Up a Tree

We learned about the Pamunkey tribe in the last post and how they obtained treaties with the English that were designed to protect them, their homelands and their way of life while amicably providing the English land on which they could settle. This would eventually end in the settlers deciding the tribe didn't really have the rights they thought they had allowing the settlers to take land away from the tribe and give it to members of the English community, which included one of Sharon's ancestors. Given this plain description, you might get the idea that the English dealt rather faithlessly with the Pamunkeys, and you wouldn't be entirely wrong. But we have to remember that the Europeans and Native Americans held differing views on land ownership. To the Pamunkey and the other tribes of Virginia at the time, the land they claimed belonged to the group, not the individual. Heads of families were granted the use of a plot of land by the chief and the tribal council. They had...