Between Powhatan and Quirank: Reconstructing Monacan Culture and History in the Context of Jamestown

One of the more enigmatic events in the history of European colonization in the New World is the generally tolerant reception the Jamestown colonists received in 1607 from Powhatan, the paramount chief of the Powhatan people of Tidewater Virginia. Understanding that event requires an anthropological study of the complex sociopolitical relations between the coastal Powhatan and the less‐well‐known interior cultures of the native world. This article is primarily concerned with describing one such interior culture, the Monacan, a people who ethnohistoric texts suggest were less complex than, and a principal enemy of, the Powhatan. Analysis of those texts, and insights derived from archeology, provide a picture of the Monacan that leads to a different perspective on the context of the Jamestown settlement, and on relations of power between indigenous cultures in the precontact world.