Smith returned to Jamestown, which was still perilously low
on food, until the timely return of Newport from England later
on the same day.
The colonists of Jamestown learned little from this initial
experience. As 1608 proceeded, they continued their quest
for gold and precious metals. They still did not seem to
understand that to survive, they could not rely on the locals
to feed them through either coercion or trade. It was Smith
who was the first to realize that the model of colonization
that had worked so well for Cortés and Pizarro simply
would not work in North America. The underlying
circumstances were just too different. Smith noted that,
unlike the Aztecs and Incas, the peoples of Virginia did not
have gold. Indeed, he noted in his diary, “Victuals you must
know is all their wealth.” Anas Todkill, one of the early
settlers who left an extensive diary, expressed well the
frustrations of Smith and the few others on which this
recognition dawned:
“There was no talke, no hope, no worke, but
dig gold, refine gold, load gold.”
When Newport sailed for England in April 1608 he took a
cargo of pyrite, fool’s gold. He returned at the end of
September with orders from the Virginia Company to take
firmer control over the locals. Their plan was to crown
Wahunsunacock, hoping this would render him subservient
to the English king James I. They invited him to Jamestown,
but Wahunsunacock, still deeply suspicious of the colonists,
had no intention of risking capture. John Smith recorded
Wahunsunacock’s reply: “If your King have sent me
presents, I also am a King, and this is my land … Your
father is to come to me, not I to him, nor yet to your fort,
neither will I bite at such a bait.”
If Wahunsunacock would not “bite at such a bait,”
Newport and Smith would have to go to Werowocomoco to
undertake the coronation. Th e whole event appears to have
been a complete fiasco, with the only thing coming out of it
a resolve on the part of Wahunsunacock that it was time to
get rid of the colony. He imposed a trade embargo.
Jamestown could no longer trade for supplies.
Wahunsunacock would starve them out.