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Pocahontas, Powhatan, Opechancanough: Three Indian Lives Changed by Jamestown

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I am fortunate to have read four excellent books on the Pocahontas / John Smith story. As I have read one after the other each has added seasoning, each has distilled the myth from the acts, each is a different perspective on THE seminal moment at the beginning of European history in America.

The first book I read was "Captain John Smith: Jamestown and the Birth of the American Dream" (Kindle Edition) by Dorothy and Thomas Hoobler. We learn from a thorough biography of Smith at what a full and tumultuous life he lived. If even one half of what Smith wrote about his exploits was true, then his life was one of the most storied and lucky of the century. No matter how you look upon his pre-American exploits, by the time he sets foot in Virginia he is a well seasoned and experienced soldier.

The next book was "Pocahontas and the Powhatan Dilemma" by Camilla Townsend. Full of very important information about Pocahontas, the author tends to vilify Smith as a boastful liar, her sympathies towards Pocahontas run as deep. We learn much about the Powhatan people and the times they lived in.

The third book was "Love & Hate in Jamestown" by David A Price. He tends to take both Pocahontas at her word (the very few we actually know of) and almost all of John Smith's many words....at face value. All three of these books are very well researched but each draw very different stories and conclusions.

Coming now to the fourth and probably the finest of them, "Pocahontas, Powhatan, Opechancanough: Three Indian Lives changed by Jamestown" by Helen C Rountree, I think that I have finally realized as accurately as I can who these people were and what happened at Jamestown. Whereas Townsend tends to reveal a degree of rage and resentment against Smith, Rountree does not get as caught up in the heated debates that still go on among Pocahontas/Jamestown writers and scholars. Having worked among the remnants of the Powhatan natives for 35 years, Rountree has absorbed their history and it is well integrated with mountains of scholarly research.

What do we learn from Rountree's book that might have been missing in the other three? First, her objective was to tell the reader what happened to the three main characters and she succeeds to the fullest of the known evidence. Their stories are, with the exception of Pocahontas, that of long lives (Opachancanough might be have been close to 100 when he died) and of seeing a completely unstoppable change to their society. We must remember that Native American tribes by their very nature spent parts of their histories fighting with and either conquering other tribes or in turn being conquered by them in turn. Some tribes were wiped out, others brought into submission to a Great King, like Powhatan. The changes that the Europeans brought to the Natives of America was very unlike their previous history, a history that might have been as old if not older than the Europeans. Powhatan died with an uncertain notion of whether his people could push the smelly white strangers off their lands. Opachancanough died knowing that their civilization was doomed.

One of the most important insights that Rountree presents comes close to the end of her book. She states that in the final uprisings against the Jamestown area settlements, the Powhatan natives were largely supplied by young men who had never known a time when their ancestral lands were all their own. They grew up in an embattled and bloody time of transition when the end of Amerindian culture was making itself known.

Keeping this in mind, the life of Pocahontas, as short and sad as it was, exposed her to the most striking of contrasts. Can you imagine what her father would have thought had he been convinced to visit England? Would he have been able to absorb the sense of enormity of European society, positioned as it was with cities full of rank and foul airs, open sewage, filthy children running amok in the streets, clouds of black smoke coming from coal fires. Would he not have imagined Europe as a hellish nightmare? Certainly Pocahontas was astounded but what is amazing is that it appears that she actually liked being in England, if not in the smoldering big cities. Her feisty nature relished the changes that she had been pushed into. This is a strange aspect to her personality that is hard to understand.

Much of the book relates the relentless waves of incompetent settlers who came to the Jamestown area. What is clear about this story is that the White Europeans were going to come and nothing was going to stop them. Not sickness, nor hurricanes, nor savage natives, nor starvation. They would come and more would follow and the superior technologies of gunpowder, steel and huge sail boats, coupled with animal husbandry were more than a match for the hunting/gathering subsistence native life.

One comes away from this history wondering if it could have been another way and I suppose the answer is no. The clash of civilizations was inevitable, with swashbuckling Captain Smiths eager for exploring new and hopefully cleaner lands more than enough motivation to get out and go. That so many native lives perished as a result and thousands of years of history pulverized is a sad legacy to the memory of Pocahontas, her father and her uncle. But, it is what happened and we should know of their lives. Rountree's book is full of insight into these people as they tried in vain to deal with these strangers. The mythologies about Smith and Pocahontas I think have been finally put to rest and need not be resurrected again. The real story is much more gripping and important. Excellent book.

The major theme of POCAHONTAS POWHATAN OPECHANCANOUGH: THREE INDIAN LIVES CHANGED BY JAMESTOWN revolves around truth. For each story that has been told about Virginia's Jamestown settlement or Pocahontas in general, its has centered on the Captain John Smith and Pocahontas legend and myth that has been overly romanticized in novels and in movies. At this time, no scholar has made the attempt to intertwine the Indian voice within the English story of Jamestown. However, Helen Rountree attempts to provide the Native American voice, but from letters and accounts by English colonists and foreigners. It is unfortunate that the Indians did not record their accounts of the arrival of these new world settlers, or as Rountree suggests, invaders. Nonetheless, Rountree places the three major participants' semi-biographical accounts at the forefront of this study in order to incorporate their contribution to the settlement as well as the invasion of white colonists to the Indian landscape.

Rountree examines these three major actors and their way of life from anthropological perspective. Indeed, this is an historical narrative that deals with ethnohistory, but one that is " about one side only" (p. 6). Historians study their subject matters in order to get to the bottom of how an event occurred and its end result - think in terms of the past while writing in the present. Rountree takes the same approach, and studied the Powhatan side with why and how they acted the way they did. Rountree is critical and frank about past accounts of the Jamestown story as told by historian, William Strachey, HISTORIE OF TRAVELL INTO VIRGINIA BRITANIA and his plagiarized version of John Smith's narrative, GENERALL HISTORIE, which takes an English perspective that downplays the Indian presence. Rountree clarifies misconceptions that have been told within past narratives.

Chronologically, the book covers the period from 1607 to 1644. With these periods, one has a time frame to work with. Rountree provides an in depth analysis of the inception and deterioration of relations between natives and colonists of the Virginia Company's settlement in Jamestown and the wars that concurred in 1622 and 1644. The book shows how life was like before the colonists, and the significance of Powhatan daily rituals. Rountree's expertise in so-called "digging deep" to the root of origins from an anthropological point of view allows the reader to understand how life was simple and structured for the Powhatans. Rountree suggests that life only later became complicated when the Indians had to provide and teach the colonists how to survive. In the process, both Indians and colonists discovered that their lifestyles and environments were different than what they had been accustomed to.

For the sake of understanding, POCAHONTAS POWHATAN OPECHANCANOUGH will allow readers of history to see the bigger picture of the Jamestown story that took place three centuries ago. Although this history has already passed, its legacy and myths continues to engage readers. Helen Rountree should be commended for taken the task to reveal the real Pocahontas as human as possible and not as a Disney cutout, and to emphasize the predominant role of chief leader, Powhatan, and his successor or "brother", Opechancanough as essential actors in American history.

Everyone is familiar with the story of Pocahontas and British explorer/adventurer John Smith. They are romantic stories fed to us by the likes of Disney (10 yrs ago in the 1995 film) and countless romanticized versions in historical fiction novels. This "documentary" book exposes the truth about what really happened in the span of time that John Smith, Jon Rolfe and the Virginia Company founded Jamestown and dealt with the Indian tribes headed by Chief Powhatan and his brother Openchancanough. Since Thanksgiving is fast approaching, this makes a fine book to read if you are interested in the earliest British colonial period of the 1600's, when the pilgrims fist arrived in the Eastern coast of the United States. This period has been romanticized by movies and novels, evoking a thrilling time of danger, intrigue and romance, when Indians and colonists sparred and sometimes made peace, even made love. Princess Pocahontas was the daughter of Chief Powhatan. She was only fifteen or so when she first met Jon Smith and a romance was highly unlikely, even if perhaps the girl felt an attraction to the supposedly attractive adventurer. John Smith had traveled across the globe to foreign lands as a British explorer and was in his day a bad boy. That he may have gotten into trouble with Chief Powhatan and his people is probably true. Pocahontas was a diplomat, a healer/medicine woman and regarded as a peacemaker. Even if she didn't do a dramatic a thing as offer herself up as sacrifice to save John Smith's life, she did for a time lessen tension between the natives and the colonists. She married Jon Rolfe, a British nobleman, was converted to Christianity, learned to read and speak English. She journeyed across the Atlantic, leaving behind her old life in the tribe and became a popular figure in London society. She became a lady. Most people forget about this phase in her life and it must have been a very interesting story within itself. Did she miss her old life ? Was she as respected in London or did she experience a form of racism because she was not a white English lady ? Powhatan's life is documented well in this book. He was a very influential man in his time and he, too, was able to negotiate with the English. Jamestown brought these people together. They hoped that Jamestown would be an independent, Utopian society where English and natives could live and prosper. Unfortunately, Jamestown succumbed to disease and death. The dream died and conflict between natives and colonists resumed. If you're a big history buff, this book is for you.

Helen C. Rountree is the one to read if you have any interest in Pocahontas and/or the Powhatan Indians.

This book is truly a worthy read as it tries to really get into the lives and mindsets of Pocahontas, Powhatan, and Opechancanough. This is no easy feat as not much is written about or known about them. Rountree uses great sources to provide factual and interesting information about these three pivotal Powhatan Indian players in Jamestown. The arrival of the English at Jamestown in 1607 changed everything and this book looks closely at how it changed these three from their perspective, through their eyes.

I cannot recommend this, or any Rountree book, highly enough. If you are looking for a book that goes behind the scenes of these three important players to learn how they might have felt and seen things this is the book for you. Great read and great history.

Helen Rountree brings to life the realities of the Indian world as the first British settlers showed up near Jamestown. This book was well written, even for the layman. Held my interest even though I only picked up the book for an assignment. Would read it again just for fun!

Most interesting. A story of the founding of Jamestown from the Indian point of view. It is a family tradition that we are descended from Powhatan, and the story meant a great deal to me.