Powhatan Roles in Society
The Powhatan were a matriarchal society (society ruled by women). Wealth and
status were inherited through the female line. Powhatan men were allowed to have
more than one wife. It was common for a chief to have many wives. One reason a
man wanted many wives was so he would have many children to help him when he
was old. Parents would arrange the marriage of their daughter and set a price for
the man to pay. The price of the bride might have been deerskins, copper, beads, or
other items deemed valuable. When the bride price was paid, the girl traveled to the
home of the bridegroom where a wedding ceremony would take place, followed by a
feast. A girl married by the time she was 13 years old. The men would be able to
marry after they had been accepted as an adult and had saved a bride price.
Powhatan men might be married at 15 years old.
High honor was given to the families of the chief, especially his wives. The wives of
the chief and wives of other rich men had servants who waited on them and did all
the work. These wives had fancy cloths decorated with pearls, and they wore lots of
jewelry.
The common Powhattan women shared the responsibility with her husband and his
other wives for the lives of their family. The women did the everyday work
associated with caring for the children. In addition, they built houses and grew and
gathered the food, firewood, and plants for medicines. They did most of the work
involved in growing corn, tobacco, and other crops. The women tanned the deer
and other animal skins and used the skins to make clothing, moccasins, blankets,
bags and other items. The women produced many products by weaving animal
skins, tree bark, brushes, grasses, and Indian hemp into thread, floor coverings, floor
mats, baskets, and bed covers. They made household tools, such as needles and
spoons from animal bones, shells and wood. The women carried burdens, since the
Powhatens had no horses or beast of burden. They would accompany men on long
hunting trips, carry supplies, and bring back the game that was killed.
The men spent most of their time fishing, hunting, or going to war. They made most
of their own tools for these activities. They constructed fishing weirs, and made
dugout canoes. In addition, they made bows and arrows, sharp wooden clubs, and
tree bark shields that they used in hunting and in war. They helped the women in
some of the heavier work involved in building the houses and making stone tools
such as mortars.
The birth of a baby was a happy occasion. Young children wore little or no clothing.
The mothers washed the babies in the river on the coldest mornings so they would
become accustomed to the heat and the cold. They helped harden the skin to heat
and cold by rubbing the young children’s skin with paint and animal fat. Most of the
childhood was spent learning the knowledge and skills one would need as an adult.
Boys would learn how to use a bow and arrow, go hunting and fishing with their
fathers, and practice the skill of shooting birds and fish.
Boys had a formal ceremony to mark their passage from boyhood into adulthood. At
age 14 or 15, the priests called boys to the ceremony. The boys bodies were
painted, and they sat under a tree and were led one by one through a line of men
who hit them with sticks. This was called the gauntlet. Then a group of young
warriors would take the boys into the wilderness for 9 months to survive away from
the tribe. If they survived this ordeal, they were considered men, given an adult
name and they took their place as an adult in the tribe.
By the age of 10, girls dressed like their others. A girl was considered a woman
when she was old enough to bear children. At this time she was given an adult
name. Like the boys, young girls would learn skills that would prepare them for
their adult roles.
Young children played games, such as lacrosse, and stick counting game. Their
entertainment and education came from the tribe’s storyteller. They would hear
myths and legends about their people. (Excerpts from the Powhatan Indians of
Virginia by Helen Roundtree, 1989).
According to research by the National Park Service, Powhatan "men were warriors
and hunters, while women were gardeners and gatherers. The English described the
men, who ran and walked extensively through the woods in pursuit of enemies or
game, as tall and lean and possessed of handsome physiques. Powhatan women
were characterized as the gardeners, gatherers, and the caretakers of the home. The
women were strong and shorter than the Powhatan men, because they spent hours
tending the crops, pounding corn meal, gathering nuts, and performing other
domestic chores. They were on their own for much of the time due to the fact that
the men were out hunting, so it was an important role for the women to take care of
the home front. All of the women of the tribe were responsible for looking after all of
the children of the tribe. When the men undertook extended hunts, the women went
ahead of them to construct hunting camps. The Powhatan domestic economy
depended on the labor of both sexes."
Sources: Building a new system, Colonial America 1607-1703
The Native Americans and Illustrated History
Powhatan social
The Powhatan lived east of the fall line in Tidewater Virginia. They built their
houses of poles, rushes, and bark, and they supported themselves primarily by
growing crops, especially maize, but they also fished and hunted in the great forest
in their area. Social class was determined by decent, wealth that was obtained
through warfare and the collection of corn, metal, and skins.
All of Virginia's natives practiced agriculture. They periodically moved their villages
from site to site. Villagers cleared the fields by felling, girdling, or firing trees at the
base and then using fire to reduce the slash and stumps. A village gradually became
untenable as soil productivity gradually declined and local fish and game were
depleted. The inhabitants then moved on. With every change in location, a village
used fire to clear new land and left an even larger amount of cleared land behind.
The natives also used fire to maintain extensive areas of open game habitat
throughout the East, later called "barrens" by European colonists. The Powhatan
also had rich fishing grounds. Bison had arrived to this area by the early 15th
century.
Powhatan Political
Villages consisted of a number of related families organized in tribes that were led
by a king or queen, who was a client of the Emperor and a member of his council.
Thomas Jefferson estimated that the Powhatan Confederacy at one time occupied
about eight thousand square miles of territory, with a population of about eight
thousand people, of whom twenty-four hundred were warriors. The Powhatan’s,
like many other tribes, saw themselves as a community in which everyone looked
after each other. All of the women of the tribe were responsible for looking after all
of the children of the tribe.
Colonial social
The colonists, the first group of whom had originally arrived at Jamestown on May
14, 1607, had never planned to grow all of their own food. Instead, their plans also
depended upon trade with the local Native Americans to supply them with enough
food between the arrival of periodic supply ships from England, upon which they
also relied.
This period of extreme hardship for the colonists began in 1609 with a drought,
which caused their already limited farming activities to produce even fewer crops
than usual. Then, there were problems with both of their other sources for food.
Colonial political
Prior to arriving in North America, the colonist had been accustomed the politics of
England. England had three parts of government: the King, Parliament, and the
House of Lords. The Jamestown Settlement was the first permanent English
settlement in North America. Named for King James I of England, Jamestown was
founded in the Virginia Colony on May 14, 1607.
Jamestown was founded for the purposes of a quick profit from gold mining for its
investors while also establishing a permanent foothold in North America for
England. On July 30, 1619, the House of Burgesses, the first legislature of elected
representatives in America, met in the Jamestown Church. Their first law was to set
a minimum price for the sale of tobacco and set forth plans for the creation of the
first ironworks of the colony. This legislative group was the predecessor of the
modern Virginia General Assembly.