Collecting Jamestown: Part 17. A Token Like No Other (5). King's Touch.

The story of the King's Touch tokens continues. This is the 5th installment. One more to go after this. 

Keep in mind that this is a rough draft of a book chapter, so it will be edited (several times, I am sure). Previous installments were posted on 3/12, 2/26, 2/3, and 1/29.

... So, how does all this relate to Jamestown? Quite simply, a whopping fifty-nine King’s Touch tokens were excavated within the fort. This is the largest find from any site worldwide. Thirty-two pieces were found in strata that dated to the early fort period; hence, these copper tickets predated the reign of Charles I as the Brits had originally suggested. This remarkable discovery begs the question: Did the Piscataway tokens come from Jamestown?

Part of the answer came in 1997 when a treasure hunter discovered two King’s Touch tokens at an native village believed to be Werowocomoco. This was where Chief Powhatan had resided until 1609. Captain John Smith nearly met his fate at Werowocomoco when Pocahontas laid her head upon his, thereby saving him from being clubbed to death. The village was only a dozen miles north of Jamestown along the York River; the colonists had gone there at least six times to trade before it was deserted.

Excavations at Jamestown

The digs at Werowocomoco revealed the graves of two native children. Their remains were laced with four thousand white and blue glass beads, plus one chevron bead. The two King’s Touch tokens were holed twice, just as found at Piscataway. It is believed that the beads and tokens made up a complex necklace. Several tools were also found including an iron hammer, a copper skillet, and a copper spoon – a sacrificial deposit not unlike those seen in ancient England. All told, it was an important burial.

Subsequent excavations have suggested that the burials were made some years after 1609, perhaps as late as 1650. Apparently, the natives returned to the site to bury the children. This finding makes it difficult to determine where and when the tokens were traded to the natives. In the Narratives, Captain John Smith reported trading copper for maize on several occasions. In addition, there was pilfering among the colonists for secretive exchanges. Were these tokens part of these actions?

Along these lines, several other King’s Touch tokens have been discovered in tidewater Virginia. In 1976 a token was found just north of Jamestown Island in a small community known as Pasbehay (named for the native tribe who lived nearby). The token was discovered along with a Scottish two-pence and some pottery sherds dumped in a refuge pit that bordered a meager earthfast dwelling dating to the second quarter of the seventeenth century.

Another King’s Touch token was unearthed in the plowzone of the Flowerdew plantation site in the mid-1990s. It was found near a bake oven that was associated with Abraham Peirsey’s residence after 1624. A lead cloth seal from England dated 1637 was found nearby; so, the token could have been lost anytime during this period. All told, twenty-two copper pieces have been found outside Jamestown.

It is worth a moment to consider how important copper was to the Powhatans. Copper was highly valued for its reflective surfaces and red color. Consequently, Algonquian chiefs and priests hoarded the metal as a symbol of power. Before the arrival of the English colonists, the Powhatans traded with tribes from the Blue Ridge Mountains to the Great Lakes. But with the settlement at Jamestown, everything changed. The English brought lots of copper to trade.

        
     Early on, the Powhatans were willing to trade baskets full of corn for copper “trinkets.” For the natives, copper was magical. Tubular beads and holed plates of copper were gifted to those who earned respect within the tribe. As such, copper ornaments were a symbol of status and power. It was not unusual to find copper buried in single grave and ossuary sites. Here, we have seen that the copper tickets were part of complex necklaces. These finding remind us that imbuing metallic items with occult power is universal; the English bent coins, and the Algonquians fashioned copper amulets.