Anglo-Native Virginia

"This project examines Anglo-Indian interactions through the conception of Native tributaries to the Virginia colony, with particular emphasis on the colonial and tributary and foreign Native settlements of the Piedmont and southwestern Coastal Plain between 1646 and 1722. The transformation of Virginia from fledgling colony on the outpost of empire to a frontier model of English society did not occur without significant interactions between colonizers and Natives. By most accounts, the second half of the seventeenth century witnessed a transformation in Virginia, setting forth political, economic, racial, and class distinctions that typified Virginia for the next three centuries. Power became consolidated in the hands of a few wealthy landowners who looked to slave labor to run their plantation economy. Social stratification increased and the planters eventually became the political and cultural authorities in the colony. English colonists had great concerns about how to interact with their Native neighbors, concerns that determined English settlement, trade, and diplomacy, and eventually set the stage for Indian relocation, displacement, and removal. Many of the powerful families that emerged to dominate Virginia's history gained their start through Native trade and diplomacy in this transformative period and that will be a central focus of this work"--Provided by publisher.