Pocahontas and the English Boys: Caught Between Cultures in Early Virginia

In Captives and Cousins, James L. Brooks detailed the importance of the exchange of captives between American Indian peoples and Euroamericans, beginning with the Spanish and later with U.S. citizens. The practice forged ties among the groups and created cultural intermediaries. Kupperman (emerita, history, New York Univ.;$SPACE$The Jamestown Project) examines a manifestation of the same phenomena during the establishment of the Jamestown colony in Virginia in the early 17th century through the experiences of Pocahontas, a Powhatan, and three English boys: Thomas Savage, Henry Spelman, and Robert Poole. They were not the only teenage captives exchanged between the Algonquin peoples of Chesapeake Bay and the English but were the ones who appear most often in the historical record. With a unique perspective shaped by living within a different culture, these young men became valuable mediators between the Native Americans and the English for their entire lives. At the same time, they were not viewed as members of either group, thus their motives were always suspect.