Love and Hate in Jamestown: John Smith, Pocahontas, and The Start of a New Nation

In the eyes of the Virginia Company, Jamestown was a failure—yet it held out for a partial return on investment in lumber and other commodities. It maintained funding by holding lotteries and paying off any of the London clergy inclined to condemn the gambling venture.

In Virginia, Governor Thomas West lasted 10 months before returning to London. Newcomer Sir Thomas Dale traded leadership responsibilities with Gates and Percy and came to embody the new sociopolitical climate. Dale wrote into law the punishment of execution for crimes such as adultery, theft, unlicensed trade, and desertion. Those who did not adhere to the new schedule were whipped, as were those who relieved themselves within a quarter mile of the fort.

The war with Powhatan continued, with the independent Patawomeck providing necessary trade with Jamestown (via charming ship captain Samuel Argall). One day in March 1613, Argall noticed Pocahontas visiting a Patawomeck village and blackmailed an Indigenous associate to lure and kidnap her as leverage against Powhatan. In a plea for his daughter’s life, Powhatan returned a number of prisoners and stolen tools, but ignored further entreaties.

During 16-year-old Pocahontas’s imprisonment, she was moved from Jamestown to a Dale-led colony called Henricus and improved her English with the help of Reverend Alexander Whitacre—a man determined to convert her to Christianity.