Iron for Corn
For the first years at Jamestown, the English needed food from the natives in order to survive. The Powhatans for their part sought the colonists’ commercial goods: iron tools and pots, hatchets and knives, bells and glass beads.
Exchanges could be forceful or friendly. The Powhatans sometimes offered corn and other staples as a gift; at other times, they refused contact, or attacked those who had come to trade.
The English wrote home of successful trading, yet on occasion they stole or raided at gunpoint.
Marker is on Loop Drive, on the right when traveling north.
Courtesy hmdb.org
