Empires of the Atlantic World: Britain and Spain in America 1492-1830 by John H. Elliott Read Free Book Online Page A

grouping against another.
    In June 1607, when Newport sailed for England to fetch supplies for the hungry and disease-ridden settlement, Captain John Smith, a member of the resident seven-man council, was deputed to lead expeditions into the interior, where he would attempt to negotiate with the Chickahominy tribe, who were settled in the heart of Powhatan's empire but did not form part of it. In December, however, he was taken prisoner by a party headed by Powhatan's brother and eventual successor, Opechancanough, and held for several weeks. Mystery surrounds the rituals to which Smith was subjected in his captivity and his `rescue' by Powhatan's daughter Pocahontas, but the episode appears to be one element in the process by which Powhatan sought to subordinate the English and bring them within the confines of Tsenacommacah.59 In conversations with Powhatan, Smith described Newport as `my father''60 and Powhatan may have seen Smith as an inferior chieftain, who, once he had spent time among his people and become an adopted Powhatan, could safely be returned to the English settlement and help ensure its obedience. He was released in early January just as Newport arrived back in the starving colony with much-needed supplies.
    Following Newport's departure for England in April 1608 for further reinforcements of new settlers and supplies, Smith successfully forced his way into a commanding position in the faction-ridden colony. A professional soldier with long experience of warfare in continental Europe, he was elected in September into the presidency of the settlement, which badly needed the gifts of leadership that he alone seemed capable of providing.
    A Powhatan shaman is alleged to have predicted that `bearded men should come and take away their country 161 - a prophecy like that which is said to have influenced the behaviour of Montezuma. But in Virginia, as in Mexico, this and other alleged `prophecies' may have been no more than rationalizations of defeat concocted after the event,62 and Powhatan at least showed no sign of resigned submission to a predetermined fate. He had the cunning and the skills to play a cat-and-mouse game with the Jamestown settlement, capitalizing on its continuing inability to feed itself. If the English needed an Hernan Cortes to counter his wiles, only Captain Smith, who had gained some knowledge of Indian ways during the time of his captivity, had any hope of filling the part.
    The contrast between Powhatan's confident attitude and the hesitations of Montezuma is revealed at its sharpest by the bizarre episode of Powhatan's 'coronation', which has parallels with what had happened in Tenochtitlan eight decades earlier. Just as Cortes was determined to wrap his actions in the mantle of legitimacy by obtaining Montezuma's `voluntary' submission, so the Virginia Company, possibly attracted by the Mexican precedent, sought a comparable legitimation for its actions.
    Newport returned from England in September 1608 with instructions from the company to secure a formal recognition from Powhatan of the overlordship of James I. But Powhatan, unlike Montezuma, was not in custody, and resolutely refused to come to Jamestown for the ceremony. `If your king have sent me presents,' he informed Newport, `I also am a king, and this my land ... Your father is to come to me, not I to him . . .' Newport therefore had no choice but to take the presents in person to Powhatan's capital, Werowacomoco. These consisted of a basin, ewer, bed, furniture, and `scarlet cloak and apparel', which, `with much ado', they put on him, according to Captain Smith's scornful account of a ceremony of which he deeply disapproved. `But a foul trouble there was', wrote Smith, `to make him kneel to receive his crown, he neither knowing the majesty, nor meaning of a crown, nor bending of the knee ... At last by leaning hard on his shoulders, he a little stooped, and Newport put the crowne on his head.' Once he had recovered from his