Chief Opechancanough (O-pech"un-kä'nO) of the Powhatan Confederacy.
Part of the  Powhatan Confederacy pages of the Native American topic found within the Va and Our Virginians Chapter of Volume I, Our American Immigrants, contained in the two Volume Within The Vines Historical Family Website.  Opechancanough is relevant to the J.amestown Pages  and specificallythe Piersey Family and Woodson family studies  within the Howard and Allied Lines , which, with the Swope and Allied Lines, forms the basis of the Within The Vines Study. 
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Openchancanough, (O-pech"un-kä'nO), Indian chief of the  Pamunkey Tribe , later chief of The Powhatan Confederacy
AKA Don Luis de Valasco. Younger brother and successor to  Chief Powhatan (Wahunsonacock).
Openchancanough, Chief of the Pamunkey, was King of The Powhatan Confederacy  from 1618-1644. Half brother to Wahunsonacock  [known to the English as Chief Powhatan ] Openchancanough was responsable for the abduction of Captain Smith in 1608  and for both the massacre of 1622 [which Abraham Piersey, and both John Woodson and his wife survived]  and the massacre of 1644 [in which John Woodson was killed]. More militant than his older brother, Opechancanough is a complex, historically fascinating charactar and  brilliantly adept strategist responsable for what is arguably the most succesful attack against  white incursionists by any Native Americans in all of American history. 

Within the history of Spain is the remarkable story of a young American Indian abducted in the 1560s by the Spanish along the Virginia coast,  found as Don Luis de Velasco in contemporaneous Spanish records. He was well educated in Spain and travelled in Mexico. On return to his native peoples in the 1570s, and in the company of missionaries under Fray Segura [Father Juan Baptista de Segura] he assumed the position of power which was his birthright within the tribe. Some purport that this Don Luis de Valasco was Powhatan's father, or uncle, but many now feel Don Luis de Valasco was Powhatan's half brother Opechancanough, Footnote1 whose name meant  "He whose Soul is White" in the Algonquin language.  What is certain is that this Don Luis de Velasco gave to the Powhatan Confederation some background regarding the European civilizations, power and intent. The period of sleepy understanding  that the natives around Jamestown were subservient was torn asunder by Opechancanough's suprise attack of 1622  igniting the Second Anglo Powhatan War and known in white history as The Good Friday Massacre . This expertly mounted suprise attack was  partially but substantially mitigated through intelligence recieved the night before from a Christianized Indian present in the colony-If not for the intelligence  the entire colony would surely have been destroyed. After retaliatory forays and brittle relations, an uneasy peace ensued with the signing of the treaty of 1632. One decade later  this treaty was shattered with Openchancanough's last meaningful act as Chief , involving the  action of 1644, likewise known as the massacre of that year, which action was  the cause for his capture, imprisonment  and death as a very old man. It also marked  the beginning of the third and final Anglo Powhatan War.


Table of Contents This Page aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAssociated Pages within this Site

 
Table of Contents This Page:

1. Introduction and Overview
2. Openchancanough as Don Louis de Velasco
3 Before Openchancanough; The Reign of Chief Powhatan
4. Opechancanough and the 1622 Massacre igniting the 2nd Anglo Powhatan War
5.  The  1632 Treaty ending the 2nd Anglo-Powhatan War & the Staging of the 1644 Massacre igniting the 3rd
6. The 1646 Treaty Ending the 2nd Anglo-Powhatan war signed by Necotowance, Opechancanough's succesor
A. What the 1646 Treaty Sought
B. The Lands Involved  in the 1646 Treaty
C.  Effects of the 1646 Treaty and later legislation
7. The Treaty of October 1677 signed by the Queen of Pamunkey
 

Associated Pages within this SIte:

The Powhatan and Our Woodson Family of Jamestown
The Powhatan Confederacy, their Tribes, culture , territory and pre contact history
Contemporaneous descriptions of the Powhatan Indians at the time of Contact
The Pamunkey people of the Powhatan Confederacy
Chief Powhatan [reigned from before 1606-1618]
Military Actions of the Powhatan from point of Contact to 1677
 

Linked Outside These Pages
Powhatan Villages [image gallery and some facts]


The Natives of Va. Pages:
The Powhatan Confederacy
and its Tribes 
The Pamunkey Indians of
the Powhatan Confederacy
Chief Powhatan 
(Wahunsonacock) and 
The1st Anglo Powhatan War
Chief Openchancanough<--
Military Actions of the Powhatan
Tributary Indians of 1670
a census of sorts
Openchancanough, (O-pech"un-kä'nO), Indian chief of the  Pamunkey Tribe , later chief of The Powhatan Confederacy, AKA Don Luis de Valasco.
Younger brother and successor to  Chief Powhatan (Wahunsonacock).

Openchancanough, Chief of the Pamunkey, and King of The Powhatan Confederacy  [after the death of his half brother Wahunsonacock  known to the English as Chief Powhatan], was responsable for the abduction of Captain Smith in 1608  and for both the massacre of 1622, occuring shortly after his ascendancy [which both John Woodson and his wife survived]  and the massacre of 1644 in which John Woodson was killed. More militant than his older brother, Opechancanough is a complex, historically fascinating charactar and  brilliantly adept strategist responsable for what is arguably the most succesful attack against  white incursionists by any Native Americans in all of American history. 

Within the history of Spain is the remarkable story of a young American Indian abducted in the 1560s by the Spanish along the Virginia coast. He was well educated in Spain and travelled in Mexico. On return to his native peoples in the 1570s, and in the company of missionaries under Fray Segura [Father Juan Baptista de Segura] he assumed the position of power which was his birthright within his tribe. Some purport that this Don Luis de Valasco was Powhatan's father, or uncle, but many now feel Don Luis de Valasco was Powhatan's half brother Opechancanough, Footnote1 whose name meant "He whose Soul is White" in the Algonquin language.  What is certain is that this Don Luis de Velasco gave to the Powhatan Confederation some background regarding the European civilizations, power and intent. The period of sleepy understanding that the natives around Jamestown were subservient was torn asunder by Opechancanough's suprise attack of 1622  igniting the Second Anglo Powhatan War and known in white history as The Good Friday Massacre [the suprise being partially but substantially mitigated through intelligence recieved the night before the attack from a Christianized Indian present in the colony in absence of which the entire colony would surely have been destroyed]. An uneasy peace ensued with the signing of the treaty of 1632,  followed one decade later by Openchancanough's last meaningful act as Chief with the action of 1644, likewise known as the massacre of that year, which action was  the cause for his capture, imprisonment  and death, a very old man, and the beginning of the third and final Anglo Powhatan War.

[To Openchancanough as Don Louis de Velaso]
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Footnote1- Emminent colonial historian Carl Bridenbaugh reveals Openchancanough as Don Luis de Valasco in his book published 1980  entitled "Jamestown 1544-1699". The Jamestown Society itself tentatively supports this identification in its webpages. See jamestowne.org page entitled Jamestowne  Ann Woodlief writes: "Robert Beverley [editors note, wrote 1947]  reports that the Indians called him 'a Prince of a Foreign Nation' who came to the Algonquin Indians 'a great way from the South-West.' He speculated that Opechancanough might have come from the 'Spanish Indians, somewhere near Mexico'..... Is Don Luis actually Powhatan's father, who brought his Indian servant from Mexico (Opechancanough) and recognized him as a foster son? There are several possibilities. Tradition has it that Opechancanough, whoever he was, named little Pocahontas "Matoaka," a name thought to be of Aztec and not Algonquin origin."17


Opechancanough
bio from Biography 
Resource Center
One version  of 
The Royal Family 
of the Powhatan
in geneological sturdy 
Martin's Hundred
[The abducted women
1622 of Martin's hundred 
bartered in return for 
peace 1623] 
About Martins Hundred
References to 
Opechancanough
ThePowhatanwithin
John R. Swanton's
Virginia Tribes
[ subtribes,  villages, 
history, pop]
GREAT RESOURCE 
Anthony Chester's First 
Hand Account 
of the 1622 
Massacre
The Treaty of 1623 
and its purpose; the 
staging of the 1644
Massacre
Images :
White Watercolors
[contemporaneous to
subjects]
and De Bry Engravings 
of the 
Algonquians
"The True Pictures 
and Fashions of the 
People in that Part 
of America Now Called 
Virginia" by John White(?), 
1584 & 1588.
The language 
recorded by
John Smith
[deep within the 
page presented]
Mapof 
Early IndianTribes,
Culture Areas,and 
Linguistic Stocks - 
Eastern U.S.
[wonderful resource]
Virginia's IndianTribes
The Powhatan 
Confederacy
Virginia Indian Tribes 
from 
Blue Ridge Cousins 
[map and info] 
Treaty Between Virginia
And The Indians 1677
Pamunkey Tribe 
Homepage
History of 
the Pamunkey Indians 
from The Unofficial 
Pamunkey
Indian Homepage
Additional Links
Openchancanough as Don Louis de Velasco

While we have come to believe that Powhatan was the holder of the native power in Virginia, Carl Bridenbaugh in his book published 1980 and entitled "Jamestown 1544-1699" reveals his younger half  brother Opechancanough as the formidable force behind the throne.  A prince of "large Stature, noble Presence, and extraordinary parts, " Opechancanough's own history is fascinating and informative.  Like his famous neice , Opechancanough travelled to Europe, having been taken there in 1561 by a Spanish ship appearing on the Chesapeake, and he remained 5 years in Spain.  Apparantly homesick for his people, he was sent  instead to Mexico where he remained three years and  from which he returned to Spain for another three . In all he received 8 years of education from priests, and invaluable insight into the intent , methods and stregnth of the European powers. On his return to his people, and in company of Jesuit Missionaries under Frey Juan Baptista de Segura, he became again more Indian, taking on "multiple wives for which he was reprimaded and humiliated by the Jesuits.  He eventually denounced Christianity, led a raid, and killed the priests. After that, he terminated all contacts with Europeans and Christianity" 1. The Jesuits involved are currently being  petitioned to  sainthood

On the death of his brother in 1618, Opechancanough soon became chief and was already an ageing man. Bridenbaugh discusses Opechancanough's strategies before his accensionFootnote 3, but, once chief, intent on halting both cultural deconstructionism and loss of his homeland, he found in the english killing of a young brave [Menatanou] for the alleged murder of a Jamestown resident the incident to ignite his plans. He soon orchestrated the Good Friday Massacre of 1622 in which 347 colonists, men women and children, were victimsFootnote2. It was only through the intelligence offered by a Christianized Indian residing in the home of an Englishman and revealed on the eve of the attack  that the entire plan to destroy the fort and all of the Jamestown colony was averted. 
" ' The preservation of secrecy throughout the entire undertaking was miraculous. Employing both Indian and European methods of deception and surprise, [Opechancanough]  won a victory that elicited reluctant praise from many leaders across the sea.....All things considered, the 'massacre' of 1622 was probably the most brilliantly conceived, planned, and executed uprising against white aggression in the history of the American Indians' (End of Bridenbaugh quotation ) " 1The English retaliated; attacks and reprisals continued for the next  decade. In 1632 a peace agreement was reached ending this Second Anglo Powhatan War, but in the Spring of 1644 Opechancanough led another uprising, killing 500 colonists representing 1/16th of the colony. He was soon captured  and  " shot in the back by an English soldier [ed note, some accounts say by a colonial not a soldier] in the streets of Jamestown in 1644 , at the approximate age of 100. His executioners remained unaware that their prisoner was a literate and well traveled man. Opechancanough never revealed his past to the English. It was only much later that historians learned of it from Spanish records and pieced the account together." 1 This final action of 1644 by  Opechancanough ignited the Third Anglo-Indian War .  In 1646,  Sir William Berkeley, governor of Virginia forced the Indians to accept conditions under which they ceded much of their land to the English. "The governor and Necotowance, Opechancanough's successor, drafted and signed theThe Treaty of 1646 that ended  the Third  War in October . That treaty established reservations for the Indians who had been a part of Powhatan's chiefdom and required Necotowance and his successors to pay a yearly tribute to the governor"12
 
 

Footnote 2
This number of victims of the massacre is frequently given as numbers killed, relying on the extant post massacre muster which determined the outcome of the event throughout the colony.  In fact, there were twenty captured women of Martin's Hundred who  were taken captive. Their story is fascinating in many contexts, not least of which is their treatment on return to jamestown which included for one Jane Dickenson remarkably horrid circumstances. Dickenson had been ransomed by Dr Pott with other women for a few pounds of trade beads 1 1/2 after the uprising. She found she owed a debt of labor to Dr Pott for his ranson and the remaining three years servitude of her deceased husbands contract . "She complained bitterly that her new ìservitude . . . differeth not from her slavery with the Indians.î14 

 

To excerpt  from the Review by Roy W. Johnson of Jamestown 1544-1699  by Carl Bridenbaugh
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The following is a portion of text entirely from the Review by Roy W. Johnson of Carl Bridenbaugh's book "Jamestown 1544-1699" 
[New York: Oxford University Press, 1980  ISBN 0-19-502650-0 ] .
The reader is encouraged to access the primary text given in link for the following:
     
    Opechancanough, "Desiring to return to his people, he was placed on a ship to Mexico, but the Spanish governor refused to allow him to leave for the north. He spent three years in Mexico and undoubtedly observed that even those native Americans who were friendly to the Europeans were losing their culture and becoming second class citizens in their own former land. He then returned to Spain and furthered his education with the Jesuits for another three years. Eventually, he returned to his own land as a missionary and interpreter. However, he reverted to some Indian ways (such as multiple wives) and was severely reprimanded and humiliated by the accompanying Jesuit priests. He eventually denounced Christianity, led a raid, and killed his tormentors. After that, he terminated all contacts with Europeans and Christianity.

    "Opechancanough was, of course, correct in his belief that the English planned to seize Indian land. This was the whole purpose of the Virginia Company. Among the whites, there were two general groups. Most of the common men of the colony and some of theleaders had only contempt for the natives and saw them as an impediment to be destroyed. Other leaders, most of whom were Puritans, wanted to be kind to the Indians, "Christianize" them (which meant also teaching them English ways), and make them "loyal subjects" to their English overlords. Either way, their culture would be destroyed and they would lose control over lands their ancestors had ruled for centuries.

    "By 1613, Bridenbaugh believes, Opechancanough had concluded that the English colony was intended to be permanent and expand.His brother was the ruler, the tribes were not united and the other natives had to be convinced of the danger, so he had to work carefully. Opechancanough used every means to make the whites feel safe and secure while he was uniting the tribes, blending European and native American methods of diplomacy. In one instance, a neighboring tribe was reluctant to join his alliance. He encouraged the tribe to attack the whites , then warned the English of the attack, which therefore failed. The English thus thought of him as a friend, and the Indians became convinced that they could not go it alone. He attended the wedding of Pocahontas and John Rolfe and gave the bride away, possibly seeing the marriage as an additional way to buy time.

    "After Powhatan's death, there was a brief period of uncertainty, then Opechancanough himself became Paramount Chief, taking over the 'empire' of tribes that he had masterminded under Powhatan. By 1622, the influx of English was becoming alarming. He apparently believed the English to be so strong that only a telling and total blow would suffice to drive them away."

    From Review by Roy W. Johnson of the book "Jamestown 1544-1699" by Carl Bridenbaugh  [New York: Oxford University Press, 1980  ISBN 0-19-502650-0 ]
     


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    Before Openchancanough: Chief Powhatan [Wahunsonacock] and His Reign
For the following, great reliance is made on the Mariners Museum webpages involving Native Americans Post Contact.
Much more information is available at that site.
    The English were well aware of the adversity of settling on already settled land. In the Instructions to the Colonists prior to departure in 1606, the crown advised on the mode of settlement and choice of locale featuring natural protection and with comment on natives : "they will grow discontented with your habitation,and be ready to guide and assist any nation that shall come to invade you; and if you neglect this, you neglect your safety."

    The English left their homeland 1606 ,  arrived to Jamestown in 1607 and soon encountered the Powhatan Confederacy and their Chief Powhatan [so named by the English; his Indian name  was Wahunsonacock].  Despite parlays and presents [ including an English bed] , and the exchange of European goods [including coveted tools ] for desperately needed [vital] food  in the early years of the colony, uneasy testing of each other's stregnth occured with the English ascertaining the Chief's power and possible enemies and weaknesses, and the Powhatan Confederacy conducting several small-scale raids against the new fort.  Powhatan and English leaders came to realize that they both could benefit from peace.
     

    "On June 15, 1607, Powhatan, the paramount chief, issued an order to cease the raiding of the English. Peace reigned for a short period with Powhatan and his brothers occasionally sending gifts of venison to Jamestown. In September, the summer's first corn ripened enough to eat and some neighboring chiefdoms contributed to the colony's  supplies.  January 2, 1608... a fire destroyed all ...supplies and the remaining corn. This left the English without food again. Powhatan stepped in  and supplied the English with provisions at regular intervals.......The spring of 1608 brought increased hostilities between the English and the Powhatans. Chief Powhatan lost patience with the English when they began drilling their men outside  the fort at Jamestown, appearing to prepare an attack......Powhatan allowed his subjects to start harassing the English and stealing tools from the fort. The English took hostages in exchange for the stolen tools. The Paspaheghs, one of the local Powhatan tribes,captured a couple of Englishmen to exchange for the Powhatan hostages....By the time the colony was two years old, the major Powhatan settlements had been seized. The Powhatans were so  fixed on retribution, that the colonists were safe only when inside the fort."19

     In 1608 Powhatan's half brother, Openchancanough [his later succesor] , captured Captain John Smith and brought him back to Powhatan's main village where he was sentenced to death, so the story goes, until intercession by Pocahontas, the Chief's daughter. During The Starving Time of 1609-10, which threatened the Powhatans as much as the colonists,  the Powhatans remained eerily elusive, hoping their own people would survive, and the colony would just starve to death,  which  it nearly did. Boats barely existed and trade, even if it could be had, was not accesable. "The English sold all of their tools to neighboring  tribes, who after getting the tools would not give the English food. If the colonists tried to leave the fort to hunt or gather food, they were ambushed. When the colonists realized that Powhatan intended to starve them out of Virginia, all pretenses at being allies ended. ...It was at this time that Captain John Smith planned to capture Powhatan to force the people to trade with the English. The English believed that they had a right to trade, even if the Powhatans didn't want to sell. When Powhatan extended an invitation for John Smith to travel to Werowocomoco, {the Powhatan Capital}  (present-day Gloucester), Smith readily accepted. Smith was warned of a planned ambush when he stopped at Warraskoyack to buy provisions....The foiled ambush on each side may  have been the reason Chief Powhatan moved his capital to Orapax, in the headwaters of the Chickahominy. ...In September 1609, Captain John Ratcliffe was invited to Orapax, Powhatan's new capital. When he sailed up the Pamunkey River to trade there, a fight broke out between the colonists and the Powhatans. All of the English were killed, including Ratcliffe, who was tortured by the women of the tribe."19

    In 1609 Lord de la Warr's fleet arrived.  "When Powhatan continued to attack the fort and ambush stray colonists, de la Warr became aggressive and ordered Gates to punish the Kecoughtans for killing the settlers the year before. After Gates lured the Kecoughtans out of their town and  ambushed them, the surviving Kecoughtans fled and the land was claimed by the  English. On July 15, Lord de la Warr sent a message to Powhatan giving him a choice of peace or war. The choice of peace would require the return of any stolen goods and captives. Powhatan sent back a message to warn the English to either stay in the fort at  all times or to leave Virginia. Powhatan also demanded that if de la Warr wished to talk to  him again, he needed to send a coach and three horses. (Powhatan had learned that this   was the mode of transportation for great lords in England and felt he deserved the same  consideration.)"19
     

    In May 1610, after the arrival of the survivors of  the Third Supply's flag ship from Bermuda where it had been shipwrecked, and in new boats built on that isle, "Gates decided to  evacuate the colony. Once they were on their way out to sea, they met the remainder of Lord de la Warr's lost fleete and were ordered to return to Jamestown.

    "The First Anglo-Powhatan War was the result of Lord de la Warr's orders to George Percy on August 9, 1610. Percy and seventy men went to the capital town of Paspahegh where the English killed or injured fifity or more people and captured a wife of Wowinchopunch, the weroance, and her children. After returning to their boat, the Englishmen killed the children by throwing them overboard and shooting them in the water. The killing of women and children was not tolerable in Powhatan warfare: it greatly affected Powhatan and his people. The Paspaheghs never recovered from this and appeared to have merged with other chiefdoms." 19
     

    "Powhatan continued to observe the English warily. His warriors harassed the colonists with small-scale attacks. Although the colonists eventually planted their  own corn, they remained dependent upon the Indians to ensure that they would have enough provisions, especially in the lean winter months. Powhatan  continued to trade but the terms became more contentious. In 1614, the Englishmen kidnapped his daughter Pocahontas in order to get back some of their own  people taken in the attacks. The settlers offered a prisoner exchange and Powhatan complied with this request. He refused, however, to return the stolen  weapons that the colonists demanded."20

    Pocahontas [Matoaca], was married to John Rolfe in 1614. The marriage of the chief's daughter to John Rolfe allowed for a period of relative peace and tranquility. In 1616, she , her husband, and infant son Thomas, in company with 10 other Indians, embarked to England where she died  in 1617. In 1618 Thomas' grandfather Powhatan died. Thomas remained in England where he received education. Initially succeeded by ----------, Openchancanough, more militant and direct than his older half brother, became leader of his people; the fragile peace was weakened, and in 1622, entirely fractured.

    "Opitchanpan, Powhatan's brother and heir, became the paramount chief   after Powhatan's death [1618 and one year after Powhatan's daughter's death in England] . After just a few months, he stepped down  and allowed his brother, Opechancanough, to assume control.....[His] land centered  around present day West Point, Virginia at the headwaters of the York River. He had  strong dislike and distrust of the English. Opechancanogh's resentment can probably be  traced to a time when John Smith seized him, put a pistol to his chest, and "led the trembling king (near dead with feare) amongst all his people"; an unforgivable insult to a warrior of royal status."19
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    Opechancanough and the 1622 Massacre

    From 1618 there was a movement among certain of the company to incorporate the Indians into the society, to christianize them, and some were living in the town. Still the colonists in general disdained the natives.  This in part no doubt led to Opechancanough's  gathering fury, and his attempt to obliterate the colony can be seen as an attack at cultural deconstructionism as much as protection of territory. He had reason to object to the amalgamation of the natives into the Jamestown populace; His attack was thwarted by one so converted.


    Shortly after Powhatan's death, thereafter "Opechancanough, another brother, became werowance. Despite his Christian training under the Spanish, Opechancanoughís one goal was to drive the English from Virginia. Toward that end, he organized and executed the terrible massacre of Good Friday, 22 March 1622. Three hundred forty-seven men, woman and children were murdered and mutilated with their own weapons. This loss represented one-third of the colonyís population." 8

    "Powhatan, the friend of the English, was dead, and his younger brother, the subtle, treacherous and truly Indian Opechancanough (the captor of Smith in the forest), was then wielding the sceptre of his empire. He could command fifteen hundred warriors to do his bidding. He hated the English intensely, and inspired his followers with the same passion; yet he feigned the warmest friendship for them, and deceived them with Satanic smiles. He believed that the English intended to seize the lands of his empire and exterminate his race, and his patriotism impelled him to strike a blow for his country and countrymen".7[ text from late 1800s]

    The  massacre as reported to England Contemporaneously and in 1622

    "For some reasons, best known to the English government, in March 1622 the King of England had to remind King Powhatan of the articles of the treaty of peace existing between them, in answer to which King Powhatan said that he would prefer seeing the country turned upside down rather than break a single article of the treaty, but, as will be proved later on, this conduct of the savages was nothing but hypocrisy and deceit, they only awaiting a favorable opportunity to kill out the English.

    "Several days before this bloodthirsty people put their plan into execution, they led some of our people through very dangerous woods into a place from which they could not extricate themselves without the aid of a guide, others of us who were among them to learn their language were in a friendly way persuaded to return to our colony, while new comers were treated in an exceedingly friendly manner.

    "On Friday before the day appointed by them for the attack they visited, entirely unarmed, some of our people in their dwellings, offering to exchange skins, fish and other things, while our people entirely ignorant of their plans received them in a friendly manner.

    "When the day appointed for the massacre had arrived, a number of the savages visited many of our people in their dwellings, and while partaking with them of their meal the savages, at a given signal, drew their weapons and fell upon us murdering and killing everybody they could reach sparing neither women nor children, as well inside as outside the dwellings. In this attack 347 of the English of both sexes and all ages were killed. Simply killing our people did not satisfy their inhuman nature, they dragged the dead bodies all over the country, tearing them limb from limb, and carrying the pieces in triumph around. "

    From contemporaneous account:  "Two Tragic Events: 1. The Seafight of Capt. Anthony Chester, 1621 2. The Indian Massacre, 1622," 1620, 1622.

    Footnote:"Before the attack on March 22, 1622, the Powhatan people were free to come and go in the English settlements. They were free to borrow  tools and even boats. George Thorpe, an English minister and new  governor, believed that the Powhatans 
    were "of a peaceable and vertuous disposition"  and treated the Powhatans kindly. This attitude spread to other colonists, 
    giving the Powhatans mixed feelings. Opechancanough expected help from every warrior in every tribe in the planned attack. He did not anticipate that some of his people had developed mixed loyalties and would warn   the English of the attack. The Powhatans who were torn in their loyalties were personified  in a legendary figure known as 'Chanco.' "19
    "Chanco, a Christian Indian,.. heard of the conspiracy in the evening before the massacre. He hastened to Jamestown to warn a friend of impending danger. The alarm spread, but it was too late to reach the more remote settlements. The people at Jamestown were prepared to meet the assassins, and so averted the blow which might have extinguished the colony. Those at a distance, who survived the carnage, beat back the Indians and then fled to Jamestown. In the course of a few days, eighty inhabited plantations were reduced to eight. But a large part of the colony was saved. ' " 7
    "We read from a letter dated 4 April 1623, from the Governor and Council to the Company (in London), ' The great king sends Chanco 
    ( a person that revealed the plot to divers the day of the massacre & so served them)' " 8

     
     
     
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The  1632 Treaty ending the 2nd Anglo-Powhatan War and the Staging of the 1644 Massacre igniting the 3rd Anglo-Powhatan War

The Following is fromîThe Pamunkey Davenport Chroniclesî by  John Scott Davenport, Ph. D. Margo McBride Editor. Crystal Lake, Il 60014. 
It is an extensive geneological study, in which the origins of the family is discussed. In this way, it focuses on the 1623 treaty
and its effects.



"Pamunkey Neck, that long finger of land between the Mattaponi and Pamunkey Rivers above where they join to become the York River (in 2001 King William County, the southern half of Caroline county, and southernmost Spotsylvania County), was set off by Treaty between the Governor of Virginia and the King of the Pamunkey Indians in 1623. The Pamunkeys (of Pocahontas fame) were the largest and strongest of all the tribes in Powhatanís Confederation opposing English settlement and exercised the major role in the Massacre in the English Settlements on Good Friday, 1622.  Their pacification was imperative if Virginia English settlement was to succeed. By the Treaty of 1632, Pamunkey Neck was declared to be an Indian reserve, protected from settlement or hunting trespass by the English. There was , in fact, a mandatory death sentnce in place until 1648 for any White Man caught settling or trespassing in the Neck. But the Pamunkey King himself began to make exceptions, needing help from the English and their muskets to drive off raiding Senecase from the North, the fierce Tuscaroras from the South, and other nomad tribes of Iroquoian stock who kept the Neck in turmoil (the Pamunkey and their allies were of Algonquin roots.)  The Indian King allowed so mny White Men into his preserve-their only bar was that no English settlement be within three miles of an Indian town-that Virginia authorities recognized that the Pamunkeys bey their self serving allowances had made the death penalty a face.Then too, the tribeís repeated attacks upon settlers bordering the Neck had created a demand among settlers that the Pamunkeys and their allied tribes be pacified by being made civilized, which required close interface between the Indians and the English. The death sentence relative to settlement and hunting in the Neck was repealed in 1648.

ìIt was Openchancanough ...and not the English who violated the treaty. In 1644 his braves went on the warpath and killed off most of the settlers who dared settle along the south bank of the Pamunkey [across the river from Pamunkey Neck]. After this outrage the House of Burgesses repealed enforcement of [the death penalty]...î [Chapman, T. E., Colonial Carolina: A History of Caroline County, Virginia (Richmond: The Dietzz Press, 1954), 8].....

"Various Pamunkey Kings sold, traded , or gave land within the tribal preserve to Englishmen starting in 1648 (when the death law was repealed), a practice continuing until 1684 when the Pamunkeys were forced by inevitable circumstance to recognize that accommodation with the English was their only chance for survival. The Pamunkey Queen began a long negotiation process with the Crown. Her husband, Totpotami, who allied with the English against invading Indians, had benn killed in battle in 1656. Concurrently ignoring the Indians rights and defending their settlements with forts and stockades, a number of squatters invaded the Neck ."
 FromîThe Pamunkey Davenport Chroniclesî by John Scott Davenport, Ph. D. Margo McBride Editor. Crystal Lake, Il 6001

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The 1646 Treaty Ending the 2nd Anglo-Powhatan war was signed by Necotowance, Opechancanough's succesor
1. What the Treaty Sought
2. The Lands Involved
3. Its Effects and later legislation


Treaty of 1646
The treaty of 1646 has never had a title, and it did not involve the Eastern Shore at all.10

1. What the Treaty Sought
"The treaty of 1646 with the successor of Opechancanough inaugurated the policy of major historical significance of either setting aside area reserved for Indian tribes, or establishing a general boundary line between white and Indian settlements. Influenced by the desire of individual settlers to fortify their claims and by the opposition of the natives to white encroachment, the colony designated definite lands for the Virginia Indians and began to follow more closely the custom of purchasing all territory received from the natives. To see that this was done, the Assembly passed numerous laws, pertaining in most cases only to the specific tribes of Indians mentioned in each act.... The treaty of 1646 designated the York River as the line to separate the settlements of the English and the natives. But the colony at that time was on the eve of a great period of expansion. With an estimated population of 15,000 in 1650, the colony increased by 1666 to approximately 40,000, and by 1681 to approximately 80,000. To stem the tide of the advancing English settlement was apparently an impossibility. Therefore, Governor William Berkeley and the Council, upon representation from the Burgesses, consented to the opening of the land north of the York and Rappahannock rivers after 1649. At the same time the provision making it a felony for the English to go north of the York was repealed.
This turn in policy, based upon the assumption that some intermingling of the white and red men was inevitable, led to the effort to provide for an "equitable division" of land supplemented by attempts to modify the Indian economy which had previously demanded vast areas of the country. "
(Submitted by PACJ1945@aol.com on VA Southside Mailing List, submitted for Gill web page by Sue Gill and found at Link)

2. The Lands Involved
"Before Surry was split from James City, the settlers made the first of many treaties with the Southside Virginia Indians. It appears that the Southside tribes of Indians were relatively weak, and hardly had enough warriors to protect themselves. This treaty provided help from the settlers, should other marauding tribes of Indians attack them.
The settlers wanted no Indians to live in the area they had settled. They also wanted information only the Indians could provide on the marauding tribes coming into the area to attack both the local Indians and the settlers. They also needed the trade with the Indians that had been established.
The Blackwater River became the dividing line. Indians South, settlers North. This agreement in 1646 settled the Indian War of 1644 - 1646.
This treaty between the inhabitants of this colony and Necotowance, King of the Indians settled (temporarily) relations with the Indians"11
 

The Effects of the 1646 Treaty

[from  "Economic History of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century: An Inquiry into the Material Condition of the People, Based on Original and Contemporaneous Records"  by Bruce, Philip A. New York: MacMillan and Co., 1896. Chapter VIII.  [cites 1 Abstracts of Proceedings of the Virginia Company of London, vol. II, p. 6.] p 491-492
 

    "The larger proportion of the Peninsula, the seat of the earliest English settlements, was acquired at first by conquest, but right of possession was afterwards confirmed by treaty. Thirty-nine years after the foundation of  Jamestown, in a conference between Necotowance, the new Indian ruler, and representatives of the colonial government, the former, in the name of his people, agreed to abandon all that area of country which extended between the James andYork from a line drawn from the falls of the Powhatan to the falls of the modern Pamunkey. No attempt was to be made tdisturb their tenure of the region lying between the York and Rappahannock. If any one of the colonists visited the north side of the former stream without having been driven across by stress of weather, or having gone thither for the purpose of gathering sedge, or cutting timber, he was to be considered a felon and punished as such. Necotowance was required to acknowledge that he held his kingdom under the authority of the sovereign of England.1

    Two years later, the statute declaring it to be a felony in all who sought to establish themselves on the north side of the modern York was repealed. It was now pronounced entirely lawful to make a settlement even on the north side of the Rappahannock.2 The agreement with the Indians had broken down, the reason given for the infraction of the treaty being that the lands owned by a large proportion of the planters in the country between the York and the James had become  incapable of producing good crops of tobacco, and it was, therefore, necessary to grant them the right to remove to parts of the Colony where the soil was still in its virgin condition.3

     In 1653, the Assembly adopted regulations which assured to the Pamunkey and Chickahominy Indians the fullest  protection against all intrusions on their grounds. The right was now given to some of the tribes to dispose of their lands by bargain and sale, provided that the Governor and Council had, after an examination, expressed....

    Cites
    1 Heningís Statutes, vol. I, p. 323.
     2 Ibid., p. 354.
    3 Ibid., p. 353."
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The Treaty of October 1677
     
    "Opechancanough was succeeded by  Necotowance [ed note : who signed the treaty of 1746 ending the third anglo powhatan war and severely restricting  the territory of the Powhatan people by confining them to small reservations ], son of Powhatan's eldest sister, then by the Queen of Pamunkey  who was reigning in 1676. In that year, when trouble with  northern Indians was threatening, she was invited to Jamestown to confer with the governor and council. The chairman asked her how many men she could furnish the colony in the war that seemed impending. At first she declined to speak, but finally uttered vehement reproaches against the English for their injustice and ingratitude. Her husband, Totopotomoi, had been slain with many of his men while  assisting the settlers against the Ricahecreans, and she had never had 'any compensation for her loss.' After further parley, she 'abruptly  quitted the room.'" 13

    "The treaty of October 1677 [ which the Queen of Pamunkey  signed] established an annual tribute of twenty beaver skins to be paid to the colonists. The English also claimed the right to appoint Necotowance's successors. This treaty made the English the sole owners of the Lower Peninsula between the James and the York Rivers. The Settlement Law gave the Powhatans freedom to inhabit land north of the York River, but it did not restrict the English from also settling there. The English were   free to expand after notifying Necotowance, or his successor, of their intentions. An  agreement was made among the English to wait until after the Powhatans had forgotten the recent wars before moving northward."
    From The Mariner's Museum Post Contact Page

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    Sources For This Page:ld

    1. Review by Roy W. Johnson of  "Jamestown 1544-1699"   by Carl Bridenbaugh  [New York: Oxford University Press, 1980  ISBN 0-19-502650-0 ]
    2. CHRONOLOGY OF INDIAN ACTIVITY [from the National Park Service involving Jamestown] Very brief summation
    3. Webcitation found at http://www.geocities.com/bryanmcgirt_uncp/article1.html
    4. The Indian Tribes of North Americaby John R. Swanton  Virginia Tribes   Manahoac through Tutelo.
    Presented by the website Searching for Saponi Town"
    6. History of the Pamunkey Tribe from the Pamunkey Tribe Pages
    7.Opechancanough, the massacre of 1622, an excerpt from Volume I of Our County, published in the late 1800s
    8. Jamestown Society pages
    9.Powhatan Indian Lifeways presented by the National Park Service
    10. Helen C. Rountree, Ph.D. Professor Emerita of Anthropology  , Old Dominion University , Norfolk, Virginiain her articleIn  Helen Rountree's response to Accohannock history found at the New Mexico Genealogical Society's pages.
    11.Newsletter Volume 3, Number 4, December 2000
    Webpages of the Surry Side Of the Jamestown Settlement  Surry County, VA. USA. No author is given. Page mounted by Surry County, Virginia, Historical Society and Museums, Inc
    12. Jamestown Interpretive Essays "  Sir William Berkeley" by Warren M. Billings, Historian of the Supreme Court of Louisiana and
    Distinguished Professor of History, University of New Orleans. Virginia Center for Digital History, University of Virginia http://www.iath.virginia.edu/vcdh/jamestown/essays/billings_essay.html
    13.  In pages of t the University of Virginia American Studies Webpages. Unsourced tour information
    14. Martin's Hundred  from History.net. "This article was written by J. Frederick Fausz and originally published in American History Magazine in March 1998. " Reprinted under the Fair Use doctrine of international copyright law.
    15. Jamestown 1544-1699  by Carl Bridenbaugh  [New York: Oxford University Press, 1980 ]
    16. The History and Present State of Virginia by Robert Beverly . Edited by Louis B. Wright. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1947. 
    17. In River Time  The Way of the James by Ann Woodlief Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 1985 . Chapter 5.  Reprinted under the Fair Use doctrine of international copyright law.

    18. The Church of England, Diocese of Rochester, webpage entitled St George's Church Gravesend. The Story of Princess Pocahontas.

    19. Native Americans Post Contact  from The Mariners Museum, Newport News, Va pages

    20. the Powhatan Pageof Virtual Jamestown Website

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