of unauthorized writing across the Atlantic.56 As the colony’s fortunes took a turn for the worse, however, letters, reports, and narratives by various pens began to find their way to London. This flow of ink and information presented the colony with a public relations problem. Few of the letters reflected the kinds of glowing descriptions that Archer and others had sent home during the colony’s first years. One way the company responded was by censoring or editing damaging reports. Indeed, a critical letter by Smith himself was heavily redacted and published anonymously under the title A True Relation of such occurrences and accidents of noate as hath hapned in Virginia (1608).57 The company also printed a series of reports, tracts, and sermons that reassured investors of its eventual prosperity.58
While the company saw increased transatlantic correspondence as a threat, Smith saw it as an opportunity for rejoining the debate about Virginia’s future, only this time from a position much closer to the center of power. In 1612, Smith brought into print A Map of Virginia and The Proceedings of the English Colonie in Virginia on the press at Oxford. Smith’s choice of print as a medium reflected his marginal position in colonial politics. Councilors were occupied with the new government, and were not particularly interested in Smith’s perspective. Yet by printing his work, Smith ensured that a wide variety of people, from potential investors to European diplomats, would read it. The books defend Smith’s reputation, and blame his opponents for the colony’s collapse. However, in making his case, both volumes largely sidestep colonial squabbles. Smith directs his attention instead to the colony’s diplomatic relations with the Powhatans. The books document how Powhatan takes advantage of Newport’s diplomatic gullibility in order to drive up corn prices, ambush the colony’s traders, and subject Jamestown to Powhatan authority. The only solution to the problems in Virginia, Smith suggests, is to wage war against the Powhatan chiefdom. Crucially, however, Smith avoids depicting actual violence. He suggests instead that ambushes, threats, and bullying will persuade the Indians to acquiesce, leading to a peace that Newport’s “stately kinde of soliciting” has failed to achieve.
The story of how Smith’s two books found their way to the press at Oxford offers a vivid illustration of how cross-cultural negotiations in America could create political opportunities in London.59 While the company had no interest in publishing his work, Smith found a sympathetic ear in Sir Edward Seymour, the earl of Hertford and an investor in the colony. With Seymour’s financial support, Smith began to assemble maps, notes, and other materials that would support his account of the colony’s first years. Crucial to Smith’s efforts was the arrival from Jamestown of Richard Pots, the clerk of the Virginia colony’s governing council during Smith’s presidency. Pots brought with him a host of letters, narratives, and sketches from Smith’s supporters. With the help of William Symonds, an Oxford graduate and Anglican preacher, Smith arranged the materials into separate volumes, A Map of Virginia, containing an engraved map of Tsenacomoco by the artist William Hole, along with a “a description of the countrey” by Smith himself, and The Proceedings of the English Colonie in Virginia, a report on the colony’s Indian diplomacy “written out of the writings” of “diligent observers.”60 Both books trace the problems in the colony’s government to its leaders’ overly ceremonious approach to Indian diplomacy. The two volumes might be read as working together, with Smith’s Map and description laying out the political landscape of Tsenacomoco, and the Proceedings showing just how badly Newport, Archer, and the colony’s first governors have misjudged the Indians’ intentions. Yet for all of its condemnation of the Powhatans and their tactics, the books suggest a surprising solution to the colony’s diplomatic dilemma. While the Indians are depicted as violent peace breakers, Smith claims that it is only by abandoning diplomacy themselves that the colony’s governors can restore calm.
Like Archer’s “Relatyon,” Smith’s Map conceives of Virginia Indians as an autonomous kingdom. The book is divided into several parts, including a list of phrases in English and Algonquian, a map of Tsenacomoco, and Smith’s descriptions of the Virginia landscape and the government and religion of the Indians. The centerpiece of the book, and the section that has received the most attention from scholars, is the map, which is bound into the book as a foldout page (see Figure 2). In many ways, the map dominates the volume, in terms of both its massive size and its level of detail. It is bewilderingly complete, containing hundreds of place-names in transliterated Algonquian. Many of these are identified by a key in the upper right-hand corner as “Kings howses,” or seats of government. Indeed, the map presents the New World as virtually swarming with Native power, with around two dozen separate locations marked as seats of indigenous kings. Taken in at a glance, the map suggests Native dominance of American geography.
The map leaves no uncertainty about who commands this kingdom. Powhatan is depicted sitting in “state” in an inset in the upper left-hand corner, with the word “Powhatans” snaking downward across the rivers and their many polities. In the opposite corner stands a figure identified as one of the “Sasquesahanugh,” a group of neighboring Indians to the north. The corner detail of Powhatan in state was adapted from Theodor de Bry’s The Tombe of their Werowans or Cheiff Lordes (1588).61 The appropriation of an image of a tomb to depict Powhatan hints at some of the arguments that will appear later in the book. While Powhatan clearly reigns supreme, he is also boxed in, surrounded by plumes of smoke and crowded by underlings. His figure stands in stark contrast to that of the Susquehannock, who stands astride the landscape itself and is described on the map as representing “a Gyant like people.”62 The suggestion, conveyed in visual form, is that Powhatan operates behind closed doors. While he controls the landscape, he does so from a covert position, not through the kind of open or transparent diplomacy that would inspire trust.
Figure 2. Foldout map from John Smith’s A Map of Virginia (1612). Smith’s map depicts a New World dominated by Powhatan power. Courtesy of The Newberry Library.
Smith’s “Description,” which follows the foldout, delves into the smoke-shadowed workings of Powhatan’s government. Smith begins conventionally enough, sketching out the landscape and discoursing on the natural commodities that make Virginia a profitable site for settlement. But this promotional language soon shifts into a discourse on the Indians and their “manner of … governement.” Smith uses the language of political economy when describing the Indians. “The forme of their Common wealth is a monarchicall governement,” he states, “one as Emperour ruleth over many kings or governours.” And though barbaric, Powhatan is similar to an expansion-minded European prince. “Their chiefe ruler is called Powhatan, and taketh his name of the principall place of dwelling called Powhatan,” Smith writes. Like his European counterparts, Powhatan has several claims to power. “Some countries he hath which have been his ancestors, and came unto him by inheritance.” Others, however, “have beene his severall conquests.” Smith depicts all of these holdings, inherited or conquered, as a peaceful realm, subject to the sovereignty of Powhatan. “Although the countrie people be very barbarous, yet have they amongst them such governement, as that their Magistrats for good commanding, and their people for du subjection, and obeying, excell many places that would be counted very civill.”63 While the people may be unusual in appearance, in their government they more resemble Europeans than savages.
While Powhatan’s kingdom appears orderly, however, there is a darker reality just below the surface. What holds this commonwealth together, Smith reports, is fear of Powhatan’s tyranny. Here, the Powhatan of the smoky room makes his appearance. “It is strange to see with what great feare and adoration all these people doe obay this Powhatan,” Smith writes. “What he commandeth they dare not disobey in the least thing.”64 Powhatan is depicted imposing severe penalties on disloyal subjects, executing them or expelling them from his lands. Smith does not describe these exercises of power because he is concerned for Powhatan’s victims. Rather, he is interested in their
