A Brave and Cunning Prince: The Great Chief Opechancanough and the War for America

Abstract

The premise of James Horn's new book is simple. In 1561, a Spanish mariner kidnapped a Native teenager named Paquiquineo during a reconnaissance of Chesapeake Bay. Renamed don Luís de Velasco, this extraordinary man circulated throughout the Spanish empire, traveling to Seville, Madrid, Mexico City, Havana, and Santa Elena in Florida before returning home in 1570 with a handful of Jesuits. He soon turned on the mission and killed all but one. Florida's adelantado, Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, retaliated, and don Luís disappeared. Or so it seemed. In 1607, English colonizers invaded the Chesapeake. Their greatest opponent was Opechancanough, pronounced “oh-pee-KAAN-kuh-noo” (as the archaeologist Martin D. Gallivan explains; note the similarity to Paquiquineo), a Pamunkey weroance and brother of Wahunsonacock, the paramount chief of Tsenacommacah. Horn argues that Paquiquineo and Opechancanough were in fact one and the same.Part 1, “Atlantic Worlds” (chapters 1–3), focuses on how the captive Paquiquineo, upon observing the Spaniards' use of civil, military, and ecclesiastical power and institutions to subjugate Native groups, resolved to save his own people from the same fate (pp. 26–27, 51). Part 2, “War Chief” (chapters 4–8), argues that Opechancanough (fully restored as a leader after killing the Jesuits) imparted the lesson to his brother, who forged a polity to withstand European invaders' divide-and-rule strategies (p. 58). In 1609–10 they nearly succeeded in starving out the English. Part 3, “Prophecy Fulfilled” (chapters 9–12), focuses on Opechancanough directing Powhatan policy, “lulling” English leaders before launching an attack to expel the invaders in 1622 and again in 1644 (p. 179). The great man's “long fight against European invaders” ended in a prison cell with his murder at English hands (p. 231). His plans were regional in scope, which suggests that Opechancanough, not Pontiac, was the first North American pan-Native resistance leader (p. 224). His captivity cultivated sympathy with “indios” of whatever nation (pp. 26, 177).Although of “fundamental importance” to Horn's interpretation, the connection to don Luís often disappears from the text, and Horn is too judicious a scholar for one experience in a century-long life to explain everything (p. 235). At times, the connection makes events harder to understand. For example, why did don Luís/Opechancanough not wipe out the colony altogether in 1609–10, given what he would have known about the invaders' near-limitless resources at home?Horn's epilogue addresses Opechancanough's identity. Although Horn uses Spanish documents—including some manuscripts—he largely relies on three English sources, respectively dated 1614, 1677, and 1705, that seem to connect Opechancanough to the West Indies or Mexico and thus to don Luís. But these sources may say more about the English than Opechancanough. The 1677 letter from Francis Moryson, for example, which describes Opechancanough as a war captain who had conquered down to Mexico, may reflect contemporary European ideas about the size of the continent. In the 1670s, John Lederer traversed Virginia and Carolina expecting the South Sea to lie just over the Blue Ridge. If Opechancanough was don Luís, why don't the stories say so more explicitly? What do they say about Opechancanough's self-fashioning or about Native intentions when sharing such information? None of the evidence conclusively proves that the two men are one, but Horn makes the best case possible.But Horn also conveys a higher truth: Indigenous resistance to colonialism had Atlantic and transimperial dimensions. More than a long-overdue biography of a Pamunkey patriot and pan-Native resistance leader, the book usefully compares the Iberian and English imperial projects, from an Indigenous vantage. Further comparison with Florida might be helpful. Indigenous leaders in Florida, arguably as formidable as Opechancanough, chose to ally with the presidio, extracting gifts from a fund for gastos de indios (Indian expenses). In exchange, caciques sent workers to the presidio. In 1612, Florida's Franciscans informed Felipe III that distributing gifts won the support of more Native leaders than war—and was cheaper than the matches for the guns (this correspondence from the religious of Florida to the king, dated October 16, 1612, can be found in the Archivo General de Indias, Santo Domingo 232). When the Virginia Company committed to gift giving as a colonial strategy, it was too little, too late. Orders for showering Indigenous leaders with gifts per Florida's approach came in 1621, following George Thorpe's recommendations (p. 184). Of course, Florida did not attract pobladores on Virginia's scale. But had the English pursued the Florida strategy consistently, what might have happened? Horn says that Opechancanough thought “arrogance” was the Englishmen's greatest weakness (p. 200). Had they followed the example of San Agustín sooner, might he, or Wahunsonacock, have sought a similar accommodation?A Brave and Cunning Prince shares with Horn's other works an up-to-the-minute sense of the historiography, deep research, and storytelling verve. The debate about don Luís's identity will go on—but now with fresh vigor.