A settlement can survive one winter and still have no future. Jamestown had endured its darkest hour. Now it had to learn how to live, grow, produce, govern, and survive in a land already inhabited by people with their own communities, leaders, interests, and histories.
Research: The Bible, Internet, A.I. BTW I’ve noticed that when you look up a particular individual you sometimes come across images of someone else. REFERENCES PRIMARY SOURCES 1. Hamor, Ralph. A True Discourse of the Present Estate of Virginia, and the Success of the Affairs There Till the 18th of June 1614. London, 1615. o Major primary source for: Pocahontas’s capture Negotiations with Powhatan Her baptism as Rebecca John Rolfe’s letter requesting permission to marry her The marriage and peace 2. Rolfe, John. “Letter to Sir Thomas Dale,” 1614. o Important primary source for Rolfe’s own explanation of his decision to marry Pocahontas. 3. Whitaker, Alexander. Letter included in Ralph Hamor’s 1615 account. o Important primary source concerning Christian instruction and Pocahontas’s baptism. 4. Smith, John. The Generall Historie of Virginia, New-England, and the Summer Isles. 1624. o Used carefully because it was published years after many events and contains accounts that historians debate.
MAJOR HISTORICAL SOURCES 5. National Park Service — Historic Jamestowne. “A Short History of Jamestown.” o Starving Time o Jamestown’s attempted abandonment o Conflict with the Powhatan o Pocahontas and John Rolfe o The development of the colony 6. National Park Service — Historic Jamestowne. “John Rolfe.” o Tobacco experimentation o Pocahontas’s captivity o Henricus o Christian instruction o Baptism as Rebecca o Marriage and later journey to England 7. National Park Service — Historic Jamestowne. “How to Govern, and How to Obey.” o De La Warr o Gates o Dale o The development of military discipline and the Laws Divine, Moral and Martial 8. National Park Service — Historic Jamestowne. “Chronology of Jamestown Events.” o Timeline verification for the major events of the episode. 9. Encyclopedia Virginia. “First Anglo-Powhatan War (1609–1614).” o Excellent chronological overview of the war, leadership changes, Henricus, Argall, Pocahontas’s capture, and the 1614 marriage. 10. Encyclopedia Virginia. “Early Jamestown Settlement.” o Jamestown’s expansion beyond the original settlement o Henricus o Dale’s leadership o Argall’s capture of Pocahontas o Rolfe’s tobacco experiments 11. Library of Congress. “1610 to 1619: Virginia Records Timeline.” o Useful timeline verification, including Argall’s capture of Pocahontas and the expansion of settlements. 12. National Park Service. “From Contact to Present: Indigenous Chesapeake.” o Context for the Powhatan political world and the escalating conflict from 1609–1614.
RECOMMENDED SCHOLARLY WORKS 13. Rountree, Helen C. The Powhatan Indians of Virginia: Their Traditional Culture. University of Oklahoma Press, 1989. 14. Rountree, Helen C. Pocahontas’s People: The Powhatan Indians of Virginia Through Four Centuries. University of Oklahoma Press, 1989. 15. Rountree, Helen C. Powhatan Foreign Relations, 1500–1722. University Press of Virginia, 1993. 16. Townsend, Camilla. Pocahontas and the Powhatan Dilemma. Hill and Wang, 2004. 17. Kupperman, Karen Ordahl. The Jamestown Project. Harvard University Press, 2007. 18. Horn, James. A Land as God Made It: Jamestown and the Birth of America. Basic Books, 2005.
REFERENCE FOR THE ORIGINAL 1615 ACCOUNT The Library of Congress has a digitized copy of Ralph Hamor’s A True Discourse, which includes the letters of Sir Thomas Dale, Reverend Alexander Whitaker, and John Rolfe. My recommendation: keep this as the official reference list for Episode 5, but before final script lock, I would do one final fact-check specifically on Argall’s 1610–1612 movements, Iopassus/Japazaws, the exact capture account, and the sequence of Pocahontas’s captivity at Jamestown and Henricus.
