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- Title
"To the end that you may the better perceive these things to be true": Credibility and Ralph Hamor's A True Discourse of the Present Estate of Virginia.
- Authors
LaCOMBE, MICHAEL A.
- Abstract
In 1615, the publication of Ralph Hamor's famous A True Discourse of the Present Estate of Virginia, which brought the unexpected, almost providential news of Pocahontas's conversion and marriage, suddenly reversed the steady stream of bad news about the Virginia Company's Jamestown project. A True Discourse described such a sudden and dramatic change in Virginia's fortunes that it required careful attention to concerns of credibility. Hamor and the Virginia Company drew on a collection of texts that aimed to instruct travelers how to render their observations and conclusions credible to readers. In A True Discourse, they assembled a sort of composite text whose final section claimed to provide direct insight into the Chesapeake Algonquians' "honest inward intentions." Although this section was replete with snubs and slights, Hamor preserved these details to present himself as a particular sort of eyewitness observer: critical, meticulous, and objective, recording details but leaving his readers to draw inferences themselves. Most of the details that Hamor believed would win his readers' trust in this way related to the foods he was offered--and especially venison, which was a symbol of trust and mutual regard so deeply rooted as to complement Hamor's stance as an objective observer perfectly.
- Subjects
JAMESTOWN (Va.); AMERICA; HAMOR, Ralph; TRUE Discourse of the Present Estate of Virginia, A (Book); VIRGINIA Co. of London; VIRGINIA description &; travel; POCAHONTAS, d. 1617; ALGONQUIANS (North American peoples); ROLFE, John, 1585-1622; NATIVE American-White relations; HISTORY
- Publication
Early American Studies, An Interdisciplinary Journal, 2021, Vol 19, Issue 2, p294
- ISSN
1543-4273
- Publication type
Article