Interpretation

Perceptions --
Europeans of Native Americans -- Seventeenth Century

James Horn's Adapting to a New World: English Society in the Seventeenth-Century Chesapeake addresses the level to which Old World attitudes, values, and norms shaped the formation of society in Virginia and Maryland in the 1600s. Settlers in the Chesapeake, he argues, were quite successful in "transferring significant elements of Old World culture to America," and these beliefs and attitudes were "just as important in forging their adaptation to colonial society as the environment they encountered." (p.10)

The distinct environment of the Chesapeake-the climate, terrain, and, of course, the people were quite new and different in the eyes of the English newcomers-did play an important role in the formation of Virginia society. Following their ten- to thirteen- week voyage across the Atlantic, arrivals would have been initially impressed by the physical characteristics of the land: the vast expanse of the Chesapeake Bay, the massive rivers that dwarfed London's Thames, the immense stretch of the land available to be settled. If they arrived in summer, Horn notes, they would have been struck by the heat and humidity. The winters, on the other hand, were deemed short and no worse than English winters.

The native people of the region were also deemed to be an interesting but inferior race. The potential to form a biracial society where English and Indian could live together on mutually beneficial terms never existed. English stereotypes, plans for colonial expansion, and notions of cultural superiority all prohibited such a development. Colonists who arrived early in the seventeenth century, such as those settling in Jamestown, found themselves in the midst of some thirty tribes united under the leadership of Wahunsenacawh (Powhatan). He was initially willing to allow the Jamestown contingent to settle on the James River, but he and his successor, Opechancanough, soon found the settlers to be a threat and more trouble than they were worth. The first Anglo-Powhatan War, 1609-1614, was launched. Later, in both 1622 and 1644, attempts were made by the Indians to drive the English out of the land.

English impressions of the Indians, however, certainly varied depending on the arena of contact. Depending on whether they first met native Americans in war, disputes over land, or in trade would have made a great deal of difference in initial perceptions of the Indians. Over the span of numerous face-to-face encounters, English stereotypes could have been confirmed or challenged. It is clear that the colonists' perceptions of the Chesapeake region in the seventeenth century would have been varied and multilayered, but fascination was probably a common reaction. According to James Horn, the transferral of various aspects of English society was in part a means of coping with such a new and different environment.