The Kidnapped Local “Princess”: How the Patawomeck People Navigated Deceit from All Sides
By: Lisa Timmerman, Executive Director
“Captaine Argall intelligence, but he delt with an old friend, and adopted brother of his Iapazeus, how and by what meanes he might procure hir captive, assuring him, that now or never, was the time to pleasure him, if he entended indeede that love which he had made profession of, that in ransome of hir he might redeeme some of our English men and armes…” Raphe Hamor recorded the kidnapping of Pocahontas in his “A True Discourse of the Present Estate of Virginia” printed in 1615. He served as Secretary of the Virginia colony until 1614 and returned to Virginia in 1617 where his life was strife with conflict and controversy. While he claimed Captain Samuel Argall lured the Patawomeck subchief Iopassus (Iapazeus) into helping capture Pocahontas for the reward of a “small Copper kettle, and some other les valuable toies so highly by him esteemed”, he greatly misunderstood the situation and the indigenous people.
(The Abduction of Pocahontas by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris, early 20th century painting, Courtesy of the Virginia Historical Society. Note how the artist romanticized this exchange and the more English appearance of Pocahontas)
While the Patawomeck peoples paid tribute to Powhatan, they lived on the fringe of the alliance’s territory, closer to other hostile Algonquian-speaking groups. The people deftly maneuvered between many tumultuous relationships as the English certainly added new elements to their political and social worlds. While Captain John Smith claimed he encountered the Patawomeck people in 1608, even falsely reported they secreted a “glistering metal”, Captain Samuel Argall’s expeditions led him to actively engage in diplomacy, hoping to create a fissure in the tenuous indigenous alliances. From 1609-1614, the First Anglo-Powhatan War raged between the English and Powhatan’s alliances, persisting in small-scale but frequent and persistent warfare. Sidenote: Some scholars argue the label “Anglo-Powhatan War” misidentifies the complexities of the situation, only addressing it from an English perspective. However, the ongoing conflict led to serious problems such as food supply and Captain Argall headed north to find willing trade partners. In 04/1613, Argall learned Pocahontas was in the town of Passapatanzy, recognizing that she would be a valuable hostage. Regarding Iopassus role in the deception of detaining and kidnapping Pocahontas on a boat, Hamor recorded, “he [Iopassus] would reserve Pocahuntas, whereat she began to be exceeding pensive, and discontented, yet ignorant of the dealing of Iapazeus, who in outward appearance was no less discontented that he should be the meanes of her captivity, much a doe there was to perswade her to be patient, which with extraordinary curteous usage, by little and little was wrought in her, and so to James towne she was brought, a messenger to her father forthwith dispached to advertise him, that his only daughter was in the hands & possession of the English…” Pocahontas was a hostage in Jamestown for about a year as the English and Powhatans negotiated and her marriage to John Rolfe in 04/1614 brought an uneasy truce for a short period.
(Map of Powhatan Paramount Chiefdom created by Historian Helen Rountree, 2002. Read more here with Encyclopedia Virginia)
Unfortunately, we do not have a first-person account from Iopassus or the Patawomeck peoples. English sources are fraught with indigenous stereotypes, presumed cultural superiority, misunderstanding (and lack of wanting to), and agenda as letters and narratives measured and generated the financial backbone of the Virginia Company. In 1617, the same year Pocahontas died, John Rolfe printed “A True Relation of the state of Virginia Lefte by Sir Thomas Dale Knight in May Last 1616, referring back to Hamor’s writings, “How happily and plenteously the good blessings of God have fallen upon the people and colony since the last impression, faithfully written by a gent. of good merit, Mr. Ralph Hamor, (some tyme an actuall member in the Plantation, even then departing when the foundacoun and ground worke was new laid of their now thrift and happines,) of the earthie and worldly man is scarcely believed, but of heavenlier minds they are most easilie discerned, for they daily attend and marke how those blessings, (though sometimes restrayned for a tyme,) in the end, are poured upon the servants of the Lord.” As with Hamor, Rolfe also had an agenda to promote in keeping the Virginia Company alive and thriving with interest and influential backers overseas. Many complicated factors went into the decision to assist in the kidnapping of Pocahontas – from potential benefits and veiled and no so subtle threats. A “small Copper kettle” could not determine the decisions of a people that thrived in a setting with shifting enemies and neighbors. The Patawomecks would again ally with the English but earnest English encroachment in 1654, combined with disease and declaration of war on the peoples in 1666 led to the disappearance of the people in the English records.
The Patawomeck tribe applied for and eventually received official state recognition in 2010. Click here for their official website.
Note: What’s on the agenda for Friday, 05/20, 7pm? Grab your walking shoes, bottle of water, and join us and Prince William County Historic Preservationists as we give a free outside walking tour of the area! Click here to view our seasonal programs!
(Sources: Eckhardt, Joshua, and Dictionary of Virginia Biography. "Ralph Hamor (bap. 1589–by October 11, 1626)" Encyclopedia Virginia. Virginia Humanities, (22 Dec. 2021). Web. 17 May. 2022; Rountree, Helen C. Pocahontas’s People: The Powhatan Indians of Virginia Through Four Centuries. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1990; Wolfe, Brendan. "First Anglo-Powhatan War (1609–1614)" Encyclopedia Virginia. Virginia Humanities, (17 Feb. 2021). Web. 17 May. 2022; Rolfe, John. "A True Relation of the state of Virginia Lefte by Sir Thomas Dale Knight in May Last 1616 (1617)" Encyclopedia Virginia.Virginia Humanities, (07 Dec. 2020). Web. 17 May. 2022)
