Essays on Powhatan

Roanoke was a colony located on Roanoke Island that disappeared. The colony was founded by Sir Walter Raleigh in the late 16th century on behalf of Queen Elizabeth I. Queen Elizabeth I had wanted to create a non-temporary English town in the United States. The colonists later disappeared during the Anglo-Spanish War while waiting for supplies from England. The last shipment of supplies that they had received had been three years prior and when Raleigh’s men returned both the colonists and city were gone, with no evidence of what had occurred. The charter and financing for the colony ...

Helen Rountree’s book Pocahontas, Powhatan and Opechancanough: Three Indian Lives Changed by Jamestown retells the tale of Jamestown from the perspective of the Indians – the objective of this is to determine the effect of European settlers in America from those who lived there. Over the course of this book, their story is told – many blanks have to be filled in, however, as the Powhatan Indians do not have a written language. This leaves the responsibility of the information gathered to fall to the Jamestown English; Rountree does the best to keep the book objective, but “such sources of information ...

Introduction

During the visit to Virginia Jamestown settlement, a young white boy who was staring a pleasant bronze marking the ground entrance, the statue of the Pocahontas spat on it and said it was Indian. The parents remained silent and this amazed Robertson. That particular moment ignited his curiosity on the interaction between the English settlers, the development of the modern codes of class and race and the indigenous population. The interest of Robertson was provoked by the discovery of the fact that Pocahontas had witnessed the masque in the court of Jacobs. This offered the access possibility of the reaction of ...