Kieran Doherty Quote

At the same time, Smith decided that the best way, indeed the only way, to guarantee Jamestown’s future was to disperse settlers. In making this decision, he was taking a page out of the Indians’ playbook since the Powhatan people routinely broke into small groups when food was scarce so that they could better forage and live off the land. Smith opted to send about sixty colonists downriver under the leadership of John Martin and George Percy (two of the men he counted as enemies). At the same time, he dispatched roughly 130 colonists up the James to a spot near the village of Powhatan, ruled by Wahunsonacock’s son, Parahunt. This group he placed under the leadership of Francis West, whose only claim to leadership was that he was the twenty-three-year-old younger brother of Thomas West, Lord De La Warre, the man who had been named governor for life of the Virginia colony, and who was expected to arrive in Jamestown at almost any time. These groups, Smith believed, would be able to trade for supplies and live off the land, enabling those who remained in Jamestown to survive the fast approaching winter. Smith, as well as the men who left the protection of the settlement to live off the land, were unaware that Wahunsonacock was no longer willing even to feign friendship