Pocahontas, Powhatan, Opechancanough: Three Indian Lives Changed by Jamestown

by Helen C. Rountree

Overview

Pocahontas may be the most famous Native American who ever lived, but during the settlement of Jamestown, and for two centuries afterward, the great chiefs Powhatan and Opechancanough were the subjects of considerably more interest and historical documentation than the young woman. It was Opechancanough who captured the foreign captain "Chawnzmit"—John Smith. Smith gave Opechancanough a compass, described to him a spherical earth that revolved around the sun, and wondered if his captor was a cannibal. Opechancanough, who was no cannibal and knew the world was flat, presented Smith to his elder brother, the paramount chief Powhatan. The chief, who took the name of his tribe as his throne name (his personal name was Wahunsenacawh), negotiated with Smith over a lavish feast and opened the town to him, leading Smith to meet, among others, Powhatan’s daughter Pocahontas. Thinking he had made an ally, the chief finally released Smith. Within a few decades, and against their will, his people would be subjects of the British Crown.

Despite their roles as senior politicians in these watershed events, no biography of either Powhatan or Opechancanough exists. And while there are other "biographies" of Pocahontas, they have for the most part elaborated on her legend more than they have addressed the known facts of her remarkable life. As the 400th anniversary of Jamestown’s founding approaches, nationally renowned scholar of Native Americans, Helen Rountree, provides in a single book the definitive biographies of these three important figures. In their lives we see the whole arc of Indian experience with the English settlers – from the wary initial encounters presided over by Powhatan, to the uneasy diplomacy characterized by the marriage of Pocahontas and John Rolfe, to the warfare and eventual loss of native sovereignty that came during Opechancanough’s reign.

Writing from an ethnohistorical perspective that looks as much to anthropology as the written records, Rountree draws a rich portrait of Powhatan life in which the land and the seasons governed life and the English were seen not as heroes but as Tassantassas (strangers), as invaders, even as squatters. The Powhatans were a nonliterate people, so we have had to rely until now on the white settlers for our conceptions of the Jamestown experiment. This important book at last reconstructs the other side of the story.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780813925967
Publisher:	University of Virginia Press
Publication date:	07/05/2006
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.00(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Helen C. Rountree, Professor Emerita of Anthropology at Old Dominion University, is the author and editor of numerous works on the Native Americans of the East Coast, including Powhatan Foreign Relations, 1500-1722 and, with Thomas E. Davidson, Eastern Shore Indians of Virginia and Maryland (both Virginia).

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
Preface
Introduction
1. Setting the Scene
2. The VIP Lifestyle
3. Introducing the Chiefly Family
4. Expanding His Dominions
5. Watching from a Distance
6. Meeting a Captive Englishman
7. The Alliance's Creaky Beginning
8. Allies Who Did Not Behave Like Allies
9. The Breakdown of the Alliance
10. Contain Them, Then Let Them Starve
11. Return with a Vengeance
12. Hostage Situation, with an Unusual Denouement
13. Interview with a Wily Old Man
14. Pocahontas in England
15. Unofficially in Control
16. The Great Assault of 1622
17. A War of Attrition, Including an English Massacre
18. Running Out of Time
Epilogue
Appendix A. Annual Comings and Goings of Powhatan People
Appendix B. Leaders Who Dealt with One Another
Notes 
Bibliography 
Index
 

Editorial Reviews

"This is an extremely valuable book that will appeal to a wide audience of general readers and scholars.... It is written in a lively style and really makes good on the promise to tell the story of early seventeenth-century Virginia from the Native Americans’ point of view.

—Karen O. Kupperman Silver, Professor of History, New York University, author of Indians and English: Facing Off in Early America

Highly recommended. All levels/libraries.

—Choice

From the Publisher

"This is an extremely valuable book that will appeal to a wide audience of general readers and scholars.... It is written in a lively style and really makes good on the promise to tell the story of early seventeenth-century Virginia from the Native Americans’ point of view.

Karen O. Kupperman Silver

Highly recommended. All levels/libraries.

Choice

"This is an extremely valuable book that will appeal to a wide audience of general readers and scholars.... It is written in a lively style and really makes good on the promise to tell the story of early seventeenth-century Virginia from the Native Americans’ point of view.

Karen O. KuppermanSilver Professor of HistoryNew York University