COPPER PENDANT About four hundred years ago, an early Jamestown resident crafted this small copper pendant in the likeness of a Native American, possibly the Algonquian leader Powhatan, the ruler of most of the nearby Indians. Recently excavated from the site of the Jamestown fort, the pendant probably was an identification badge intended to be given to a Native American the colonists considered friendly. The pendant illustrates the colonists’ desire to identify Indians they considered nonthreatening and possibly helpful and to distinguish them from other Native Americans the colonists considered dangerous.
Courtesy Jamestown Rediscovery (Preservation Virginia).