Powhatan Foreign Relations, 1500-1722 [Hardcover]

Helen C. Rountree (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 1993

Helen C. Rountree, one of the foremost authorities on the history and anthropology of the thirty Algonquian-speaking Indian tribes known as the Powhatans of Virginia, has assembled the work of a first-rate group of contributors to provide a multifaceted look at these diverse and fascinating peoples. Powhatan Foreign Relations examines the Powhatan paramount cheifdom and its relationships with both European and Indian "foreigners" from the perspectives of physical anthropology, archaeology, history, and cultural anthropology.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Powhatan Foreign Relations is uniformly well written in a lively and interesting manner and contains a wealth of information that is easily assimilated. It will doubtless become a reference of choice concerning the Powhatans." -- William and Mary Quarterly

About the Author

Helen C. Rountree is Professor of Anthropology at Old Dominion University. She is the author of The Powhatan Indians of Virginia: Their Traditional Culture and The Powhatan Indians of Virginia through Four Centuries.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 310 pages
• Publisher: University of Virginia Press; First Edition edition (January 1, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0813914094
• ISBN-13: 978-0813914091
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,980,506 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Pocahantas' people, June 2, 2005

By 

Smallchief - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Powhatan Foreign Relations, 1500-1722 (Hardcover)

The editor has collected nine essays from seven scholars on the subject of the Powhatan Indians, a proto-empire of Indian tribes that resided in the Tidewater region of Virginia. The Powhatans are best known as the people who met the Jamestown colonists in 1607 and gave the world the story of Pocahantas, surely as romantic a tale as can be found anywhere.

This is a typical academic book: 200 pages, unadorned, overpriced. Why couldn't books of this sort be published on the WWW to save paper? The authors would get wider readership -- and the royalties they would lose from a book that barely makes the top million in Amazon sales would be miniscule. Although the material is stretched a bit thin, this is also a competent academic survey of the Powhatans. I enjoyed the essay which described the Indians as long distance travelers by trail and boat. Another essay discussed the biology of the Indians. A chart detailing Indian mortality was illuminating. The Powhatan had an average life expectancy of only about 22 years as 35 percent died before the age of 5. Life had few long sunsets in those days -- for Indians or Whites.

Other chapters discuss the Powhatan's relationship with the almost-unknown Siouan tribes of interior Virginia and other tribes of the Chesapeake Bay area plus contacts of the Powhatans with Spaniards and Englishmen. A bit more speculation based on the impressive expertise of the authors would have been interesting -- but I guess that's not encouraged in scholarly papers.

All in all, a good compilation of information that you should read if you're interested in Virginia at the time of contact and before the White conquest of the Indians.

Smallchief