Settler Colonialism in the Tsenacomacah: Jamestown, Tobacco, and Manifest Destiny

• In Event: Land Curriculum: Indigenous, Postcolonial, and Decolonizing Perspectives on Place, Education, and Educational Research

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to map the mechanisms of settler colonialism in the Jamestown colony of the English Virginia Company in the early 1600s, a land the Indigenous people called the Tsenacomacah—and a designation for themselves as an alliance of tribes in the area. An argument will be developed that the entrepreneurial motivations of the English, the circumstances of contact with whom they called the Powatan Indians, and the labor challenges of growing tobacco in large scale for profit provided the conditions of possibility for the rise of the discourses and practices of Manifest Destiny.
This study will draw on Patrick Wolfe’s theoretical work on settler colonialism, approaches to “historical” investigation (genealogy, archaeology, and geology) inspired by Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze, an Indigenous materialist approach to history suggested by Alison Jones and Kuni Jenkins, and decolonizing methodologies articulated by Linda Tuhiwai Smith.
Data sources include primary and secondary textual and visual documents of the settlement of the Jamestown colony, field notes from site visits to the land situated in the area of the former colony and from visiting tourist attractions in those areas, including Historic Jamestowne, the Jamestown Settlement, and The Virginia Historical Society, and Indigenous perspectives on settler colonial relations and consequences.
Land use practices of the Tsenacomacah appeared inefficient to the English eye and tradition and, thought they provided sustenance and abundance for the Indigenous population, were used by the English to justify taking the land to use it more “efficiently.” Divisions of labor among the Tsenacomacah were an affront to the gendered social order of the English, leading to descriptions of their “barbarous” treatment of women, who were mainly responsible for agricultural pursuits. Large scale desertion of indentured laborers to Indian villages prompted considerable ire among the leaders of the colonies, leading to violent raids to “rescue” their men. The importation of tobacco seeds from Trinidad made it possible for the English to produce tobacco that could compete with Spanish tobacco on the international market. The labor and land demands and challenges that growing tobacco in amounts large enough to produce the profit the English required from the colony set in motion large scale, often violent land grabs from the Tsenacomacah and the large-scale implementation of a slave trade in the colony. Meanwhile, sustenance food systems were decimated. Both Tsenacomacah and English colonists starved. These conditions of possibility coalesced to create the mechanisms and justifications for Manifest Destiny and paved the way for developing food systems based on large-scale factory farming and cheap or slave labor.
This study contributes to curriculum studies and the historical foundations of educations by investigating the emergence of the discourses and practices of Manifest Destiny in the colonization of the US and the material consequences of settler colonialism. It also provides an example of an approach to land education curriculum that incorporates decolonizing historical methodologies.

Author

• Kate McCoy, SUNY - College at New Paltz