London Company - Native American Relationships

Native American Relationships

The instructions issued to Sir Thomas Gates, on November 20, called for a forcible conversion of Native Americans to Anglicanism and subordination to the colonial administration. The records of the company record a discussion during one of their first meetings about publishing a justification of their business enterprise methods to "give adventurers, a clearness and satisfaction, a public debate where Catholics and neutrals might attack them. Whereas Catholic arguments would be in support of Spanish legal claims to the New World under the Treaty of Tordesillas, it was feared that the neutral "pen-adversaries" might "cast scruples into our conscience" by criticising the lawfulness of the plantation. It was decided to forego such a publication of a justification.

However, in 1608, Sir Edward Coke, in his capacity as Lord Chief Justice, offered a ruling in Calvin's Case which went beyond the issue at hand: whether a Scotsman could seek justice at an English Court. Coke distinguished between aliens from nations at war with England and friendly aliens, those from nations in league with England. Friendly aliens could have recourse to English courts. But he also ruled that with "all infidels" (i.e. those from non-Christian nations) there could be no peace, and a state of perpetual hostility would exist between them and Christians.

In 1609, the company issued instructions to kidnap Native American children so as to indoctrinate them with English values and religion. These instructions also sanctioned attacking the Iniocasoockes, the cultural leaders of the local Powhatans. However, it was only when Thomas West, 3rd Baron De La Warr, arrived, in 1610, that the Company was able to commence a war against the Powhatan with the First Anglo-Powhatan War. De La Warr was replaced by Sir Thomas Dale, who continued the war. It was during this period that Pocahontas married John Rolfe.

The military offensive was accompanied by a propaganda war: Alderman Robert Johnson published Nova Britannia, in 1609, which compared Native Americans to wild animals--"heardes of deere in a forest". While it portrayed the Powhatans as peace loving, it nevertheless threatened to deal with any who resisted conversion to Anglicanism as enemies of 'their' country. (Johnson was the son-in-law of Sir Thomas Smith, leader of one of the court factions within the Company in London.)

In 1622, the Second Anglo-Powhatan War erupted. Its origins are disputed. English apologists for the company say that Opchanacanough initiated the war. Native American apologist Robert Williams, a contemporary Native American Law Professor, argues that Opchanacanough had secured concessions from Governor Yeardley which the company would not accept. Thus, Opchanacanough's attack, on April 18, 1622, may have been a pre-emptive attempt to defeat the colony before reinforcements arrived. In about a day, 350 out of 1,240 colonists were killed, and some outlying settlements were wiped out. The Virginia Company quickly published an account of this attack which was steeped in Calvinist theology—the massacre was the work of Providence in that it gave a justification for the complete genocide of the Powhatans, and the building of settlements on their former towns. New orders called for a "perpetual war without peace or truce" "to root out from being any longer a people, so cursed a nation, ungrateful to all benefitte, and incapable of all goodnesses."