While most histories of Jamestown center on familiar historical figures such as Captain John Smith, or in more recent years, Powhatan, the paramount chief of the Pamunkeys and Virginia Indians, Karen Kupperman's book Pocahontas and the English Boys retells the formative years of England's first successful colony through the perspectives of a lesser known, yet equally important cast of characters: Jamestown's young English and indigenous interpreters. While Kupperman draws attention to an impressive number of these forgotten intermediaries, her study relies heavily on the lives of Henry Spelman, Thomas Savage, Robert Poole, and, to a debatable extent, Pocahontas, in order to reexamine the complex history of the Jamestown colony. By doing so, Kupperman explores the power interpreters possessed as cultural brokers and the capacity these individuals had to determine the fates of colonies, indigenous communities, and the lives of both American Indians and Europeans in early America.

Kupperman's endeavor to recast the history of Jamestown from the outlook of its intermediaries is an ambitious undertaking given the problematic “spotty and disparate” nature of the English documentary record (vii). Sources on the lives of Thomas Savage, Henry Spelman, and Robert Poole are scarce, largely due to the fact that the individuals began and ended their lives in Jamestown as servants and pawns to the Virginia Company. Documents pertaining to Pocahontas are extensive but deeply problematic because they were written by white men unfamiliar with indigenous culture and are tainted with Eurocentricity.

Kupperman's sophisticated and nuanced examination of these sources is best exemplified in her ability to unravel the complex lives of Spelman and Savage. In chapter 6, Kupperman illuminates the pivotal and vital roles that both individuals played during the colony's success from 1618 to 1624. Between these years, the English colonists and Powhatan people were engaged in continuous conflicts over sustenance, land encroachment, cultural misunderstanding, and mutual distrust. Spelman and Savage, both having spent equal time in England and among the Virginia Indians, were the most adept interpreters for both indigenous and English parties. Kupperman reminds scholars that the early Jamestown colony was an atmosphere filled with suspicion and distrust, and she highlights the multiple occasions the English boys were subject to “manipulation and double dealing” as “young go-betweens” in Virginia and throughout the wider Atlantic world (173). In this chapter, Kupperman successfully illuminates the importance of cultural brokers and their fluctuating roles as translators, spies, friends, and enemies torn between two cultures.

Prompted by his uncle, Sir Henry Spelman, and the mass desires of English men and women to learn about Virginia and its indigenous American inhabitants, the young Henry Spelman wrote a firsthand account of his experiences as an adopted kin of the Powhatans and the nearby Patawomecks when he temporarily returned to London in 1612 (69). Spelman's original narrative was later published in 1872, but that publication's inclusion of numerous marginal notes and revisions made the edition difficult to read. Kupperman brilliantly restores Spelman's personal observations of the Virginia Indians and his report of their traditions and customs by transcribing the original manuscript and writing a detailed introduction to accompany the document that every scholar interested in Jamestown should have on their bookshelves. It is this edited primary-source collection, Relation of Virginia: A Boy's Memoir of Life with the Powhatans and the Patawomecks, that allows Kupperman to contextualize and reimagine the life of Henry Spelman with great detail and accountability.

Kupperman's final chapter digs deeper into the identities of Jamestown's intermediaries by exploring their connection to the Atlantic world. Kupperman's analysis of Thomas Rolfe, the son of John Rolfe and Pocahontas, is particularly noteworthy. Although raised in London, Rolfe later permanently settled in Virginia, making use of the substantial lands his father left behind. Kupperman reports that Rolfe made efforts to reconnect with his mother's family, but whether he met with Powhatan's people remains unknown. Later, Rolfe became a lieutenant in the Virginia militia and assisted in manning a fort to monitor the actions of the Powhatans—a choice Kupperman argues to have been a clear indication of his choice to identity as an Englishman (172).

Although Kupperman's ability to skillfully navigate spotty English sources and to offer new insights into Virginia's early history through the vantage point of young intermediaries is one of the book's greatest strengths, her conjecture that Pocahontas shared a similar experience to the English boys is problematic, as is her understanding of Virginia Indian culture. Pocahontas did serve as an interpreter between Smith and the Powhatan Indians, but it is quite a stretch to claim her identity to be ambiguous or in question as Spelman's or Savage's might have been. Pocahontas's marriage to John Rolfe was an act of diplomacy, and by agreeing to marry Rolfe, perhaps she believed she was adopting him into her culture, not the other way around. Kupperman misses the opportunity to utilize methods of ethnohistory to bring American Indian culture to the forefront of her investigation in order to explore Pocahontas's true role as one of Virginia's young intermediaries. It is this oversight that weakens and strains Kupperman's otherwise sound arguments and her refreshing intervention of the Jamestown narrative.

Pocahontas and the English Boys raises as many questions as it answers. The book breathes new life into a familiar Jamestown narrative by placing young cultural brokers at the center of the colony's history. Kupperman's exploration of these intermediaries’ experiences across the Atlantic provides an additional layer of depth and encourages scholars to further examine the power that translators possessed, not just in Jamestown but in all realms of borderland, frontier, and Atlantic studies. Kupperman's careful editing of Henry Spelman's Relation of Virginia succeeds most splendidly, and paired with her new introduction, provides the tools scholars need to further explore Powhatan culture.