Paper Sovereigns. Jeffrey Glover

       Heavy Heads: Crowning Kings in Early Virginia

      On a placid morning in October 1608, Christopher Newport pushed off from the shore of the York River and pointed his boat toward Werowocomoco, the seat of the Powhatan chiefdom. It had been more than a year since his first journey inland, the one that had culminated in the great shout and the treaty with the river king. Since that time, much had happened. The English had traded with some Indians, fought with others, and established diplomatic relations with Powhatan, the paramount chief of the bay. Yet as Newport landed on the opposite shore of the river and his men began to unpack their barges, it immediately became clear that this was not a routine visit. Treading carefully so as not to lose their footing in the mud, they carried ashore a washbasin painted with the royal insignia of James I, a scarlet cloak made of wool, a decorative pitcher, an English bedstead, and finally a copper crown, burnished to a rosy shine.

      A letter from London explained the purpose of this unusual cargo. On the king’s authority, it commanded Newport to recruit Powhatan into an alliance with the English crown. The plan included an elaborate protocol modeled on the ceremonies through which European lords created vassals, or feudal landholders.¹ Newport was to stage a ritual coronation of Powhatan, deputizing him as a local authority while confirming his subjection to James I. The washbasin, bedstead, and cloak signified English goodwill. The crown, bestowed on the Indian king in a ceremony, would confirm his agreement in the matter.²

      On paper, the mission seemed simple enough: awe the chief with gifts and induce him to kneel and receive the crown. But what happened next became the subject of a debate that extended far beyond the Chesapeake Bay. According to a written account published by the Virginia Company, the joint-stock venture that financed settlement, the ceremony was a success.³ Powhatan, the “Emperour” of the Powhatans, stooped and “received voluntarilie a crowne and a scepter,” a gesture that “licensed” the English “to negotiate among them, and to possesse their countrie with them.”⁴ But other observers came forward to challenge this version of events. Soldiers and secretaries scribbled their own accounts of the crowning on notepaper. These, too, made their way to London, and were eventually published in a compilation of reports entitled The Proceedings of the English Colonie in Virginia (1612). This book described the coronation as a botched affair. Powhatan had refused to recognize the subject status conferred by the crown, instead interpreting the ceremony as English recognition of his power. The all-important stoop had been coerced; the English had resorted to leaning on his shoulders to place the crown on his head. Worse yet, a cannon fusillade meant to commemorate the peace had frightened the Indians, scattering Powhatan’s entourage and leading to shouted accusations of an ambush. The ceremony had been a catastrophe.

      Still other accounts circulated through international channels. Frances Magnel, an Irish laborer living in Jamestown, also witnessed or heard about the coronation. He traveled to Madrid, where he gave a deposition to an Irish Catholic archbishop, who translated it into Castilian and secretly conveyed it to the Spanish crown.⁵ If the Virginia Company cited the bow to confirm English rights to rule New World territory, the uncertain outcome of the ceremony called into question the very legality of the settlement. Pedro de Zúñiga, a Spanish ambassador, was “amused” that the English were treating Indians like princes. He fiercely disputed the claim that they could establish rightful possession through such ceremonies. The colonists, he wrote in a letter to Philip III, were merely using negotiations with Indians to give an appearance of legality to attempts to “carry on piracy” against Spanish ships.⁶ As reports spread, Powhatan’s response took on increasing significance for international agreements with Spain.

      In Powhatan’s stoop to receive the crown, Christopher Newport found confirmation of English power in the New World. In the chief’s scowls and angry words, Newport’s rivals at home and abroad saw an exposure of English weakness, even a challenge to the legal basis of English settlement. Newport’s attempted crowning of Powhatan was one of many treaty ceremonies conducted between colonists and Powhatans during the early years of Virginia colonization. And like other such ceremonies, it had consequences well beyond the coast. The crowning inspired clashing reports, stories, and rumors that spread throughout the bay, the colonial Atlantic, and the channels of diplomatic communication that connected European crowns.⁷ The transmission of these stories across space and time reflected complex alliances and agendas. English, Spanish, Irish, and Native people all retold the story in different ways in order to advance competing visions of political order. As Powhatan and Newport faced off over the crown, they were acutely aware that it was only the first engagement in a longer struggle over the meaning of the ceremony, one waged through stories as well as rituals.

      This chapter considers political negotiations between English and Powhatan peoples in early Virginia. It examines how treaty ceremonies involving Native leaders influenced European debates about territorial possession. Existing scholarly accounts have examined how English colonists used written treaties to give an appearance of legality to the theft of Native land. These accounts have argued that the English disregarded indigenous political systems and sought to impose written forms of political documentation on Native peoples. This chapter sets out to revise that picture. The English crown financed colonial ventures in order to acquire control of territory. This meant claiming Indian lands. But as I will show here, this did not mean rejecting Natives’ right to speak for themselves. Indeed, according to many early modern understandings of the law of nations, Christian princes could acquire control over territory through the creation of treaty agreements with pagans. In order to establish claims in this way, the English needed to capture the voluntary consent of Native people according to consensus ad idem, a legal criterion deriving from Roman law. Consensus ad idem required that treaties should represent a “meeting of the minds,” or voluntary agreement between parties. To this end, the English crown instructed colonists to “entreate” Native people and send home written accounts of Native alliances.⁸ On some occasions, these treaties were formatted like European-style articles of agreement, but more often they came in the form of narratives and letters describing ritual performances, such as orations, exchanges of gifts, or crowning ceremonies. By setting down these acts in writing, the English sought to show that Native people had given newcomers permission to settle on or near their land, or had transferred sovereignty to them altogether, making them masters of the coast.

      This chapter describes how different ways of making treaties came to support conflicting assertions of ownership and power in the Chesapeake Bay. Most of the bay was controlled by Powhatan, a hereditary sachem. Born with the name Wahunsunacawh, Powhatan had inherited power over several tribes and conquered several others. At some point during his conquests, he had assumed the name Powhatan as a title recognizing his supreme authority. By using this title as his name, the English showed their respect for his power, yet there was also strategy behind their choice. In calling him Powhatan, the English conflated the chief with his people, known as the Powhatans, and authorized him to make treaties on their behalf. In reality, Powhatan’s territory, known as Tsenacomoco to the people who lived there, was a turbulent and divided world. Powhatan was closely allied with the tribes nearest to his seat at Werowocomoco, but was frequently at odds with those on the periphery of his holdings. These friendships and conflicts were mediated by complex and evolving practices for marking alliance and affiliation. Powhatans formed political agreements through exchanges of gifts, elaborate speeches, and ceremonial feasts. These bonds were often described as symbolic kinship alliances between fathers, brothers, and sons. Yet even as kinship metaphors suggested intimate links between peoples, they masked a violent reality. Powhatan frequently used force to compel tribute or labor from subjects, even destroying entire families or kin groups when it suited his purposes.⁹

      When settlers first arrived in the Chesapeake Bay, they were usually compelled to negotiate on Powhatan terms. They listened to orations, feasted and danced with Powhatans, offered gifts of tribute, including English goods and animals, and even exchanged captives, giving Powhatan