Note the name of the river leading to Jamestown...
Source: John Smith map, from the Library of Congress
The arrival of the English was a total surprise to Powhatan. He had inherited control control over just four tribes, but dominated over thirty by the time the Susan Constant, Godspeed, and Discovery sailed into the Chesapeake Bay. Until the English arrived, he was "on a roll..."
Powhatan's territory was called Tsenacommacah, which is spelled in a variety of ways. (Since the Powhatan's had no written language, all the spellings are "right.") It was roughly 100 miles long and extended 100 miles inland from the Atlantic Ocean coastline on the Eastern Shore, so Tsenacommacah approximated the extent of land granted in the First Charter to the London Company in 1606.
Powhatan's span of control was established by force at times. For example, he attacked and physically eliminated the Chesapeake tribe as an independent unit about the time the English arrived. Disrupting the independent Chesapeakes sealed his control over the Elizabeth River watershed (where Norfolk and Virginia Beach are now located). This attack may have occurred just as the English were catching sight of the Virginia coastline. If so, the timing of the attack was not triggered by any desire of Powhatan to defend the flank of his empire against a European threat, because he was not expecting the English to arrive. However, it does suggest the first encounter of the English with Native Americans might have been a conflict with people under Powhatan's control.
Powhatan lacked the military "over the horizon" sensor capability to know the English were coming. He lacked the technology to to block access to his lands, to keep the English at the periphery of his empire. To the Algonquians, the English were "tassantassas" (trespassers) in Tsenacommacah - but the Europeans were able to use their advanced technology (sailing ships) to move up the river (Powhatan's Flu/James River) and settle right in the center of his territory.
In response to the English trespass, Powhatan practiced both crafty diplomacy and limited war. He did not mass his warriors and try to expel the English as soon as they arrived. He sought to take advantage of the new arrivals, and make the foreigners subordinate to his control. "To Powhatan, the presence of the small Jamestown colony was nothing more than a stone in his shoe compared to the threat from large, ambitious tribes on his western frontier."1
One reason Powhatan did not try to expel the English immediately: he saw value in having access to the European technology. He thought he could mitigate the dangers of having an independent power within his area of control, while gaining prestige and power within the Native American communities through acquisition of English weapons and trade goods.
This was not a completely new strategy for Powhatan. He had allowed the Chickahominy tribe to operate with semi-independent status in essentially the same area as where the English settled. The Chickahominy reconsidered their semi-independent status with Powhatan, once the English arrived. The Chickahominy saw the English displace the Paspaheghs from their territory, and chose to become allies with the English in 1613. As described by John Smith:2
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The Chicahamanias desire frienship.
Besides this, by the meanes of Powhatan, we became in league with our next neighbours, the Chicahamanias, a lustie and a daring people, free of themselves. These people, so soone as they heard of our peace with Powhatan, sent two messengers with presents to Sir Thomas Dale, and offered him their service, excusing all former injuries, hereafter they would ever be King James his subjects, and relinquish the name of Chickahamania, to be called Tassautessus, as they call us, and Sir Thomas Dale there Governour, as the Kings Deputie; onely they desired to be governed by their owne Lawes, which is eight of their Elders as his substitutes. This offer he kindly accepted, and appointed the day hee would come to visit them. When the appointed day came, Sir Thomas Dale and Captaine Argall with fiftie men well appointed, went to Chickahamania, where wee found the people expecting our comming, they used us kindly, and the next morning sate in counsell, to conclude their peace upon these conditions:Articles of Peace.
All this they concluded with a generall assent, and a great shout to confirme it: then one of the old men began an Oration, bending his speech first to the old men, then to the young, and then to the women and children, to make them understand how strictly they were to observe these conditions, and we would defend them from the furie of Powhatan, or any enemie whatsoever, and furnish them with Copper, Beads, and Hatchets; but all this was rather for feare Powhatan and we, being so linked together, would bring them againe to his subjection; the which to prevent, they did rather chuse to be protected by us, than tormented by him, whom they held a Tyrant. And thus wee returned againe to James towne. |
Powhatan tried to isolate the English from other tribes. If he could not expel the English from the banks of the James River, he could at least eliminate any possibility that they would find allies nearby. Most of what the English learned about the Manahoacs and Monacans came from Powhatan's people, and English explorations west of the Fall Line were very limited.
Powhatan lacked guns and sailing ships, though Indian arrows were an effective weapon in the early 1600's. Powhatan practiced what today we call asymmetric warfare; his main weapon was control over the English settlers' access to food. Powhatan's forces knew the cultural as well as the physical territory, and struggled to shape the behavior of nearby tribes so the English remained dependent upon Powhatan's willingness to provide food.
When the supplies from England did not arrive as planned, Jamestown settlers were unable to feed themselves. Those willing to actually plant and work the fields were exposed to Indian attack, and a war of attrition was to Powhatan's advantage. His people numbered in the thousands, while the English population in the colony rarely exceeded 100 for very long during the first three years. However, war was not inevitable; Powhatan and the one leader of the English, John Smith, might have reached a mutual agreement where they benefitted each other, at least in the short run. As described in a Richmond Times-Dispatch column 400 years later:3
Random assaults between Native Americans and the colonists had occurred since their very first meeting at Cape Henry. However, Powhatan's first concerted effort to achieve domination through military force started in 1609, when it became clear that Smith's strategy was incompatible with Powhatan's strategy (and when Smith had been incapacitated by the explosion of his gunpowder bag on this thigh as he slept).
In every war the other side can claim "he started it." The first Anglo-Powhatan war is no exception.
From Powhatan's point of view, the English were getting out of control. They kept trying to contact other tribes, evading Powhatan's schemes to steer all trade through him. In 1608 John Smith led two expeditions around the Chesapeake Bay and up the Potomac and Rappahannock Rivers, contacting rivals of Powhatan. That same year, Christopher Newport led an exploration party upstream of the falls on "Powhatan's flu" (site of Richmond) to visit with the Monacans.
Then in 1609, most of the ships in Lord de la Warr's "Third Supply" arrived at Jamestown with 200-300 new colonists - but none of the leaders on the Sea Venture, which had wrecked on Bermuda. Worse, the new colonists arrived with minimal supplies to feed them during the winter, before new crops could be raised. In a strategic decision, John Smith determined that too many people were concentrated in one place. The English were overwhelming the capacity of local tribes to raise surplus corn and to hunt enough deer to feed both the Native Americans and the colonists. Rather than just expand Jamestown as new colonists arrived, Smith decided to spread out and create new settlements up and down the the James River.
The English sought to trade with, and then bluntly attacked the Nansemond tribe on the south bank of the James, downriver from Jamestown. After wrecking their shrines and villages, the English returned to Jamestown - though 17 muntineers who sailed to Kecoughtan ended up dead. The Indians stuffed their mouths with bread, showing contempt for the starvation that threatened the English. (Later in 1609, the English established a new settlement at the village of the Kecoughtan's on "Poynt Comfort," and buit Fort Algernon.)
Francis West led another expedition upstream from Jamestown, and established a new English settlement at the falls. Powhatan's son Parahunt sold the English the right to occupy the land next to his village, but the expansion of English control along the James was a growing threat to the Algonquians.
Powhatan won the first round. After John Smith was wounded, John Ratcliffe assumed the position of president. He led an expedition to Powhatan's new capital at Orapakes in September, 1609 that ended in disaster. Powhatan maneuvered the English so they were vulnerable, killed 34 of the 50 in the party. Ratcliffe was captured and tortured to death, and the ship returned to Jamestown with no food.
During the winter of 1609-10, known now as the "Starving Time," all but about 60 colonists at Jamestown died. The arrival of Sir Thomas Gates from Bermuda in May, 1610 led to a major decision. In early June, 1610, the English abandoned Jamestown and started to sail home. Powhatan had won.
However, it was a short-lived victory. Before the retreating fleet reached the Atlantic Ocean, they met Lord de la Warre leading a relief mission from England, and returned to Jamestown with new leadership and new resources.
Powhatan had corn to trade, as well as furs and information. He carefully orchestrated his meetings with the English to establish his authority and to gain tactical advantages during negotiations. At times the English evaded his constraints and traded for corn with those towns willing to risk Powhatan's displeasure. The edges of Powhatan's authority were mapped by John Smith as he explored the Potomac River in 1608, and the Europeans understood the limits of Powhatan's power. The somewhat-independent Potowomack were easily accessible to the early English settlers, who could sail up the Potomac River and bypass Powhatan's land forces north of Jamestown.
Trade with the Potowomacks, at the mouth of Potomac Creek in today's Stafford County, helped the English evade Powhatan's efforts to starve the Europeans. In 1613, one leader of the Potowomack Tribe, Chief Japasaws, even went to far as to seize Powhatan's daughter when she was there on a "state visit." Japasaws traded Pocahontas to an English sea captain for a copper kettle, and she became a pawn in peace negotiations.
Had Virginia been completely dominated by Powhatan, with the power to block the English from crossing outside his political boundaries, then Pocahontas would never have been captured or held captive. Powhatan did not trade for the hostage, even though she was supposedly his so-called favorite daughter.
Pocahontas' imprisonment in Virginia/English culture led to her decision to marry an Englishman - John Rolfe of tobacco planting fame. That marriage led to peace talks, and the end of the Anglo-Powhatan War of 1609-13.
Powhatan's efforts to isolate the English were partially successful. John Smith and later Jamestown leaders were never able to build an effective alliance with the Monocans and Manhoacs. The colony remained heavily dependent upon supplies from England, bith food and manufactured goods (guns, ammunition, clothes, etc.). Most of the English trade with the natives was limited to other Algonquian-speaking tribes who lived on the banks of the navigable rivers, where the English could use their ships to reach a town and carry away a heavy product such as corn.
Only after the Powhatan Confederacy was destroyed did the English establish a long-distance fur trading business beyond the Fall Line, with Fort Henry (modern Petersburg) and Occoneechee (modern Clarksville) as the key trading centers.
After Powhatan died, he was ultimately succeeded by his younger brother Opechancanough. Opechancanough decided that diplomacy had failed, and the Powhatans should not passively submit as the English occupied Virginia. He led two attempts to force the English to adjust their relationship with the Powhatan tribes, or abandon Virginia. He led assaults on the colonial settlements that resulted in hundreds of settlers being killed in two surprise attacks, in 1622 and 1644.
In 1622, Opechancanough ordered a coordinated assault on the English homesteads and settlements that killed nearly 347 English settlers, roughly one-third of the colonists. Jamestown received a last-minute warning and was not attacked, but Wostenholme Town in Martin's Hundred, the Henricus settlement with its iron furnace at Falling Creek, and many others were destroyed.
Not every Algonquian was comfortable choosing to follow Opechancanough's orders. Late on March 21, 1622, one of them reportedly revealed the plans to Richard Pace. As John Smith later described it:4
Pace's warning was the key to Jamestown itself surviving the 1622 attack, while those in undefended farmhouses suffered severely. Wolstenholme Towne at Martin's Hundred plantation was the English settlement that suffered the greatest number of casualties.
If Opechancanough had intended to exterminate the English, then he should have followed up with further attacks and ultimately have besieged Jamestown. He did not, suggesting that the Algonquians in Virginia were lousy at warfare despite perhaps 10,000 years of practice - or that the attack was intended not to ertiminate the colony, but instead to "reset" the balance of power. Expelling the English from Virginia would have required substantially more sustained warfare than Opechancanough demonstrated.
One possibility: both Powhatan and Opechancanough imagined the English to be equivalent to a subordinate tribe, part of the "family" after a ritualistic ceremony that John Smith described as a "rescue" by Pocahonats before his brains were bashed in. Perhaps Powhatan and Opechancanough not only made calculations of the pros/cons for expelling the English according to Western European thoughts, but also applied Algonquian values and culture to the conflict.
It's possible that the Algonquian chiefs thought of John Smith and later colonial leaders not as foreign invaders, but as lesser werowances who owed loyalty to the paramount chief. Clearly the English were acting as disobedient werowances. However, "bringing the English tribe back into the fold" could be accomplished by a sharp attack that demnstrated displeasure, and did not require sustained warfare.
The English retaliated with widespread destruction of Indian towns, destroying hard-to-replace crops as well as the easy-to-replace thatch buildings. Most "warfare" was a series of intermittent raidsIn one unusual battle in 1624, about 800 Indians battled 60 English soldiers for two days. The mismatch between arrows and guns determined the winner - the Indians suffered heavy casualties, but just 16 of the English were wounded.5
In 1632, the English seem to have reached some sort of agreement with the Pamunkey and Chicahominy tribes. In the 1630's, the English gradually expanded their settlements north of the York and then the Rappahannock rivers.
In 1646 and again in 1676, after the English attacked several Indian settlements during Bacon's Rebellion, the Pamunkeys signed treaties with the colony. The treaties required the payment of annual tribute to the governor to show the tribes were subordinate to the power of the Europeans who had taken control of Virginia in 70 years. The Mattaponi and Pamunkey reservations in King William County were established 100 years before the United States was created. As a result, the legal basis for all Virginia reservations is based on state rather than Federal law.
 APVA sign |
 top of bluff |
 view of Grays Creek |
 Grays Creek |
 shell layer in bluff |
 Grays Creek |
