Political Gastronomy: Food and Authority in the English Atlantic World

4. “Would Rather Want Then Borrow, or Starve Then Not Pay”: Refiguring English Dependency

C h a p t e r 4 “Would Rather Want Then Borrow, or Starve Then Not Pay”: Refiguring English Dependency English leaders like William Bradford consistently sought signs that their Indian counterparts had understood and accepted their claims to (at least) commensurate status. Since exchanges were so frequent and conveyed such rich meanings, they were one of the most important sites for such negotiations in the early period. And since both sides recognized that the relationship between English and Indians was not only represented but subtly reshaped in the shared language of exchange, leading figures on both sides struggled to make often contradictory claims. As part of these struggles, exchanges of food could convey many meanings , even conflicting meanings, simultaneously. Massasoit’s five deer expressed his desire for peaceful relations and acknowledged horizontal bonds of status between him and Plymouth’s leaders, both gratifying messages. But equally significant were the signals of dominance embodied in the number of deer and the speed with which Massasoit’s warriors had killed them. Much to their discomfort, English leaders knew that only their Indian counterparts had the ability to offer venison, along with all the meanings it embodied. Since gifts of food could not be refused without insult, English leaders were forced to accept both welcome and unwelcome meanings. Not surprisingly, when they wrote about their experiences these men often chose to describe them in ways that muted this message of dependency. Unrequited gifts from Indian leaders could be described as tribute, for instance, offerings by a client or vassal to secure favor from a superior. Unrequited gifts “rather Want then BorroW” 91 from English leaders, on the other hand, were always described as the liberal giving of a magnanimous ruler or patron. Describing unequal exchanges in terms of trade encouraged readers to believe that both sides had received what they saw as equal value in the exchange, not that the English were stingy trading partners. In these ways, English settlers avoided describing their negotiations with Indians in terms that underscored their own weakness. Shifting attention to the unflattering meanings of exchanges, whether to English leaders or to those who read written accounts of their experiences, introduces a new dimension of early encounters. In addition to the efforts of men like John Guy and William Bradford to conduct themselves in accordance with the image of a leader, English writers were engaged in a rhetorical effort to portray the English experience in the Americas in a way phrased to appeal to metropolitan officials and investors. Few of the early English settlements had sufficient supplies of money and men to draw on. Most were engaged in a nearly continual search for investment, and written accounts were a vital part of this search. This complex effort to describe exchanges in a positive light, to refigure dependency in more flattering terms, is most clearly seen in the case of theft. When Indians stole items from the English, these incidents were always regarded as an intolerable affront, a plain and direct declaration of hostility often attributed to Indian leaders. But ordinary English men and women sent the same messages in the other direction when they stole food. When English stole from Indians, the uncomfortable message was that English leaders could neither adequately feed nor effectively control their settlers, and to avoid acknowledging this, English accounts studiously avoided using the term “theft” in reference to their own people. In especially clear terms, theft encapsulated the struggle between English and native groups on the ground in the Americas and the struggle to represent those encounters favorably in writing. Food was at the heart of both.1 To begin with an example, a 1614 gift of venison at Jamestown signaled many of the same meanings as the venison gifts that marked the “first Thanksgiving ,” and in both cases English leaders had no choice but to accept them. The marriage of Pocahontas and John Rolfe in that year concluded five years of fighting in the Chesapeake and suggested that the region’s future might be marked by closer ties between the English settlers and Wahunsenacawh. This was likely welcome news for most Chesapeake Algonquians, not to mention the inhabitants of Jamestown, but not for the leaders of the Chickahominies, 92 chapter 4 the only group in the region that had not submitted to Powhatan. Wahunsenacawh ’s most recent marriage alliance, this time with the English, posed a threat: with...