Paper Sovereigns. Jeffrey Glover
fort so glutted the Salvages with their commodities,” the book complains, “as they [the colonists] became not regarded.”86 Smith did not invent this explanation for the colony’s trouble. The notion that the colonists lost political standing by paying tribute to the Powhatans was widely repeated, even appearing in the 1609 “Instructions” to Gates, which (without naming Newport) partly blamed trading policy for the high corn prices that had imperiled the food supply.87 The accusation probably had some truth to it. While gifts played a largely ceremonial role in European diplomatic negotiations, for the Powhatans, trade was crucial to determining political hierarchy. When the English arrived in the Chesapeake Bay, the Powhatans demanded gifts in exchange for corn and permission to settle. Jamestown leaders complied with these demands, and in writing described the Indians’ acceptance of goods as an acknowledgment of English power. This made the English look powerful under the law of nations, but according to Smith, it lowered them in Powhatan’s regard. In a description of Powhatan’s trading with Jamestown leaders, Smith illustrates the pitfalls of Newport’s approach: “being kindly received ashore” for a trading summit, “Powhatan strained himselfe to the uttermost of his greatnes to entertain us, with great shouts of Joy, orations of protestations, and the most plenty of victuall hee could provide to feast us.”88 After “3. or 4. daies” of “feasting dancing and trading,” Powhatan initiates official trade relations between Werowocomoco and Jamestown, beginning with a formal oration that suggests that coastal rather than English customs should govern negotiations. “Captain Newport,” he says, “it is not agreeable with my greatnes in this pedling manner to trade for trifles, and I esteeme you a great werowans, Therefore lay me down all your commodities togither, what I like I will take, and in recompence give you that I thinke fitting their value.”89 Powhatan dismisses English models of exchange as a “pedling” way to proceed. Instead, he flatteringly suggests that a great leader like Newport should trust the great chief to do the valuing himself. Powhatan’s words evoke what the anthropologist Marcel Mauss has described as a gift economy, in which extravagant exchange symbolizes power and recognition.90 Smith, however, does not believe that Powhatan’s gesture is reflective of any traditional Indian ways. He sees Powhatan’s oration as a ploy to raise prices and conquer the English. Smith warns Newport of the stratagem, whispering in his ear that the hidden intention behind Powhatan’s grandiose gesture is “but to cheat us.” To Smith’s horror, Newport falls for it anyway, caught up in the imperative to flatter Powhatan with gifts: “captaine Newport thinking to out brave this Salvage in ostentation of greatnes, & so to bewitch him with his bounty … [offered] to have what [Powhatan] listed.”91
At this moment, according to Smith, the colony teeters on the brink of disaster, standing to lose both financially and politically if the trading goes forward. As he did after the raid on Jamestown, however, Smith comes to the rescue, bringing to bear another approach to diplomacy, one more attuned to the subtlety of Powhatan’s maneuvers. “Smith … smothering his distast (to avoide the Salvages suspition) glaunced in the eies of Powhatan many Trifles who fixed his humour upon a few blew beads; A long time he importunatly desired them, but Smith seemed so much the more to affect them, so that ere we departed, for a pound or two of blew beads he brought over my king for 2 or 300 bushels of corne, yet parted good friends.”92 Here, then, is a radically different negotiating tactic. Rather than taking Powhatan’s words at face value, Smith reads Powhatan’s eyes to discover the true desire behind the façade—the shiny blue beads imported from English glassworks for use as currency. With the colonists’ blue beads glinting in Powhatan’s eyes, Smith moves to “affect them” himself, driving up their value despite their practical worthlessness to the English. Taken in by this ploy, Powhatan happily agrees to give up corn for beads, securing for the English a triumph of both trade and diplomacy.
While Archer construes Native actions as a transparent expression of political intentions, for Smith, words and gestures hide as much as they reveal. Smith’s account of glinting eyes and feinting gestures evoked broader debates in early modern England about the relationship between outward expression and inner intentions. While some scholastic authorities believed that gestures and facial expressions unwittingly revealed the truth of the heart, others saw them as possessing a capacity for artifice and deceit.93 In contrast to Archer’s model of diplomacy, which simply assumes the Indians are sincere, Smith points to a split between outward show and secret purpose.
Smith’s diplomacy of suspicion prevails during trade negotiations, preserving the peace and a precarious equality between parties. Yet by his own account, Smith’s approach also has limits, especially considering the ulterior goals behind Powhatan’s attempts to cheat the English. According to Smith, Powhatan is not only attempting to swindle the colonists at the bargaining table. He is also attempting to subjugate them, and this threat demands a different response. After the botched coronation, which repeats the lesson of the corn-trading episode, Powhatan secretly institutes an embargo against the English, forbidding other people from trading with them. His aim, as Smith later finds out, is to lure the colonists into an ambush disguised as a trading summit. Extending an invitation to trade, Powhatan offers to “loade [Smith’s] shippe with corne” in exchange for commodities and the help of Jamestown laborers in building an English-style house.94 As Smith travels to Werowocomoco, a “kind Salvage” named Weraskoyack tips off the already suspicious Smith about the chief’s true plans: “Captaine Smith,” he warns, “you shall finde Powhatan to use you kindly, but trust him not, and bee sure hee have no opportunitie to seaze on your armes, for hee hath sent for you only to cut your throats.”95 As Weraskoyack makes clear, Powhatan aims to treat the English like the people of Payankatank; his diplomatic overtures conceal intentions to kill or enslave them.
In response to this bit of frightening intelligence, Smith suggests that the English ambush the chief themselves before he can put his plans into motion. Over the protests of others, Smith assembles a company of English soldiers disguised as laborers and travels to Pamaunke, the proposed site of the house. What follows in the Proceedings is an intricate account of an openly hostile series of negotiations that constantly threaten to dissolve into outright violence. Smith again uses gestural interpretation and facial reading to divine Powhatan’s true intentions. However, he also openly embraces violence as a negotiating tactic that will restore order and bring about treaty agreement. Powhatan begins the entertainment with the same invitation to open giving he had extended to Newport. Addressing Smith from inside his old house, he declares, “Captaine Newport gave me swords, copper, cloths, a bed, tooles, or what I desired, ever taking what I offered him, and would send awaie his gunnes when I intreated him.” At this moment, Powhatan’s real desires are exposed to all who know how to read him. The gift he truly wants is not found in any precious object—it is, menacingly, the disarmament of the colonists. Rather than allowing himself to be led to his death by this bit of deception, Smith responds to Powhatan’s offer with an ambush of his own: “Smith seeing this Salvage but trifled the time to cut his throat … gave order for his men to come ashore, to have surprised the king, with whom also [Smith] but trifled the time till his men landed.”96 Smith sees through Powhatan’s friendly overtures, and, maintaining decorum, signals to his men to make ready for attack. Yet English victory is not yet in hand. When Powhatan discovers Smith’s countermove, he keeps up the façade, sending his wives to make small talk with Smith and slipping out the back while his men encircle the house. This leaves Smith in a bind; while each party has been planning murder behind smiles, Powhatan’s men get to the house first.
Smith’s response to this predicament dramatizes his central solution to the problem of forming treaties during wartime—a solution he enacts again and again in the latter part of the Proceedings. When Smith realizes that Powhatan’s plan has been sprung into motion before his own, he recovers the initiative by storming out of the house “with his Pistol, Sword & Target” while the Indian men flee in every direction. This abrupt move has an immediately pacifying effect. After Smith’s wild display, the Indians immediately “dissemble” their treacherous intentions and send Smith “a greate bracelet, and a chaine of pearle,” valuable diplomatic gifts recognizing Smith’s power.97 More important from Smith’s point of view, they satisfy his demands for corn, offering him as much as he can carry