When they first landed in Jamestown, the English
colonists did not know that they were within the territory
claimed by the Powhatan Confederacy, a coalition of some
thirty polities owing all egiance to a king called
Wahunsunacock. Wahunsunacock’s capital was at the town
of Werowocomoco, a mere twenty miles from Jamestown.
The plan of the colonists was to learn more about the lay of
the land. If the locals could not be induced to provide food
and labor, the colonists might at least be able to trade with
them. The notion that the settlers themselves would work
and grow their own food seems not to have crossed their minds. That is not what conquerors of the New World did.