe started to have a significant amount of success. By early as sixteen fourteen, large quantities of Virginia tobacco

were reaching London regular literally. Rolf when he arrived with Pocahontas, spent his time busily marketing his crop among merchants and tobacco sellers. He faced a lot of obstacles for this, though none the least of which was, of course, the

King James. The First James hated tobacco. He hated smoking, and so to a large extent, fearful of royal displeasure, the Virginia Company discouraged tobacco planting on a large scale, and to that extent, the company's leaders in London turned their backs on the one commodity that could be produced cheaply in the colony, for which there was already a

strong market and a rapidly growing one in England. That being said, the fact that the Virginia Company turned their back on tobacco didn't mean that those in Jamestown were going to do that or in the Chesapeake as soon it would become virtually a factory for the production of the addicting leaf. Now Shortly before setting out for England in the spring of sixteen sixteen, John Rolf, Secretary of the Colony, was instructed by Dale to draw up a

survey of the space he was returning to. He divided Virginia into three types of men, officers, laborers, and farmers. Officers were responsible for ensuring that defenses were adequate in the settlements and that those under their charge attended to their work diligently and obey martial law. Laborers were divided into two kinds. Either they were employed in general work for the company and were supported from the general store, or they were skilled artisans. Here we're talking about like

blacksmith's carpenters, so on and so forth. Then these men mostly maintained themselves. The farmers Rolf thought quote lived at most ease end quote. They were obliged to defend the colony, of course, and to work for the company one month out of the year, but the rest of the time they were free to grow their own crops, in the condition that each man supported himself and his family delivered two and a half barrels of corn to the general

store annually. Now six settlements were listed. One was at Enrico, on the north side of the James River, where thirty eight men and boys made up twenty two farmers and the rest officers and a few laborers. The most heavily populated settlement was at Bermuda. This was on the south bank, five miles downriver from Henrico, where one hundred and nineteen settlers men and women lived incorporated Bermudez City under the authority of Captain yearlea deputy governor in the absence of Dale.

Most of those settlers were laborers who had certainly contracted to work for a period of time. These men were engaged in producing things like pitch tar, and charcoal. At West Shirley one hundred, located a few miles below Virginia, twenty five men were employed in purely cultivating tobacco, and on Jamestown Island there were thirty two farmers who tended

to the crops and looked after the company's livestock. The whole colony bore the unmistakable stamp of Dale's reforms in shifting the bulk of the population upriver, and that's where

about seventy percent of all the settlers now resided. From sixteen oh nine to sixteen sixteen, approximately fifteen hundred settlers have been sent from England, but Rolf could enumerate only two hundred and five officers and laborers, eighty one farmers and sixty five women and children, making a total of three hundred and fifty one, which means over two thirds of those who set sail for Virginia had not survived. A staggering number. And when we have to consider just

how difficult life in the early New World was. But the key to the colony's prosperity everyone realized was land and how best to exploit land. The guarantee of land ownership could attract significant and sufficient investment to transport thousands of men and women necessary to unlock its riches. Captain Samuel Argyle was one of the first beneficiaries of the

company's new policy. Appointed governor in the winter of sixteen sixteen sixteen seventeen, he and his financial backers were signed twenty four hundred acres for the transportation of twenty four settlers, whom he intended to locate in an area just to the west of Jamestown. Now before Argyle was able to turn his attentions to the allotments of land as instructed by the company, though he had to first address a

few more important and immediate issues. When he arrived back at the colony in mid May, he found once again Jamestown's palisades and church falling down the wharf essentially in pieces, and only five or six of the house is hospitable. Elsewhere in the colony, houses, land ruins, palisades and blockhouses had collapsed, and a few of the fortifications were completely inserviceable.

For whatever reason, colonists and Jamestown had a terribly difficult time maintaining the structures that they had constructed, and so Argyle pressed ahead with repairs to the various parts of Jamestown that he preferred to locations upriver. The deputy governor, though, could take some adequate signs and comfort from the reality that the economic conditions had started to improve. The settlers were now well provisioned. Wheat, barley, corn, and tobacco was

all thriving. Best, and most importantly of all, the colony was able to ship twenty thousand pounds of tobacco to London in sixteen eighteen, which it sold for five shillings and three pence per pound, realizing about two hundred and fifty pounds for its investors. This wasn't a massive sum by any stretch of the imagination, but it was a mount that actually finding made it look like the colony might turn some sort of profit now. Frankly, Argyle arrived

in the colony a very opportune moment. The country was at peace, sellers were producing enough food for their own needs, and the company was poised to distribute large amounts of land to colonists and investors that would create growing numbers of independent planters and companies At Jamestown. The deputy governor found quote the marketplace and streets and all other places

planted with tobacco end quote. As I mentioned before, despite admonitions to the contrary, the bottom line was that tobacco cultivation had spread rapidly all the way between sixteen fifteen and sixteen seventeen. Increasingly settlers discovered they could not only grow food stuffs on their farms, but also produce a potentially lucrative crop. Virginia was on the threshold of a tobacco revolution, and within the space of a few years, would transformed the lives of everyone who worked along the

James River, both the English and the Bahatans. Important changes in the way the colony was to be governed were also introduced in these years. In sixteen eighteen, the colony was divided into four cities or boroughs. There was Kiwakatan later called Elizabeth City, James City, Charles City, Enrico. This reorganization was for the purpose of correctly assigning workers to

work on company land. Really, the whole thrust of the idea behind making the Virginia Company profitable was transporting settlers over to Virginia, settling them on a plot of company land, and requiring them to work on that land for a period of the year, or potentially the entire year growing tobacco and other commodities. This is essentially indentured servitude. If you don't know what an entured servitude is, someone who can't pay for their passage to the New world offers

to work for a specific term. The term varies. Usually seven years is the sort of rule of thumb, but that's not a law by any stretch of the imagination. And when the term is over, then that individual is supposed to receive an allotment of land, so on and so forth, and start a new life. Every hundred laborers working on company lands, the estimate was, could generate at least one thousand pounds annually, the idea being that there'd be at least five hundred men working on company lands

within a couple of years. By the terms of the Great Charter of sixteen eighteen, settlers who had arrived before Dale's departure two years earlier, who were now referred to as ancient planters, were granted one hundred acres for their own use, and if they were investors, an additional one hundred acres for every share that they owned in the company. Those who arrived April after April six sixteen sixteen, and paid their own passage, would receive fifty acres for themselves

and another fifty for every person they transported. This arrangement, known famously as the head right system, which I'll come back to you later on, became the primary means by which laborers were recruited and sent to the colony for

the rest of the century. Concerned that the colony's severe marshal order code would discourage private investment and certainly discourage immigration, the company introduced the Governor Elect, George Yurdley in sixteen eighteen, and his mandate was simple to introduce quote just laws for the happy guiding and governing of the people end quote.

Two new councils were also created, a Council of State whose members were selected by the Company in London to assist the Governor in his duties, and then a General Assembly that would include the Council and two burgesses from every town one hundred or particular plantation, and these individuals would be directly elected by the free inhabitants. This is one of the first free legislatures in the New World, will later on form the foundation and basis for many

ideas of American democracy. The General Assembly was supposed to convene once a year on less extraordinary occasions, demanded more frequent meetings, and was authorized to consider all matters concerning the public welfare, anything regarding the colony, and to propose such general measures for the better ordering of affairs and conformity, especially with the idea of making sure that the laws in the Americas stayed consistent with the laws in England.

Although Burgesses quickly adopted elements of parliamentary practice and developing their own procedures, the Assembly was never actually intended to be a little parliament, but rather a form of local government. Then. The idea here was that shareholders, through these local governments, would also will be able to play a more active role in the administration of the company. The governor, of course,

was still all powerful. Everybody recognized that in the dangers of the new World, you still had to have someone with whom the buck stops. The General retained a right of veto, and legislation passed by the Assembly could only be enforced if the Governor approved of it, and of course if the company approved of it back at London. Interestingly enough, in these efforts to recruit new settlers. People back in England started to pay attention to a different

type of group, separatists. Virginia they believed might be any attractive haven for religious dissenters. Hundreds of nonconformists embarked for the colony between sixteen eighteen and sixteen twenty one, although the vast majority did not actually go to Virginia. Many went to what was actually now today the area around the Bermuda Islands. Some of them went to the Caribbean, and others, as we'll discuss next week, found their way

to New England. In fact, the Pilgrims, you may be interested to learn, actually we're attempting to land in Virginia and they miss their mark and wound up in what is today around Cape Cod not even close now. Besides appealing to Puritans, the company launched a broad campaign based on recruiting colonists from all over the country, including skilled artisans and tradesmen, as well as destitute children on parish relief and convicted felons. In sixteen eighteen, six ships embarked

for the colony, caring about four hundred settlers. The following year fourteen left with one thousand settlers, and in sixteen twenty thirteen ships carrying more than one thousand, three hundred. Between sixteen eighteen and sixteen twenty one, all told, fifty ships transported some three thousand, seven hundred and fifty settlers to Virginia. Marked that in those three years up against the years sixteen oh seven to sixteen twelve, five year

period when little less than fifteen hundred total showed up. Obviously, the pace of migration increased, so did the pace of prosperity. Now this is going to be another storyline for a

future episode. I do want to note that also in sixteen nineteen, aboard the now infamous ship the White Lion, the first ever enslaved Africans arrived off the coast of Virginia, And while they probably got a better deal than where they were headed, which was sugar plantations in the Caribbean, they still spent the rest of their lives, to the best of our knowledge, enslaved working on tobacco fields. Again, this is a story that we'll come back to you

later on. Africans were not the only people forcibly transported to the colony. In the fall of sixteen eighteen one, John Chamberlain reported that the city of London was shipping to Virginia quote one hundred young boys and girls that had been starving in the streets, which is one of

the best deeds that could be done end quote. Over the years between sixteen seventeen and sixteen twenty three, hundreds of destitute children from the streets of London were swept up and shipped to Virginia, personally not having any choice in the matter. Now, Virginia would have been an interesting place if you walked around it in sixteen twenty In early that year, men outnumbered women by about seven to one. There were very few young children, almost no elderly people

living along the James River. The vast majority of settlers were between the age of fifteen and thirty five. Alongside the English, you could find small numbers of skilled foreign artisans French, Germans, Poles and Italians, and thirty two Africans, fifteen men and seventeen women who were either enslaved or

worked as servants. Approximately twelve hundred settlersccupied lands from the mouth of the James River to Falling Creek, a few miles south of the old fort that was abandoned by Dala War, whereas John Rolfe itemized only six settlements four years earlier. Now there were more than two dozen. Tens of thousands of acres had been granted by the company in the area between Jamestown and Enrico in what amounted

to America's first ever land rush. Much of the expansion led by private investors transporting settlers to work on specific plantations. Under the impact of this surgeing migration, the colony had changed dramatically from the struggling outpost of a few years before. Many settlers lived in small clusters of houses within a

palisaded settlement or near to a fortification such as Jamestown. Others, such as the ancient planters I've talked about before, would gain their freedom after sixteen sixteen, resided on their own individual smallholdings scattered along the rivers and creeks and up and down different neighborhoods. During the same period, tobacco's grip on the colony continued to tighten. According to John Powy quote all our riches for the present do consist in

tobacco end quote. Between forty thousand and fifty thousand pounds of tobacco were exported to England in sixteen. Twenty two years later, that figure had risen to sixty thousand pounds. Virginia had at last not its profitable commodity. Yet if some settlers were getting rich quickly, most weren't. Mismanagement and price gouging by colony officials and buoyant tobacco prices in England created conditions for gross exploitation of servants, who still

made up the bulk of the population. Same gentlemen who commented on the value of tobacco would also write, quote, our principal wealth, I should have said, consisted of servants. One man, by his own labor, Hath in one year raised himself the value of two hundred pounds sterling. Another by the means of six servants Hath cleared at one crop one thousand pound English. And quote. The more servants you had, the more money you could make, and the

profits could be substantial. Tobacco had created estates of hundreds and thousands of pounds per year for men who had gone to Virginia. According to one Sir George Yardley, who first arrived in the colony with little more than a sword. When he was recently in London, was able to disperse

nearly three thousand pounds on a visit. No wonder, the governor and his deputies, the Treasurer of the colony, the Marshal Secretary of all others, demanded that the company satisfy this ardent demand that they send more servants, more rants. Ostensibly these were to support the cost of these various offices, but in reality was to provide incomes. And little wonder that the colony's officials soon realized that trading servants was as lucrative as selling any other goods imported from England.

About ninety five percent of those who arrived during this period were tenants and servants, and the company had to keep shipping them. Mortality among servants after their arrival was simply epidemic, major killers being scurvy and the bloody flux, though the company did seek to suppress that rumor. Three quarters of all servants transported died within a year, most within six months. America's addiction to cheap labor had begun,

but it came with the cost. Now, the end of the war with the Bahatan seemed not only to usher in a new area of cooperation between the settlers and Indians, but also to open the way for rapid expansion of English settlement across the region. The initial years of peace coincided with dramatic changes in leadership for the Pohatans. Wasasonic had fled his capital out of fear of his brother opinach Osasonic believed that Opuanoch was conspiring to oust him,

which may or may not have been accurate. Regardless, was Sasonic effectively abdicated his position, delegating the government of his territories to his two brothers, and then when he died in sixteen eighteen, the effective power resided with Opinac. Now, Opinac immediately openly courted English leaders, Having Opanac as their ally, Virginia's leaders at last saw the possibility of English settlers

and Bahatans living together in friendship as one people. As we'll find out, though, that's not what Opanoc had in mind. Much as Rolf and Dale had hoped, Pocahonnas's adoption of Christianity revital interest in England of the godly mission of converting the Indians. Over the next four years, the company received a steady flow of funds for religious uses that by sixteen twenty amounted to buy more than three thousand pounds.

Others cautioned the company, however, about the unrealistic expectations of quick results. Indian parents remained reluctant to part with their children on just about any terms. There was a compromise that was reached by the governor therefore with Opuanoch, whereby the English would build houses and set aside grounds for planting corn in their settlements, so that families identified by

the chief could live among them. Settlers would have an opportunity to teach their children Christianity without I mean to take them from their parents, and of course with the incentives of providing food, clothes, cattle, other necessities. George Thorpe was a deeply religious man, and he came to the colony convinced that the progress in converting Pohatans had been and that it had been slow, specifically because the English had been too slow in doing it. It had been

their fault all along. George Thorpe strongly believed that the way to get Native Americans to convert to Christianity was to teach them English ways, in other words, to try to improve their material lives. The company brought into it hook line and sinker. They were now going to be deeply invested in bringing Native Americans within their society to try to convert them to English customs and Christianity. Opanok encouraged this. Little did the company know they were sowing

the seeds of their own destruction. Openog sought friendship and reconciliation with the English for his own reasons, but he concealed them skillfully. Although appearing well disposed to the settlers, in reality, his view of the post war period was radically different from theirs. The English treated the Pohatans like a subjective nation, enforcing payment of tribute in corn and

reducing them to dependence on settlers provisions. In those areas where the Indians had been removed from their traditional lands, the Chicamanese, Pasa, Hag's, Waywin Knox had all been forced off lands, adjoining the growing number of English settlements along the James River in the vicinity of Charles City and Enrico. The English occupied lands belonging to the Appomattox, the Eratox,

and the Pohatans. Settlers of Elizabeth City had taken possession of the corn rich lands of the Kiotin people and colonists on the south bank of the James had begun moving into lands belonging to the Quinn, Connox and warasas only the Nassimans remained relatively unscathed by the English expansion.

Opennox experience of tactics employed by Gates and Dale during the war left him no doubt that his warriors had no chance to prevail against ranks of heavily armored soldiers in the field or well armed defenders protected by palisades. Neither could the Indians defend their villages and cornlands from destructive raids by English soldiers who were able to move up and down the rivers with impunity in their ships.

He realized, perhaps as early as the summer of sixteen fourteen, that when he made that deal with Dale to seal the peace, that his people had no chance of defeating the English from the outside. The Indians had to discover a way of getting inside English settlements, of gaining the settlers trust. Only then could they strike to good effect, that is, before the English had time to defend themselves.

A measure of the success of open Ox strategy can be gauged by the assurance of Governor Wyatt to the company in January sixteen twenty two that the country was quote in great enmity and confidence with the natives. Openoch admitted that his people's religion was not the right way, and now suddenly the English felt they had an opportunity.

If Apanach could be persuaded to accept Christianity and ultimately the English way of life, he could be enormously important in swaying all the Bahatans generally over to English customs. Now Openoch in reality, had no intention of converting to Christianity. This was all a clever ruse to get the English to lower their guards get used to Native Americans walking

through their settlements. Nothing out of the ordinary here, but in reality he had forged a secret alliance among all the peoples throughout the James and York River valleys, united by their hatred of the English settlers and their determination. When the signal came to be rid of them, shortly after dawn on a crisp March morning, groups of Indians gathered in woods adjacent into English settlements before setting off to the colonist's houses, carrying deer, turkeys, fish, firs, and

other trade goods. There was nothing unusual about these sorts of visits. For the last couple of years. They had been encouraged to frequent and sometimes live in English plantations, to borrow tools and provisions, and even use settlers boats. It would have been familiar to the settlers, who would have known them individually by name. But on this morning the Indians had come neither to trade nor to borrow,

taking up the settler's own tools and weapons. A slaughter of unimaginable proportions began at first light and carried out throughout the day. People quote at their own breakfast tables, Edward Waterhouse, a company shareholder, wrote, the Indians quote basely and barbarously murdered them, not sparing either age or sex, man or woman or child end quote. Many settlers were taken so totally by surprise they didn't even realize the

blow they killed them. They were killed in their houses and their yards and gardens, in the fields as they planted corn and tobacco, or as they were running errands around the plantation. Because of the familiarity with the English and their settlements, Indian warriors had a good idea of where the colonists would be at the time they launched their assault and how to make the attack as deadly

as possible by this means. Waterhouse continued that by the end of the morning on March the twenty second, sixteen twenty two, three hundred and forty seven settlers were already bludgeoned, stabbed, or hacked to death. Coordinated and organized by Opuannak, the main force was made up of approximately five hundred to six hundred elite Pahot warriors. Up the river at Enrico and beyond. The assault was led by the Bahatans, but supported by the Appamotos at Falling Creek. The entire English

population was killed twenty seven men, women, and children. On Enrico Island, only five settlers died, but the Bahatans put the settlement to the torch and slaughtered all the livestock, leaving behind a smoldering ruin strewn with animal carcasses. Meanwhile, downriver, George Thorpe, the one who had encouraged Native Americans to come within the settlements in the first place, the one that had encouraged this change of attitude towards the Bohatan,

was not a lucky man. He was at Berkeley when news of the attack came, but he refused to heed the alarm, not believing that these Indians could ever do him any harm. But the Indians quote had no sooner killed him than he could or would believe they meant any ill against him end quote. Thorpe died, never knowing why Appanak had turned against him. Now it was late in the day when an alert finally got to Governor Wyatt. It was far too late to send out a general warning.

All the General could do was prepared a defense of the town and give warning to a few nearby settlements. Four boats full of warriors assaulted Jamestown from the river, but were quickly driven off by musket fire. Throughout the day, groups of Native American warriors moved from village to village, attacking and killing, and then melting back into the woods.

Abanok knew that to retain the critically important element of surprise, his men had to proceed rapidly, not affording the English opportunities to warn each other or to regroup into effective fighting units. Local Indians made the initial attack and were followed by large group of warriors and manywhere from fifty to several hundred, who then joined in the fighting, finishing off survivors and torching the settlements, Reflecting the English tactics

of indiscriminate killing employed by Gates and Dale previously. The Indian's intention was to kill as many men, women and children as possible, destroy their houses, livestock, and property. Any English who escaped would simply starve to death later on. The attack was a massive and decisive blow designed to sweep the intruders from the Phatan lands forever. To show their utter contempt for settlers, some corpses, such as the

aforementioned Thorpes, were mutilated beyond recognition or beheaded. Few prisoners were taken, but a group of male captives from Martin's Hunward were never seen again and were assumed to have been put to death. If the day's events had not ended in complete success for the Indians, Jamestown and many other settlements remained intact. Nevertheless, by nightfall, about a quarter of the settlers from the entire Chesapeake Bay region were

dead and the colony had been devastated. Nappannock probably didn't expect that a single day's attack would succeed in getting rid of the English entirely, but by destroying the settler's plantations, forcing them to take refuge and confined locations, and so in a position where he could once again cut off

food supplies and lay them under siege. Obanoc hoped the English would eventually become so debilitated that they would either fall victim to his warriors or decide that enough was enough to abandon the colony, as almost happened in the starving year of sixteen oh nine sixteen ten. Now panic gripped the colonists in the wake of the uprising to better protect themselves. Why, in order that the colonists abandoned

any outlying plantations and withdraw to a fortified location. Now, the brilliance of Openox strategy was that it depended above all on the English settlers, unquestioning belief in their own superiority and their fatal underestimation of Indian tactical and fighting ability. It was incomprehensible to men like Thorpe or to company leaders in London, that the Indian chief was capable of

conceiving and mounting such an attack. Not only had the colony sustained a great loss of life and property, but the English had been totally fooled by the Pottons and their allies. News of the uprising reached the company's leaders in London in the summer of sixteen twenty two, and was greeted with disbelief and outrage. It was aimed both at the Pattons, but then also at the colony's leaders, who had so foolishly allowed their settlers to be duped

and allowed so many Englishmen to be slaughtered. Now. Immediately, the company realized that the colonies needed help, though, so it requested permission from the English government to ship to the colony quote certain old caste arms remaining in the Tower of London, altogether unfit and of no use for

modern service and quote. The King was pleased to grant this request, and a number of all practically useless European arms were sent to the New World, where they could still act devastatingly upon the native Americans who didn't wear armor. The company, in response to all this, adopted what can only be described as a defiant tone. Nothing's wrong, Everything's fine. In fact, the uprising might even work to the company's advantage.

Private investors appeared to be renewing their support for the colony and were sending over a large number of settlers to replace all those who had been killed. Now, although the company could not afford at this point to transport its own tenants, the governor and counsel in Virginia were encouraged to provide as much assistance as possible to new arrivals sent by private ones. Certainly, the uprising had been a setback, a major setback. The company conceded that, but

it was determined that there should be no change. Of course, tobacco was making the Chesapeake a gold mine. There was no reason to avert course at this point. But there was one major change the company realized had to be made, and that was very simple. There would be no efforts from this point forward to proselytize the Bahatans, teaching the Native Americans are ways bringing them into the English settlements. Those were ideas that, from the company's perspective, didn't work.

War worked, And so now we're going to enter yet another bloody episode in the history of European settlers vis a vi Native Americans. That's going to continue on and off again for the rest of really European and then

eventually American history. Wyat, the governor was ordered now to root out the Bahatans by quote surprising them in their habitations, intercepting them in their hunting, burning their towns, demolishing their temples, destroying their canoes, plucking up their wares, and carrying away their corn, and depriving them whatsoever may yield them sucker or relief end quote. Company officials were quick to point out how the disaster might benefit English ambitions in Virginia.

Now all the incentive was to take the Native American lands, to kill them, to push them off. This would give the company more land, more land that could be used to cultivate tobacco, needing more servants, more labor, and the cycle in the New World begins. What starts with tobacco, by the way, is going to end in cotton, and the servants will change, but the idea will always remain the same. Now, Captain John Smith, he was actually still

in London when he heard news of the uprising. He believed that he should be given command of one hundred soldiers, which he would fashion into a running army to harass the Indians until they were driven out of English land. The company showed no interest in Smith's Please, John Smith would not be going back to Virginia. His story was over now. Wyatt and the company's leaders, and that particularly those in the colony of themselves didn't need any advice

from the company or anyone else. How to respond, the governor declared, quotes, our first work is the expulsion of savages to gain free range of the country. Or it is infinitely better to have no heed than among us who had best were but as borns in our sides, than to be at peace and league with them, end quote.

During the summer and fall, raiding parties were now sent out against all the local tribes Bohatan bunkies, Waynox Chicka monkeys, queenahawks, warn O sox nasamons to revenge their cruel deeds and these raids, the English once again applied the tactics used before by Dale and Gates. They sailed freely up and down the rivers along the way, destroying Indian villages and burning fields after taking corn and other cromps for their part.

Employing a hit and run approach also developed in the previous war, the Bahatans continued what they were doing, picking off settlers whenever the opportunity arose in combat. When the two sides did actually meet, the casualties were relatively light. Indian warriors were very good now at avoiding pitched battles in open country, and when they were confronted, English attackers

were simply too armored to be dented even by Indian bowmen. Now, during the winter of sixteen twenty two to sixteen twenty three, the colony's second starving time Openox strategy appeared to have a chance of success. I mean, we can't forget for a moment. Even though there are more English than there were in sixteen oh nine sixteen ten, the reality is Openox warriors had destroyed the vast majority of the colonist's food supplies. They were still extremely vulnerable during that winter.

In fact, so many English described that it was called the quote fearfulest age that ever Christians lived in end quote. I will say, as someone who has been doing a history podcast for the better part of a decade, now, that is quite the statement, because we've got lots of history to declare that this is actually or that is actually or that one is actually the most fearful time that anyone's ever lived in. I can tick off a few black plague, mongol invasions, any siege. Literally, if you're

in the inside of any siege. Ever, that one leads the list now. The decisive battle of the war finally took place in July of sixteen twenty four. It's not big. Wyatt had about sixty men in armor and sailed up the Punky River, where he was confronted by about eight

hundred bowmen and an unspecified number of allies. Both sides fought with incredible determination, the Indians to defend their villages and a huge quantity of corn, and they also fought to defend their reputation as the elite elite of the Bahatan warriors. But eventually eliteness and courage counted for nothing up against guns and steel. The Indians could not make a dent in the English formations, and eventually, after suffering

heavy losses, were compelled to retire. The English, protected by their armor, suffered only light casualties. Whether or not Opanak was president at the defeat of his men, we don't know. In the past he avoided exposing his warriors to the murderous fire of English muskets and frontal assaults, and yet on this occasion, the opportunity to inflict a major defeat on the colonists and obtain their weapons was probably just

too tempting for him to resist. From this point of view, it's even possible that he planned the confrontation in an elaborate ambush, anticipating that the English would sooner or later invade their territories and carry off their corn. They had no choice. The various tribes banded together and gathered a huge force to meet them, confident as they were in their numbers that they would win. But either way, the defeat of the assembled tribesmen was a major turning point

in the conflict. Sporadic hostilities would continue for the next eight years, but Apuanok must have realized there was little hope now of expelling the colonists from his land. The defeat that day in July was the beginning of the end of the Bahatan Empire. Now. Even though the Bans and their allies had been defeated, without question, the most serious problem faced by the colonists as they tried to recover from the uprising was the heavy loss of new

arrivals and planters through disease, sickness, and malnutrition. The company responded with vigor, sending hundreds of new arrivals to replace those killed in the attack. Or that died of scurvy, the bloody flux, and other diseases. Between the spring of sixteen twenty two and sixteen twenty three, the worst year the English had endured in Virginia. At least a thousand

settlers perished, leaving the survivors fearful and traumatized. But one of the biggest concerns here was really about the consequences of returning to the way that it had been done before. As new settlers came in, the company encouraged and permitted them to live on plantations at vast distances from one another. The only benefit of the uprising had been to draw the planters back in together for better protection. The company

didn't care about any of that. The company cared about profit, and that meant putting as much of the Chesapeake Bay land into cultivation as possible, which meant spreading out. If a couple thousand people died as a result down the way, well,

you know, that's just the cost of doing business. Now. Ever, since Edwin Sandy's election to the position of treasurer in the company in April sixteen nineteen, and he replaced Thomas Smith, who we know before, but his election is important why because at that point there's massive divisions and fault lines showing up within the company, and this is ultimately what's going to spell the downfall of the Virginia Company. That's guided our story all the way through our Jamestown story.

Arc here against the backdrop of bitter internal feuding with the company, news arrived in London in the spring of sixteen twenty three of the terrible loss of life in the colony during the winter, and so one of the factions within the company wrote a petition to the King asking for a formal investigation into the company. The allegations of company mismanaged were frequently exaggerated, but there could be little doubt that cumulatively, quite frankly, they added up to

a crushing indictment of company policy. For four years that the company had been in direct control, thousands of poorly provisioned settlers had been sent to their deaths. The company had gone bankrupt multiple times in efforts to create a diversified economy and failed completely. By the summer of sixteen twenty three, the colony was in a weak and miserable condition. According to one report the Court of the King's Bench that required the Company to provide reasons immediately why it

should not surrender its rights to the colony forthwith. And so it was the Virginia Company than not the Colony that collapsed. When James the First died suddenly in late March sixteen twenty five, it was left to his son, Charles the First to determine the fate of Virginia. The company was disbanded. In its place, Virginia would be run by a combination of royal governors and local house suburgenses.

But that's all the story for another day. I think what the story of Jamestown teaches us more than anything else, is the power of perseverance, in particular the power of the English to be able to just simply feed more and more settlers into what looked like a disastrous situation.

In the end, their numbers stabilized, and as we will find out in future episodes, while Jamestown never grew to a metropolis, those first settlers who arrived in sixteen oh seven, they took the first steps towards massive English colonization in Virginia, and that is what matters for the future. Now next week, I'm actually going to shift our gaze to the north, because, as I'm sure many of us are aware, Virginia is not the only English colony to take root on the

eastern seaboard of what is today the United States. To the north, a group of separatists that we call the Pilgrims are going to establish their own colony, not were they intended to, which was actually Virginia, but far far to the north and a place we call Plymouth.