A Little Waste Ground — Chapter Notes

Unless another edition is named, page numbers are those of Lyon Gardiner Tyler, ed., Narratives of Early Virginia, 1606–1625 (1907), which prints all of the following:

Percy: George Percy, Observations, as abridged by Samuel Purchas (1625).
True Relation: John Smith, A True Relation (1608).
Description: John Smith, A Map of Virginia, with a Description of the Countrey (1612).
Proceedings: The Proceedings of the English Colonies in Virginia (1612), compiled from the writings of Smith's companions.
Generall Historie IV: John Smith, The Generall Historie of Virginia (1624), Book IV, including the letter to Queen Anne.

Two other editions are cited by name: Arber (Edward Arber and A. G. Bradley, eds., Travels and Works of Captain John Smith, 1910) for Book III of the Generall Historie, and Wingfield (Edward Maria Wingfield, A Discourse of Virginia, ed. Charles Deane, 1860). Quotations keep the spelling of the edition cited.

Chapter 1. The Box

The landing at Cape Henry and the first days ashore follow Percy, pp. 9 to 11, the only eyewitness account of those days with any detail.

"faire meddowes and goodly tall Trees": Percy, pp. 9 to 10.
The night attack, the men "creeping upon all foure, from the Hills, like Beares": Percy, p. 10. Smith's brief version is in the True Relation, p. 32.
The box and the council's names: True Relation, p. 32; Proceedings, pp. 122 to 123.
Smith a prisoner at sea: his own account is in Book III of the Generall Historie (Arber, vol. 2, pp. 388 to 389), where his accusers "fained he intended to usurp the government, murther the Councell, and make himselfe King"; the same words are quoted in Tyler's note, p. 5. Purchas's marginal note on Percy's text, "Captaine Smith was suspected for a supposed Mutinie, though never no such matter", is quoted in Tyler, p. 5, note 4. Both accounts take Smith's side; the charge itself survives only through them.
April 27 to 29, the roasting oysters, the great canoe and the cross: Percy, pp. 10 to 11.

Chapter 2. A Little Waste Ground

Percy, pp. 11 to 18, carries the whole chapter, from the river's mouth to the falls.

Kecoughtan, the "dolefull noise", the feast and the dance: Percy, p. 12.
The werowance Percy calls "of Rapahanna", his flute, his crown of deer hair and his town on the hill: Percy, pp. 13 to 14. Tyler (p. 13, note 2; p. 47, note 2) took this chief for a visitor from the Rappahannock River, come to the James to help resist the English, and the town on the south shore for a town of the Quiyoughcohanocks. Percy's text calls it his.
The Paspaheghs' main town, lately moved to Sandy Point about ten miles above the island: Tyler's note, p. 13.
The hatchet of May 18: Percy, pp. 15 to 16.
The deer and the target, and "Pasphia was as good as his word; for hee sent Venison, but the Sawse came within a few dayes after": Percy, p. 17.
The river voyage: Smith dates it from April 22 (True Relation, p. 33); Percy and Tyler put it May 21 to 27, with the cross at the falls on May 24. I have followed Percy. Smith gives the party as "twenty two persons" (p. 33).
The werowance's reply: Percy, p. 18. "Why should you bee offended with them as long as they hurt you not, nor take any thing away by force. They take but a litle waste ground, which doth you nor any of us any good." These are Percy's words for what the werowance said; Percy adds that he answered "very wisely of a Savage". Tyler identifies the chief Smith met at the falls that week as Parahunt, a son of Powhatan (p. 33, note 3).

Chapter 3. The Sauce

The assault of May 26: True Relation, p. 35, for Smith's "400. Indians", the men setting corn, the hurt council, the boy killed in the pinnace and the attackers' loss "as they report". A fragmentary account of the river voyage, written that summer and usually credited to Gabriel Archer, gives eleven men hurt, one of whom died, and the shot through Wingfield's beard (Arber's printing of the Relatyon). It gives no number for the attackers. I have printed Smith's figure as his.
The fort: Percy, p. 19, finished on June 15, "triangle wise", with its half-moon bulwarks.
Newport's sailing on June 22: Percy, p. 20, "leaving us (one hundred and foure persons) verie bare and scantie of victualls"; Smith, p. 35, says he left "provision for 13. or 14 weeks". Percy has the promise of a supply "within twentie weekes".
dry-vats: baskets or packing cases, in Tyler's gloss.

Chapter 4. The List

Percy's pages on the dying summer (pp. 20 to 22) are the foundation. His list of the dead is given in full there; the chapter names only some of them.

The watch, the can of barley, the river water: Percy, pp. 21 to 22.
"There were never Englishmen left in a forreigne Countrey in such miserie": Percy, p. 21.
The diseases, "Swellings, Flixes, Burning Fevers": Percy, p. 21. The flux and the fevers are generally taken today to have been dysentery and typhoid.
Gosnold's burial, "having all the Ordnance in the Fort shot off": Percy, p. 21.
The bodies "trailed out of their Cabines like Dogges": Percy, p. 22.
"the living were scarce able to bury the dead": True Relation, p. 36.

Chapter 5. Mortall Enemies

The quarrel over the stores is told from both sides, Smith's True Relation (pp. 36 to 41) and Wingfield's Discourse, and neither side is better placed. The two men hated each other.

The corn: Percy, p. 22, "It pleased God, after a while, to send those people which were our mortall enemies to releeve us"; True Relation, p. 36, "ere it was halfe ripe ... when we rather expected when they would destroy us".
The sack and aquavitae: Smith's charge, True Relation, p. 36. Wingfield's answers: the store spent "saueing twoe gallons of each", the sack kept for communion (Wingfield, p. 19); the one squirrel (p. 27); the rumor as Smith's (p. 41). Tyler quotes Wingfield on the others' thirst, p. 36, note.
The deposition: the warrant of September 10 (Wingfield, pp. 21 to 22), the court the next day (Wingfield, p. 23; Percy, p. 22, "The eleventh day"). Smith dates it "about the tenth". Ratcliffe's grievance and Wingfield's reply about his chickens: Wingfield, pp. 23 and 41. Wingfield was born about 1560 (Tyler, p. 22, note 2).
"about 46. of our men dead": True Relation, pp. 36 to 37.
Smith as cape merchant at Kecoughtan: True Relation, pp. 37 to 39.
Kendall: put off the council for sowing discord (Wingfield, p. 17; Percy, p. 21), accused by the blacksmith James Read from the ladder, and shot (Wingfield, pp. 17 and 30). His objection that Ratcliffe's name was Sicklemore is Wingfield's (p. 30). No source dates the shooting more closely than late in 1607.
Ellis Kinistone, "starved to death with cold": Percy, p. 22.

Chapter 6. The Bed of Mats

The capture and the stay at Werowocomoco follow the True Relation, pp. 43 to 51, written within six months.

The swamp, the compass and Robinson's body: True Relation, p. 44.
The march, the hunting camp and the deer fires: True Relation, pp. 44 to 48; Tyler's note identifies the fires as a hunting drive.
Powhatan on his bedstead, "with such a grave and Majesticall countenance": True Relation, p. 48.
Smith's story of the Spaniards: True Relation, p. 48.
Powhatan's offer of land and corn, "Hee promised to give me Corne, Venison, or what I wanted to feede us": True Relation, p. 50.
"that I much doubted they intended to have sacrificed mee": True Relation, p. 51.
The editor's preface: Tyler, p. 31.
The later telling: the letter to Queen Anne, dated 1616 and printed by Smith in 1624, Generall Historie IV, p. 326 ("at the minute of my execution"; "After some six weeks fatting amongst those Salvage Courtiers"; Tyler notes that Smith was away about three weeks, from December 10 to January 2). The stones and the clubs: Generall Historie, Book III (Arber, vol. 2, pp. 399 to 400). I have quoted only two phrases from that passage, from Arber's text, and given the rest of it in my own words. Tyler (p. 28) points out that Smith left his arrest at sea and his death sentence out of the True Relation as well.
The Queen of Appamattuck: in the 1624 scene she brings water for Smith's hands (Arber, vol. 2, p. 399). The True Relation, p. 54, has "the Queene of Apamatuc" bring him water, a turkey and bread at Werowocomoco in February 1608.
Pocahontas's age: Smith gives three different ages in three texts; see the note to Chapter 9.

Chapter 7. Eight and Thirtie

The return: True Relation, pp. 52 to 53, from the guides who "trifled away that day" to the fort at sunrise on January 2, and Archer "sworne Counsellour" in his absence.
"they purposed to depose me": True Relation, p. 52. In the Generall Historie Smith says he was condemned to die under a law out of Leviticus; Tyler accepted the later account. I have given it as Smith's.
Newport's arrival the same night and the fire "within five or sixe dayes": True Relation, p. 52.
The thirty-eight: Smith's letter to Queen Anne, Generall Historie IV, p. 326, "where I found about eight and thirtie miserable poore and sicke creatures". It is Smith's figure, written eight years later; elsewhere in the Generall Historie he puts the winter garrison at forty.
Powhatan's bread and venison, "halfe alwayes for my father": True Relation, pp. 52 to 53.

Chapter 8. Powhatans

The visit to Werowocomoco in February and March 1608 follows the True Relation, pp. 53 to 61.

Smith ashore with "20. shot armed in Jacks": p. 53; jacks were "coats made of thick leather" (Tyler, p. 53, note 3).
Powhatan's question, "Why we came armed in that sort": pp. 56 to 57.
The arms at his feet: p. 55.
The proclamation, "no man account us strangers nor Paspaheghans, but Powhatans": p. 55.
"Victuals you must know is all there wealth": p. 55. The custom of the gift: p. 56.
Thomas Savage, "whom he gave him as his Sonne": pp. 56 to 57.
The coppers and the corn: p. 57; the 250 bushels and the sailing of April 10, p. 61.
Distances: Werowocomoco twelve miles from the fort overland and about a hundred by water (Proceedings, p. 155).

Chapter 9. The Rack

The thefts, the captives and the Phoenix: True Relation, pp. 61 to 71. The Phoenix came in on April 20 (p. 64) and lay in the river until June 2 (Tyler, p. 66, note 1).
The mainmast and the rack: True Relation, p. 67, "I affrighted the other, first with the rack, then with Muskets".
Pocahontas and Rawhunt: True Relation, p. 69.
Opechancanough's glove and bracer: True Relation, pp. 69 to 70.
Pocahontas's age: Smith calls her "a child of tenne yeares old" in 1608 (p. 69); in his 1616 letter he made her "twelve or thirteene" in December 1607 (Generall Historie IV, p. 326); the Proceedings say "at most not past 13 or 14 yeares of age" for the winter of 1608 to 1609 (p. 199). Tyler thought her about thirteen (p. 69, note 1). Modern accounts put her birth about 1596. The chapter does not choose.
The manuscript sails: the Phoenix left on June 2 with Martin aboard (Tyler, p. 71, note 2). The True Relation was entered for printing in London on August 13, 1608.

Chapter 10. The Bay

The two voyages up the Chesapeake follow the Proceedings, pp. 140 to 151, written by men who were in the barge.

"an open barge of two tunnes burthen": p. 141.
The bad water of Wighcocomoco: p. 142.
The stingray: p. 146, including the grave dug on the island "(as himselfe appointed)" and Doctor Russell's oil.
The fort in July, Ratcliffe deposed and Scrivener made president: p. 147.
The Susquehannocks, the bearskin, the beads and the mantles: p. 149.
The return on September 7, Ratcliffe "the late President prisoner for muteny": p. 151.

Chapter 11. The Letters Patents

Smith takes office, September 10, 1608: Proceedings, p. 151. Some accounts give September 20; I have followed the Proceedings.
The fort reshaped, the drill: p. 151.
The Second Supply: "Mistresse Forest and Anne Buras her maide, 8. Dutchmen and Poles, with divers to the number of 70. persons" (p. 160); "the first gentlewoman and woman servant that arrived in our Colony" (p. 155). Newport's private commission, his presents for Powhatan and the new councillors: pp. 152 to 153.
Powhatan's reply to the invitation: p. 154.

Chapter 12. The Crown

The coronation: Proceedings, p. 155, "a fowle trouble there was to make him kneele to receave his crowne", through the old shoes and the mantle.
Newport's march toward the Monacans, with 120 men: pp. 155 to 156.
Smith's letter to the Company: given here in reported speech; the text appears in the Generall Historie, Book III.

Chapter 13. The First Marriage

Trading on the rivers: Proceedings, pp. 157 to 161, including "it was Powhatans pollicy to starve us" (p. 157) and Nansemond's hundred bushels (p. 160).
The marriage: "there was a marriage between John Laydon and Anne Burrowes, being the first marriage we had in Virginia" (p. 160).
The drought: David W. Stahle and others, "The Lost Colony and Jamestown Droughts", Science 280 (1998), pp. 564 to 567, from the rings of bald cypress trees.

Chapter 14. With Love

The journey to Werowocomoco, December 1608 to January 1609: Proceedings, pp. 162 to 169.
Powhatan's speech: Proceedings, pp. 165 to 166. It is Powhatan as Smith's companions printed it three years later, and the most quoted speech of the period.
The house-builders: the Proceedings give two counts on facing pages, "3. Dutchmen and 2. English" (p. 161) and "4 Dutchmen and Richard Salvage" (p. 162); the chapter gives none. Richard Savage is not Thomas Savage.
Pocahontas's warning: Proceedings, p. 199, "shee by stealth in the darke night came through the wild woods and told him of it". It is told there as one of the answers to a charge against Smith, not in its place in the narrative.

Chapter 15. Pamunkey

The house surrounded: Proceedings, pp. 170 to 173. The text puts Opechancanough's men at "6. or 700."; Tyler noted that this number was probably greatly exaggerated.
The challenge, "here I stand, shoote hee that dare": p. 173.
The vambrace: p. 172. In 1624 Smith wrote instead that he seized Opechancanough by his long lock of hair. I have followed the earlier text.
Scrivener's skiff: p. 174, "they were all drowned"; Wiffin's journey and his night at Powhatan's, the same page. Hog Island lay about seven miles below the fort (Tyler's note, p. 174).

Chapter 16. The Glasshouse

The Dutchmen and the arms: Proceedings, pp. 169 to 170 and 177.
The ambush on the riverbank and the poisoning: pp. 174 to 176.
The fight in the river: p. 181, "the President held him by the haire and throat til the Poles came in". The glasshouse stood about a mile from the fort (p. 181).
Fifty miles: the Dutchmen's distance, "Overland from Oropaks" (Tyler, p. 182, note 3).
The writers: the chapter of the Proceedings that ends here is signed by Wiffin, Phettiplace and Todkill (p. 178).

Chapter 17. He That Will Not Worke

In the Proceedings the law of work, the four-hour day and the board of names (pp. 179 to 180) come before the fight at the glasshouse. The chapter dates them from Smith's return in February.

"he that will not worke, shall not eate": p. 180. Tyler glosses the "table" as a notice board (p. 180, note 1).
The werowance's escape, Kemps and Kinsock: p. 182. The same prisoners are "Kemps and Tassore" on p. 185; I have taken Kinsock and Tassore for one man.
Ocanindge: p. 183, "a stout young man called Ocanindge; whose worthie discourse deserveth to be remembered", and his speech.
The man in the dungeon: pp. 183 to 184.

Chapter 18. What Nature Afforded

The three months' work, the corn and the rats: Proceedings, pp. 184 to 185.
Kemps and Tassore teaching the planting of the fields, then freed "for want of victuall": p. 185.
Percy at Point Comfort and West at the falls: pp. 185 to 186.
The basket of corn at Powhatan's and the men who would trade the tools for it: p. 186.
The order and the billeting: p. 187.

Chapter 19. The Third Supply

Volda and the Dutchmen: Proceedings, pp. 188 to 189.
Argall's ship: p. 189.
The fleet: nine ships and about five hundred people sailed; the Sea Venture, with Gates, Somers, Newport and the new commission, was missing; seven ships came in (p. 191).
"so railing and exclaiming against Captaine Smith, that they mortally hated him ere ever they see his face": p. 191.
The new commission: the Proceedings say the government passed to Lord De La Warr, who sent Gates and Somers as his deputies (p. 191); Tyler notes that Gates held the first commission as governor in his own right. The chapter calls Gates only the man "who carried the new commission".

Chapter 20. Nonsuch

Martin at Nansemond: Proceedings, pp. 192 to 193.
The falls and the purchase: pp. 193 to 195. Smith "sent presently to Powhatan, to sell him the place called Powhatan" (p. 193); I have read the first "Powhatan" as the chief and the second as his town at the falls.
Nonsuch: p. 195, "for which we called it Nonsuch"; West's men to "the open aire at West Fort".
The distance: the Proceedings put the falls "neare 100. miles" from the fort (p. 196); Tyler's note gives about sixty-eight miles by water (p. 196, note 1). Smith, in the True Relation, put the voyage to the falls at "some fiftie or sixtie miles" (p. 33); the chapter follows his figure.
The writers: Richard Pott and William Phettiplace, for the last chapter of the Proceedings (Tyler, p. 195, note 1).

Chapter 21. The Powder Bag

The burn: Proceedings, p. 195, "which tore his flesh from his bodie and thighes 9. or 10. inches square". Tyler dates it about the beginning of September 1609 (p. 195, note 5).
The plot and the pistol: p. 196; Tyler names the would-be assassin as Coe or Dyer (note 4).
Percy persuaded to stay, "within lesse then an howre": p. 196.
The commission: p. 197.
The examinations: p. 198. The Proceedings say both that the ships were "to depart the next daie" (p. 196) and that they stayed "3 weekes longer" (p. 198) for the complaints to be prepared; the chapter follows the second.
The witnesses: p. 199.

Chapter 22. Four Hundred Ninety and Odde

Smith's going and the inventory: Proceedings, p. 197. "Leaving us thus, with 3 ships, 7 boates ... 490 and odde persons, 24 peeces of ordinances, 300 muskets". Smith sailed about October 4, 1609.
The weighing: Tyler's note, p. 198: "As many of these articles had been brought in by the newcomers, Smith was not entitled to the full credit." The new people and their stores had come in August.
The Sea Venture: wrecked on Bermuda (see the note to Chapter 19).
Ratcliffe to Point Comfort, the return of Martin and West, the revolt, the store, the "20 Presidents": Proceedings, p. 200. Tyler's running head on this page reads 1610, but the passage opens "When the ships departed", and Tyler's own note places Ratcliffe's fort at Point Comfort after the ships left in October 1609.
The word list: Description, p. 79. The lines quoted are Smith's English glosses of separate sentences in the Powhatan language, joined in the chapter with ellipses; the Powhatan words are omitted.
Orapax: Smith's "orapaks". Powhatan had already left Werowocomoco in the winter of 1609 (see the note to Chapter 16).