Paper Sovereigns. Jeffrey Glover
The occasion was to us unknowne, but the manner was thus. First he sent diverse of his men as to lodge amongst them that night, then the Ambuscadoes invironed al their houses, & at the houre appointed, they all fell to the spoile, 24 men they slewe.” These are not the kindly Indians described by Archer. They visit Payankatank on a diplomatic errand, yet when night falls, Powhatan takes advantage of his hosts’ hospitality to slay them and take their land. At his next parley with the English, Powhatan brandishes his grisly spoils to gain an advantage at the bargaining table. “The lockes of haire with their skinnes he hanged on a line unto two trees,” Smith writes. “And thus he made ostentation of as great a triumph at Werowocomoco, shewing them to the E[n] glish men that then came unto him at his appointment, they expecting provision, he to betray them, supposed to halfe counquer them by this spectacle.”72 Collecting scalps at one meeting, Powhatan brandishes them at the next, using his conquest of one neighbor to try and cow another into submission.
Throughout A Map, Smith laments the “terrible crueltie” of such acts.73 However, Smith also sees the violent nature of Virginia diplomacy as offering an opportunity for the English conquerors, if only the colonial government will abandon any pretense of recognizing Powhatan and instead seek out alliances with his enemies. Of the effect of Powhatan’s reign of diplomatic terror, Smith writes, “The Sasquesahanocks, the Tockwoughes are continually tormented by [the Powhatans]: of whose crueltie, they generally complained, and very importunate they were with Captaine Smith and his company to free them from these tormentors.” The Indians flee into the arms of the English, “offer[ing] food, conduct, assistance, & continuall subjection.” However, the colony’s official policy stands in Smith’s way. Clinging to an older model of diplomacy, the Jamestown governors “would not thinke it fit to spare [Smith] 40 men,” Smith complains.74 Nevertheless, Smith soldiers on, enjoying a partial triumph. “I lost but 7 or 8 men,” Smith writes at the close of A Map, “yet subjected the Savages to our desired obedience, and receaved contribution from 35 of their kings, to protect and assist the[m] against any that should assalt them, in which order they continued true & faithful, and as subjects to his Majestie, so long after as I did govern there, untill I left the Country.”75 Powhatan’s tactics, though awful to behold, give the English an unlikely diplomatic opening. While he intimidates the newcomers, he also alienates his own subjects, pushing them into the arms of the newcomers. With only a small number of men, Smith forms the lasting league that has so eluded Newport, making the Indians “true & faithful” friends of the English, at least until Smith’s untimely departure.
In the Proceedings, Smith offers a more detailed account of his treaty-making strategy. The book picks up where its companion volume leaves off, describing “how [the Indians] have revolted, the Countrie lost, and againe replanted, and the businesses hath succeeded from time to time.”76 The Proceedings might be described as offering a narrative accompaniment to the Map’s ethnographic portrayal of Powhatan’s warlike ways. Powhatan is again a villain. However, as sinister as he is, he is not the book’s true target. The book is instead an indictment of the colony’s government during its first years. It blames the colony’s problems on Newport’s diplomatic approach to Powhatan, arguing that Newport’s overly solicitous diplomacy has led to the colony’s collapse and the subjection of its leaders to an emboldened Powhatan. In place of this failed policy, Smith presents a model of treaty making based around retaliatory ambushes and kidnappings, which he claims will induce the Powhatans to treaty in good faith.
In choosing to title the book the Proceedings, Smith and the editors identified their volume with a familiar generic tradition. The English crown printed proceedings of Parliament and other bodies in order to legitimize its own actions and publicize the business of English government to international readers.77 Aristocratic houses, joint-stock companies, and churches also published accounts of their proceedings in order to raise funds or inspire supporters or adherents.78 Proceedings were often a compilation of different genres, such as speeches, accounts of battles, official documents, and other scribal forms. Often, published proceedings offered an apology for apparent mismanagement of government affairs. Thomas Digges’s A Breife and true report of the Proceedings of the Earle of Leycester (1590), for example, described the battle for the town of Sluce in the Eighty Years’ War (1568–1648), in an attempt to show that Sir Robert Dudley “was not in anie fault for the losse of that towne.”79 While military leaders or other interest groups often explained their conduct to the king in relations or letters, printed proceedings offered a means of publicizing political business for readers at home and abroad.
Like Digges’s book, The Proceedings of the English Colonie in Virginia is concerned with apologizing for overseas failure. As the preface announces, “Long hath the world longed, but to be truely satisfied what Virginia is, with the truth of those proceedings, from whence hath flowne so manie reports of worth, & yet few good effects of the charge, which hath caused suspition in many well willers.”80 The book includes dramatic renderings of a number of government rituals, such as speeches, meetings, coronations, and depositions. It also includes “the Salvages discourses, orations and relations of the Bordering neighbors, and how they became subject to the English.” However, these political performances are not cast into the stately forms of Archer’s “Relatyon.” The volume presents, not official documentation of treaty negotiations, but rather accounts by “diligent observers, that were residents in Virginia.”81 The book might be described as an exposé of colonial government. While Archer views Anglo-Powhatan diplomatic rituals as producing political amity in a transparent and verifiable way, the Proceedings seeks to expose the failure of official diplomacy. Rather than taking Indian words and gestures at face value, Smith suggests that coastal politics demands a shrewder understanding of Native communication and a willingness to use violence.
From the beginning, the Proceedings draws a connection between Smith’s colonial feuds and his fight to subdue the frontier. On the voyage over, Smith is “restrained as a prisoner” when Newport accuses him of intending to “usurpe the governement.”82 From his position as a captive, Smith observes the suspiciously “kindly” visitations of the “Salvages,” and advises Newport to prepare for an attack. While Newport ignores him and instead pursues diplomatic outreach, Smith is soon proved right. When the discovery party begins to explore the area around the Jamestown fort, they find themselves “kindly intreated” by the Indians, just as Archer had reported in his “Relatyon.”83 Yet on their return, Smith writes, they find “17 men hurt, and a boy slaine by the Salvages.” In his report, Archer had attempted to dismiss this attack as an aberration, but the Proceedings hints instead at a causal connection between Newport’s diplomatic errand and the Indians’ sudden aggression. Embracing friendly diplomacy, Newport leaves the colony exposed. After this incident, Newport can no longer deny the Indians’ belligerence, and finally heeds Smith’s advice. “Hereupon,” Smith gloats, “the President was contented the Fort should be pallisadoed … for many were the assaults, and Ambuscadoes of the Salvages.”84
In the midst of these troubling events, Smith appears as the only figure who can subdue the Indians. After the intervention of the colony’s minister, Robert Hunt, Smith is unchained and “reconciled” with Newport. The Indians, violent before, immediately seek out a treaty agreement: “the good doctrine and exhortation of our preacher Mr. Hunt … caused Captaine Smith to be admitted of the Councell; the next day all receaved the Communion, the day following the Salvages voluntarily desired peace, and Captaine Newport returned for England with newes.”85 This narrative implies a causal link between Smith’s promotion to the council and the Indians’ willingness to make a treaty with the English. Smith’s hard-nosed approach, not Newport’s diplomacy, is the reason for the successful conclusion of any treaties.
While there is some overlap between the Proceedings and the events recounted in Archer’s “Relatyon,” the bulk of Smith’s books details what happens after Archer’s letter ends. The Proceedings charts, in troubling detail, the breakdown of Anglo-Powhatan diplomacy and the disintegration of peace, and it seeks to pin the blame on Newport and his negotiating strategies. While Smith criticizes many aspects of Virginia’s