... a detailed history of Virginia’s founding and early growth, which examines the socio-political interaction of indigenous peoples and English settlers ... Horn’s story rivals any narrative—fact or fiction—and provides ample suspense and action to entertain the reader. His examination of Opechancanough’s lineage gives him an opportunity to display his superb scholarship and debunk earlier work which mistook Chief Powhatan’s younger brother for his father. A Brave and Cunning Prince joins the aforementioned previous Horn works in providing a complete and intriguing look at the early years of Virginia by questioning previous assumptions of other historians and providing highly detailed and well-researched accounts of these seminal events.
Informative and engaging, A Brave and Cunning Prince challenges conventional wisdom about Pocahontas, Captain John Smith and, most important, the early encounters between the Indians and the English. And Horn reminds us that the outcome of their protracted conflict was by no means certain ... If even a fraction of A Brave and Cunning Prince is true—and much more than that certainly is—[Opechancanough] deserves the honor still bestowed on him by the Pamunkeys, who, Horn reveals, continue to live on the ancient tribal land he defended so tenaciously.
This book complicates centuries of mainstream historiography and the narrative that the Powhatan people helped early English colonies survive ... A fascinating narrative of intrigue, shifting alliances, and betrayal. Horn's detailed biography properly places Opechancanough in the context of history.
An accomplished work of scholarly detection that plays out against the background of the English colonization of Virginia ... He provides convincing evidence...building on a portrait of Virginia and its neighbors that, at the time of the European arrival, was the site of a sophisticated political and economic network whose participants were well aware of distant events and who coordinated to fight the newcomers ... Swift-moving prose along a twisting storyline lends this brilliant book the feel of a mystery.
... an immersive portrait of Opechancanough (c. 1547–1646) ... Horn recounts Pocahontas’s marriage to John Rolfe and other famous events at Jamestown, and vividly describes brutal clashes between Powhatan warriors and English settlers before Opechancanough was captured and killed in 1646. Though Horn’s case that Paquiquineo/Don Luís and Opechancanough are the same person requires a good bit of speculation (he would have been close to 100 when killed), he builds a cogent narrative out of documentary fragments. Early American history buffs will be riveted.
