The Starving Time

This book tells the history of a famine and a war from the writings of the people who lived through them. Some of what they set down is hard to read. It includes:

• Death from starvation and disease, described by eyewitnesses.
• Cannibalism in the starving winter, including a man who killed his wife.
• The killing of the wife and children of the Paspahegh werowance, the chief of the people around the island, by English soldiers.
• Executions under martial law, among them hanging, burning, breaking on the wheel and starvation bound to a tree.
• Torture used to extract a confession.
• Violence between the colonists and the Powhatans, with killings on both sides.
• The capture of a young woman, her year held for ransom, and her marriage while a captive.
• The colonists' words for the Powhatans, which appear only inside their quotations.