Pocahontas and the English Boys: Caught between Cultures in Early Virginia

Abstract

In a deeply nuanced study, Kupperman deftly crafts a narrative based on her decades of study into the early Virginia colony and the Atlantic world, of the important role of captive children and the exchange of peoples in the settlement process. By highlighting the experiences of Pocahontas, Thomas Savage, Henry Spelman, and Robert Poole, Kupperman creates a model for insight into the fraught relationships these youths would have with both their communities of origin and their adoptive kin. The exchange of children in Virginia allowed for language acquisition, as child intermediaries learned the customs and languages of their communities, which in turn allowed them to become interpreters at a young age. This important tool in settlement, however, also placed enormous pressure on these four youths who were still malleable in their adolescence. The desires to please disparate masters led to fraught and tense situations for all involved. For the boys, Kupperman argues that “they were so young themselves that they might not necessarily understand everything about their own cultures and the deeper meanings attached to words and concepts,” leaving spaces for ambiguity that both the Algonquian and English leaders could make use of and manipulate (p. 12).While Pocahontas's story is a focus of some of the book, the greater contribution to the scholarship of early Virginia and the Atlantic World here is Kupperman's focus on Thomas, Henry, and Robert, providing a well-researched and illuminating understanding of their lives in the colony and the pressures they faced. Throughout seven chapters, Kupperman traces not only the history of the Virginia Company (and its failure) but the rise and fall of relationships and alliances, and the interpersonal public and private socio-politics of the era. Interweaving familiar parts of the narrative, including the infamous “rescue” of John Smith, with a close read of archival sources, Kupperman shares the story of the exchange of children caught in a series of wars, disease, trade, and colonial expansion. Within these stories are details of life and interaction; Kupperman asks, for example, about Thomas Savage, “Did he find it liberating to switch to Powhatan clothing, which was so much freer than the English? Or did he find it hard to adjust to being so exposed?” (p. 31).For Pocahontas, Kupperman shares what life was like in London at the time of her visit, describing the drastic change in dress for the young woman, including a “high-bodied” gown with a “large starched collar that was supported by a network of wires. So your clothes poked and scratched you throughout the day, not to mention how heavy it all was” (p. 114). These detailed analyses of the day-to-day experiences and the challenges these children faced provide scholars with excellent materials with which to inform classroom discussions as well as further research. Kupperman suggests the larger trauma that Pocahontas faced under English expectations that she act as an intermediary to convert her people to Christianity, opining that “inner turmoil over what would happen once they were back in Virginia must have been intolerable” (p. 139). Sadly missing from the story are some of the deeper Indigenous perspectives and analyses of the story of her abduction and conversion, a story that many view as one of the first missing and murdered Indigenous women.The last two chapters expand upon the rising tobacco economy and the failure of the Virginia Company as well as the role of young English and Native boys as interpreters, some of whom fared well and others who became casualties of the system as “manipulation and double dealing using young go-betweens happened everywhere in the Atlantic” (p. 173). By focusing on the children involved, their experiences, their losses, and the potential psychological impact of their captivity and exchange, Kupperman has produced an important synthesis of this era that allows a glimpse into a terrifying aspect of the colonial era and brings to life their circumstances and hardships.