Peninsula In Passage

In retaliation Smith’s group began chopping the Indian canoes into pieces until the Nansemonds agreed to put down their bows and arrows. Smith threatened to destroy all of their canoes and burn their houses, corn and all they had. The Nansemonds capitulated and put away their bows. Smith then made peace with them and asked for their bows and arrows, a string of pearls and four hundred baskets of corn. To quote Smith…”And so departing good friends, we returned to James Town, where we safely arrived the 7 of September, 1608.” By late fall 1608 settlers at Jamestown made another trip to the Nansemond seeking food which they got only after they fired off muskets and burned a house. By then the Nansemonds were wary of any further trading attempts. When Jamestown soldiers arrived in the summer of 1609 seeking food, a battle ensued and the soldiers absconded with as much as 1000 baskets of corn. Source: Alan Flanders The Virginian-Pilot - copyright © 2000, Landmark Communications, Inc. Sunday, July 2, 2000 Portsmouth Currents Olde Town Journal Alan Flanders Year of the Starving Time 1609–1610

The winter of 1609–1610 was difficult in Jamestown, as 400 new settlers had arrived with inadequate supplies. As cold weather approached Smith suggested that to survive the oncoming winter the settlers should split into three groups and relocate at the falls of the James, at Kecoughtan and with the Nansemonds. Only the settlers at Kecoughtan were successful. Those on the Nansemond met with disaster as described by archaeologist Nick Luccketti in “First Forts” with quotations from John Smith’s writings. “ A party under Captain John Martin with approximately one hundred men headed to the Nansemond area with instructions to establish a permanent settlement on Dumpling Island in the Nansemond River and live off the land. Dumpling Island was the nucleus of Nansemond Indian culture; the Nansemond werowance or chief lived on the island among temples, tombs, cornfields and an ‘abundance of houses and people’. Martin sent two messengers to the Nansemond werowance to negotiate for the purchase of the island. When the messengers failed to return, Martin decided to take the island by force. Nansemond Indian informants then admitted to Martin that the two messengers ‘were sacrifysed And that their Braynes weare cut and skraped out of their heads with mussel shelles’. This news enraged the English and they attacked the island with a vengeance. They ‘beate the Salvages out of the Island, burned their howses Ransaked their Temples Tooke downe the Corpes of their deade kings from of their Toambes And cartyed away their pearles Copper and braceletts’. Martin, ‘leaving his company to their fortunes,’ claimed that he was needed at Jamestown and left Lieutenant Sicklemore in charge at Nansemond. The

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