Relation of Virginia

By Karen Ordahl Kupperman (editor), Henry Spelman,

Book cover of Relation of Virginia: A Boy's Memoir of Life with the Powhatans and the Patawomecks

Book description

A memoir of one of America's first adventurers, a young boy who acted as a link between the Jamestown colonists and the Patawomecks and Powhatans.
"Being in displeasure of my friends, and desirous to see other countries, after three months sail we come with prosperous
winds in sight of Virginia."…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Relation of Virginia as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Finally, Henry Spelman gets his own book! There is no shortage of Jamestown literature on John Smith, Pocahontas, John Rolfe, and Chief Powhatan, but Karen Ordahl Kupperman’s Relation of Virginia: A Boy’s Memoir of Life with the Powhatans and the Patawomecks offers the intriguing account of Henry Spelman, a 14-year-old English boy sent to live with the Chesapeake Algonquians during highly volatile times between Virginia’s indigenous population and the Jamestown colonists. 

I find this book particularly compelling for multiple reasons: it reverses traditional narrative roles and details a member of colonial society who was placed in servitude to the Indigenous…

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