© June 2006; revised 7 August 2006

Gallery Exhibit, Catalog Nos. 72 & 73 & 74 & 75 & 76

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THIS MS. CHART OF VIRGINIA is believed to have been one of the sources for the 1610/11 map of North America (or “Velasco Map”). In his interesting and detailed gloss of the 1608 Zuñiga chart (see below), Alexander Brown describes the connections between this chart and the Velasco map of 1610/11, both of which provided valuable intelligence not only for the Virginia Company and English court, but for the Spanish court as well.

Of note, Brown surmises that this English chart also proved useful to the Dutch, here suggesting

(Brown, Genesis of the United States I:184)

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THE 1608 MS. CHART OF VIRGINIA is unattributed; we do not know who drew it. Captain John Smith may well have had a hand in it, since the chart illustrated his letter reporting on events in the colony to friends and stakeholders back home. But Alexander Brown has argued persuasively that there is no “real evidence that Smith could draw a map.” As for Smith’s well-known map of Virginia, engraved by William Hole and printed in 1612 and 1624, Brown points out that “the distances given in the text of his work do not always correspond with the distances on his map.”

(Brown, II:596)

Brown does “not believe that Smith made the drawing himself,” nor indeed does Smith “always claim to have done so,” referring in 1616 (in his A Description of New England) to the “Booke and Map printed in my name.”

To further bolster his argument that Smith used the drawings of other surveyors rather than making his own, Brown reproduces a sketch-map thought to be by Smith, since Smith enclosed it in a letter to Francis Bacon:

(Brown, II:596–7)

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This map does not, however, offer proof of Smith’s rudimentary map-making skills. Far from being “an attempt” to copy “some drawing of our present North Carolina coast,” as Brown interprets it, the MS. map Smith sent to Bacon in 1618 duplicates (down to the very handwriting) an earlier pilot’s sketch attributed to John White. I’m not at all sure that Smith was the copyist.

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This original sketch-map is one of only five surviving maps resulting from the topographical survey carried out by Thomas Hariot and John White from Roanoke Island, 1585–6, and is

(Hulton, America, 1585: The
Complete Drawings of John White 11)

The case for White’s draftsmanship is further evidenced by the fact that the sketch-map is “connected with, and is in some sense preparatory to, the engraved map in the De Bry volume, ‘The arriual of the Englishemen in Virginia.’”

(Hulton 32)

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Nor was this the only time Smith would borrow from White. Smith’s own printed maps of old (Roanoke settlement) and new (Jamestown settlement) Virginia drew liberally on de Bry’s engravings, made after the watercolor drawings of John White. In fact, Smith’s composite illustrated map of “Ould Virginia” (engraved by Robert Vaughan, and printed by James Reeve) expressly acknowledges his debt to existing Hariot-White-de Bry documentation, with a caption that reads:

No doubt, “conveniency” had something to do with Smith’s decision to send an exact copy of the Hariot-White sketch-map of Ralegh’s Virginia (present-day North Carolina) to Francis Bacon in 1618, and imply it was his own work.

So, if Smith’s own lack of training in survey work and map making caused him to borrow from others rather than drawing up his own maps, who else, then in Virginia, might have produced the “Zuñiga Chart” of 1608?

One possibility is the surveyor, Captain Nathaniel Powell, who had come to Virginia in April, 1607. We know that Powell explored the Chesapeake Bay with Smith from 24 July through 7 September 1608, and the York River with Newport in the winter of 1608.

(Brown, II:971)

Brown is certain that “Captains Robert Tyndall [also Tindall], Isaac Madison, and Nathaniel Powell were making surveys, drawing maps, etc., for the [Virginia] company from the beginning.” (Brown, I:461)

Any one of them could have drafted the 1608 “Zuñiga Chart,” probably in collaboration with Smith, since the chart incorporates intelligence concerning his travels with the Pamunkey that only Smith could have known.

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THE “ZUÑIGA CHART” WAS ORIGINALLY INTENDED to illustrate Smith’s letter “to a worshipfull friend of his in England” and both were most likely sent from Virginia to England by way of Captain Francis Nelson in June 1608. His ship, the Phœnix, made a quick voyage home, reaching London before 7 July 1608.

Those parts of Smith’s letter dealing with events in Virginia from 26 April 1607 to 2 June 1608 — including the three-week period during which Smith was held captive by the Powhatan Indians (ca. 16 December 1607 through 8 January 1608) — were printed in London, about a month later, under the title A True Relation of such occurrences and accidents of noate as hath hapned in Virginia since the first planting of that Collony, which is now resident in the South part thereof, till the last returne from thence:

(Brown, I:181)

Not only did the True Relation lack the imprimatur of the Virginia Company, but it also lacked any authorial permission and oversight. Indeed, the book’s editor, I. H. (or J. H., if we modernize the typesetting), admits to having published the title despite initial confusion as to who the real author was. In the preface “To the Courteous Reader,” I. H. explains how

(J. H., Preface to Smith’s
A True Relation of 1608)

This mix-up resulted in three different title pages being printed, even though A True Relation was only issued in one edition:

Written by a Gentleman of the said Collony, to a worshipfull friend of his in England.

Written by Th. Watson. Gent. one of the said Collony, to a worshipfull friend of his in England.

Written by Captain Smith, Coronell of the said Collony, to a worshipfull friend of his in England.

(from Edward Arber’s 1895
edition of Smith’s Works, I:1)

As to be expected, A True Relation — which Smith’s 19th-century editor Edward Arber has described as “nothing but an ordinary ‘pamphlet of news,’” hence, “carelessly printed” — lacked any engraving of the companion manuscript chart which accompanied Smith’s original letter home in 1608. Then, as now, maps were much more difficult and expensive to print than plain text, requiring production skills held only by specialty printshops and publishers. Even so, some degree of supervision by an individual with knowledge of Virginia geography and map-making would have been required. Not only would a quality illustration of this sort have been out of place in a cheaply-printed newsbook, but it’s doubtful that J. H. would have had “second or third hand” access to the MS. chart in the first place. European employers kept all reports of discovery, especially their maps and plans, under the close

(Brown, I:x)

As concerns the first Virginia colony, Company records were held by the secretary to the Royal Council in London, who was directed to

(qtd. in Brown, I:ix)

Given such a restricted information flow, it’s not surprising that the Zuñiga chart, which documented Powhatan territory and recorded the colonists’ knowledge of its all-important waterways, would not see print until 1890, when Alexander Brown reproduced (as item LVII) the copy of it found in Spain among the Simancas Papers.

I suspect it was the unauthorized publication in 1608 of Smith’s letter “to a worshipfull friend of his in England” that prompted an even more formal clamp down on the flow of information coming from Virginia. In 1610, two years after Smith’s A True Relation appeared in print, the Irish spy Francis Maguel reported to the Spanish court that in Virginia,

(repr. in Brown, I:398–9)

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DESPITE VIRGINIA COMPANY RESTRICTIONS on the public dissemination of intelligence concerning the affairs of the colony, the 1608 chart did circulate in manuscript, as did so many texts back then, and copies of it were probably easier to procure than was the “Velasco Map,” two-plus years later. We know that the Spanish ambassador, Don Pedro de Zuñiga, sent a copy of the chart to Philip III on 10 September 1608, but curiously, Zuñiga’s brief letter of transmittal makes no mention of Smith’s A True Relation, or of Smith’s original letter from Virginia on which the printed Relation was based.

Rather, Zuñiga enclosed the chart with a separate “report given me by a person who has been there.” Either “through ignorance or design,” this brief report (reproduced as item LIX in Brown) passed on bad intelligence to the Spanish, especially concerning the geography of the region. So in this case, at least, Smith’s publicly available A True Relation offered a more reliable eyewitness account than did the narrative with which Zuñiga paired the chart for the Spanish court.

With his thorough commentary (see below), Alexander Brown has collated the two Smith-associated texts, expanding on the chart’s legends by comparing them against the narrative given in Smith’s A True Relation (and on occasion, other substantiating or conflicting accounts well). As a visual aid for his own commentary, Brown has added eight reference points (letters A through H) to the chart:

Of particular interest, the chart maps Smith’s journey with the Pamunkeys, from when he was first captured about 6 miles from Rasawrock by their chief, Opechancanough, in mid-December 1607; to his arrival about 2 weeks later at Werowocomoco (Powhatan’s seat), 12 miles from the Jamestown colony; to his subsequent return to Jamestown:

(Brown, I:187)

Smith’s chart of the rivers and annexed relation of “the Countries and Nations that inhabit them” provides a more matter-of-fact, less romanticized account of his time with the Pamunkeys than the more embellished versions of the story he would produce for public consumption in 1616 and 1624. Most curiously, there is no mention of Pocahontas in A True Relation until several months after Smith’s return to Jamestown. Smith describes how her father sent Pocahontas —

— to the English fort in May 1608 to negotiate on his behalf for the release of Indian prisoners held by Smith. Powhatan’s ploy apparently worked, and in a mutually beneficial exercise of “subtill wit and crafty understanding,” Smith took his Paspaheyan prisoners

The less dramatic Indian narratives of A True Relation (not only Pocahontas, but also Opechancanough, the chieftainess of Appamatuck, and Powhatan himself are more evenly depicted here) better suited Smith’s purpose and audience at the time. His 1608 letter from Virginia was written to justify his recent actions to his sponsors in England; the sort of “edutainment” he would produce for the press in 1624 would have been most inappropriate in the earlier context.

Two men in Smith’s command were slain when he was taken captive by the Pamunkeys, and this had political repercussions after Powhatan released Smith in the care of four Pamunkey guides who delivered him back to Jamestown in the best of health. Alexander Brown comments:

(Brown, I:182–3)

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BROWN RAISES SEVERAL OTHER ISSUES worth mentioning in his commentary on the 1608 Zuñiga Chart.

1.  Given that questions of scale, perspective, and working grids continue to surface in relation to the “Velasco Map” of 1610/11 (which probably incorporated information from the Zuñiga Chart, along with other available documents), Brown’s notes here regarding comparative scales may be useful. Brown observes that the 1608 MS. chart of Virginia

2. Brown also comments on the Zuñiga Chart’s depiction of an island in the James River which has since disappeared:

Presuming this was not a floating island, I can’t help but wonder what in fact happpened to it, and when. We know that Turkey Island was still a physical phenomenon in the river towards the end of the 17th century, since Colonel William Randolph, who first arrived in Virginia in 1674,

(Bushnell, “Discoveries Beyond the Appalachian
Mountains in September, 1671” 49n5)

The first description of Turkey Island occurs in Captain Gabriel Archer’s MS., A relatyon of the Discovery of our River, from Iames Forte into the Maine; made by Captaine Christofer Newport: and sincerely writen and observed by a gent: of ye Colony. Archer’s Relation describes Captain Newport’s May–June 1607 exploratory expedition to “Captain Newports faulls” on the James river (now Richmond, VA) with a group of 24 men, including Archer, Smith, George Percy, and Robert Tindall. Here we read that approximately 34 miles “up the Ryver” from James Fort

(repr. in Arber, I:xli–xlii)

In fact, several islands besides Turkey Island seem to have come and gone as the Virginia environment has evolved over the centuries. For example,

(Fite & Freeman, A Book of Old Maps 119)

3. Brown’s commentary also raises an interesting question concerning the Indians’ communication to Smith (as documented in A True Relation)

As recorded on the 1608 Zuñiga Chart, during his captivity, Smith was taken to the village of Topahanocke (Toppohanock on the chart) in order to verify whether or not he was the European captain who had earlier slain and enslaved Indians in that area. As Smith tells it in A True Relation:

As far as I’m aware, the identity of this earlier “discoverer” of the Topahanocke river who betrayed Powhatan’s friendship is still not known.

4. Finally, Brown’s closing memorandum for the 1608 Zuñiga Chart gives a fascinating account of the Croatan Indians, written by one Mr. Hamilton McMillan of Robeson County, North Carolina. McMillan’s account of the public oration of “an old Indian, named George Lowrie” raises several issues of consequence relating to racialized political identities in the region and to ongoing historical interest in “Sir Walter Raleigh’s Lost Colony,” whose fate Brown traces in the lines of the 1608 Zuñiga Chart.

(Brown, I:190)

A callout for the island of Croatoan appears on White’s watercolor map of Virginia “La Virgenia Pars” (Gallery Cat. No. 70) and de Bry’s engraving of the Hariot-White map of Virginia, “Americæ pars ...” (Gallery Cat. No. 69).

Before leaving England for Virginia on 15 May 1609, Sir Thomas Gates (the first “sole and absolute governor” of the Virginia colony) was instructed by the Council to establish a foothold “above the river falls” (i.e., “Captain Newports faulls”), from whence it was thought the English would have a better chance of locating the survivors of Ralegh’s Lost Colony:

(“Instructions, Orders and Constitutions
by Way of Advise Set Downe, Declared
and Propounded to Sir Tho. Gates,
Knight Governour of Virginia”;
extracts repr. in Bushnell, “Virginia
— from early records” 34–5)

Clearly, Company directors were studying very closely the maps and other supporting documentation they had received from Virginia through 1609 — including the 1608 Zuñiga Chart — and using the intelligence contained therein to set colonial policy.

Alexander Brown’s Commentary on the Zuñiga chart of Virginia

Item LVII, “Chart of Virginia”

(from Alexander Brown, The Genesis of the
United States, i:184–90)

“This chart must have been sent to England by Captain Francis Nelson, who left Virginia June 2, 1608. It is not drawn to an exact scale; but on comparing it with XLVI. made about the same time, and with CLVIII., it seems to have been drawn on the basis of about five miles, or say 1½ leagues to an inch. It illustrates Captain John Smith’s ‘True Relation’, and was sent from Virginia with it. The ‘Relation’ was published in August 1608; but I have never seen an engraving of this chart. I am convinced that copies of this ‘Relation’ and of this chart were taken to Holland by Captain Henry Hudson in the latter part of 1608, and that they are referred to by Hudson as ‘letters and charts which one Captain Smith had sent him from Virginia, by which he (Smith) informed him (Hudson) that there was a sea leading into the Western Ocean by the North of the Southern English Colony,’ about the latitude of forty degrees. On December 29, 1608 (0.S.), Captain Hudson, with the information derived by him in his native England, entered into a contract with the Dutch. We have here, with this chart in Spain and with Hudson in Holland with Smith’s letters and charts, another strong illustration of the great necessity the Virginia Company was under to keep close its charts, records, etc., and the great danger to them which might result by having in their official service one through whom such things reached outsiders.

“The legends on the chart:——

[legend A]

“‘Here remayneth 4 men clothed that came from Roonock to Ocanahawan.’

“LIV. says: ‘What he knew of the Dominions he spared not to acquaint me with, as of certaine men cloathed at a place called Ocanahonan, cloathed like me.’ — and ‘Many Kingdomes hee (Powhatan) described to me.... The people clothed at Ocamahowan, he alsoe confirmed.’

“CCXVII. says: ‘Where at Peccarecamek and Ochanahoen, by the relation of Machumps, the people have howses built with stone walles, and one story above another, so taught them by those Englishe whoe escaped the slaughter at Roanoak, at what tyme this our Colony, under the conduct of Captain Newport, landed within the Chesapeake Bay, where the people breed up tame turkeis about their howses, and take apes in the mountaines, and where at Ritanoe, the Weroance Eyanoco preserved seven of the English alive — fower men, two boyes and one yonge mayde. (who escaped [the massacre ?] and fled up the river of Chanoke) — to beat his copper, of which he hath certaine mynes at the said Ritanoe, as also at Pamawank are said to be store of salt stones.’ There is the following side-note in Strachey: ‘Howses of stone, tame Turkyes, and Monkyes, supposed at Peccartcanick.’

“[MEM.——The three rivers given on the chart, south of the James, were probably intended for the Neuse, the Tar, and the Roanoke rivers. Ocanahowan was probably supposed to be on the Neuse.]

[legend B]

“‘Here the King of Paspahege reported our men to be and wants to go.’ This is possibly in the present Sampson County, North Carolina.

[legend C]

“‘Here Paspahege and 2 of our own men landed to go to Pananiock.’

“This is the Pananaioc of Smith’s Map of Ould Virginia.

“Smith says in his ‘True Relation’: ‘We had agreed with ye King of Paspahegh to conduct two of our men to a place called Panawicke beyond Roonok, where he reported many men to be apparelled. Wee landed him at Warraskoyack, where playing the villaine, and deluding us for rewards, returned within three or foure dayes after without going further.’ Smith is here referring to an expedition of January or February, 1608, under Newport. He does not mention this incident at this time in his General History; but in referring to an expedition of December, 1608, under his own command, he says, that he sent from Warraskoyack, Master Sicklemore and two guides ‘to seeke for the lost company of Sir Walter Raleigh’s.’

“[MEM.——The landing from the chart was probably in Pagan Creek, Isle of Wight County.]

[legend D]

“‘Amongst high rocks,’ etc. I am unable to decipher this legend.

“In his ‘True Relation,’ Smith says: ‘Within 4. or 5. daies Journey of the Falles was a great turning of Salt Water’ — and again, ‘I tolde him [Powhatan] in that I would have occasion to talke of the backe Sea, that on the other side of the maine, where was Salt Water, my father had a childe slaine, which wee supposed [by] Monocan his enemie, whose death we intended to revenge. After good deliberation, hee began to describe mee the countreys beyond the Falles, with many of the rest, confirming what not only Opechancanoyes, and an Indian which had been prisoner to Powhatan had before tolde me, but some called it five dayes, some sixe, some eight, where the sayde water dashed amongest many stones and rocks, each storme, which caused oft tymes the heade of the River to bee brackish: Anchanachuck he described to bee the people that had slaine my brother, whose death hee would revenge.’

“Strachey says: ‘Yt (the James River) falleth from rocks far west, in a country inhabited by a nation, that they call Monocan.... from high hills afar off within the lands, from the topps of which hills, the people saie they see another sea, and that the water is there salt; and the journey to this sea, from the Falls, by their accompt, should be about ten daies, allowing, according to a march, some fourteen or sixteen miles a day.’

[legend E]

“‘Monacan 2 days Jorney.’

“From the Falls (Richmond) to the present Manakin town is less than twenty miles.

[legend F–G;
Brown does not separately comment
on the legend for G., which reads
“2 days journey,” as I interpret it]

“‘20 miles above this C. S. was taken.’ The site of Apocant, on this chart, is placed farther west than the Falls (Powhatan). If this is correct ‘20 miles above’ would be higher up than the present Goochland line; but the chart is not drawn to an exact scale, and without giving tiresome details, I will only give it as my opinion that the capture more probably took place near the present line between Hanover and New Kent.

“The route the Indians took Smith after his capture is pricked down on the chart. After collating the various evidences in the premises with Smith’s narrative in his ‘True Relation,’ I believe the following to be approximately correct. Smith seldom gives dates. He was taken prisoner about the 16th of December, 1607, and taken that day ‘about 6 miles to a hunting town’ (Rasawrock), where he probably spent the next day; on the 18th he was carried to another kingdom on the Youghtanan (Pamunkey) river; thence to Mattapament (Mattapony) River; thence to two hunting towns, and ‘after this foure or five dayes march,’ he was returned again to Rasawrock about the 23d. Breaking up camp on the 24th, they marched to Menapacute (near the present West Point), reaching there on the second day’s journey (25). The next day (26th) they visit Kekataugh, and thence, marching along northward, passing across the headwaters of the Payankatank, Smith is taken to Topahanocke (Tappahannock, Essex County?), reaching there the 27th; the next day (28th) departed and lodging that night at a hunting town of Powhatan’s, they arrived the next day (29th) at Warawocomoco, ‘Where Powhatan, assured mee [Smith] his friendship and my libertie within foure dayes.’ January 1, 1608, ‘Powhatan sent Smith home with four men,’ etc.; he arrived at Jamestown early on the morning of Saturday, January 2d, and ‘Nuport arrived the same night.’ The Indians kept Smith a prisoner about 16 days, yet he says, in his History of Virginia, ‘Sixe or seven weekes those Barbarians kept him prisoner.’

“Smith says that he ‘was taken to Topahanocke, a Kingdome upon another River northward: because, the yeare before, a shippe had beene in the River of Pamaunke, who having been kindly entertained by Powhatan their Emperour, they returned thence, and discovered the River of Topahanocke, where being received with like kindnesse, yet he slue the King, and tooke of his people, and they supposed I were hee, but the people reported him a great man that was Captaine, and using mee kindly, the next day we departed.’ XLIX. says: ‘Pamaonche having Smith prisoner carryed him to his neybors Wyroances to see if any of them knew him for one of those which had bene some twoe or three yeeres before us, in a river amongst them Northward, and taken awaie some Indians by force.’ From these statements we infer that a ship was up the Rappahannock River in 1603–1606; if so I have no other record of it. It could hardly refer to the Spanish ship in 1572?

“From XLVI., from this chart, from CLVIII., and from the map engraved for Captain Smith, it is evident that Werawocomoco was on the present Purtan or Putin Bay, York River. In fact this bay retains its original name. Tindall calls it Poetan (i.e. Powhatan), Fry and [Peter] Jefferson Portan, and the present coast survey Purtan. Those who have placed it on Timberneck Bay and elsewhere, in the Cantauntack (or as CCXLII. and CLVIII. have it, the Capahowasick) country, have, as usual, been led into an error by the text of Smith’s History of Virginia, which says that Werawocomoco was ‘about 25 miles’ from where the river divided (West Point). The text (25 miles) is wrong, the chart (about 11 miles) is correct.

[legend H]

“‘Pocaughtawonaucks, a salvage people dwelling upon the bay beyond this mayne that eat of men and women.’

“In his ‘True Relation’ Smith says: Powhatan ‘described also upon the same sea [the Back Sea] a mighty Nation called Pocoughtronack, a fierce Nation that did eate men, and warred with the people of Moyaoncer, and Pataromerke, Nations upon the toppe of the heade of the Bay, under his territories, where the yeare before they had slain an hundred, he signified their crownes were shaven, long haire in the necke, tied on a knot, Swords like Pollaxes. Beyond them he described people with short coates, and sleeves to the Elbowes, that passed that way in shippes like ours. Many Kingdomes hee described mee to the heade of the Bay, which seemed to bee a mightie River, issuing from mightie Mountaines betwixt the two Seas.’

“It will be seen that this chart gives an island in James River, in the bend above the mouth of the Appomattox, which is evidently the ‘Turkey Island’ of the first explorers. There is no island there now.

“[MEM.——In 1888 Mr. Hamilton McMillan, A.M., of Robeson County, North Carolina, published an historical sketch of ‘Sir Walter Raleigh’s Lost Colony, with the traditions of An Indian Tribe in North Carolina indicating the fate of the Colony,’ etc. From this I will give extracts.

“‘In the latter part of 1864 three young men of the Croatan tribe, who had been drafted to work on the fortifications at Fort Fisher, were killed, it is supposed, by a white man who had them in custody. An inquest was held, and at its conclusion an old Indian, named George Lowrie, addressed the people assembled, in substance as follows: “We have always been the friends of white men. We were a free people long before the white men came to our land. Our tribe was always free. They lived in Roanoke in Virginia. When the English came to Roanoke our tribe treated them kindly. One of our tribe went to England in an English ship and saw that great country. We took the English to live with us. There is the white man’s blood in these veins as well as that of the Indian. In order to be great like the English, we took the white man’s language and religion, for our people were told they would prosper if they would take white men’s laws. In the wars between white men and Indians we always fought on the side of white men. We moved to this land and fought for liberty for white men, yet white men have treated us as negroes. Here are our young men shot down by a white man and we get no justice, and that in a land where our people were always free.”’

“This speech caused Mr. McMillan to investigate the history and traditions of this tribe.

“‘They assert that the English colony became incorporated with the tribe, which soon after emigrated westward, — to what is now Sampson County, — a portion to Cumberland County, and they had probably settled on the Lumber River in Robeson County as early as 1650, where they were found by the Huguenots in 1709, having farms and roads and other evidences of civilized life. Their language is almost pure Anglo-Saxon. Many of the words have long been obsolete in English-speaking countries.’

“It will be noted that the Croatan tradition is not at variance with the chart, from which it seems the Indians and lost colonists went from Roanoke westward up the present Roanoke River to Ocanohowan, and from thence to Pakrakanick (or Peccarecamek, Strachey), probably on the Neuse River, near Sampson County, where it seems they were reported to be in 1608.]”

Title page of 1673 work spoofing
narratives of discovery such as
Captain John Smith’s
Generall Historie

Open a second window for a brief account of the 17th-century floating island as a cultural, as well as physical, phenomenon.

View an enlarged 700 x 1130
pixel GIF image (51KB)

—Samuel Johnson
(1709–1784)

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