Paper Sovereigns: Anglo-Native Treaties and the Law of Nations

Paper Sovereigns This page intentionally left blank Paper Sovereigns k Anglo-Native Treaties and the Law of Nations, 1604–1664 Jeffrey Glover UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA PRESS Philadelphia Copyright © 2014 University of Pennsylvania Press All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations used for purposes of review or scholarly citation, none of this book may be reproduced in any form by any means without written permission from the publisher. Published by University of Pennsylvania Press Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-4112 www.upenn.edu/pennpress Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Glover, Jeffrey. Paper sovereigns : Anglo–Native treaties and the law of nation, 1604–1664 / Jeffrey Glover—1st ed. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8122-4596-7 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Indians of North America— Government relations—To 1789. 2. Indians of North America—Legal status, laws, etc.— History— 17th century. 3. Indians of North America— Treaties— History— 17th century. 4. United States— Politics and government—To 1774. 5. United States—Ethnic relations— Political aspects— History— 17th century. 6. Great Britain—Foreign relations— 1603– 1688— Treaties. I. Title. E91.G55 2014 323.1197—dc23 2013046741 What will it availe you to take that by force you may quickly have by love? —Powhatan, chief of the Powhatans, as quoted in John Smith, The Generall Historie of Virginia, New-England, and the Summer Isles (1624) k This page intentionally left blank Contents k A Note on Naming and Spelling ix Introduction 1 Chapter 1 Heavy Heads: Crowning Kings in Early Virginia 27 Chapter 2 The Ransom of Pocahontas: Kidnapping and Dynastic Marriage in Jamestown and London 71 Chapter 3 Gunpowder Diplomacy: Arms and Alliance in Plymouth and Patuxet 118 Chapter 4 Trading Sovereignty: The Fur Trade and the Freedom of the Seas 158 viii Contents Chapter 5 Gift of an Empire: The Land Market and the Law of Nations in Narragansett Bay 187 Notes 227 Bibliography 269 Index 301 Acknowledgments 311 A Note on Naming and Spelling k he question of how to refer to the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North Amer- Tica has been politically charged for many centuries. It is further complicated by the inaccurate descriptions of European settlers and by the many migrations and displacements that occurred after European arrival. Where possible, I use contem- porary names for specific tribes. In cases where a tribe did not survive the colonial period, I use the most widely accepted transcription of its name. I also use the most widely accepted names for individual Native Americans, with the acknowledgment that these are usually European renderings of names that did not take alphabetic form. I use “Native” as the default descriptor for pre-Columbian North Americans, but I also use “Indian,” especially when paraphrasing European points of view or referring to European concepts of American people. European spelling presents problems as well. In general, I have preserved the punctuation and spelling of early modern sources. However, I have corrected “u” to “v,” “i” to “j,” “VV” to “w.” I have also silently modernized all shorthand or unusual typographical practices, changing “ye” to “the,” “Yf ” to “if,” and “consultacòn,” to “consultation.” I have deleted the spaces that early modern printers sometimes left before colons and semicolons. Finally, I have emended in brackets all obvious compositors’ errors. I have retained the capital- ization of the titles of printed works, with the exception of words that are entirely capitalized, which are capitalized only in their first letter here (articles and most prepositions excepted). This page intentionally left blank Introduction: A Great Shout k he Indian guide was trying to get the sailors’ attention before it was too late. TThey were docked by a waterfall, waiting for the Indian king to arrive. The sailors were confident. They had feasted with the king the day before, and their captain, Christopher Newport, had “kyndly imbraced” him, confirming “a leauge of fryndship.”1 This next meeting would go well, they erew sure. But the Indian guide was worried. The night before, the sailors had departed without offering the formal goodbye required by Powhatan diplomacy. They could be excused that once—they were new, after all. But the guide had to show them how to behave this time around, or risk offense to the king. Raising his voice over the steady roar of the falls, the guide made a quick demonstration of proper protocol. It was simple. When the king arrived, they were to shout in unison. When he left, they were to shout again, bringing things to a close. The shout, a simple rhythmic cadence, was easy to learn. It felt familiar to the sailors, who did the same thing for important people in England. When the king finally appeared, they followed the guide’s example, shouting a happy welcome. And later, when he turned to go home, they did it again, “two severall times,” and the Indians “answer[ed] [their] shout with gladnes in a friendly fashion.”2 In some ways, the day had not gone well. The king had politely rebuffed their request to travel farther upriver, and the sailors were no longer so confident. But the shouting seemed to leave things on good terms. As they sailed home to the newly built fort at Jamestown, they were sure the king was their friend. At some point in the days following the meeting at the falls, Gabriel Archer, the secretary of the settlement venture, sat down to compose an account of the 2 Introduction trip. This letter was crucial to their fortunes. Investors in London were eager to know how they had gotten along with nearby Indians, and it was Archer’s job to inform them. Archer was equally aware that other people might read his letter, too—rival English adventurers, for example, who were ready to stake their own claims, or, more frightening, Spanish spies, who might intercept a copy in London, and were eager to see England’s colonies destroyed. To stave off these threats, it was important that he describe the journey upriver in a way that clearly established English rights to the land. Curiously, though, Archer’s letter did not resemble what most Europeans would have recognized as a legal document of any kind—much less a land claim. There were no references to the New World as a waste space, void, or empty territory waiting to be taken by the first Christians who found it. In- stead, there was a detailed account of the many “kynges” who ruled the area.3 And there were scant descriptions of forts, houses, or fences (the way Euro- peans usually showed ownership). Such details were pushed aside in favor of an almost theatrical account of diplomacy among the Indians, with feasting, dancing, and other ceremonies taking center stage. Perhaps most surprising was the way Archer documented Indian treaties, like the league with the king. There were none of the Latin formulas so familiar in European treaties, no lists of witnesses, no signatures—not even the x- marks found in treaties between the English crown and illiterate Irish clansmen. In a startling departure from European conventions, Archer offered an account of treaty making on Indian terms, pointing to the exchange of shouts and other indigenous rituals as proof of friendship between Newport and the king. English colonists in the first decades of the seventeenth century spent a surprising amount of energy documenting the political life of the people whose territory they invaded. They described Native leaders askings , and referred to tribal polities as nations and empires.4 They detailed Native ceremonies, set down the speeches of Native leaders, and reported on the proceedings of tribal councils. Most of all, when it came to recounting treaties, they often chose to describe Native ways of making and marking agreement, preferring stories of feasts, shouting, and tribute to the somber signing rituals of European diplomacy. This book tries to explain why Archer and so many other English colonists were interested in coastal treaties, and why they so often focused on Native rituals in their writings home. That colonists cared about Native politics at all may seem like a surprising thing to assert, given what we know about how Introduction 3 things turned out. An important body of scholarship has shown that colonists imposed their own political and legal systems on Native people.5 In what fol- lows, there will be much to confirm this story. In early North America, as in other places of encounter, the law and its rituals were undoubtedly instruments of conquest. But as Archer’s document so vividly shows, English colonists were far from dismissive of coastal treaty practices. One reason for their interest was the simple desire to survive. Newport and his group were outnumbered, as were most English colonists in the first years after arrival, and settling on anything other than Native terms was out of the question. But this does not explain why writers like Archer described coastal rituals in such detail in letters home, at times even choosing Indian protocols over their own. Understanding that, I will argue in this book, requires looking beyond the riverbank to the palaces, halls, and council rooms where European crowns negotiated rights to American territory. Though Archer focuses on the politics of the coast, his report also reflected dramatic shifts in European legal systems in the decades before English settlement. The English set sail for the New World at a time of great uncertainty about international law, or what they called the law of nations.

Load more