#56 Jamestown and the Powhatans Part 3

The History of the Americans

Jack Henneman

History

4.9 • 632 Ratings

🗓️ 20 January 2022

⏱️ 37 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

It is late May, 1607, and Jamestown has survived the first organized attack against the settlement, this time from an alliance of five tribes from the Powhatan Confederacy. Captain Christopher Newport and John Smith don’t know this yet, because they have taken twenty-two men in their boat and were exploring up the James River. There they hear about a “paramount chief” for the first time, and the large tribal confederacy that confronts them.

As the summer and fall of 1607 grinds on, disease, starvation, and Indian attacks afflict the colonists, and more than half will die before the end of the year. John Ratcliffe replaces Edward-Maria Wingfield as president of the colony, but John Smith is its chief operating officer, rallying the men to build houses an clear fields, and trading with the local tribes for food. While exploring upriver, he is captured by the military leader of the Powhatans, Opechancanough. Smith eventually meets the paramount chief Powhatan. The episode closes with a first look at the famous scene in which Pocahontas either saved John Smith’s life, or didn’t!

Twitter: @TheHistoryOfTh2

Selected resources for this episode

James Horn, A Land As God Made It: Jamestown and the Birth of America

James Horn, A Brave and Cunning Prince: The Great Chief Opechancanough and the War for America

David Price, Love and Hate in Jamestown: John Smith, Pocahontas, and the Start of a New Nation

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the History of the Americans podcast, episode 56.
0:10.3	I'm your host, Jack Heneman, and I'm recording this episode on January 19th,
0:15.4	2022, and a secure undisclosed location in Midtown Manhattan.
0:21.9	This episode pairs well with the first two in the Jamestown and the Manhattan series.
0:28.4	So if you've not listened to them recently, you might want to go back and do that.
0:32.8	And of course, those of you following along in real time are close to it will be up to date.
0:39.4	If you are new to the podcast, we are telling the history of the lands now encompassed by
0:45.0	the United States from the beginning without presentism. The best way to support what we are
0:51.3	doing here is to tell your friends, either the old-fashioned way or
0:55.2	on your social propaganda website of choice, or write a nice review on Apple or Spotify or wherever
1:02.7	you listen to podcasts, but especially just tell your friends. That means the most by a long shot.
1:11.3	Last week, we looked at the first contact between the Jamestown settlers and the local indigenous peoples.
1:17.7	It did not go well, either at the original landing place at Virginia Beach or at Pespehag now called Jamestown a few weeks later.
1:27.3	Despite a clear intention to maintain good relations with the Indians of the region,
1:32.1	the English did not understand three important things.
1:36.0	First, that the tribes of the region had institutional and actual memory of encounters,
1:42.4	with both Spanish and English would bebe settlers, and were none too
1:46.2	happy about how those had gone.
1:49.3	Second, the tribes at the mouth of the Chesapeake were increasingly, but not entirely,
1:55.1	under the sway of the Powhatan Confederacy.
1:58.3	Wahoon Sunacock, whom we refer to as Powhatan for a bunch of reasons discussed a
2:03.3	couple episodes back, had built his confederation not only for his own aggrandizement and to defend
	...

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