Paper Sovereigns. Jeffrey Glover
treaty narratives that could withstand the scrutiny of hostile readers. This meant acknowledging diplomatic setbacks while putting them in the best possible light. Archer deals with the embarrassment of Newport’s defeat by portraying it as an act of reasonable diplomacy rather than a concession to Native power. After the English are commanded to halt their explorations, Archer writes, “our Captayne out of his Discretyon (though we would faine have seene further, yea and himselfe as Desirous also) Checkt his intentyon and retorned to his boate; as holding it much better to please the kyng (with whome and all of his Comaund he had made so faire Way) then to prosecute his owne fancye.”31 Newport backs down because he wants to preserve his diplomatic progress. He concedes the demand, not out of obedience to the king, Archer is clear, but rather to preserve the “faire Way” he has made with the king and the lesser sachems who have been impressed by English courtesy. In this way, Archer tries to turn the setback into a success.
Still, the moment leaves Archer in a difficult position. Far from welcoming the English, the king pushes them around. At this moment in the text, Archer alters his strategy. Instead of describing a diplomatic parley between political principals, as he does in the case of Arahatec’s meeting with Newport, Archer asserts English sovereignty by describing how Newport plants a cross at the falls of the river, claiming the territory for the crown. Given that Newport performed this ceremony at least twice, and that the cross was engraved with the name of the king, it seems likely that the colonists brought these crosses with them from England. Planting crosses on islands or at other inland portals was a common way in which Europeans advertised claims to other Christians32 (see Figure 1). In planting the cross, Newport recoups some of the face he lost when he conceded to the king’s wishes to travel no farther. The moment is a dramatic expression of English power, made even bolder by its disregard for Parahunt’s previous order to the party. Yet Archer does not depict the cross as a unilateral assertion of English power. Instead, it is a means for getting Parahunt’s consent to the English presence, and, from the English point of view, establishing possession under the law of nations. Archer writes, “upon one of the little Ilettes at the mouth of the falls [Newport] sett up a Crosse with this inscriptyon Jacobus Rex. 1607. and his owne name belowe: At the erecting hereof we prayed for our kyng and our owne prosperous succes in this his Actyon, and proclaymed him kyng, with a greate showte.”33 While the act is in some sense a riposte to the Indian king, and an assertion of English power in the face of diplomatic defeat, Archer is also careful to frame it, at least to the Indians, as a confirmation of their voluntary alliance with the English. “The kyng Pawatah was now gone,” he writes, “and all the Salvages likewise save Navirans [an Indian guide], who seeing us set up a Crosse with such a shoute, began to admire; but our Captayne told him that the two Armes of the Crosse signifyed kyng Powatah and himselfe [Newport], the fastening of it in the myddest was their united Leaug, and the shoute the reverence he dyd to Pawatah. which cheered Navirans not a litle.”34 While the English shout their own subjection to the cross, Navirans can only “admire.” Archer uses the word “admire” in the early modern sense of the word, meaning to display shock or surprise in the face of a visual spectacle or sensory experience.35 Navirans’s spellbound stare is interrupted by Newport, who translates the meaning of the cross into the terms of the earlier alliance. This explanation is a shrewd legal sleight of hand. The Indian king recognizes no subordination. He views any friendship as implying English subjection to him, or at the very least an unsteady equality. But by telling Navirans that the cross represents a league, Archer symbolically subordinates the coastal alliance to the power of the English king. Newport and the Powhatan chief are united in alliance, but this league of friendship is quite literally framed by the overarching sovereignty of the crown. Newport never directly explains this treaty to the king, relying instead on Navirans to relay it to him and secure his consent to it: “sending Navirans up to [the king], he came downe to the water syde, where he went a shore single unto him, presented him with a hatchet, and staying but till Navirans had tolde (as we trewly perceived) the meaning of our setting up the Crosse, which we found Dyd exceedingly rejoyce him.”36 Here, then, is the big prize: the acquiescence of the great king to the power of the crown, as demonstrated by his rejoicing response to the cross. The king affirms the alliance, welcoming the English as neighbors and providing proof of their safe possession of the territory under the law of nations.
Figure 1. Theodor de Bry’s engraving of Columbus claiming the island of Guanahani, from Theodor de Bry, Americae Pars Quarta (1594). The image portrays explorers raising a cross while Columbus accepts gifts from the island’s indigenous inhabitants. English explorers imitated such rituals by combining Christian acts of possession with Native treaties. Courtesy of The Newberry Library.
The moment satisfies the legal requirement for consensus ad idem; the king understands the meaning of the cross and agrees to the alliance represented by it. However, Archer’s account of the moment seems slightly troubled. He emphasizes the faithfulness of English witnesses to the scene. The English “trewly perceived” that Navirans had accurately explained it. Archer’s insistence on the truth of English perceptions seems a tad defensive, as if he anticipates that others might challenge this account, and he wants to assert his own credibility and the integrity of the treaty. Archer had good reason for this wariness. After Newport’s party returned home, Jamestown was attacked. Archer’s “Relatyon” closes with another appearance by an Indian guide, who blames the attack on some enemy Indians and helpfully reaffirms the alliance described in the preceding pages.37 But Archer was right to suspect that his glowing account of alliances would not be enough to quiet criticism. There were other people in Jamestown with pen and paper, and they would have other stories to tell about the great kings of the river.
Kidnapping Your Brothers: Ambush and Alliance in John Smith’s Proceedings
“For we had his favour much better, onlie for a poore peece of Copper, till this stately kinde of soliciting made him so much overvalue himselfe, that he respected us as much as nothing at all.”38 This is how John Smith describes the results of Christopher Newport’s diplomacy in The Proceedings of the English Colonie in Virginia, an account of the colony’s first years. While Archer describes Newport’s diplomatic achievements as the key to peace on the coast, Smith claims that this decorous approach to Powhatan has led to a different outcome: the chief loses all respect for the English, viewing them as subjects to his power. Though they might have placated him for the moment, Newport’s gifts, courtesy, and deference have only diminished the English. According to Smith, this loss of diplomatic standing has had dire consequences. While Powhatan and his many lieutenants nod and accept English gifts, they also plan ambushes and violent assaults on Jamestown. “[A]ll the woods were laid with Ambuscadoes to the number of 3 or 400 Salvages,” Smith continues, “commaunded to betray us, by Powhatans direction.”39 Far from sticking to the diplomatic script like Archer’s “Powatah,” Smith’s Powhatan embraces political tactics akin to those of Machiavelli’s Prince: cloying in official ceremonies, he is not hesitant to betray allies when it suits him.40
Like Archer before him, Smith writes about treaties in order to make an argument about New World possessions. He seeks to show how different models of diplomacy produce different kinds of political outcomes. But Smith’s portrayal of New World negotiation diverges sharply from Archer’s. Official ceremonies and staged meetings do little to create treaties or secure consent. The real struggles unfold outside the venues of official diplomacy, where promises are broken and peace betrayed. Inviting the English to parley, Powhatan plans in secret to murder them. However, in spite of Powhatan’s violent intentions, Smith and the other authors of the Proceedings do not abandon the legal strategy of asserting English rights through voluntary agreement. Instead, they describe a different way of accomplishing that end. Throughout the book, Smith launches ambushes of his own, “curb[ing]” the Indians’ “insolencies” and eventually bringing them back to the bargaining table where a stronger peace, one based on mutually assured destruction, takes hold.41 If the English are to wield authority in the New World, Smith suggests,