Letter from a Colonist - a literature review

I pray everyone back in Europe is doing well and in good health. As of right now, I am also secure and robust. I’m writing to you at 16:30 to share my experiences in the Virginia settlement. The cold nights and rough sea conditions made the trip a little difficult, but overall it was secure. I would characterize my experience thus far as phobic due to the hostility we have encountered from the locals. The Powhattans have been fighting to expel the English from their homeland ever since John Smith’s entrance. (Hadden 50). They ended up in destroying the empire

. So far they have attacked the tobacco plantation settlers introduced by John Rolfe and killed 347 settlers. In addition to this, 3000 people have immigrated out of Virginia leaving more men than women in the area. Since the colony needed the women to perform domestic tasks for their men who provided labour on the tobacco firms, the resistance has even grown worse (Loomba 35). Life here is worse for me as compared to back at home. This is a place where we live and sleep while in constant fear of not knowing when and where the natives could attack. Some of the settlers have joined revolutions and jointly agreed not to pay rent in the Carolina side of the colony. This means that we have to rely on forced labour (Benedict 20). For the rebellious natives to be forced to work, it requires not just the supervision but also demands that we rough some of them up but still remain vigilant for any attack. I look forward to completing my deployment days here so that I can make it back home. I am hoping to hear from you guys. I love you all and I will see you very soon.

Yours sincerely,

Signature

Name

Works Cited

Benedict, Carol. “Between State Power and Popular Desire: Tobacco in Pre-Conquest Manchuria, 1600-1644.” Late Imperial China I32.1 (2011): 13-48

Hadden, Sally. Slave patrols: Law and violence in Virginia and the Carolinas. Harvard University Press, 2001.

Loomba, Ania. Colonialism/postcolonialism. New York, NY: Routledge, 2015.