English Powhatan Wars
The English Powhatankriege were two wars between the English settlers in Jamestown and the Indian tribe of the Powhatan in the Virginia colony in North America .
prehistory
Tribes in the immediate vicinity of the Powhatan Confederation had to experience the very first European invaders of North America. In 1528 the conqueror ( conquistador ) Pánfilo de Narváez met the Apalachee and the Choctaw in the area of Mobile Bay. In 1540, Hernando de Soto and his party crossed South Carolina, North Carolina and the Appalachians ; eventually the battle of Mauvilla took place , in which thousands died. The expeditions and raids of the Spaniards in search of gold, modeled on Cortés , were conducted with great brutality and ruthlessness. The Indians were enslaved, leaders and chiefs were often taken hostage, food was plundered and many villages were burned. The fearsome reputation of the Europeans will also have reached the Powhatan. In the following years, Spanish ships searched the Chesapeake Bay region for a passage to India. There were two other dramatic encounters that were of immediate importance to the Powhatan.
Don Luis and the dead Jesuits
On a Spanish exploration trip in 1561, an Indian boy , son of a chief of the Powhatan , was picked up in Chesapeake Bay and brought more or less voluntarily to Spain and later to Mexico. The Spanish called him Paquiquino, later he was baptized Don Luis de Velasco . For over 9 years, Don Luis was tutored first by Domicans, then by Jesuits, and prepared for his role as translator and guide. In 1570 eight Jesuits and an altar boy were brought to Don Luis' old homeland to set up a mission there (Ajacán Mission). Don Luis visited his old tribe in the first few days, was accepted there again and, according to his status, married several women. After a few days he did not return to the Jesuits. The Padres, in great need of losing their contact, paid a visit to the village and urged Don Luis to distance himself from his sinful life and to return to them and his faith. As a result, Don Luis and his followers killed all the Jesuits with their own axes. To explain these acts have been put forward until now different approaches: confusion by the devil, humiliation by apostasy, failed to Christianity, dilemma because of devaluation and condemnation of bigamy and indigenous customs, revenge for deportation and humiliation, lack of understanding of the Jesuits for the gift economy of Powhatans, poor communication and appreciation, starvation, the killing of the Jesuits as syncretic human sacrifice : the priests give their lives for the redemption of the Indians. The altar boy, Alonso, was spared and adopted by the chief. After the massacre became known, in 1572 Menéndez de Avilés and 30 soldiers carried out a punitive action in which over twenty locals were killed and some were then hung on the rigging. Don Luis had not been found. These events marked the last attempt by the Spaniards to colonize Virginia and set the tone for further contact between the locals and the foreign invaders.
Roanoke, the lost colony
In 1585 the English founded their first colony in North America on the island of Roanoke , in what is now North Carolina. The natives were suspected of stealing a silver goblet at the first encounter. The situation escalated to a frenzied punitive expedition by the English under Richard Grenville , their corn fields were burned and destroyed and their city was plundered, and the entire population fled. Despite this incident and food shortages, Grenville decided to leave 107 men on the island. He promised to return with relief supplies the following year. In June 1586 an attack by the Indians could be repulsed. In 1587 a new group of 115 settlers was brought to the island by John White. When White returned to the island in 1590, the colony was deserted. There was no trace of the residents.
The First English Powhatan War
In 1608 the Wahunsonacock , the chief of the Powhatan, had already decided to drive the English from his land by cutting off their food supply. More settlers had arrived that same year, and Wahunsonacock had been warned by others that the English were coming not for trade but to own his land. The English had also come to the conclusion that they had to use force as the Indians would not willingly accept English rule. And so the Virginia Company gave its governor almost absolute power and began recruiting veterans of the campaigns in the Netherlands and Ireland. After the arrival of six ships with another 250 settlers, hostilities broke out. The English stole grain, burned houses and attacked the Indians. They counterattacked, inflicting heavy losses on the colonists and forcing them to entrench themselves in Jamestown. The Indians now went over to siege. During the siege from November to May, half of the garrison died of malnutrition and disease or were killed trying to escape. Jamestown residents were forced to eat horses, dogs, and rats. There have even been cases of cannibalism , which were met with severe penalties. In May 1610 only 60 settlers were still alive. On June 7, 1610, the survivors left Jamestown and sailed downstream. The turning point came the following day: The newly appointed governor Lord de la Warr reached the colony with three ships and 150 men (including about 100 soldiers). He changed the settlers' tactics to one of the scorched earths - from now on they raided the Powhatan fields and villages and burned them down. Between April and August 1611, another 600 colonists arrived with food, weapons, and ammunition.
In 1614 both sides ceased hostilities without making a formal peace. The English had managed to stay in Virginia and made alliances with tribes on the east bank. The Chickahominies even recognized James I as their king. The marriage of Wahunsonacock's daughter, Pocahontas , to the Englishman John Rolfe in April of that year was a symbol of the new peace between the two peoples.
On March 22, 1622 there was an attack Opechancanoughs (a son of Wahunsonacock), on the English, the so-called Jamestown massacre , in which 347 settlers (about a quarter of the population) were killed. This attack was later used to provide moral legitimation for the annihilation of the New England Indians.
The Second English Powhatan War
The Second English Powhatan War began in 1644 as the last attempt by the Indians to drive the English settlers out of their Jamestown colony. The settlers wanted to finally beat the Indians after they had already decimated them in the First English Powhatan War. The war ended again with a defeat for the Indians. The result was the near extermination of all Indians in the Tidewater region of Virginia. The peace treaty of 1646 put an end to all hopes that settlers and Indians could live together peacefully.
Opechancanough
Historical representation of the arrival of Thomas West in Jamestown
Thomas West, Lord De La Warr
See also
Individual evidence
- ^ Aleck Loker, La Florida: Spanish Exploration & Settlement of North America, 1500 to 1600, 2010
- ↑ Frederic W. Gleach, Powhatan's World and Colonial Virginia: A Conflict of Cultures, 1997, p. 96
- ^ Spanish Martyrs for Virginia
- ^ David Arias, Spanish American Encyclopedia (2016), 81
- ^ Gift Exchange in Early Virginia Indian Society
- ↑ Anna Brickhouse, The Unsettlement of America: translation, interpretation, and the Story of Don Luis de Velasco, 1560-1945, Oxford university press 2015
- ↑ Lee Miller, Roanoke: Solving the Mystery of the Lost Colony. New York 2000, pp. 93 f.
- ↑ Hermann Wellenreuther: Decline and Rise, History of North America from the Beginning of Settlement to the End of the 17th Century. P. 149.
- ^ Horn: Conquest, p. 43
- ^ Horn: Conquest, p. 45
- ^ Horn: Conquest, p. 45
- ^ Horn: Conquest, p. 46
literature
- James Horn: The Conquest of Eden. Possession and Dominion in Early Virginia. In: Robert Appelbaum, John Wood Sweet (Eds.): Envisioning an English Empire. Jamestown and the Making of the North Atlantic World. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia PA 2005, ISBN 0-8122-1903-1 , pp. 25-48 ( Early American Studies ).
- Stephan Maninger: The lost wilderness. The Conquest of the American Northeast in the 17th Century. Verlag for American Studies, Wyk auf Foehr 2009, ISBN 978-3-89510-121-2 , pp. 36-69.