Why Did Chesapeake Bay Native Americans Begin Farming?

1588 Theodor de Bry 1528-1598 Native American Village of Secoton  A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia

The Jefferson Patterson Park & Museum, Maryland State Museum of Archaeology tells us that, archaeological evidence suggests that rather than abruptly shifting from hunting & gathering to farming, Native Americans gradually incorporated food-growing into their lifestyle. The transition to food growing in eastern North America was not a revolution, but a nuanced evolution. And Native peoples across America became farmers at different times & in different ways in response to a diversity of needs, beliefs, & ecological conditions.

Apart from growing food, Native Americans actively “managed” the landscape by burning undergrowth & forest litter to make nut gathering easier & to facilitate hunting. Early historical accounts make mention of park-like forests: “Neare their habitations is little small wood or old trees on the ground by reason of their burning of them for fire. So that a man may gallop a horse amongst these woods any waie, but where the creekes or Rivers shall hinder.” John Smith A True Relation of Such Occurrences & Accidents of Noate as Hath Hapned in Virginia, (1608), in Lyon Gardiner Tyler, ed., Narratives of Early Virginia, 1606-1625 (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907, p.101).

It was during the Transitional Archaic time period that Native Americans first became food growers by encouraging useful plants in & around their campsites. These acts formed the beginnings of a food production system which had far reaching effects on many aspects of culture – from the size of settlements, to mobility, to the health of individuals, to social & political relationships. Clear lines of evidence from the Midwestern United States document that at campsites located on alluvial floodplains weedy plants were tolerated, encouraged, and eventually propagated. These acts of husbandry ultimately formed a system of Native horticulture that was unique to the Eastern Woodlands of North America. Sunflower, sumpweed, cucurbit gourd, knotweed, chenopod, maygrass, & little barley were grown. Together, these crops are referred to as the Eastern Agricultural Complex. While wild relatives of all of these plants persist in nature, the cultivated types grown in prehistory are now mostly extinct.

The tropical cultigens corn (or maize), beans, & squash, which feature so prominently in early colonial accounts of the New World, were actually latecomers to the farm fields of the Eastern Woodlands. In the Midwest and on the Allegheny Plateau here in the East, maize was incorporated into the gardens of Indians who had a long history of growing the crops of the Eastern Agricultural complex. In these areas, we believe that maize first appeared in small quantities & at scattered locations after AD 200. For centuries maize was a minor crop in these areas. After AD 1100, farming economies focused on maize flourished, & beans, fleshy squashes, & pale-seeded amaranth also become archaeologically visible.

Here in Maryland & Virginia, very different patterns of prehistoric plant use are evident east & west of the Blue Ridge Mountains. To the west, the Midwestern pattern prevails – there is evidence of pre-maize agriculture, and maize occurs at some Middle Woodland period sites. On the piedmont and coastal plain, however, the story is a bit different: there is no convincing evidence that pre-maize crops were ever an important part of the Native food system. In these areas, maize first occurred around A.D. 1100, & all early maize remains in the Chesapeake region have been found at archaeological sites thought to have ceremonial or political significance. This suggests that maize may have served an important symbolic or ritualistic role as well as being a food plant.

These differences in the timing & traditions associated with becoming farmers reflect the differences in the ecological settings & culture history of prehistoric Native Americans. One explanation for the differences in the adoption of maize (as a food) & sedentary farming (as a lifestyle) in the Chesapeake region is that the Bay & its many estuaries provided a food-rich “breadbasket.” A great variety of wild food resources were easily accessible via waterborne travel.

The effects of prehistoric farming on Maryland’s environment are difficult to discern. We know from early colonial narrative accounts that the Chesapeake Indian peoples managed the forest understory for hunting & gathering, & cleared land for gardens. These activities would have increased soil erosion and modified the natural succession of plant species. The opening of arable land would also have created more forest edge – resulting in an increase in the diversity of plant & animal life. Hunting, fishing, & gathering activities would also have affected local biology. Growing populations living in larger, more concentrated communities certainly impacted Maryland’s landscape. But the toll of humans as ecological factors prior to the time of European contact remains incompletely understood.

Innovations in food production throughout the Woodland period were intertwined with cultural, political, & social changes. Horticulture enabled people to stay for longer periods of time in one place, which resulted in the development of more complex social & political relationships. We see the material expression of cultural identity & beliefs in Woodland period artifacts. These stylistic patterns reveal complex networks of communication and exchange throughout the Middle Atlantic region. By the Late Woodland period there is evidence that populations had grown significantly and that people lived in larger, year-round villages organized in complex politic alliances called Chiefdoms. At this same time, archaeology reveals big changes in horticulture (with the adoption of maize agriculture), innovations in tool & weapon technologies, the creation of new pottery styles, & the practice of complex burial rituals.

See:
Dent, Richard J.1995 Chesapeake Prehistory. Old Traditions, New Directions. Plenum Press, New York.

Potter, Stephen R. 1993 Commoners, Tribute, and Chiefs: The Development of Algonquian Culture in the Potomac Valley.  University Press of Virginia, Charlottesville.

Smith, Bruce D. 1992 Rivers of Change. Essays on Early Agriculture in Eastern North America. Smithsonian Institution  Press, Washington D.C.

Theodor de Bry 1588 Embellished Engravings of Copied Images of Native Americans - Women with Babies

1588 Theodor de Bry 1528-1598 Native American Woman and Young A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia

Theodor de Bry (1528-1598) was an engraver & publisher, famous for his depictions of early European expeditions to the Americas. In 1588 Theodor de Bry & his sons published a new, illustrated edition of Thomas Harriot's 1588 A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia about the first English settlements in North America (in North Carolina). His illustrations were loosely based on the 1585 eye-witness watercolor paintings of English colonist & artist John White.

1607 Pocahontas as a Propaganda Pawn - Her capture, return, marriage

The Story of Pocahontas

Her Capture, the Bargain for her Return, & her Marriage to John Rolfe

as told by Raphe Hamor, Secretary of the Jamestown Colony

Pocahontas. By Charles Staal, engraved by B. Eyles.

Pocahontas was about 12, when Capt. John Smith was captured by Powhatan’s men in 1607, & she allegedly saved him from execution. "Pocahontas" was a nickname, which in Algonquin roughly translated to "Little Wanton," or playful, merry little girl. She became a frequent visitor at Jamestown, as she brought food for the colonists. She also became an informer for the British, warning Smith of her father’s war plans. 

After Smith’s return to England, Pocahontas returned to her village & resumed her proper name of Matoaka. The English, under Sir Thomas Dale, were at war with Powhatan. To force Powhatan’s submission, Capt. Samuel Argall in 1613, lured Pocahontas on board a ship & held her hostage. During a prolonged captivity, she reportedly was converted to Christianity by the Reverend Alexander Whitaker & baptized as “Rebecca.” In 1614, she married John Rolfe, who had introduced the profitable tobacco species into the colony. Powhatan grudgingly agreed to a truce with the colony that lasted until 1622.

Marriage of John Rolfe & Pocahontas on April 5, 1614

To ramp up public relations & perhaps lure some new investors, in 1616 The Virginia Company brought the Rolfes, their son, Thomas (b. 1615), plus an entourage of 12 colorful Native Americans to England. On her publicity tour, she met many of the period's major figures, was presented at court, & had her portrait painted. She then took ill & died in March 1617, on board the ship returning her to Virginia. She was buried in Gravesend, England. 

An excerpt from A true discourse of the present estate of Virginia, & the successe of the affaires there till the 18 of Iune 1614. Together with a relation of the seuerall English townes & fortes, the assured hopes of that countrie & the peace concluded with the Indians. The christening of Powhatans daughter & her marriage with an English-man. Written by Raphe Hamor the yonger, late secretarie in that colony ... London, Printed by Iohn Beale for W. Welby, 1615.

"It chaunced  Powhatans delight & darling, his daughter Pocahontas, (whose fame hath even bin spred in England by the title of Nonparrella of Virginia) in her princely progresse, if I may so terme it, tooke some pleasure (in the absence of Captaine Argall (to be among her friends at Pataomecke (as it seemeth by the relation I had) imploied thither, as shopkeepers to a Fare, to exchange some of her fathers commodities for theirs, where residing some three months or longer, it fortuned upon occasion either of promise or profit, Captaine  Argall to arrive there, whom  Pocahantas, desirous to renue his familiaritie with the English, & delighting to see them, as unknowne, fearefull perhaps to be surprised, would gladly visit, as she did, of whom no sooner had Captaine Argall intelligence, but he delt with an old friend, & adopted brother of his  Iapazeus, how & by what meanes he might procure hir captive, assuring him, that now or never, was the time to pleasure him, if he entended indeede that love which he had made profession of, that in ransome of hir he might redeeme some of our English men & armes, now in the possession of her Father, promising to use her withall faire, & gentle entreaty:  Iapazeus well assured that his brother, as he promised would use her curteously promised his best indeavours & secrecie to accomplish his desire, & thus wrought it, making his wife an instrument (which sex have ever bin most powerfull in beguiling inticements) to effect his plot which hee had thus laid, he agreed that himselfe, his wife, & Pocahuntas, would accompanie his brother to the water side, whether come, his wife should faine a great & longing desire to goe aboorde, & see the shippe, which being there three or foure times, before she had never seene, & should bee earnest with her husband to permit her: he seemed angry with her, making as he pretended so unnecessary a request, especially being without the company of women, which deniall she taking unkindely, must faine to weepe, (as who knows not that women can command teares) whereupon her husband seeming to pitty those counterfeit teares, gave her leave to goe aboord, so that it would please Pochahuntas to accompany her; now was the greatest labour to win her, guilty perhaps of her fathers wrongs, though not knowne as she supposed to goe with her, yet by her earnest perswasions, she assented: so forth with aboord they went, the best cheere that could be made was seasonably provided, to supper they went, merry on all hands, especially Iapazeus & his wife, who to expres their joy, would ere be treading upó Capt. Argals foot, as who should say tis don, she is your own. Supper ended, Pochahuntas was lodged in the Gunners roome, but Iapazeus & his wife desired to have some conference with their brother, which was onely to acquaint him by what stratagem they had betraied his prisoner, as I have already related: after which discourse to sleepe they went, Pocahuntas nothing mistrusting this policy, who nevertheless being most possessed with feare, & desire of returne, was first up, & hastened Iapazeus to be gon. Capt. Argall having secretly well rewarded him, with a small Copper kettle, & som other les valuable toies so highly by him esteemed, that doubtlesse he would have betrayed his owne father for them, permitted both him & his wife to returne, but told him, that for divers considerations, as for that his father had then eigh of our English men, many swords, peeces, & other tooles, which he had at severall times by trecherons murdering our men, taken from them which though of no use to him, he would not redeliver, he would reserve Pocahuntas, whereat she began to be exceeding pensive, & discontented, yet ignorant of the dealing of Iapazeus, who in outward appearance was no less discontented that he should be the meanes of her captivity, much a doe there was to perswade her to be patient, which with extraordinary curteous usage, by little & little was wrought in her, & so to James towne she was brought, a messenger to her father forthwith dispached to advertise him, that his only daughter was in the hands & possession of the English: ther to be kept til such times as he would ransom her with our men, swords, peeces, & other tools treacherously taken from us: the news was unwelcome, & troublesom unto him, partly for the love he bare to his daughter, & partly for the love he bare to our men his prisoners, of whom though with us they were unapt for any imployment) he made great use: & those swords, & peeces of ours, (which though of no use to him) it delighted him to view, & looke upon. 

"He could not without long advise & delibertion with his Councell, resolve upon anything, & it is true, we heard nothing of him till three months after, by perswasions of others he returned us seaven of our men, with each of them a Musket unserviceable, & by them sent us word, that whensoever wee pleased to deliver his daughter, he would give us in satisfaction of his injuries done to us, & for the rest of our peeces broken & stolne from him, 500 Bushells of Corne, & be for ever friends with us, the men, & Peeces in part of payment we received: & returned him answere, that his daughter was very well, & kindely intreated, & so should be howsoever he dealt with us: but we could not believe that the rest of our Arms were either lost, or stolne from him, & therefore till he returned them all, we would not by any meanes deliver his daughter & then it should be at his choice, whether he would establish peace, or continue enemies with us. This answere as it seemed, pleased him not very wel, for we heard no more from him till in March last, when with Captaine Argalls Shippe, & some other Vessells belonging to the Colony, Sir Thomas Dale with an hundred & fifty men well appointed, went up into his owne River, where his chiefest habitations were, & carried with us his daughter, either to move them to fight for her, if such were their courage & boldnesse, as hath been reported, or to restore the residue of our demands, which were our peeces, swords, tooles. Some of the same men which he returned (as they promised) ran to him again, & because he had put us to the trouble to fetch them five hundred bushels of Corne: A great bravado all the way as we went up the River they made, demaunding the cause of our comming thither, which wee tould them was to deliver Pocahuntas, whom purposely we had brought with us, & to receive our Armes, men, & corn or else to fight with them, burn their howses, take away their Canoas, breake downe their fishing Weares, & doe them what other damages we could: Some of them to set a good face on the matter, replied, that if wee came to fight with them we were welcome, for they were provided for us, councelling us rather to retire (if wee loved our safeties) then proceed, bragging, as well they might, that wee had ever had the worst of them in that River, instancing by Capt: Ratliefe (not worthy remembering, but to his dishonor) who, with most of his company they betrayed & murthered: we told them since they durst remember us of that mischief, unlesse they made the better & more speedy agreement, we would now revenge that trechery, & with this discourse by the way as we went, we proceeded, & had no sooner entred the narrow of the river, the channell there lying within shot of the shoare, but they let their arrowes flie amongst us in the shippe themselves unseene to us, & in the forehead hurt one of our men, which might have hazarded his life without the present helpe of a skillfull Chirurgion. 

"Being thus justly provoked, we presently manned our boats, went ashoare, & burned in that verie place some forty houses, & of the things we found therein, made freeboote & pillage, & as themselves afterward confest unto us, hurt & killed five or sixe of their men, with this revenge satisfying our selves, for that their presumption in shooting at us, & so the next day proceeded higher up the River, & Indians calling unto us, & demaunding why we went ashoare, burnt their houses, killed & hurt their men, & tooke away their goods. We replied that though we came to them in peaceable manner, & would have beene glad to have received our demaunds with love & peace, yet we had hearts & power to take revenge, & punish where wrongs should be offered, which having now don, though not so severely as we might, we rested content there with & are ready to imbrace peace with them if they pleased. Many excuses they seemed to pretend, that they shot not at us, but (if any such abuse were offered) it was some stragled Indian, ignorant of our pretence in comming to them, affirming that they themselves would be right glad of our love, & would indeavour to helpe us to what we came for, which being in the possession of Powhatan their King, they would without delay dispatch messengers to him, to know his purpose & pleasure, desiring faire quarter some 24 howers, for so long they pretend it would be before their messengers might returne this wee graunted, & what we promised, we ever exactly performed, the time now come, we inquired what Powhatan would doe, & had for answere, that our Englishmen lately with him, fearefull to be put to death by us, were runne away, & some of Powhatans men sent abroade in quest of them, but our swords & peeces so many as he had should be brought the next day, which meerely to delay time, they bare us in hand the next day they came not, higher up the river we went, & ancored neere unto the chiefest residencie Powhatan had, at a towne called Matchcot where were assembled (which we saw) about 400 men, well appointed with their bowes & arrowes to welcome us, here they dared us to come a shoare, a thing which we purposed before, so a shoare we went, our best landing being up a high steepe hill which might have given the enemy much advantage against us, but it seemed they as we were unwilling to begin, & yet would gladly have bin at blowes, being landed as if they had no shew of fear, they stirred not from us, but walked up & downe, by & amongst us, the best of them inquiring for our Weroance or king, with whom they would gladly consult to know the occasion of our comming thither, whereof when they were informed, they made answere that they were there ready to defend themselves, if we pleased to assault them, desiring neverthelesse some small time to dispatch two or three men once more to their king, to know his resolution, which if not answerable to our requests, in the morning if nothing else but blood would then satisfie us, they would fight with us, & thereby determine our quarrell, which was but a further delay to procure time to carrie away their provisions, neverthelesse we agreed to this their request, assuring them till the next day by noone we would not molest, hurt, nor detaine any of them, & then before we fought, our Drum & Trumpets should give them warning: upon which promise of ours, two of Powhatans sonnes being very desirous to see their sister who was there present ashore with us, came unto us, at the sight of whom, & her well fare, whom they suspected to be worse intreated, though they had often heard the contrary, they much rejoyced, & promised that they would undoubtedly perswade their father to redeem her, & to conclude a firme peace forever with us, & upon this resolution the two brothers with us retired aboarde, we having first dispatched two English men, Master John Rolfe & master Sparkes to acquaint their Father with the businesse in hand, the next day being kindly intreated, they returned, not at all admitted Powhatans presence, but spake with his brother Apachamo, his successor, one who hath already the commaund of all the people, who likewise promised us his best indeavors to further our just requests, & we because the time of the yeere being then Aprill, called us to our businesse at home to prepare ground, & set corne for our winters provisions, upon these termes departed, giving them respite till harvest to resolve what was best for them to doe, with this Proviso, that if final agreement were not made betwixt us before that time, we would thither returne again & destroy & take away all their corne, burne all the houses upon that river, leave not a fishing Weere standing, nor a Canoa in any creeke thereabout, & destroy & kill as many of them as we could.

"Long before this time a gentleman of approved behaviour & honest carriage, master John Rolfe had bin in love with Pocahuntas & she with him, which thing at the instant that we were in parlee with them, my selfe made known to Sir Thomas Dale by a letter from him, whereby he intreated his advise & furtherance in his love, if so it seemed fit to him for the good of the Plantation, & Pocahuntas her selfe, acquainted her brethren therewith: which resolution Sir Thomas Dale wel approving, was the onely cause: he was so milde amongst them, who otherwise would not have departed their river without other conditions.

"The bruite of this pretended marriage came soone to Powhatans knowledge, a thing acceptable to him, as appeared by his sudden content thereunto, who some ten daies after sent an olde uncle of hirs, named Opachisco, to give her as his deputy in the Church, & two of his sonnes to see the marriage solemnized, which was accordingly done about the fifth of Aprill & ever since we have had friendly commerce & trade, not onely with Powhatan himselfe, but also with his subjects round about us; so as now I see no reason why the Collonie should not thrive a pace..." 

The rescue episode did not appear in John Smith’s accounts of Virginia published in 1608 & 1612, but surfaced in his Generall Historie of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles (1624). Doubts have been cast ever since on its authenticity &, if true, its meaning. 

See: Eric Foner & John A. Garraty, Editors. The Reader’s Companion to American History. 1991 Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. 

Theodor de Bry 1588 Embellished Engravings of Copied Images of Native Americans - Fishing

1588 Theodor de Bry 1528-1598  Native Americans Fishing  A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia

Theodor de Bry (1528-1598) was an engraver & publisher, famous for his depictions of early European expeditions to the Americas. In 1588 Theodor de Bry & his sons published a new, illustrated edition of Thomas Harriot's 1588 A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia about the first English settlements in North America (in North Carolina). His illustrations were loosely based on the 1585 eye-witness watercolor paintings of English colonist & artist John White.

1608 The Role of Native American, Slave, & European Women at Jamestown, Virginia

"...the plantation can never florish till families be planted & the respect of wives and children fix the people on the soil." Sir Edwin Sandy, Treasurer Virginia Company of London, 1620

The 1st of the British colonies to take hold in North America was Jamestown. On the basis of a charter which King James I granted to the Virginia (or London) Company, a group of about 100 men set out for the Chesapeake Bay in 1607. Seeking to avoid conflict with the Spanish, who settled & exploited the Americas 1st, they chose a site about 60 kilometers up the James River from the bay. Made up of townsmen & adventurers more interested in finding gold than farming, the group was unequipped by temperament or ability to embark upon a completely new life in the wilderness.

Some hoped to convert the Native Americans to Protestant Christianity. Some wanted to establish an English hold on the New World & exploit its resources. Most desired to find its fabled gold & riches & a few longed to discover a northwest passage to the treasures of the Orient.

Among them, Captain John Smith emerged as the dominant figure. Despite quarrels, starvation & Indian attacks, his ability to enforce discipline held the little colony together through its 1st year. In 1609 Smith returned to England, & in his absence, the colony descended into anarchy. 

The 1st English women arrived in Virginia, when Captain Christopher Newport brought 2 female settlers to Jamestown on his 2nd supply ship in October of 1608.

During the winter of 1609-1610, the majority of the colonists succumbed to disease. Only 60 of the original 300 settlers were still alive by May 1610.

Once the commercial resources were discovered, the company's revenues would continue only if the outpost became permanent. For Jamestown to survive, many unstable conditions had to be overcome. 1. A clash of cultures existed between the Englishmen & the Native Americans with whom they soon found to need to trade & hoped to Christianize. 2. Settlers were unprepared for the rugged frontier life in a wilderness. 3. Many settlers intended to remain in Virginia only long enough to make their fortune & then return home to England.

It was not long, however, before a development occurred that revolutionized Virginia's economy. In 1612, John Rolfe began cross-breeding imported tobacco seed from the West Indies with native plants & produced a new variety that was pleasing to European taste. The 1st shipment of this tobacco reached London in 1614. Within a decade it had become Virginia's chief source of revenue.

Prosperity did not come quickly, however, & the death rate from disease & Indian attacks remained extraordinarily high. Between 1607-1624 approximately 14,000 people migrated to the colony, yet only 1,132 were living there in 1624. On recommendation of a royal commission, the king dissolved the Virginia Company, & he made it a royal colony that year.

Providing the stability needed for Jamestown's survival was the indispensable role played by Virginia women. Their initial arrival in 1608 & throughout the next few years contributed greatly to Jamestown's ultimate success. Lord Bacon, a member of His Majesty's Council for Virginia, stated about 1620 that "When a plantation grows to strength, then it is time to plant with women as well as with men; that the plantation may spread into generations, & not be ever pieced from without."

Pocahontas

The 1st woman to foster stability in Jamestown was not an English woman but a native Virginian. Pocahontas, the daughter of Chief Powhatan, was among the first Native Americans to bring harvest foods to the early settlers. 

Indian women of the Powhatan society interacted with the colonists from the start, accompanying male emissaries sent to the Fort by Chief Powhatan — at times bringing food which saved the settlers from starvation.  

After being captured & held for the ransom of peace by the English colonists, Pocahontas eventually married tobacco entrepenur John Rolfe. This early Virginia woman helped create the "Peace of Pocahontas," which for several years, appeased the clash between the 2 cultures.

Anne Burras

One of the 1st English women to arrive & help provide a home life in the rugged Virginia wilderness was young Anne Burras. Anne was the personal maid of Mistress Forrest who came to Jamestown in 1608 to join her husband. Although the fate of Mistress Forrest remains uncertain, that of Anne Burras is well known. Her marriage to carpenter John Laydon 2 months after her arrival became the 1st Jamestown wedding. While Jamestown fought the become a permanent settlement, Anne & John began a more intimate struggle to raise a family of 4 daughters in the Virginia wilderness. Certainly, Anne & her family began the stabilization process which would eventually spur the colony's growth.  Little else is known of Anne except that she survived the Indian attack of 1622 — which killed an estimated 347 colonists & was the beginning of a war with the Native Americans that lasted for 10 years.  She was still living in Virginia in 1625.

Temperance Flowerdew

Another young woman, Temperance Flowerdew, 1590-1628, arrived with 400 ill-fated settlers in the fall of 1609. Temperance Flowerdew was the daughter of Anthony Flowerdew of Hethersett County, Norfolk, England & Martha Stanley of Scottow, Norfolk, England. 

The following winter, dubbed the "Starving Time," saw over 80 percent of Jamestown succumb to sickness, disease & starvation. Temperance survived this season of hardship but soon returned to England.  

Three years later in 1613, Temperance married George Yeardley & over the course of the next few years had 3 children, a daughter Elizabeth (1614-15), & 2 sons, Argoll (1618) & Francis (1623). In 1616, Deputy Governor George Yeardly secured a peace with the Chickahominy Indians that enabled the colonists to trade for food & live in peace for 2 years. His term ended in 1617. Traveling to England, George Yeardley was knighted in 1618, & given a commission as Governor of Virginia. In 1619, Governor Yeardley initiated the 1st legislative assembly by ordering representatives from all parts of the colony to convene at the Jamestown church on July 3, 1619 to determine the laws that would govern them.  This later became known as the House of Burgesses.

Governor Yeardley named his Virginia patent grant of 1,000 acres in honor of his wife:  Flowerdew Hundred.  Sir Yeardly commissioned the building of America’s 1st windmill on the plantation in 1621.  Notably 15 of the 1st 20 Africans brought to the Jamestown colony resided at the plantation.  Whether they were there in slavery or indentured servitude, it is not clear.  Indentured servitude was common in the early days of the colony.  The colony had no institutionalized slavery enacted into law until 1662, when the need for labor in the tobacco-dependent economy intensified.

Temperance survived another harrowing event that occurred in the early morning hours of March 22, 1622, when a carefully orchestrated attack by the Powhatan Indians wiped out 25% of the colonists.  Records note that Flowerdew Hundred lost 6 of the 30 or so people who lived & worked there.

In 1627, Temperance’s husband died & she remarried his successor, Governor Francis West on March 31, 1628.  Unfortunately Temperance died just 9 months later in December 1628. Her many years in Virginia as a wife & mother helped fill the gap in Jamestown's early family life.

Jane Pierce

Jane Pierce, the daughter of Captain William Pierce & his wife Joan., set out on her journey to the New World in 1609 with the group of 500 new settlers destined for the Jamestown settlement.

Jane traveled to the new colony of Virginia with her mother on the Blessing, one of 9 ships that traveled together in consort from England.  Captain Pierce traveled with the other leaders on the flagship, the Sea Venture.  The violent hurricane battered the ships & separated Jane’s ship from that of her father’s.  Weeks later, the Blessing straggled into Jamestown, but when her father’s ship never arrived, Jane & her mother believed Captain Pierce had been lost at sea.

They had little time to grieve, however, as their focus was on surviving the terrible Starving Time during that 1st winter. Both Jane & her mother were among the few survivors come spring.

Then in May, 1610, some 10 months after they said goodbye to her father, Jane, along with her mother, enjoyed a thrilling, unexpected reunion with Captain Pierce when the survivors of the Sea Venture shipwreck on Bermuda arrived at Jamestown. Jane grew up in Jamestown learning from her mother, known as the master gardener of the Jamestown settlement. 

John Rolfe became well-acquainted with Captain Pierce during the Sea Venture voyage & the 10 months stranded on the island of Bermuda.  Upon the tragic death of his wife, Rebecca (Pocahontas) in England in 1617, John Rolfe returned to Jamestown. In 1619, Jane married John Rolfe. They had a daughter, Elizabeth, in 1620, who died in 1635 at the age of 15. Jane’s husband, John Rolfe, died in 1622.

The mother of a 2 year old girl, Jane remarried that year to Captain Roger Smith.

The need for a more permanent colony may have led the male leaders back in England, who were interested in making a profit, to revised thinking about the role of women.  The traditional English role of women seemed to enlarge & shift a bit, as they created a sense of permanence & “home” in the wilderness of Virginia. Their importance & standing began to grow a little. Jamestown’s women provided the stability needed for its survival.

In July 1619, settlers were granted acres of land dependent on the time & situation of their arrival. This was the beginning of private property for Virginia men. These men, however, asked that land also be allotted for their wives who were just as deserving "...because that in a newe plantation it is not knowen whether man or woman be the most necessary."

The Virginia Company of London seemed to agree that women were indeed quite necessary. They hoped to anchor their discontented bachelors to the soil of Virginia by using women as a stabilizing factor. They ordered in 1619 that "...a fit hundredth might be sent of women, maids young & uncorrupt, to make wives to the inhabitants & by that means to make the men there more settled & less movable...." Ninety arrived in 1620 & the company records reported in May of 1622 that, "57 young maids have been sent to make wives for the planters, divers of which were well married before the coming away of the ships."

Slave Women

From 1618-1620, the Portuguese fought the people of Ndongo in western Africa. Thousands of Africans were abducted by African warlords & mercenaries employed by the Portuguese in Angola. Many were marched from their villages to the port of Luanda. Some escaped. Some died. Two to 300 survivors would be packed together on a vessel for the journey across the sea as slaves. 

In August 1619, a privateer vessel, White Lion, landed in Virginia at Point Comfort (present day Hampton, Virginia) with a cargo of more than 20 Africans stolen from a Portuguese slave ship named Sao Jao Bautista bound for Veracruz, Mexico. A short time after the White Lion stopped at Point Comfort, another vessel, the Treasurer, arrived carrying more Africans.

The status of the Africans in Virginia, at that moment, is uncertain, but some were “bought” by Governor Yeardley & Abraham Peirsey — meaning they were either slaves or indentured servants. Without papers of indenture (as carried by most white servants), these new arrivals had no protected legal standing & could be easily exploited.

From 1619 on, African women — brought to Virginia against their will — were also a vital part of the female history of Jamestown & Virginia. Few records exist to shed light on the lives of the 1st Africans in Virginia — either before or after their arrival; however, there is some historical information about one of them — a young woman called “Angela” who came on the Treasurer in 1619. The Muster Roll of 1625 reveals that Angela was still in Virginia — a servant in the household of Captain William Peirce.

It is believed that Jamestown would not have survived as a permanent settlement without the daring women who were willing to leave behind their English homes & face the challenges of a strange new land. These women created a sense of stability in the untamed wilderness of Virginia. They helped the settlers see Virginia not just as a temporary place for profit or adventure, but as a country in which to forge a new home.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Billings, Waren. The Old Dominion in the 17th Century
Brown, Alexander. The Genesis of the U.S.
Bruse, Philip. History of Virginia Colonial Period 1607-1763
Ibid., Social Life of Virginia in the 17th Century
Jester, Annie. Domestic Life in Virginia in the 17th Century
Lebsock, Suzanne. A Share of Honour: Virginia Women 1600-1945
Mapp, Alf Jr.. The Virginia Experiment: 1607-1781
Morton, Richard. Colonial Virginia
Phillips, Leon. First Lady of America, Pocahontas
Spruill, Julia. Women's Life and Work in the Southern Colonies
Tate, Thad and Ammerman, David. The Chesapeake in the 17th Century: Essays on Anglo-American Society
Turman, Nora. George Yeardley
Virginia Company. Records of the Virginia Company, I & II

Information from the National Park Service at Jamestown, Virginia

Theodor de Bry 1588 Embellished Engravings of Copied Images of Native Americans - Body Paint

1588 Theodor de Bry 1528-1598 Native American in Body Paint  A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia

Theodor de Bry (1528-1598) was an engraver & publisher, famous for his depictions of early European expeditions to the Americas. In 1588 Theodor de Bry & his sons published a new, illustrated edition of Thomas Harriot's 1588 A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia about the first English settlements in North America (in North Carolina). His illustrations were loosely based on the 1585 eye-witness watercolor paintings of English colonist & artist John White.

When Did People First Arrive in the area now called Maryland?

Robert Beverley (c.1673-c.1722) The History & Present State of Virginia, in 4 parts...By a native &  inhabitant of the place. London: Printed for R. Parker, 1705

The Jefferson Patterson Park & Museum, Maryland State Museum of Archaeology tells us that, the 1st human beings arrived in Maryland sometime during the end of the last glacial period. There is some evidence of possible pre-Clovis occupation of the region as early as 18,000 years ago. The Clovis wer a distinct Paleoindian group originally named for a distinctively shaped fluted stone spearpoint used to hunt megafauna. The Clovis people are generally regarded as the earliest human inhabitants of  the New World. It is generally agreed that by about 11,500 years ago, Paleoindian people using Clovis tools had moved into Maryland & left evidence of their lives in the archaeological record.   The Paleoindian cultural period (10000 B.C. to 7500 B.C.) was a time of radical climatic change at the transition of the Pleistocene to the Holocene at the end of the last ice age. The Ice Age was a geologic period of long-term reduction in the Earth’s temperature which resulted in an expansion of the continental & polar ice sheets.

At the time people arrived in Maryland, the ice age was coming to an end, though the climate was still much colder & wetter than it is today. Mobile hunters probably came into the region that is now Maryland in pursuit of game. These Paleoindians lived in small family bands & moved frequently, following the migration of animals & keeping a seasonal pattern of rotation from place to place. Human beings arrived in Maryland on a wave of change as a series of large-scale climatic shifts began to have a transformative effect on Maryland’s environment. A strong warming trend marked the onset of the Holocene epoch, which caused tremendous changes to the landscape, plants, & animals of the region. Holocene is a geological epoch which began approximately 10,000 years ago & continues into the present. One of the biggest changes associated with this warming trend was a period of sea level rise that continues into the present.

Throughout the Holocene, climatic conditions grew increasingly warmer & drier, causing formerly dominant animals & plants to be replaced by others who could thrive in the new landscape. The coastlines of the Chesapeake Bay & its many tributaries were particularly attractive to humans settling in Maryland. In addition to being a highly productive estuary, the Bay also provided a highway of rivers & creeks provided easy transportation routes. Archaeologists have found evidence that Native American campsites were focused along waterways. Pottery, tools, & shellfish remains from Maryland have been recovered up & down the Atlantic coast – suggesting that objects & ideas were moved around by waterborne trade.

Ten thousand years ago, if not earlier, the megafauna had become extinct, & by 9000 years ago, our modern mixed hardwood forests began to form.  The Pleistocene Megafauna, the giant land animals of the last ice age like mammoth, mastodon & giant bear which are now extinct. By about 8,000 years ago, a continuing warming trend kept glaciers melting & the resulting sea level rise flooded the continental shelf, causing the widening of the Chesapeake Bay & its tributaries. Between 6,000 & 3,000 years ago, the modern outlines of the Chesapeake shore began to take shape.

These significant changes in Maryland’s environment altered the ways in which people lived. New types of tools, & new patterns in the size & location of campsites, were developed. New means of obtaining & storing food took shape – ways which were better suited to Maryland’s evolving hardwood forest landscape. This time of cultural adjustment to a new environment is called the Archaic period.  The Archaic cultural period (7500 B.C. to 1000 B.C) is divided into the Early Archaic (7500 B.C. - 6000 B.C.), Middle Archaic (6000 B.C. – 3500 B.C.) & Late Archaic (3500 B.C. – 1000 B.C.) sub periods. Archaic peoples lived in small groups in widely-scattered encampments. Their lives were largely nomadic, with hunting & gathering filling their subsistence needs.

Archaeological evidence documents gradual changes in this way of life by the end of the Archaic period. Important shifts in the way Native people used the land & its resources define the Transitional Archaic period. The number & size of archaeological sites increases, suggesting that denser populations of people lived more intensively on the land. There is also archaeological evidence of seasonal aggregation for ceremonial purposes. At this time, people also began using new technologies, including different kinds of tools & pottery.

See:
Dent, Richard J. 1995 Chesapeake Prehistory. Old Traditions, New Directions. Plenum Press, New
York.

Grumet, Robert S. 2000 Bay, Plain, and Piedmont: A Landscape History of the Chesapeake Heartland from 1.3 Billion  Years Ago to 2000. The Chesapeake Bay Heritage  Context Project. U.S. Department of the  Interior, National Park Service, Annapolis, Maryland.

Reinhart, Theodore R. and Mary Ellen Hodges, eds.1990 Early and Middle Archaic Research in Virginia. Special Publication of the Archeological Society of Virginia.      Richmond.

Reinhart, Theodore R. and Mary Ellen Hodges, eds. 1991 Late Archaic and Early Woodland Research in Virginia. Special Publication of the Archeological  Society of     Virginia. Richmond.

Theodor de Bry 1588 Embellished Engravings of Copied Images of Native Americans - Village

1588 Theodor de Bry 1528-1598 Native American Village of Pomeiooc  A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia

Theodor de Bry (1528-1598) was an engraver & publisher, famous for his depictions of early European expeditions to the Americas. In 1588 Theodor de Bry & his sons published a new, illustrated edition of Thomas Harriot's 1588 A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia about the first English settlements in North America (in North Carolina). His illustrations were loosely based on the 1585 eye-witness watercolor paintings of English colonist & artist John White.

Native Peoples from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, & Delaware to 1680

1590 North American Atlantic Coast Natives by John White (c1540 – c1593). The village of Pomeiooc (Pomeiock) was a Native America settlement, designated on de Bry’s map of Virginia, Americae Pars Nunc Virginia Dicta, between today’s Wyesocking Bay & Lake Landing, North Carolina. John White designates the settlement as Pomeyoo.

Native Peoples from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, & Delaware to 1680

By Jean R. Soderlund For The Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia & Rutgers University

Native Americans lived in what became southeastern Pennsylvania, southern New Jersey, & northern Delaware for more than 10,000 years before the arrival of Europeans in the early seventeenth century. By emphasizing peace & trade, the Lenapes retained their sovereignty & power through 1680, unlike native peoples in New England & Virginia who suffered disastrous conflicts with the colonists. Before William Penn founded Pennsylvania, the Lenapes & their allies among the Swedish, Finnish, & Dutch settlers created a society based on the ideals of peace, individual freedom, & inclusion of people of different beliefs & backgrounds.

The first Americans settled in the region as glaciers gradually receded in North America at the end of the last ice age. Because of the accumulation of ice, the Atlantic seashore was located more than sixty miles to the east of its present location. As the glaciers melted, the ocean level rose, submerging evidence of early communities along the coast. Archaeological data about the people inhabiting the lower Delaware Valley from this early era through the Woodland Period (c. 1000 B.C. to 1600 A.D.) indicate significant continuity over thousands of years. The Lenapes, like their ancestors, relied upon hunting, fishing, gathering, and—in the later years—small-scale agriculture. They lived in small autonomous towns without palisades, suggesting they kept mostly at peace with their neighbors & more-distant nations.

Isolation of the Lower Delaware Valley

For centuries the natives of the lower Delaware Valley remained isolated from other parts of the Americas, including the peoples of the Ohio & Mississippi Valleys who built agricultural civilizations based on the “three sisters”: corn, beans, & squash. These crops complemented one another in cultivation & providing humans a nutritious diet. The geography of Pennsylvania, particularly the north-south orientation of the Susquehanna & Delaware Rivers, limited interaction of Delaware Valley natives with the Mississippians who built cities, tall burial mounds, & stratified societies in the interior of the continent. Though the Lenapes raised corn, beans, & squash by the time the Europeans came, the natives took advantage of the abundance of game animals, fish, shellfish, berries, wild rice, & other foods rather than engage in large-scale agriculture.

The Lenape people included groups such as the Armewamese, Cohanseys, Mantes, & Sickoneysincks, who built towns along tributaries of the Delaware River & on the Atlantic seacoast near Delaware Bay. They spoke Unami, an Algonquian language similar to the dialects of their allies the Munsees, who controlled the region to the north up into southern New York, & the Nanticokes of Maryland’s Eastern Shore. The Lenapes’ neighbors to the west were the Susquehannocks, an Iroquoian people of the Susquehanna Valley.

The size of the precontact Delaware Valley population is unknown because European sailors & fishermen brought pathogens even before the Dutch arrived. Colonization of Europeans in North America had a devastating impact on the Lenapes & other natives because they lacked immunity to smallpox, influenza, measles, & other diseases. In 1600 the Lenapes numbered an estimated 7,500; by the 1650s their population decreased to about 4,000, & to about 3,000 by 1670. The Lenapes’ population decline was not as severe in the 1600s as among some other groups whose numbers dropped by ninety percent or more. The Lenapes’ success in avoiding war during most of the 17C contributed to their strength & continued sovereignty over their land.

Lenape Gender Roles

The Lenapes divided work on the basis of gender: Women raised crops, gathered nuts & fruit, built houses, made clothing & furniture, took care of the children, & prepared meals, while men cleared land, hunted, fished, & protected the town from enemies.  Native women held an equivalent status with men in their families & society; parents extended freedom to their children as well, practicing flexible, affectionate child-rearing.

During the 17C, the Lenapes’ sociopolitical structure appears to have been democratic, egalitarian, & based on matrilineal kinship groups, with descent through the mother’s line. The heads of kinship groups chose the group’s leader, or sachem, who held authority by following the people’s will. With advice, the sachem assigned fields for planting & made decisions on hunting, trade, diplomacy, & war.

In religion, existing evidence suggests that the Lenapes believed the earth & sky formed a spiritual realm of which they were a part, not the masters. Spirits inhabited the natural world & could be found in plants, animals, rocks, or clouds. Natives could obtain a personal relationship with a spirit, or manitou, who would provide help & counsel to the individual throughout his or her life. Lenapes also believed in a Master Spirit or Creator, who was all-powerful & all-knowing, but whose presence was rarely felt.

When Dutch explorers entered the Delaware River about 1615, the Lenapes welcomed their trade. In 1624, they granted permission for a short-lived settlement on Burlington Island & in 1626 allowed construction of Fort Nassau across the river from the future site of Philadelphia. The natives & colonists developed a trade jargon based on Unami that became standard trade language throughout the region.

Keeping Old Ways, Adopting New

The Lenapes retained their autonomy & traditional ways of life while selectively adopting new technology from the Europeans.  Native women & men appreciated the convenience of woolen cloth, firearms, & metal tools, incorporating them into their culture but not abandoning their traditional economic cycle of hunting, fishing, gathering, & agriculture.

The Dutch trade precipitated war between the Lenapes & Susquehannocks from 1626 to 1636 because the Susquehannocks sought to control the Delaware River. They killed many Lenapes & pushed them from the west to east bank, burning towns & crops. The Lenapes fought back, eager to trade for European cloth, guns, & metal goods in exchange for beaver, otter, & other furs. While these local pelts were thinner because of milder mid-Atlantic winters than those the Susquehannocks obtained from central Canada through the continental fur trade, the Lenapes had a successful market with the Dutch. The war ended by about 1636 when a truce, which developed into an alliance, permitted both the Lenapes & Susquehannocks to trade in the region.

In 1631, violence flared when wealthy Dutch investors started a plantation called Swanendael near present-day Lewes, Delaware, at the mouth of Delaware Bay. It seemed to Lenapes that the Dutch were shifting their priorities from trade to plantation agriculture similar to the English colonists in Virginia who murdered natives & expropriated land. The Sickoneysincks, the Lenape group near Cape Henlopen, destroyed Swanendael, killing its thirty-two residents. When Dutch captain David de Vries (1593-1655) arrived in early 1632, he made peace & reestablished trade with the Sickoneysincks.

Over the next half century, Lenapes controlled the lower Delaware Valley, accepting European trade goods in exchange for small parcels of land for forts & farms, but not plantation colonies. With the attack on Swanendael & its memory, the Lenapes restricted European settlement. In 1670, just 850 Europeans lived in the lower Delaware Valley compared with 52,000 in New England, 41,000 in Virginia & Maryland, & 6,700 in New York & eastern New Jersey. With an estimated population of 3,000 in 1670, the Lenapes remained more numerous & powerful than the Europeans.

New Sweden Established

A color painting of a man wearing black clothing with a white undershirt. The man has long hair & is looking off to the right side of the image.
Johan Printz, the third governor of New Sweden, almost lost his colony due to his governing style & the colony’s limited ability to trade gods with the Lenapes.(Historical Society of Pennsylvania)

Seven years after Swanendael, in 1638, the Lenapes permitted a small group of Swedish, Finnish, & Dutch colonists to establish New Sweden at the location of current Wilmington, Delaware. Lenapes & Susquehannocks traded with New Sweden & the Dutch mariners who continued to frequent the river. While the Europeans fought each other over trade & land, the Lenapes dominated the region. In the mid-1640s they nearly evicted the Swedes because of their lack of trade goods & the bellicose posturing of their governor Johan Printz (1592-1663). Relations improved by 1654 when Naaman & other sachems concluded a treaty with the new Swedish governor, Johan Risingh (c. 1617-72), in which each side promised to warn the other if they heard of impending attack by another nation. They also pledged to discuss problems such as assaults & murders, stray livestock, & land theft before going to war.

By the 1650s, many of the Armewamese group of Lenapes lived adjacent to the Swedes & Finns in the area that became Philadelphia, a locale the Swedish engineer Peter Lindeström (d. 1691) praised for its beauty, freshwater springs, multitude of fruit trees, & many kinds of animals. Lindeström identified six towns from the Delaware to the falls of the Schuylkill that the Armewamese built to be near the terminus of the Susquehannock trade. The Lenapes also sold corn as a cash crop to New Sweden when its supplies ran short.

After the Dutch conquered New Sweden in 1655, the Lenapes, Swedes, & Finns solidified their alliance to resist heavy-handed Dutch authority. The Lenapes warned the Swedes of the Dutch assault; their Susquehannock & Munsee allies attacked Manhattan, forcing Director Peter Stuyvesant (d. 1672) & his troops to withdraw from the Delaware Valley.  While the Dutch claimed the region, the Lenapes ruled their country in alliance with the Munsees, Susquehannocks, Swedes, & Finns.

With the English conquest of the Dutch colony in 1664, the alliance of Lenapes, Swedes, & Finns remained firm as together they resisted English efforts, under the Duke of York, to impose their power & expropriate land. In the late 1660s, the Armewamese left their towns where Philadelphia now stands, migrating to join the Mantes & Cohansey communities in New Jersey. Though it is unclear whether settlers forced out the Armewamese or they left voluntarily, their relocation moved the center of Lenape population & power across the river.

In 1675-76, the alliance of Lenapes, Swedes, & Finns helped Lenape country escape the horrors of war similar to Bacon’s Rebellion in Virginia & King Philip’s War in New England. Through shared economic goals & common values of peace, individual freedom, & openness to people of different cultures, the Lenapes & their European allies established the ideals of Delaware Valley society before William Penn received his land grant for Pennsylvania in 1681.

Jean R. Soderlund is a Professor of History at Lehigh University & author of Lenape Country: Delaware Valley Society Before William Penn.

See:
Dahlgren, Stellan, & Hans Norman. The Rise & Fall of New Sweden: Governor Johan Risingh’s Journal 1654-1655 in Its Historical Context. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International, 1988.

Fur, Gunlög. Colonialism in the Margins: Cultural Encounters in New Sweden & Lapland. Leiden: Brill, 2006.

Grumet, Robert S. The Munsee Indians: A History. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2009.

Jennings, Francis. “Glory, Death, & Transfiguration: The Susquehannock Indians in the Seventeenth Century.” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 112 (February 15, 1968): 15-53.

Kraft, Herbert C. The Lenape-Delaware Indian Heritage: 10,000 B.C. – A.D. 2000. Lenape Books, 2001.

Lindeström, Peter. Geographia Americae with an Account of the Delaware Indians Based on Surveys & Notes Made in 1654-1656. Translated & edited by Amandus Johnson. Philadelphia: Swedish Colonial Society, 1925.

Richter, Daniel K. “The First Pennsylvanians.” In Pennsylvania: A History of the Commonwealth, edited by Randall M. Miller & William Pencak, 3-46. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press & the Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission, 2002.

Schutt, Amy C. Peoples of the River Valleys: The Odyssey of the Delaware Indians. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007.

Soderlund, Jean R. Lenape Country: Delaware Valley Society Before William Penn. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015.

Stewart, R. Michael. “American Indian Archaeology of the Historic Period in the Delaware Valley.” In Historical Archaeology of the Delaware Valley, 1600-1850, edited by Richard Veit & David Orr, 1-48. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2014.

Theodor de Bry 1588 Embellished Engravings of Copied Images of Native Americans - Elders or Chiefs

1588 Theodor de Bry 1528-1598 Native American Elder or Chief  A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia

Theodor de Bry (1528-1598) was an engraver & publisher, famous for his depictions of early European expeditions to the Americas. In 1588 Theodor de Bry & his sons published a new, illustrated edition of Thomas Harriot's 1588 A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia about the first English settlements in North America (in North Carolina). His illustrations were loosely based on the 1585 eye-witness watercolor paintings of English colonist & artist John White.

1492 Native Americans Treaties before The American Revolution

Benjamin West (American, 1738–1820) Penn’s Treaty with the Indians (detail), 1771–1772.  Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia.

Before Europeans came to North America, Native people governed themselves and maintained diplomatic relations with one another. Native Americans usually were members of independent, or sovereign, nations that negotiated government-to-government agreements—like treaties—with one another over trade, hunting, and other issues of mutual concern.  Tribes practiced diplomacy with one another to settle conflicts or permit entry into their homelands. Diplomatic relations were accompanied by strict protocols and thorough negotiations. In songs, dances, feasts, and speeches, past wrongs were set aside and hopes for future goodwill were expressed. Only then would discussions begin. Agreements were sometimes sanctified by ceremonies that created family connections. Some treaty-making failed & warfare could ensue.

When Europeans arrived in America, they made alliances with the Native American nations they encountered. To acquire land and establish peace and friendship, French and British colonial officials negotiated written agreements with leaders of tribal nations. For American Indians, the spoken word was sacred. People were expected to honor agreements, the details of which were passed down over generations through mnemonic (memory) devices such as birch bark scrolls and wampum belts. After the American Revolution, the law of the land was “All Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby. “  — United States Constitution, article VI, clause 2

Native Americans Treaties were the means that Europeans & Americans used to secure alliances with, & most often acquire land from, Native Americans. Historians disagree about the number of treaties negotiated between European powers & the United States between 1492 & the end of the formal treaty-making period in 1871. Because municipalities, companies, & state & national governments all made treaties, the number may well be in the thousands.

After Christopher Columbus discovered the New World for Spain in 1492, Spanish explorers & conquistadors used the Caribbean as a base from which to explore North & South America. At first, conquistadors ruthlessly took land from Native Americans, whom they considered heathen or subhuman. By the 1540s, however, Spanish cleric Francisco de Vitoria was already trying to convince the Spanish Crown & its explorers that Indians were indeed human, & thus Spain should treat them with respect rather than take land by conquest. Vitoria succeeded. As friars began to supersede conquistadors on the frontier of New Spain in an attempt to Christianize Native Americans, they introduced a treaty system.

Other nations followed suit. France, less interested in planting permanent colonies but eager to establish a footing in North America, negotiated agreements with native groups that enabled them to fish & trade in peace. Over time, French colonial officials & priests used treaties to secure an extensive web of relationships that guarded the western borders of their North American domain & ensured access to the rich fur trade of the Great Lakes region.

The Dutch used treaties. Like the French, Dutch traders forged agreements with local tribes to gain access to the western fur trade. Settlers in the lower Hudson valley also purchased land & the rights to certain hunting areas with trade goods.

English settlers tried warfare & brutality to cow Native Americans. The English at Jamestown, Virginia, tried to negotiate treaties with local tribes, even attempting at one point to "crown" Powhatan, the leader of a Chesapeake Confederacy, "king" of the Indians (Powhatan Confederacy). Powhatan's own ambitions & the Englishmen's ongoing desire for new farmlands under-mined these efforts, however. The parties maintained a fragile peace during Powhatan's lifetime (a peace sealed with the marriage of his daughter Pocahontas to an English planter), but after his death the chief's brother, Opechancanugh, reignited warfare with the English.

In New England, Pilgrim settlers on Cape Cod negotiated informal agreements with local Wampanoags that allowed them to settle at Plymouth, Massachusetts. Their Puritan brethren followed a similar path when they settled in Boston in 1630. Eventually, however, the English crowded members of the Nipmuck, Narragansett, & Wampanoag tribes onto reservations in Massachusetts. In 1675 the Wampanoag leader Metacomet, known to the English as King Philip, launched a war against the Puritans. Metacomet led warriors from all three groups against the English in the two-year struggle. Puritans won, but only after losing one-sixth of their male population. Ironically, while the English victory meant the end of an era of peaceful treaty making, it was made possible by the assistance of Hudson valley groups who refused to come to Philip's assistance because of their treaty commitments to the British.

During the eighteenth century, the strength of Native American confederacies, imperial threats from other nations, & a renewed interest in empire & mercantilism by the Crown (joint-stock companies had arranged early English settlements with little or no interest from the Crown) convinced England to rely more on diplomacy & treaties in relations with Native Americans. King George's War (1744–1748), which saw England & France vying for control of the Ohio River valley (and subsequently North America), was an example.

The Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle ended King George's War, but in truth it decided nothing. Both France & England jockeyed for position in preparation for renewed warfare. Native Americans, however, did not understand military truces, for once they proclaimed themselves enemies of another they intended to stay that way. French colonists capitalized on that confusion in an attempt to draw some of the Iroquois Confederacy (the Senecas, Cayugas, Onondagas, Oneidas, & Mohawks who had earlier laid claim to the Ohio valley) away from their ally, England. To the south, at the mouth of the Mississippi River in New Orleans, French agents scored treaties with Creeks, Chickasaws, & some Cherokees.

Pennsylvania traders, led by George Croghan, realized that the British Navy had so devastated French trade routes that French Native American allies could not get the trade goods they wanted. In August 1748, Croghan & fellow traders signed the Treaty of Logstown with leaders of the Delawares, Shawnees, Iroquois, & Wyandotte Native Americans. It established a perpetual trade & defensive alliance between England & the Native Americans.

In the French & Native American War (1754–1763), the last of the great wars for the British Empire, the Iroquois Confederacy remained allied with England but did little in the way of fighting against France. The confederacy did not want to be enemies with France if France won the war. British victory in 1763 saw a deterioration in relations with the confederacy, which itself became plagued with infighting.

Upon taking control of all of North America to the Mississippi River, England encountered more trouble with former French-allied Native Americans. In 1763 on the upper Ohio, an Ottawa chief named Pontiac & an alliance of Native Americans attacked Americans (still British subjects) headed west. British soldiers put down Pontiac's rebellion, but England realized it had to conduct aggressive diplomacy with western Native Americans to make the region safe for settlement.

Parliament passed the Proclamation of 1763, which prohibited Americans from settling west of the Appalachian Mountains. The proclamation would enable Parliament to both control land dispersal & establish treaties with Native Americans before Americans took the land.

The spread of Americans to the West scared Native Americans. In an attempt to create a permanent boundary between whites & Native Americans, William Johnson, the English Native American commissioner for the North, & John Stuart, an agent in the South, treated with the Iroquois Nations in 1768. The Treaty of Fort Stanwix negotiated such a line, but failed to halt the westward white movement.

Theodor de Bry 1588 Embellished Engravings of Copied Images of Native Americans - Charnel House

 1588 Theodor de Bry 1528-1598 Native American Charnel House

Theodor de Bry (1528-1598) was an engraver & publisher, famous for his depictions of early European expeditions to the Americas. In 1588 Theodor de Bry & his sons published a new, illustrated edition of Thomas Harriot's 1588 A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia about the first English settlements in North America (in North Carolina). His illustrations were loosely based on the 1585 eye-witness watercolor paintings of English colonist & artist John White.

Massacres between Native Americans & Spanish Colonizers

Christopher Columbus' Soldiers Chopping the Hands off of Arawak Indians who Failed to Meet the Mining Quota in Bartolomé de Las Casas's

Hispaniola Pacification Campaign
In March 1495, in Hispaniola Christopher Columbus led first organized slaughter of native Americans to “pacify” them in order to enact his hand-amputating, gold-acquiring “tribute system.”

Xaraguá Massacre
In 1503 in Xaraguá, Hispaniola, the governor of Hispaniola, Nicolas de Ovando, led expedition to “improve relations” with remaining unconquered Native Americans of the island and, in a surprise attack on their hosts, they slaughtered hundreds of leaders of southwestern Hispaniola.

Cuba Expedition under Diego Velázquez
In 1511, as gold & slaves ran low on Hispaniola, a Spanish expedition to Cuba pursued the Native American survivors of the 1503 Xaraguá Massacre & slaughtered native Cubans along the way.

Pacra Massacre
In 1513, in Pacra, Panama, during a Spanish expedition to discover Pacific Ocean, Native Americans staged a night attack on sleeping village.  Forty men fed to the Spaniards’ dogs for the crime of “dressing like women.”

Tlaxcalan Massacre
In 1519, on way to Tenochtitlán, Cortes’s invasion encounters Tlaxcala Native Americans, who fiercely resist the Spaniards.  After Cortex's men burned ten towns & slaughtered thousands of Native Americans, the Tlaxcalans surrendered & became Cortes’s most significant ally against the Aztecs.

Cholula Massacre
In 1519, on way to Aztec capital, Hernan Cortes reported in his Second Letter to King Charles of Spain, Letters from Mexico, that he visited religious center of Cholula, Mexico & slaughtered the Native Americans of the city whom he accused of “plotting” against him.

Huitzilopochtli Festival Massacre
In 1520, in Tenochtitlan, Mexico, while Cortes was away battling other Spaniards, Pedro Alvarado led massacre during a Native American Huitzilopochtli festival, justifying it by accusing the Native Americans of “plotting” against the Spaniards.

Post-siege Massacre of Tenochtitlan
In 1521, After the successful siege & destruction of Tenochtitlan, Mexico, the Aztec capital city, most of the city’s Native Americans were put to death.

Cajas Massacre
In 1532, after raping several hundred nuns of the Temple of the Sun, Hernando de Soto’s men slaughtered the angry Native American residents of Cajas.

Cajamarca, Massacre
In 1532, in Cajamarca, Ecuador, in surprise attack, killing 3,000 unarmed Native Americans, Pizarro’s expedition captured the Incan sovereign, Atahualpa.

Napituca Massacre
In 1539, in Napituca, Florida, after defeating resisting Timucuan Native American warriors, Hernando de Soto had 200 of them executed, in the first large-scale massacre by Europeans on what became American soil.

Mabila Massacre
In 1540, The Choctaw retaliated against Hernando de Soto's expedition, killing 200 soldiers, as well as many of their horses and pigs, for their having burned down Mabila compound and killed c. 2,500 warriors who had hidden in houses of a fake village.

Tiguex Massacres
Between 1540-1541, after the invading Spaniards seized the houses, food & clothing of the Tiguex Native Americans in Mexico, & raped their women, the Tiguex resisted, which led to a Spanish attack that burned 50 Native Americans at the stake who had surrendered.  Francisco Vázquez de Coronado’s men then laid siege to the Moho Pueblo, & after a months-long siege, they slaughtered 200 fleeing Native American warriors.

Mabila Massacre
In 1540, in Mabila, Alabama, Hernando de Soto’s expedition burned palisaded Native American town of Mabila.

Acoma Massacre
In 1598, in retaliation for the killing of 11 Spanish soldiers, Juan de Oñate led punitive expedition to slaughter the Native Americans at the Acoma mesa.

Theodor de Bry 1588 Embellished Engravings of Copied Images of Native Americans - Two Women

1588 Theodor de Bry 1528-1598 Native American Woman  A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia

Theodor de Bry (1528-1598) was an engraver & publisher, famous for his depictions of early European expeditions to the Americas. In 1588 Theodor de Bry & his sons published a new, illustrated edition of Thomas Harriot's 1588 A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia about the first English settlements in North America (in North Carolina). His illustrations were loosely based on the 1585 eye-witness watercolor paintings of English colonist & artist John White.

1300s Crow Creek Massacre in the South Dakota area

The Crow Creek Massacre occurred around the mid 1300s AD between Native American groups at a site along the Missouri River in the South Dakota area; it is now within the Crow Creek Indian Reservation. Two groups occupied the site in prehistoric times. The Siouan-speaking Middle Missouri people, ancestral to the historic Mandan people, 1st occupied the site sometime after about 900 AD. They built numerous earth lodges on the lower portion of the site. Caddoan-speaking Central Plains people (Initial Coalescent variant) moved into the area from southern areas (present-day Nebraska) sometime around 1150 AD. (The historic Arikara are a Caddoan people.) Whether they displaced the earlier group or moved onto an abandoned site is unknown. The Central Plains (Initial Coalescent) people built at least 55 lodges, mostly on the upper part of the site.

There is evidence that the Central Plains/Initial Coalescent villagers built well-planned defensive works for their village. They were replacing an earlier dry moat fortification with a new fortification ditch around the expanded village when an attack occurred that resulted in the massacre. The attacking group killed all the villagers. In 1978 state archaeologists found the remains of at least 486 people killed during the attack. Most of these remains showed signs of ritual mutilation, particularly scalping. Other examples were tongues being removed, teeth broken, beheading, hands & feet being cut off, & other forms of dismemberment. In addition to the severity of the attack, most of the people showed signs of malnutrition & many had evidence of being wounded in other attacks. Scholars have theorized that the people were attacked by another group or several groups of the Initial Coalescent culture in the area in competition for arable land & resources.

Scalping & Mutilation
Many of the bodies are missing limbs; the attackers may have taken them as trophies, scavenger animals or birds may have carried them away, or some limbs may have been left unburied in the Crow Creek village. Investigators state that "they had been killed, mutilated, & scavenged before being buried." Tongue removal, decapitation, & dismemberment of the Crow Creek victims occured, In addition, scalping was performed, bodies were burned, & there is evidence of limbs being removed by various means. A conservative estimate of villagers who suffered scalping is 90%, but it could have been as high as 100%. This is based on skeletal remains that exhibit cuts on their skulls indicative of scalping. Men, women, & children were scalped.

Nutritional deficiencies
The villagers' skeletal remains provide evidence of extensive nutritional deficiencies of a chronic nature. The Crow Creek villagers were measured as being shorter than their Arikara descendants, with the females being significantly shorter; this could have been another effect of nutritional deficiencies & illness. The severe conditions faced by the Crow Creek villagers were not short term. Based on the evidence of "active & organizing subperiostial hematomas along with the other bony alterations" found while examining remains, the villagers had long suffered malnutrition, in repeated episodes thought due to the unstable climate & drought reducing crops & food supplies. The presence of animal bones within the fortification ditch suggests that villagers ate their dogs because of hunger.

Signs of previous warfare
The skeletal remains of the villagers also showed evidence of earlier wounds. Evidence of previous warfare is present in the skeletal remains of victims found in the mass burial. Two individuals had survived previous scalping incidents, & were in the process of healing, which was indicated by the bony re-growth of their skulls; a third individual had survived a head injury as indicated by "a healed depressed fracture in the frontal." Others showed evidence of being wounded by arrows, the points of which remained in the legs & were overgrown by bone.

Theodor de Bry 1588 Embellished Engravings of Copied Images of Native Americans - Cooking Fish

1588 Theodor de Bry 1528-1598 Cooking Fish  A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia

Theodor de Bry (1528-1598) was an engraver & publisher, famous for his depictions of early European expeditions to the Americas. In 1588 Theodor de Bry & his sons published a new, illustrated edition of Thomas Harriot's 1588 A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia about the first English settlements in North America (in North Carolina). His illustrations were loosely based on the 1585 eye-witness watercolor paintings of English colonist & artist John White.

Theodor de Bry 1588 Embellished Engravings of Copied Images of Native Americans - A Conjurer

1588 Theodor de Bry 1528-1598 Native American Conjurer  A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia

Theodor de Bry (1528-1598) was an engraver & publisher, famous for his depictions of early European expeditions to the Americas. In 1588 Theodor de Bry & his sons published a new, illustrated edition of Thomas Harriot's 1588 A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia about the first English settlements in North America (in North Carolina). His illustrations were loosely based on the 1585 eye-witness watercolor paintings of English colonist & artist John White.