Explanation:
We do not know why the Indians of the Chesapeake, fierce protectors of their own territory, refrained from destroying the weak vulnerable English outpost in its earliest days, especially since these same tribes wiped out the Spanish mission of Ajacán thirty-seven years earlier. (For a companion lesson see Failed European Colonies in the New World.) The Indians left no written record of their experience with the settlers. However, we do have Percy’s account. If we keep in mind the limitations of his understanding of Indian culture, his European biases, language barriers, the dangerous situation the settlers were in, and the rivalries that apparently existed among the various tribes, we can, through careful and sensitive reading, arrive at a plausible speculation: perhaps the Indians allowed Jamestown to survive because the presence of the English provided advantages to some tribes — trade goods, for example, or prestige — as they vied with others to gain power within the Powhatan Confederation. This exercise in close reading will allow students to be ethnohistorians, discerning the motives and actions of people who left no written evidence.
