Empires of the Atlantic World: Britain and Spain in America 1492-1830 (5 page)

In search of a safer landing-place, Newport's expedition moved across the bay and up river, finally putting ashore on 13 May 1607 at what was to be the site of Jamestown, the colony's first settlement. The London Company had named a resident council of seven to govern the colony, and ground-clearing and the construction of a fort began immediately under its supervision. Jamestown, with its deep anchorage, was to be the English Vera Cruz, a base for reconnaissance and for obtaining supplies by sea.

Here the Indians, like those of Vera Cruz, seemed favourably disposed: `the Salvages often visited us kindly (fig. 5).'39 Newport took a party to explore the higher reaches of the river, and, after passing `divers small habitations ... arrived at a town called Powhatan, consisting of some 12 houses pleasantly seated on a hill'. Beyond this were falls, which made the river unnavigable for their boat. On one of the `little islets at the mouth of the falls', Newport `set up a cross with this inscription Jacobus Rex. 1607, and his own name below At the erecting hereof we prayed for our king and our own prosperous success in this his action, and proclaimed him king, with a great shout.'40 The English, like the Spaniards in Mexico, had formally taken possession of the land.

In both instances tender consciences might question their right to do so. `The first objection', Robert Gray was to observe in A Good Speed to Virginia (1609), `is, by what right or warrant we can enter into the lands of these savages, take away their rightful inheritance from them, and plant ourselves in their places, being unwronged or unprovoked by them.'41 This was a problem with which the Spaniards had long had to wrestle. Spanish claims to New World dominion were based primarily on the Alexandrine bulls of 1493-4. These, following the precedent set by papal policy towards the Portuguese crown in Romanus Pontifex (1455), gave the monarchs of Castile dominion over any islands or mainland discovered or still to be discovered on the westward route to Asia, on condition that they assumed responsibility for protecting and evangelizing the indigenous inhabitants.42

Since a favourable reaction of the indigenous population to such a take-over could hardly be taken for granted, their willingness to submit peacefully came to be tested by the formal reading aloud to them of the requerimiento, the notorious legal document drawn up in 1512 by the eminent jurist Juan Lopez de Palacios Rubios, and routinely used on all expeditions of discovery and conquest, including that of Hernan Cortes. The document, after briefly outlining Christian doctrine and the history of the human race, explained that Saint Peter and his successors possessed jurisdiction over the whole world, and had granted the newly discovered lands to Ferdinand and Isabella and their heirs, to whom the local population must submit, or face the waging of a just war against them.43 The right of the papacy to dispose of non-Christian lands and peoples in this way was in due course to be contested by Spanish scholastics like Francisco de Vitoria, but papal concession was to remain fundamental to Spanish claims to possession of the Indies, although it might be reinforced or supplemented, as Cortes tried to supplement it, by other arguments.

Papal authorization was obviously not an option for Protestant England when it found itself faced with identical problems over rights of occupation and possession, although the general tenor of the argument based on papal donation could easily be adapted to English circumstances, as it was by Richard Hakluyt: `Now the Kings and Queens of England have the name of Defenders of the Faith; by which title I think they are not only charged to maintain and patronize the faith of Christ, but also to enlarge and advance the same.'44 England, therefore, like Spain, acquired a providential mission in America, a mission conceived, as by Christopher Carleill in 1583, in terms of `reducing the savage people to Christianity and civility ...'4s

At the time of Newport's arrival, the Virginia Company is more likely to have been exercised by prior Spanish claims to the land than by those of its indigenous inhabitants, with whom it was hoped that the colonists could live side by side in peace. A few years later William Strachey dismissed Spanish claims with contempt: `No prince may lay claim to any amongst these new discoveries ... than what his people have discovered, took actual possession of, and passed over to right ... '46 Physical occupation of the land and putting it to use in conformity with established practice at home was the proper test of ownership in English eyes.

This Roman Law argument of res nullius could conveniently be deployed against Spaniards who had failed to establish their nominal claims by actual settlement; but soon it also became the principal justification for seizing land from the Indians,47 although in the early years of settlement it seemed wise to cover all eventualities. In a sermon preached before the Virginia Company in 1610 William Crashaw advanced a range of arguments to justify the Virginia enterprise. One of these, borrowed from the Spanish theologian Francisco de Vitoria '41 was based on the universal right conferred by the `law of nations' (ius gentium) to freedom of trade and communication. `Christians', he asserted, `may traffic with the heathen.' There were other justifications too. `We will', he continued, `take from them only that they may spare us. First, their superfluous land' - the res nullius argument. `Secondly, their superfluous commodities . . .' Finally, there was England's national mission, as formulated by Christopher Carleill and others during the reign of Queen Elizabeth. `We give to the Savages what they most need. 1. Civility for their bodies. 2. Christianity for their souls.'49 All possible moral and legal objections to the enterprise were thus conveniently met.

In conducting relations with the Indians, Newport and his colleagues were under firm instructions from the company: `In all your passages you must have great care not to offend the Naturals if you can eschew it ...'S0 No doubt inspired by the example of Mexico, where the indigenous population was alleged to have believed that the strange white visitors were immortal, the council in London also told the resident councillors to conceal any deaths among the colonists, and thus prevent `the Country people' from perceiving `they are but common men' .51 But the local tribes seem to have been neither deceived nor overawed. While Newport was still away on his reconnaissance of the James River, a surprise raid on the fort at Jamestown left two English dead, and a dozen or more wounded. The English ships retaliated by bombarding Indian villages along the waterfront.52 The establishment of a working relationship with the inhabitants was clearly considerably more complicated than the London sponsors of the expedition had envisaged.

The situation facing the settlers looks, at first sight, like a miniature version of that which faced Cortes in Mexico. The territory on which they had established themselves, known as Tsenacommacah, was dominated by an `emperor', Powhatan, with whom Newport engaged in an exchange of presents when they first met near the Powhatan falls. For the last quarter of a century Powhatan had been building up his power, and through warfare and cunning had established his paramountcy over the numerous Algonquian-speaking tribes of the region. His `empire' seems to have been the nearest equivalent in North America to the Aztec empire far to the south,53 although in populousness and wealth it did not begin to rival that of Montezuma. During the sixteenth century the diseases which the Spaniards had brought with them from Europe had spread northwards, ravaging the Indian tribes in the coastal regions, and leaving in their wake a sparsely settled population.54 Where Montezuma's empire in central America had a population estimated at anything from five to twenty-five millions when Cortes first set foot on Mexican soil, that of Powhatan consisted in 1607 of some thirteen to fifteen thousand." The differences in size and density of the indigenous population would profoundly affect the subsequent character of the two colonial worlds.

Powhatan, however, outwitted the white intruders, as Montezuma did not. Described by Captain John Smith as `a tall, well proportioned man, with a sour look', he could not compete in grandeur with Montezuma, but none the less lived in a style which impressed the English. `About his person ordinarily attendeth a guard of 40 or 50 of the tallest men his country doth afford. Every night upon the 4 quarters of his house are 4 sentinels each standing from other a flight shoot, and at every half hour one from the Corps du garde cloth hollow, unto whom every sentinel loth answer round from his stand; if any fail, they presently send forth an officer that heateth him extremely. S6 Powhatan was quick to see possible advantages to himself in the presence of these foreign intruders. He could make use of the goods that the English brought with them, and especially their much coveted copper, to reinforce his own position in the region by increasing the dependence of the lesser chieftains on him. The English, with their muskets, would also be valuable military allies against the enemies of the Powhatan Confederacy, the Monacan and the Chesapeake. Since, if they wanted to stay, they would be dependent on his people for their supplies of food, he was well placed to reduce them to the status of another subject tribe. The exchange of presents with Newport when the two men met at the falls duly ratified a military alliance with the English against his enemies."

The English, for their part, were playing the same game, hoping to turn Powhatan and his people into tributaries who would work for them to keep the infant colony supplied with food. But there were problems about how to achieve this. William Strachey would later quote Sir Thomas Gates to the effect that `there was never any invasion, conquest, or far off plantation that had success without some party in the place itself or near it. Witness all the conquests made in those parts of the world, and all that the Spaniards have performed in America. 15' Resentment among rival tribes at Powhatan's dominance might in theory have made this possible, but in practice Powhatan was so much in control of the local scene that there proved to be only limited scope for the leaders of the new colony to follow Cortes's example and play off one tribal 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 fright at hearing a volley of shots, Powhatan reciprocated by presenting Newport with his `old shoes and his mantle' (fig. 6).63