John Smith, the one always glorified in elementary school as the Pilgrim with Pocahontas, wrote a draft of some original memoirs I’ve been reading.

He says the first thing the guys wanted to do after the sea voyage was lay out on the Virginia beach so 5 of them did that and were promptly slaughtered.

So they responded with a brutal cannon volley that killed some natives and scared them off long enough that they could build a stockade.

The native Americans did not willing give up food but had to be forced. The natives also were trying to steal gunpowder and guns all the time, and once when he was captured John Smith found out they had a pouch of gunpowder in their corn stores that they were planning to plant in the spring to grow more gunpowder.

He also said that he had to fight the other pilgrims to the point of shooting each other not to leave 3 separate times, all while writing back to England how great everything in America was. He said that but for the loving of Pocahontas he would have left.

Anyway it raises questions about why the first response of two new cultures mixing was to kill each other and then try and compete for dominance