In a deeply nuanced study, Kupperman deftly crafts a narrative based on her decades of study into the early Virginia colony and the Atlantic world, of the important role of captive children and the exchange of peoples in the settlement process. By highlighting the experiences of Pocahontas, Thomas Savage, Henry Spelman, and Robert Poole, Kupperman creates a model for insight into the fraught relationships these youths would have with both their communities of origin and their adoptive kin. The exchange of children in Virginia allowed for language acquisition, as child intermediaries learned the customs and languages of their communities, which in turn allowed them to become interpreters at a young age. This important tool in settlement, however, also placed enormous pressure on these four youths who were still malleable in their adolescence. The desires to please disparate masters led to fraught and tense situations for all involved. For the boys,...
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Book Review|
January 01 2023
Pocahontas and the English Boys: Caught between Cultures in Early Virginia
Pocahontas and the English Boys: Caught between Cultures in Early Virginia
. By Karen Ordahl Kupperman. New York
: New York University Press
, 2019
. 240
pp. Illustrations, notes, and index. $75 (cloth); $15.95 (paper); $15.95 (e-book).
Kristalyn Shefveland
Kristalyn Shefveland
University of Southern Indiana
Kristalyn Shefveland is the author of Anglo-Native Virginia: Trade, Conversion, and Indian Slavery in the Old Dominion, 1646–1722. Current research projects include Old Florida: Yankee Settler Colonialism in the Land of the Aís and Seminole and a co-edited volume, The Great Upheaval: War, Migration, and Transformation in Early Modern America, 1675–1725.
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Journal of American Ethnic History (2023) 42 (2): 113–115.
Citation
Kristalyn Shefveland; Pocahontas and the English Boys: Caught between Cultures in Early Virginia. Journal of American Ethnic History 1 January 2023; 42 (2): 113–115. doi: https://doi.org/10.5406/19364695.42.2.05
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