John Smith Trail

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The Algonquian Culture

The James River has nourished human life for perhaps as long as 18,000 years. (about 45 times as long as Europeans have lived here). In 1607 there were approximately 24,000 Native Americans in the Chesapeake Bay area. The James River within the coastal plain was home to eleven Algonquian-speaking groups, while the Piedmont was occupied by the Monacans. Most of the Algonquian groups, with the exception of the Chickahominy, belonged to the chiefdom of Powhatan when English colonists arrived. Powhatan, whose personal name was Wahunsenacawh, was assigned the name of his people when he rose to power. The town called Powhatan where he was born and raised was located in the present-day East End of Richmond, just below the falls of the James.

The native Algonquian people generally lived in small, fortified villages led by a weroance, or district chief. They practiced shifting agriculture and would move their settlement as field location changed. Women were in charge of growing corns, beans, and squash, harvesting wild tuckahoe roots, berries, nuts, and greens and building houses with bent poles and reed mats or bark. Men hunted deer, turkey and waterfowl and caught fish such as shad and sturgeon. Clams and mussels were harvested as well. Overall, the Algonquian ate much better than the English colonists. The best way to travel, transport, and trade was by canoe on the river. Warfare was common; the Powhatan’s and Monacans raided each other every year while many other alliances and enmities were ever-shifting. Algonquian people also led an intensely spiritual life, saying prayers in the morning after bathing and before meals.

By 1650, the native population in the region was reduced to 2,400 with many of their cultural traditions lost. In light of the devastation of disease, invasion, and government policies aimed at eradicating native culture, it is nothing short of amazing to note the continued survival of native people and their knowledge to the present day. The Chickahominy are the largest group in Virginia with 1,000 members. The Mattaponi and Pamunkey have reservation lands and about 100 members each. Other tribes with present day populations in Virginia include the Rappahanock and Nansemond.

The English Colonists

In late April of 1607, English colonists sponsored by the Virginia Company of London entered the mouth of the Powhatan River, which they would soon rename the James for their king. John Smith, a commoner and a mercenary, had been accused of mutiny during the Atlantic crossing by some of the gentleman of higher social status, and was thus confined to the brig (jail cell) when the colonists reached the New World. The first expedition up the James was begun only a week after the fort had Jamestown had begun to be established. Hopes of finding a passage to the Pacific were dashed as the English shallop (a shallow- draft 30 ft. vessel equipped with oars and sail), after days of laborious rowing around the great oxbow bends of the lower James, arrived at the fall line at present-day Richmond.

John Smith eventually rose to power as the colony struggled and his effective leadership became necessary for the colony to survive. He led two thorough explorations of the Chesapeake Bay region as well as extensive trips up the James and Chickahominy Rivers. He created an authoritative and remarkably accurate map of the region and his journals became important historical documents in understanding the ecology and human culture of pre-colonial America.

He learned the Algonquian language and met Powhatan while a captive and probably had the best understanding of native culture among the colonists. Apparently Powhatan and Smith regarded each other with mutual admiration at first, but their tense friendship deteriorated to hostility as English intentions in the New World became all too clear.
“Toward the end of his life, John Smith was also one of the first, if not the first, to anticipate that America would be the seedbed for a new kind of society. He had escaped the obscurity to which he was born and realized that in the New World, poor men with ambition could likewise make new destinies for themselves. John Smith’s story gives us a new vantage point for looking at the American experiment.” (Price, Love and Hate in Jamestown)

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