Powhatan…fixed his humor upon a few blew beads. A long time he importunately desired them, but [John Smith] seemed so much the more to affect them, as being composed of a most rare substance of the coulour of the skyes, and not to be worne but by the greatest kings in the world. This made [Powhatan] halfe madde to be the owner of such strange Jewells: so that were we departed, for a pound or two of blew beades, he brought over my king for 2. or 300. Bushells of corne; yet parted good friends.

John Smith

Hundreds of glass and lapidary beads have been recovered during the James Fort excavations. Most of the glass beads were made in Venice and some by Venetian glassmakers that immigrated to Amsterdam in the early 17th century.