Conflict and Royal Colony Transition

Want to walk the halls of Anne Bleyn's childhood home? or explore the castles that made up Henry VI's English stronghold With a subscription to History Hit, you can dive into our Tutor past alongside the world's leading historians and archeologists You'll also unlock hundreds of hours of original documentaries with a brand new release every single week covering everything from the ancient world World War II Just visit history hit. com For slash, suubbscribe Hello, I'm Professor Suusanna Lipbskom and welcome to Not Just the Tudors from History Hit a podcast in which we explore everything from Anne Boleyn to the Aztecs, fromom Holbein to the Huguenotos, from Shakespeare to Samuraise Relieved by regular doses of murdder, espionage and witch goard Not in other words, just the tutors But most definitely also the tudors The story of the Stuarts in America is one of ambition, survival and conflict. A struggling colony on the edge of collapse powerful indigenous groups defending their homelands Investors in London chasing profits across the Atlantic and a new royal dynasty seeking to extend English power far beyond its shores When James VI of Scotland became James I of England in sixteen oh three, He inherited a kingdom eager to compete with the great empires of Spain and France Across the seventeenth century, English colonies in North America would grow from fragile outposts into permanent settlements laying foundations that would shape the future of the Atlantic world All this month on not just the tutors, we are exploring the story of Britain's encounters with and presence in America. In the run up to the two hundred fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, which was signed, of course, on the fourth of july seventeeenh seventy six Joining me once again is Peter C. Mancor In the last episode, Professor Manl and I discussed how Elizabethan explorers journeyed westward in search of land, influence and advantage Today we'll look at the creation of the Virginia Company. and the founding of Jamestown We'll encounter figures such as Captain John Smith, whose leadership helped save the struggling colony and P Hatton and other indigenous leaders whose diplomacy and resistance proved decisive in the contest for Virginia This is not simply a story of exploration and settlement, it's also a story of cultural encounters releligious ambition Iperial grary and violent The English arrived hoping to build profitable Protestant colonies Yet they found themselves dependent on native peoples for survival while competing with rival European powers and confronting challenges they scarcely understood How did the Stewart cololonies become a testing ground for ideas about empire, governance, faith and commerce And how did the decisions made during this formative period? have lasting consequences for America and personallyike Im professor Susanna Lipskin And this is not just the tutors from History hit Pisa, welcome back onto the podcast. It's a delight to talk to you again Well, thank you, Susanna. I'm delighted to be back speaking with you. So let's set the scene. picking up perhaps where we left off. what's the state of English America when the Stewart Dynasty came to the English throne in sixteen oh three? Well, at that moment, English interest in North America has increased 's increased through a series of News about explorers, explorations that started in the fifteen eighties led to the Doomed colony of Ranoke and then more explorers in the fifteen nineties And so at the turn of the new century there is I think you would say growing interest within England about North America. Still no sustained commitment, notothing on the part of the English that would rival what the Spanish had been doing or the Portuguese had been doing in the Americas And so I think there was growing interest and I think also growing anxiety, anxiety news about the wealth going to the continent. anxiety about the possible spread of Catholicism within the Americas which the English would very much like to stop but not enough anxiety to really prompt major cololonization efforts. I mean, those are sort of just looming So this is the same moment when joint stock companies are bringing new goods to England There are more and more people in the Mercantil community making investments. And so things seem to be coming together. And as I sort talk about In my book, part of what's happening is there's more information circulating especially through printed books And as that information grows, then I think it helps spark more interest. And on that front, the most sort of important thing that's happened It was the publication between fifteen ninety eight and sixteen hundred of the expanded version of Richard Hacklet's prrinciplal navigations the now in three sububstantial volumes The third volume devoted to the Americas And so I think anyone who had some interest in the Americas now could see in front of them what was there and more important because of the way that Hacklet organized his materials, he could see that English people have in fact a very experience going abroad And so these things sort of, I think create a new moment at the dawn of the new century So that new moment Is that really this sense of a shift from exploration to colonisation? as the goal of interactions and presence in the New world. And if so, what are the motivations behind this? I think when we look back on it, I mean, that's such a great question. I think when we look back on it There is certainly, you know, as a historian of early America At some point, I do need to sort of You know my thinking on how I talk about it from an of exploration to an year of colonization This moment, though, in the early the first years of the seventeenth century That era of exploration is still going on So at the same the same year that the English would arrive in Jamestown was the first year that Henry Hudson started his explorations. So the age of exploring is still going on, still attracting a lot of news. and would continue to But it's also a point where there is a dawning recognition It's good to know what's out there. what explorers have found And explorers often would lay claim to new territory, a model that Columbus had pioneered in fourteen ninety two. But there was also a sense, okay, now it's time to move further, right I think that the legacy of Roanoak lingered. I think there was certainly knowledge of what could have been I mean, the great book that comes out of Roadope, Thomas Hartz brief and true report of the newfound Lland of Virginia has whole section on merchantable he costs merchantable commodities. So I think that though explorations are going on, there is a sense that it's time for colonization and colonization not only to extract resources But colonization as the English particularly pursued Colonization is a way of solving domestic problems. That is finding an outlet for these young, unemployed or underndemployed men putting them to use somewhere that would be useful for the realm I think these two strands O maybe three strands, exploring for the sake of bringing glory and expanding the realm the discovery of new commodities to enrich people and the need to sort of solve a domestic problegrm These come really together powerfully in the first decade of the seventeenth century And you mentioned creation of joint stock companies as well. One of those in sixteen oh six is the Virginia Company Why was that established Well, the Virginia Company was established as a way to pool resources to fund the creation of an actual colony There are actually other colonies being formed at the same time, but the Virginia Company, which becomes You know, arguably the most important for certainly for early Virginia. is is the sense that there is this place that The English can survive but there is also an unwillingness on the part of the crown, on the part of the state to fund colonization And so a group of merchants in port cities, London, the most important, but also in Plymouth and Bristol and other places begin to sort of say, okay let us use our resources to pay for ships to get young men, boys and men to come over and to sort of advance the interest of the state. They do it They form the company because they think there are great profits to be had But I also think it's important for us, and I think sometimes historians downplay this I also think they really do see themselves as agents of Well, at that point of the king You know, and we're going out and they are going to do good things. They're not just in it for the money they would infer this sort of larger package this larger group of things that they can do in which Laorie God profit really do sort of blend together. And I think that they see that as companies are going to other parts of the world it is time now to really have a company dedicated to North America So we get the founding and the collapse of Jamestown in sixteen oh seven. What were conditions like for settlers? Oh, conditions were very, very bad for those English colonists who went over They go to a place the modern Chesapeake Bay. they go up the river that's now the James They go to a place that on their maps looks like an ideal place to Part of the reason for colonization is this ongoing competition with Spain. And so they wanted to establish an American based where they would be able to raid Spanish ships And you know, in their sort of imagination You know, they would attack Spanish ships. They would be successful at this and then they would sort of turn around and they would go and they would go up the Chesapeake And then they go up what becomes the James River Jamestown out of place which they thought was defensible. So if they did this successfully, this maneuver If they had established a colony, got out to sea, found the Spanish as they' returning back to Europe, you know laden with the treasures from Mexico or New Spain, right They would rob them and come back in. And so if you look at the maps they understood them, they they not like go up the chains They go up the James and they go around this little point in the James. And there they build a fort. And there for where they aim their cannons out to the river. Now the river is very broad there but they're less knowledge about is that the river is also very shallow there, especially in the summertime And the James and the other rivers that flow into into Chesapeake Bay are a mix of Fresh water from runoff from the mountains from the winter snows when they melt and salt water. And so depending on the time of day The salt water from the sea comes in with the tide, mixes with the fresh and then goes back out And for much of the year that's Fine Look could barn how to live But the Jamestown colonists arrive in the summertime. And in the summertime the level of the James goes down And as the tides bring salt water back and forth. deposits salt into the water and the English at that point really don't know how to find fresh water other than taking it from the James And so that water is not particularly healthy as they look around and they're sort of scrambling and they're trying to, you know, how are we going to negotiate with the local people, the Palitans or how are they going to get along? They are also trying to set up this camp this would become a fort And They continue to drink water out of the james Well because of where the James is, because of that hook in the river that I mentioned There's sort of this local feature of the environment the salt gets trapped there and As the water level recedes in the summertime and the people in the colony not only take their fresh water from the river, but dump their waste into the river. The river doesn't have an ability to flush waste out so they can be fresh to drink And so even as they're there in those first couple summers and they're drinking the water They start to suffer from these terrible diseases from Dysenter and typhoid as well as this phenomenon known as salt poisoning which on its own doesn't Kills but it weakens, it makes people angry and so these so these men, these boys You know, it's infflicted with, you know, these terrible fevers and diarrhea and just they're dehydrated and and they're angry And at the same time, they're trying to have negotiations with the people that live there And you know, you can sort of imagine and we don't have the best docition those early years what the natives are thinking But you could just imagine Palatins looking at these English and in someoneat perhaps since perhaps feeling sorry for them And so the Palatans, you know help in many ways in those first things to help the English sort of stay there becausecause the Palatins see a possible advantage of having the English as new neighbors. And we could talk more about that, but you know the specific question is They land and set up in a place which is maybe not the worst place they could have found, but certainly among the worst places they could found Because if you plot where you're going to live based on a map that you have in London that says, okay, here's a place to hide on a river And you don't know the local conditions there You can sort of see that that to well, we know that it led to a disaster. And so these men and boys Eespecially in the summertime or just dying. I mean, it is terrible those first couple of years And that mortality would go on for several years would go on through the sixteen teens You know, they were just not really understand how the environment worked eventually for reasons people may talk about They disperse, they find fresher water, they survive. But the beginning is a nightmare So is it fundamentally that location, that environment, which is why the town comes so close to collapse Well, it's environment and combined with their attitudes It's hard for me four hundred years on to sort of, you know, I don't want to disparage these people, but I think you read the documents a certain amount of arrogance that they presumed that they would succeed. They presumed that you know, great success was going to come. quickly because that's what the documents that sort of suggested You make it there, it's going to be healthy and the people who'd gone to the outer banks, which areort of described in Harriet's book They don't suffer from these problems. There's just no reason to assume it they assume they're going to succeed. Well, but when you arrive in a new place, when they arrive,s say in a new place They thought they were that the local people would sort of embraced them. And so they treated them not as sort of in a way that in retrospect, they might have that You know, we are supplicants coming to you. We need your help They instead said, we claim this territory you know, through the rightite of discovery as the English understood it at the time And it's sort of ours Well, that's not exactly a great posture for dealing with people who you still can't really communicate with very well ' they're learning more and more about each other, but it's communication is still difficult at this moment And so when you combine the environmental problems with sort of the political or sort of psychological motivations I think you know, you can sort of see how this will lead to Pblems. And those problems came on powerfully in those first years of the colony. How important was Captain John Smith? Now quite a famous man to the survival of Jamestown So Smith is a really interestnting character. You know, it's you know, interesting is there's a vague word, budy I mean Smith is an endlessly fascinating character because there's the Smith sort of who was in Jamestown, not for a very long time You know, And then he goes back after not getting along. with other colonists, some of whom try to kill them, it seems at one point. But he goes home and he is one of the great fabulouss of the moment where he just keeps telling his story and telling his story and telling his story,' these sort of self aggrandizing stories where in the documentary record that we have, it's all because of him he is the one sort of saves the day, even though by his own admission there's a moment where he is taken captive and says that he is rescued by daughter of this head man, daughter of person that the English call Palatan, hisse name was Wahoon Son C,o who wasahoon soner Cck and it was h of his Poca Hontas, or one of her nameam is Poca Hon's name, she's known So we have this curious phenomenon where Smith sort of comes in, sees problems rises up, says, okay, I have this military experience, I know how to do things I'm going to go deal with B Sundnacock gets himself captured then, you know, believes he's about to be executed claims later after the fact Coontas, who's probably ten or eleven years old you know saves him And this is supposed to tell us something about him And then he in his own mind this sort of helps establish you know, these better relations. Well, those relations would, of course break down. There'd be a war that would come soon after at the same time at that moment. I mean, really in some ways, the most famous moment of Smith's time in Virginia is this moment that he's taken cap becomes blown up in American myth, right You know, you can go look at the Disney movie Pocahontas in which Smith is the center of the story. Well you Smith believe that Mhon Saraka was going to execute him And it seems far more likely, as other scholars have pointed out far more likely than what was going on Was it W in Senecaal saw the English as another possible tributary tribe to him ' speent a generation building up a political powerowerhouse, this confonfederacy thirty or so. tribes that are somehow loyal to him One of the English said that Hu Stercock had a hundred wives He disperses them into these towns. The children he has with these women become his emissaries in these towns And he's created this whole network that predates the arrival of English I think the more reasonable thing, as other scholars have said, is that moment when he is taken captive L ton' cock isn't going to kill him. putting him through a ritual adoption symbolized that the English are in his mind, well it's of his mind to be another tributary tribe That is they are to acknowledge Min Son as the paramount leader of this area and basically to do what he says. And if they do They'll trade with them and they'll have good relations and everyone will be able to survive one of the fascinating material objects that comes from this time period is in the Ashmole Museum in Oxford And it's called Palatin's Mantle. It's on that first floor in the Ashmoin And we don't know exactly what it is. Allough scholars have stipulated and I think this is reasonable scenario There's a figure at the center of it. and then surrounded by a series of things. Th are deers skkin sewn together with then shells to make these little circles around it. there's deer and a m And some people have interpreted that and I think lalausibly so as a representation of the Palatan Confederacy Suncoock possibly the center of it and these are these dependent tribes subsidiary tributary tribes that are around them It's one of these moments that's sort of like, well that's an amazing thing for us to visualize Indigenous structures of power absent that's before Colist got there We don't exactly know you know, what it means, but it is there to be seen. It's an amazing artifact of this moment I wonder how religion in the minds of these Stewart Conalists How does Pseantism influence their settlement policies and their relations with the native peoples So That is an excellent and somewhat complicated question. So I would follow a line of historians through the Tudor period into the Stuart period You know, who really see that Elizabeth's actions especially in Ireland do show a serious commitment to link conquest with religious conversion to sort of say, okay, we embrace Pantism It is really the one true faith. And it is the true faith for the people who were going over to North America. And and it has That faith has two enemies, you know, in the way that these English thought about it Rome. and Catholicism, you know, you know, a species, a type of Christianity that it's rejects, you know that this is the truer version and what the English would see as the lack of Christianity among Native peoples And so the English youg go to Jamestown like the English would go to other colonies, East North America in the seventeenth century have the sort of dual religious P on them They believe that their faith is not only the proper faith, But it's so obviously true other people, native peoples, once they hear about it will be drawn to it L, we don't think about early Virginia as a religious mission, right? You know, in the American historical mindset, we sort of say, oh, that's what happens in New England. That's what happens with those people we call pilgrims and Puritans. But religious conversion was just as important. phrased different, but just as important for the people to go to Virginia And we can see that in the actions of people. So we know that they have compulsory attendance at the church that they create there. you know, from the start and to go back to Cocaontas who becomes in many ways the most famous native person. you know, of the seventeenth century, at least to Europeans, you know, she's this face and she liter she's this person they know. when she to skip ahead from Smith a little bit When she in the mid sixteen teens, she's taken captive in a war and then And then redeemed, she marries an English colonist Named John Rolf Rolf in his writings talks about that marriage. as religious work, as godly work. So he takes seriously that yes, you know, he's forming an alliance in some sense with M Senecok's daughter And I think he is genineally in love with her. and I think she's in love with him. There are people who dispute that, but I don't think we have enough evidence to know either way But I assume their relationship was sincere. But in his way he wrote about it It's also part of this larger mission We are going to need to find ways to spread our faith What's fascinating about it is that the English, unlike the Spanish do not typically in the early seventeenth century look to form relationships with indigenous women in easastern North America. So Rolf is sort of you know, suggesting a way forward But I think he is also in the way that he talks about his relationship with her He is giving us a clue religious conversion is as important to at least some of these colonnists as material gain or political glory I think this is very important and I think it's because of this larger sort of triangulated world that they live in Not only is Catholicism in Rome a danger, they are hyper aware when they get to Virginia in the early seventeenth century that there are Catholic missionaries working to their north with the French colonization, attempted colonization of the St. Lawrence Valley. and to theirselves with the constant ongoing Spanish colization of what modern day Florida and into the Caribbean and Mexico They're aware and I think they really think If they don't do something, if they don't create sort of a Protestant bulwark there, if they don't do something Catholicism is going to spread through the continent and that's going to then justust create more problems for the English. as it goes forward So One of the things I wanted to do in my book and when I talk about what my work is about is to say let's get beyond this idea that English go to New England for religious reasons and English go to the Chesapeake for economic reasons Soose colonies have different trajectories But at the heart, religion was still important to the people that go to the testament. in a world where swords were sharp. and hygiene was A actuallyually probably better than you think it is Two fearless historians. M, Matt Lewis, and me, Dr. Eleanor Yangha dive head first into the mud, blood and very strange customs of the Middle Ages. So for plagues, crusades and Viking raids and plenty of other things that don't rhyme, suubbscribe to Gone Medieval from History Hit wherever you get your podcasts Now one thing that's quite striking in the way the English colonisation that differs from the Spanish is how they deal with families and society. Why was sending women building English family is so important. So that is a great question and I don't think it has a particularly obvious answer I think there is a sort of a deep historical motivation for it, which goes back to the centuries earlier experience English had in Ireland in you know, the twelfth century experience of sending men over to conquer presumption their culture would be superior and that Native Irish people would embrace it And come on. And instead, the English experience, as the English experience is understood in the sixteenth and seventeenth century about what happened earlier experiences If you send men over, they're going to intermarry into these communities. And rather than our culture becoming dominant are these emissaries of us are going to be integrated into it I think that legacy is out there I think that in the English experience in Ireland in the sixteenth century, when the English Send migrants, send women as well as men over There is a different idea. and the idea is that we need to recreate, we need to move parts of English society. cross in that case, the IrS sea, but then ultimately cross the Atlantic Ocean Because that is the shst way to create a foundation for the society that we want to create And so I think as soon as the English find Jamestown and decide they're going to stay. which is really, in many ways, the most remarkable decision that they make in the early seventeenth century. They decide to stay in this place where diseases are destroying their bodies and where they have very tense relations with the people who are there. Nonetheless, they begin to recruit. The Virginia compompany begins to recruit young women and girls to go over They're outnumbered by men in the early years of the colony mayaybe by as much as six to one Most of the women that go over go over as intensred servants, like most of the men go over as intensred servants theseese women become to these men very desirable And once the terms of their service are over they, you know, immediately marry in and men, Englishmen are desperate to marry these women. And so we see this phenomenon. in early Virginia as other historans have pointed out You know we see this phenomenon of sort of serial marriage. That is not because people are getting divorced, but because if these men should die, women very quickly remarriry The fact that the English very quickly that is in the early years of colonization decide that they have to send women over or want to encourage women to go over and recruit them And we're talking about people who are very young you know, there, I mean, these are teenagers we're talking about often You know, we're talking about people in England We're saying let's sort of, you know, transport you know, orphans and people have no other support. And we'll sign them up for indentured servants contracts and let's make sure there're women as well as men in there. And I don't think there is a positive answer this But I think it was the legacy of the Irish experience and the experimentation of colonization in parts of Ireland by moving women as well as men in then is in the air and it feeds this Moment So they see having English women there as Crucial They know that the Spanish have gone in another direction But one of things that they reject, they reject so many things about the Spanish. they reject You know, their adherence to Rome, they reject X, Y and Z They also sort of disparage these relations that people have that the Spaniard Saners have That's why I think they think Okay, we, the English in this mindset We are going to Move our society over. We're going to move it in groups of people who will come over. Yes, there are more men than women Maybe someday that would equalize. it would actually equalize in New England, but not so much in the Chesape because that was the stable model because at the end of the day, the English as they wrote about in the early seventeenth century and had been writing about since The foundation was the building block of the society, right? The family was really you' needed a strong family in their patriarchal mindset powerful father, husband, figure a wife who they would hope would be obedient to him and then children and as many as possible to colonize this place. I think they really did think that was a model. I think that was a model they derived from reading xts in England and they thought it would work It's not that it didn't work Right? It just took time for it to work. In order to attract people to come to Virginia, the Virginia colony had to create an image about what it was like How were the colonies presented to people back in England wasas there an element of deception about that? Well, there was certainly an element of exaggeration You know, there was certainly a sense You know, that there is great wealth to be found, that colonization is not difficult And that I think after the first couple of years of Jamestown, now things happened early Jamestown, which were very difficult and very challenging There's a war that breaks out in sixteen oh nine that would last to sixteen fourteen. When the English got to the other side of that war, the timing is amazing because this is right around the time And John Rolf, the same man who marries Po Gondas is experimenting with West Indian tobacco seeds and realize that the strain of tobacco. is very desirable And so you begin to see this sort of boom in tobacco that starts in the teens and then would continue. and become the economic salvation. Now among the people that don't like that, of course, is the king You know, the king's very first public statement in terms of a pamphlet to the English people, but he takes stone is the counterpllasted tobacco, in which s he says tobacco is a terrible thing So you have by the sixteen teens this curious circumstance. where the king is very happy to have colonized have his people colonizing easastern North America? That is great for all sorts of reasons there economy is based on a product that he really doesn't like at all. But tobacco was very popular. and People coming back from Virginia, those who survivive are saying There's great wealth to be found here. I mean, at some point there's parodies about this, oh, you' go to Virginia, you make your fortune. And then your people are just mocking the The insane exaggerations are circularly swirling, as I imagine, you know in London and in other cities But tobacco does generate real wealth. I mean, for those who manage to survive and can figure out a way to grow more and more tobacco. That is a great business to begin in these sixteen teens. And though the king doesn't like it There is at the same time B. belief that tobacco is healthy. Europeans talked about since the sixteenth century, that tobacco has all these benefits for human society You know, it's not necessarily by smoking it. they would make sort of poultices of it. they would lay it on the body. There's whole tracts from the sixteenth century say this is the great new medicine of our time And the English like it. And so there's a proliferation in the early in these years. images of people smoking tobacco and enjoying it episilser becomees sort of the foundation of this takes some time and it's hard You know to sort of look back as we collapse a lot of this in time It takes some time, but by the late teens into the twenties and then beyond, if it were beyond we begin to see people really solidify what would become great fortunes. I mean, they would eventually create these substantial and very profitable plantations of which tobacco was the basis of the economy in those early years That's sort of the dream of the future. Here's this plant may be good for us We really enjoy smoking it and we can sell it. I mean, there's just this raapid expansion of the number of people selling tobacco within England So it feeds this dream, right So if you have this idea If you've sacrificice and you make it across U the ocean you survive You can in this dream beccome wealthy That turns out to be False for many people but not for everyone. And the stories of those success is what a lot of people wrote about in their letters and in pamphlets. And so it feeds this idea People like Hacklet were right The future or our future is over there One of the obstacles, as it were, to that future was the relationships that the Stuart colonists had with the Native peoples What sort of tactics were the English using to try to dominate the indigenous people and How did they justify and conduct their campaigns against them So This is where To answer that question, you sort of takes us into really different mentalities And so I think for us for me you know, historian of, you know, European expansion I can say, okay, that the English following other Europeans lay claim to this territory, you know, following the doctrine of discovery, they lay a claim to any land that doesn't have a Christian prince in it that they're the first Europeans, right? So they on some sense own whatever own is. and in an English sense, once someone claims territory, the land could be parceled out as it had been in in England. And there was an idea that individuals and families owned Lam One of the difference is that they're now meeting peopleop who have very different conceptions property is There's not the same sort of individual title to land in Palhattan society as there is in English society of the same time And so the Palatins, like other Agankian speaking peoples in easastern North America and other native peoples across easastern North America It's not that they didn't have a sense of property. It's said just not have a cense of property in land And so people communities laid claim to what they produced So if they cleared land and planted crops there which they did very successfully Those were theirs, right? Thats was their thing. They didn't really think about whether they owned the underlying land. It wasn't really an issue because it wasn't part of the culture So the English arrive with this claim and it's institutionalized, it's sort of visible in their paper. We own. We lay claim to this territory They would have negotiations. they met You know, the leaders of the colony would meet with Palatin and say, okay, How are we going to get along? We would like to be here. And he would say, yes, and they came away from those meetings with different ideas. The English came away with we bought this land And the Palhattans came away with we're letting you live on this land That's sort of a perfect recipe for conflict. Now it turns out that the First war sort of happened so early that it's not so explicitly about land and conflicts over land That's what the seconde war would be about F war, so they're trying to get there. So they're in sixteen oh seven. and you can just imagine the misunderstandings are going back and forth across this cultural barrier, right? People simply don't understand each other And so the colonists would write and we have these documents that the palatins are, you know, mingling around them. And so at the same time You have the English building this Fort. you know, at Jamestown, there are native peoples walking in and out of it the whole time Right? I mean, they don't see this as why would you, you know, it's not yours. It's, you know, it still is Palitan territory U you know, that was sort of how we Palatans understood a the agreement with you. English So there's a lot of people going back and forth and you can just see there's a lot of These men aren't feeling well, they are unable to feed themselves. So they're relying on the powatins in the fridgers for food thing I mentioned earlier about salt poisoning is making them irritable angry. So we know that they're fighting. We have this in the records and you could just see these skirmishes go back and forth And so the English get in six ozh seven and the first warar breaks out two years later And that war go from sixteen oh nine to sixteen fourteen And the English used tactics in that war which were devastating. They burned fields, they burn houses, they They have superiority in weaponry. I mean, English do have guns at the Palatin's lack And so there, you know, the English se this says, oh, it's another field for conquest and so you you know it's so hard to sort of recreate sort of, you know, sort of the fibers of everyday life. Why wouldould you go to war against the people whose food you need? You know, to survive. whyy would you burn their fields? because you're trying to what starve them out when they could just as easily starve you R right? I mean it's a part of it it's hard to understand So you know what, we call this war It's not, I think, like a modern war. I think it's a series of skirmishes. Yes, there is hostility. There's absolute violence and violence is terrible And it goes on you know, in this s a heightened level of tension and then the Englishers take Pocahontas captive in sixteen, thirteen. and in the negotiations for her release in the following year They sort of say, okay, it's time to end the hostilities. And there the principal figure is Walun Sankar who basically says okay This is over I agree that my daughter can marry one of your guys, John Rolf, and he sees this as an alliance. and s fiding political stability. And we know this because another English How on us. goes to Walon Somiccock and says, I'd like to marry one of your other daughters And he says No, he says basically one at a time Let's see what happens with Pocahontas maybe down the road. So Wal andon'ock really understands know, in some ways, relations between families at a high level that are similar to European understandings of forming alliances through marriages. And he's saying he is controlling it And so there is this war. So the war comes to an end and then there's a period of peace And then And this is where things Go back to your question about Wow. This is the moment, the mid sixteen teens. English are deciding that tobacco is their future One of the things about tobacco is the tobacco exhausts nutrients in soil very quickly You decide you're going to have a farm back is going to be your major crop. You were going to need with a relatively short amount of pererod time other land. overver the course of the sixteen teens As the tobacco economy becomes more established as there's still this ambiguity about what land ownership means English How honests finishing up their terms of service, right. They they've gone. they've been servants for four or five years. they get a little bit of a package and they get seeds, maybe they get an animal, they get a little money, they go to they go and try to create new farms Women who've survived their servitude marry these men who've survived their servitude. Well, they are just Planting and planting and planting. Eventually Pocahontas was gone Mom Sun oock dies and this tobacco economy is still growing And it's that. English or relentless expansion. for their own thing, which they think again they're justified in doing. eventually other palits differentere ideas about politics than English haveav basically say And that leads to the more devastating war which is the war that begins in sixteen twenty two So at the base of that, And the reason that war is I would argue more significant than the first is because that war is a conflict over land. conflict over who was going to control these fertile lands in the Chesapeake . in a world where swords were sharp. and hygiene was A actually probably better than you think it is Two fearless historians. M, Matt Lewis, and me, Dr. Eleanor Yanga dive head first into the mud, blood and very strange customs of the Middle Ages. So for plagues, crusades and Viking raids and plenty of other things that don't rhyme, subscribe to Gone Medieval from History Hit wherever you get your podcasts Two years after that war broke out we see the transition from the Virginia Cry's corporate rule. to a royal colony. This is a turning point. What prompted this change and what did it mean? governance in America. The war It's hard for us to understand to appreciate the significance of what happens in sixteen twenty two. The company is still in charge R? They're running things And their agents in London are basically saying, lookook, we've solved some of these early problems the English Conal population is growing. their ships are going more frequently back and forth There's more tobacco coming in. I mean, the company can make an argument that we know what to do to create this Colin Th Then march twenty second, sixteen twenty two happen and a War chief name We typically pronounce Uich Chang cananoe We don't spill many ways to we're not pause about the pronunciation, but OPen Co leads an uprising on this day. And on that day, he and his allies swoop in and they kill about a quarter of the colonial population And not only is this a dramatic fact that the English claim to be completely surprised. They don't understand where this came from Immediately this generates within England, within however long it takes for information to get across pamphleate by Edward Waterouse, which labels this Barbarous massacre in that pamphlet. There's a it goes for seven, eight, nine pages, a list of every person. killed by the Palans. O after another after another page after page, right The psychological effect of reading that, I think was power and The English then still under the company The English then launch a series of reprisals. and you know this is unacceptable behavior we are going to stop this in the midst of this war, a year into this Yeah in which both sides have been takaking captives and the Palitins have some I English then, you know, in Jamestown goes to free some captive to deal with the Palitins. He's going to Bdine these So they take a ship the river but the what's now the York River and they go up into pum monunkey territory where they think they're going to see Oichen Canoe They're not positive, but that was the rumor And they're going to redem these captors And at this moment, which I think is one of the decisive moments in the cor in all English. colonial history in North America. They get the captives off and then the English say, okay. Let's toast the end of the war Right. And so It's unclear what's said one to another. But they pull out a container of fortified wine, sack and they have a drink And then they hand another container to them natives. Opachen Cu does not in eff fact seem to be there. to have this Well, that contains poisons. And per are understanding from Cner records The English Poison two hundred Palits. We don't know if they die. up they're poisoned And then they, according to witnesses, go back later that day and they shoot and Dcapitate slash scalp. fififty people Right and bring back literally the parts of their heads. as war trophies, as punishment, as what define it as you will. When news of this this incident of poisoning reaches London It creates panic in the Virginia Comany are at this point aware that there is an emerging sense of the laws of war And one of the things not allowed explicitly is you can't pooison your enemies English people. like other Europeans, knew about poison. Pison was something used as a device this on you, the Shakespearean stage Poison is something that other people do, you know, sort of, people who are after us, you know, may be there you know, Italians and m poisoned people or they Catholics and the poison people. But it's not something that the English would do. The English are going to abide by these kind of emerging laws of war and you know which are being codified In England in which poison is ruled out And so the company goes into, you know, almost sort of, you know, sort of panic mode to say, okay, what happened, you know, if that incident, you know, in Palunkey territory? And they try to downplay it and, you know and and they sort of downplay it you know, in a in It becomes sort of a confession where they start off you, Well, we would never poison people. We know that's wrong. And then, you know point two would be Well, maybe, you know, our people took poison along just in case, but they wouldn't distribute it. and then it goes, well, maybe they distributed it. You know, to some It couldn't be two hundred and it probably didn't kill them And we didn't go and shoot fifty people. We only killed nine people or whatever, you know, the number in the document That's their defense. So basically admitting that they The king is very upset. uh, when news of this There's already been words about how poorly the colonists are being treated by the company in Virginia. These rumors had swirled. So at the same time that the rumors swirling about the great wealth to be made. There's also rumors about the squalor that they're living in. very detailed reports about deprivations, not the terror and the that's the the nightmare of living as a colonist in eararly Virginia So those reports are there. Now there's the story of the poisoning Now the king hears about it and the king basically says, okay Enough. We have to dissolve the colony. It's going to become a royal colony. And to go back to that poisoning story. the person the king believes is responsible for poisoning aphecary of Jamestown He is banned from a leadership role in the new colony He, the king refers this man, whose name is John Potts as quote unquote pooisoner of the savages And he does not say it in a positive way He says that this is the kind of person who cannot be involved in governance I have lost my faith in you Now it's going to be a royal And so it becomes royal colony And, you know, the king so the people in Virginia The people on the ground in Virginia are concumned with what's going on there peopleople and England the directors of the company by their early sixteen twenties realize There are other English colonists in easastern North America, right They have gone to colonize you know, New Plymouth this sort of religious group is up there. There's going to be competition. There's going to be, you know, where does our colony stop and yours begin They have a lot of sort of anxiety. and then the king has a sort of bigger view or the king's advisor, maybe is a better way of putting it And he says, okay Now we're going to go forward. So you see this reorganization. Now I will say on the ground in Virginia. War, which began in sixteen twenty two is still going It would go into the early sixteen thirties before They're finally sort of a final resolution And even though the colony at that point is a royal colony in sixteen forty four, There's another war, the third Anglo Palatan war And at this point, Oien Kanu is still around. He's rumored to be a hundred years old He is taken captive in that third board. He's eventually killed by the English during that war. and this is seen as sort of a mark of really of shame for the people that kill this hundred year old man I mentioned this. because the shift in the governance of the colony from the company to the crown doesn't have an enormous impact on what's going on in Virginia itself trajectory, the relations that the English have with the Powatans sort of stay on their own natural course tobacco economy continues to grow Migration increases You maybe The Royal colony is a bit more successful at recruitment than the company had been, but in many ways, philosophical change And it is important because it shows now King willing to do what Elizabeth wouldn't do Right? It puts the power of the state behind a specific colony, as opposed to leave it in the hands of investors. So in that sense, it's important urning point question.