The story of the founding of Virginia is gruesome and shocking. It’s a story of the British settlers dehumanizing the Native Americans and treating them as savages and not real people. They had no respect for the indigenous tribes and continuously attempted to expand their settlements, disregarding Native American ownership of land. It also shows the shocking atrocities committed against the native tribes and how British settlers mercilessly attacked and murdered them. They had no sense of remorse for their actions, only focusing on the expansion of their settlements and doing whatever was necessary to complete this task. Although it was not all of the settlers who treated the Native Americans in this way, it was enough for the negative actions of the settlers to outweigh any good.

For me personally, I have learned about conflicts between the British settlers and the Native Americans in the past but I did not fully grasp how violent these conflicts were. Some of the stories told in these first chapters did not seem real. I specifically recall the one story of the British settlers executing two Native American children by throwing them overboard into the water and shooting them. They also had other torturous methods such as burning people or chaining them to a tree and leaving them there until they starved to death. It’s shocking to think how anyone could commit such acts.