Cast of Characters
The council the Company named
The Virginia Company of London sent its orders over in a sealed box, not to be opened until the ships reached Virginia. Inside were the names of seven men who were to govern the colony and choose a president from among themselves.
Edward Maria Wingfield. A gentleman soldier born about 1560, older than most of the council, and its first president. He later wrote a long defense of himself, and much of what we know of the first summer's quarrels comes from it.
Christopher Newport. Captain of the Susan Constant and admiral of the three ships, a veteran of the sea war against Spain who had lost an arm in it. He was to see the colony settled and carry the news home.
Bartholomew Gosnold. Captain of the Godspeed. He had sailed to the coast of New England in 1602.
John Smith. A short, bearded soldier of about twenty-seven, the son of a Lincolnshire tenant farmer, who had fought the Turks in Hungary, been a slave in Turkish hands and escaped, and said so. He crossed the Atlantic a prisoner, accused of plotting mutiny. He wrote more about these years than anyone else, and nearly every famous story in this book is his.
John Ratcliffe. Captain of the Discovery, the smallest ship. His enemies said his right name was Sicklemore.
John Martin. A gentleman of the council, often sick, often at odds with whoever was in charge.
George Kendall. A councillor whose loyalties his colleagues soon came to doubt.
Others from the first ships
George Percy. The eighth son of the Earl of Northumberland, about twenty-six, a former soldier in the Netherlands. He kept an account of the voyage and the first summer, and in it a list of the dead, day by day.
Gabriel Archer. A gentleman of the first fleet, a man with a pen and a following of his own.
Thomas Studley. The first cape merchant, keeper of the colony's store.
James Read. The colony's blacksmith.
John Laydon. A laborer.
The laborers and gentlemen. About a hundred and five men and boys came to stay. Roughly half were listed as gentlemen, men of family who had never done field work; the rest were carpenters, laborers, a bricklayer, a mason, a tailor, a barber, a surgeon, soldiers and four boys.
The Powhatan chiefdom
The country around the colony belonged to more than thirty peoples who paid tribute to one paramount chief. They called their country Tsenacommacah. This book calls them, together, the Powhatans, and each people by its own name.
Powhatan (Wahunsenacah). The paramount chief, an old man who received visitors on a bed of mats under a robe of raccoon skins, his chief men ranked on either side of the fire. His authority ran over the towns from the falls of the rivers to the bay. He left no writing; his words survive as the English took them down.
Opechancanough. Powhatan's brother and werowance of the Pamunkeys, the people of the river country at the head of the York. A war leader of great standing among the towns.
Pocahontas (Amonute, also called Matoaka). Powhatan's daughter, a girl of perhaps ten or eleven when the English first knew her. None of her own words from these years survives.
Namontack. One of Powhatan's trusted men.
Rawhunt. Powhatan's messenger, whom Smith called his "most trustie".
The Paspahegh werowance. The chief of the Paspaheghs, the people whose country held the island where the English chose to build. The English never recorded his own name. The Proceedings call him "a most strong stout Salvage".
Ocanindge. A young man of the Paspaheghs who spoke for his people.
The werowance of Powhatan's town. The chief of the town at the falls of the James, at the head of the tidewater. Percy reported his reply to his own people about the English; it gives this book its title.
Kemps and Kinsock. Two men of the country whom the English came to know well.
Those who came later
The Company sent three relief fleets, called supplies, in January 1608, in the autumn of 1608 and in August 1609.
Matthew Scrivener. A gentleman who came with the First Supply and was made a councillor; Smith's friend and ally.
Thomas Savage. A boy of thirteen who came with the First Supply.
Captain Winne and Captain Waldo. Two old soldiers who came with the Second Supply and joined the council.
Mistress Forest and Anne Buras. The first Englishwomen in the colony, a gentlewoman and her maid, with the Second Supply in the autumn of 1608.
Richard Wiffin. A gentleman of the colony, and one of the men whose writings went into the Proceedings.
The Dutchmen and Poles. Eight foreign craftsmen sent with the Second Supply to make glass, pitch, tar and soap-ashes. Among the Dutchmen were Adam, Francis and Samuel.
Francis West. A younger brother of Lord De La Warr, who came with the Second Supply.
Sir Thomas Gates and Sir George Somers. The soldier and the admiral who sailed in 1609 with a new commission for the colony.
Writers
Richard Pott and William Phettiplace. Two of Smith's men who wrote the closing chapters of the Proceedings, the 1612 account his companions put together.
Samuel Purchas. A London clergyman who collected and printed travel accounts, Percy's among them, in 1625.