Virginia ethnologist Helen Roundtree and archaeologist Randy Turner have joined forces to create the first comprehensive overview of the Powhatans—the people who met Captain John Smith at Jamestown in 1607 and who have occupied the Virginia tidelands for the past 1,100 years.
Powhatan was the name of the main village and of the paramount chief of the region when the English landed at Jamestown. It soon became the name of the cultural tradition. Starting with six districts, Powhatan expanded his domain to about 30 districts by 1607, according to Captain Smith. Pocahontas was one of his many children. The Powhatans were the first native people to come into extended contact with the English, and several accounts describe them in some detail. Yet they are largely a forgotten people as historians and archaeologists alike have focused on the English settlers.
Roundtree and Turner tell us the Powhatans were part of a larger Algonquin-speaking tradition that dominated the entire northern half of the Atlantic coast. They lived in palisaded villages in a highly stratified society, and they resisted the European invasion and European customs for 100 years.
Before and After Jamestown pieces together a wealth of archaeological and other data to give us an account of the Powhatans. This appealing book also contains more than 100 photographs, maps, and drawings. We hope it harbingers a revival of interest in the Indian side of English settlement of America.
