The Divided Dominion; Social Conflict and Indian Hatred in Early Virginia by Ethan A. Schmidt (review)

The Divided Dominion tackles the critical event of Bacon's Rebellion by revisiting the short seventeenth century preceding it. Rather than seeing Bacon's Rebellion as a singular event, Schmidt traces its causation in the earlier history of Anglo-Indian relations and the developing class structure in colonial Virginia. He is also less concerned with the racial or gendered repercussions of Bacon. The methodology is ethno-historical, drawing heavily upon the anthropological research about the Powhatan people. He is well-versed in the secondary literature of early Virginia and has examined extant primary texts relating to the colonial Chesapeake. He has spent considerable time in the archives, especially the Public Record Office (PRO) Colonial Office 5. The book is organized with an introduction, six chapters and an epilogue. The introduction raises an important problem to be solved: If the governor's taxes raised so much resentment, why did the little-known Lawnes Creek uprising of 1673 attract so little support when compared to the mass support for Bacon's rebellion just three years later? Schmidt's answer lies in how Bacon used the Indian question.

The chapters are organized thematically and progress chronologically from pre-contact Virginia to Bacon's Rebellion. Chapter one focuses on the Powhatan Chiefdom before the arrival of the English, exploring the internal dynamics of the chiefdom as it dealt with its constituent chiefdoms and outliers. It also presents the pressures associated with Iroquoian and Siouan rivals to the west, north, and south that informed the Powhatan assessment of the English newcomers. Early conflicts in Jamestown are explained as products of cultural misunderstandings emerging from different understandings of gift-giving, tributary status, and strategic marriage. The inability to reconcile these differing cultural expectations resulted in the first Anglo-Powhatan war, 1609-1614. This war is the theme of Chapter 2. Reacting to Captain John Smith's rejection of twenty proffered turkeys for twenty swords, which he understood as "a ritualized expression of esteem," (47) Powhatan regarded the English colony as an unmanageable chiefdom and attacked. The English responded with a vengeance for killing Indians. This first Anglo-Powhatan war became the "template" for future conflicts (58).

Indian-Anglo relations from 1614 to 1632, as highlighted by the second Anglo-Powhatan War (1622-32), are the subject of Chapter 3. Once again, Schmidt explores differing cultural expectations, such as those concerning the Pocahontas-Rolfe marriage. Although both societies recognized the union's diplomatic significance, each understood its meaning differently. The English saw her Christian conversion as submission to her cultural betters; the Indians saw the marriage as an investment in kinship ties between the two societies. The English policy was one of forced submission under English rule and included efforts to assimilate Indian children. The Powhatans viewed the English effort to extend conversion to Indian children as stealing youth. At the same time, the tobacco boom and encroachment on Indian land revived unresolved tensions. The goal of the Indians was annihilation of a wayward chiefdom. The English from their vantage point viewed the Indians as savages to be exterminated totally. Any Virginian could kill any Indian without elite sanction. If English immigrants lived miserable and squalid lives, the topic of Chapter 4, why then was there no social rebellion? Schmidt answers: the small and middling planters held the line partly because they were loyal to the elite for their success in tobacco and partly because of the perceived Indian menace.

The interlude of Governor Berkeley's reign is the focus of Chapter 5. After the Indian defeat in the third Anglo-Powhatan war (1644-1646), consistent with the Virginia belief that any white could kill any Indian, Chief Opechancanough's unsanctioned murder while in custody punctuated the era of unmitigated violence against the Indians. Treaty, assembly action, and the governor's policy ushered in a new era. After forcing the Indians into a tributary position...