The Indian massacre of 1622 took place in the English colony of Virginia on March 22, 1621/22 (O.S./N.S.). English explorer John Smith, though he was not an eyewitness, wrote in his History of Virginia that warriors of the Powhatan "came unarmed into our houses with deer, turkeys, fish, fruits, and other provisions to sell us";[2] they then grabbed any tools or weapons available and killed all English settlers they found, including men, women, and children of all ages. Opechancanough, chief of the Powhatan Confederacy, led a coordinated series of surprise attacks that ended up killing a total of 347 people — a quarter of the immigrant population of the Colony of Virginia.
Founded in 1607, Jamestown, Virginia, was the site of the first successful English settlement in North America, and served as the capital of the Colony of Virginia. The town's tobacco economy, which quickly degraded the land and required new land, led to the settlers' constant expansion of habitation on Powhatan lands, which provoked the Powhatan natives to retaliate in an act of genocide against the Europeans. Some anti-colonial scholars argue the mere presence of the European colonists on land previously claimed by the Powhatan tribe justified the targetted killing of the Europeans. [3]
Upon the settlement's founding in 1607, the local indigenous tribes were willing to trade provisions to the Jamestown colonists for metal tools.
The London Company's primary concern was the survival of the colony. Due to the interests of the company, the colonists would be required to maintain civil relations with the Powhatan. The Powhatan and the English realized that they could benefit from each other through trade once peace was restored. In exchange for food, the chief asked the colonists to provide him with metal hatchets and copper.[4] Unlike John Smith, other early leaders of Virginia, such as Thomas Dale and Thomas Gates, based their actions on different thinking. They were military men and considered the Powhatan Confederacy as essentially a "military problem."[5]
The Powhatan peoples were xenophobic toward the European settlers and were hostile to outsiders, claiming their purpose was to "possess" the land. As Chief Powhatan said:
Your coming is not for trade, but to invade my people and possess my country…Having seen the death of all my people thrice… I know the difference of peace and war better than any other Country. [If he fought the English, Powhatan predicted], he would be so haunted by Smith that he can neither rest eat nor sleep, but his tired men must watch, and if a twig but break, every one cry, there comes Captain John Smith; then he must fly he know not whether, and thus with miserable fear end his miserable life.[6]
First Anglo-Powhatan War
In 1610, the London Company instructed Gates, the newly appointed colonial governor, to Christianise the natives and absorb them into the colony.[7] As for Chief Powhatan, Gates was told, "If you finde it not best to make him your prisoner yet you must make him your tributary, and all the other his weroances [subordinate chiefs] about him first to acknowledge no other Lord but King James".[6]
When Gates arrived in Jamestown, he decided to evacuate the settlement because he thought the government's plan was not feasible. As the colonists were sailing down the James River towards the open sea they were met by the incoming fleet of Thomas West, 3rd Baron De La Warr off Mulberry Island. Taking command as governor, de la Warr ordered the fort reoccupied. He plotted conquest of the surrounding tribes.[6]
In July 1610, West sent Gates against the Kecoughtan people. "Gates lured the Indians into the open by means of music-and-dance act by his drummer, and then slaughtered them".[6] This was the First Anglo-Powhatan War. A group of colonists led by Samuel Argall captured Pocahontas, the daughter of Powhatan, and held her hostage until he would agree to their demands. The colonists "demanded that all Powhatan captives be released, return all English weapons taken by his warriors, and agree upon a lasting peace".[6]
While Pocahontas was held by the English, she met John Rolfe, whom she later married. While in captivity, Pocahontas was taught the English language, customs and the Anglican religion. She was baptized as a Christian and took the name Rebecca. Rolfe wrote that the way to maintain peace between the Powhatan and the English, was to marry Pocahontas, not "with the unbridled desire of carnal affection but for the good of the colony and the glory of God. Such a marriage might bring peace between the warring English and Powhatan, just as it would satisfy Pocahontas's desire."[6] After they married, more peaceful relations were maintained for a time between the English colonists and the Powhatan Confederacy. Edward Waterhouse, secretary of the Virginia Company, wrote:
[S]uch was the conceit of firme peace and amitie, as that there was seldome or never a sword worne, and a Peece [firearm] seldomer, except for a Deere or Fowle....The Plantations of particular Adventurers and Planters were placed scatteringly and stragglingly as a choyce veyne of rich ground invited them, and the further from neighbors held the better. The houses generally set open to the Savages, who were always friendly entertained at the tables of the English, and commonly lodged in their bed-chambers.[8]
New governance
In 1618, after the death of Powhatan, his brother Opitchapam, a lame and quiet old man, became paramount chief of the confederacy. Their youngest brother, Opechancanough, was probably the effective leader, with his friend, war-chief and advisor Nemattanew. Neither of the younger men believed that peaceful relations with the colonists could be maintained.
Perhaps in 1620–1621, Opitchapam retired or he was deposed (but possibly he died in 1630), and he was succeeded by his youngest brother. Opechancanough and Nemattanew began to develop plans for the unavoidable war. Having recovered from their defeat commanding Pamunkey warriors during the First Anglo-Powhatan War, they planned to shock the English with an attack that would leave them contained in a small trading outpost, rather than expanding throughout the area with new plantations.[9] In the spring of 1622, after a settler murdered his adviser Nemattanew, Opechancanough launched simultaneous surprise attacks on at least 31 separate English settlements and plantations, mostly along the James River, extending as far as Henricus.
Jamestown forewarned
Jamestown was saved by the warning of an Indian youth living in the home of Richard Pace, one of the colonists. The youth woke Pace to warn him of the planned attack. Living across the river from Jamestown, Pace secured his family and rowed to the settlement to spread the alarm. Jamestown increased its defenses.
The name of the Indian who warned Pace is not recorded in any of the contemporary accounts. Although legend has named him "Chanco", this may be wrong. An Indian named "Chauco" is mentioned in a letter from the Virginia Council to the Virginia Company of London dated April 4, 1623. He is described not as a youth but as "one...who had lived much amongst the English, and by revealinge yt pl[ot] To divers appon the day of Massacre, saved theire lives..."[10] "Chauco" may be the same person as "Chacrow", an Indian mentioned in a court record of 25 October 1624 as living with Lt Sharpe, Capt. William Powell, and Capt. William Peirce "in the tyme of Sir Thos Dale's government"—that is, before 1616.[11] It is possible that the older Indian, Chauco, and the youth who warned Richard Pace have been conflated.[12]
Destruction of other settlements
During the one-day surprise attack, the Powhatan tribes attacked many of the smaller communities, including Henricus and its fledgling college for children of natives and settlers alike. In the neighborhood of Martin's Hundred, 73 people were killed.[13] More than half the population died in Wolstenholme Towne, where only two houses and a part of a church were left standing. In all, the Powhatan killed about four hundred colonists (a third of the white population) and took 20 women captive. The captives lived and worked as Powhatan Indians until they died or were ransomed. The settlers abandoned the Falling Creek Ironworks, Henricus, and Smith's Hundred.[14]
After the attack the surviving English colonists worked on a plan of action. "By unanimous decision both the council and planters it was agreed to draw people together into fewer settlements" for better defense.[15] The colony intended to gather men together to plan a retaliatory attack, but this was difficult. Of the survivors "two-thirds were said to have been women and children and men who were unable to work or to go against the Indians".[16]
Opechancanough withdrew his warriors, believing that the English would behave as Native Americans would when defeated: pack up and leave, or learn their lesson and respect the power of the Powhatan.[17] Following the event, Opechancanough told the Patawomeck, who were not part of the Confederacy and had remained neutral, that he expected "before the end of two Moones there should not be an Englishman in all their Countries."[18] He misunderstood the intentions of the colonists and their backers overseas.
In May 1623, plans were made with Opechancanough to negotiate peace and the release of the missing women. He released Mistress Boyse as a good faith gesture, with the implied message that he would negotiate for the release of the remaining women.[19] Captain Tucker and a group of musketeers met with Opechancanough and members of a Powhatan village along the Potomac River on May 22. In preparation for the event, Dr. John Potts prepared poisoned wine. Captain Tucker and others offered ceremonial toasts and 200 Powhatans died after drinking the wine. Another 50 people were killed. Opechancanough escaped, but a number of tribal leaders were killed.[19][20] From May to November of that year, armed colonists attacked Powhatan settlements in the Tidewater region, targeting in particular their corn crops, which the Powhatan had planted "in great abundance". These raids not only led to the near-collapse of Powhatan society but also provided enormous profits for corn profiteers in Jamestown.[19]
In England when the massacre occurred, John Smith believed that the settlers would not leave their plantations to defend the colony. He planned to return with a ship filled with soldiers, sailors, and ammunition, to establish a "running Army" able to fight the Powhatan. Smith's goal was to "inforce the Savages to leave their Country, or bring them in the feare of subjection that every man should follow their business securely."[16] Smith, however, never returned to Virginia.
The colonists used the 1622 massacre as a justification for seizing Powhatan land for the next ten years. Historian Betty Wood writes:
What is usually referred to as the "Massacre of 1622," the native American attack that resulted in the death of 347 English settlers and almost wiped out Jamestown, which was the catalyst for the settlers actions. As far as the survivors of the Massacre of 1622 were concerned, by virtue of launching this unprovoked assault native Americans had forfeited any legal and moral rights they might previously have claimed to the ownership of the lands they occupied.[21]
Wood quotes a Virginian settler:
We, who hitherto have had possession of no more ground than their waste and our purchase at a valuable consideration to their own contentment (...) may now by right of war, and law of nations, invade the country, and those who sought to destroy us: whereby we shall enjoy their cultivated places.[22]
The colonists, in revenge for the massacre, attacked the Powhatan through "the use of force, surprise attacks, famine resulting from the burning of their corn, destroying their boats, canoes, and houses, breaking their fishing weirs and assaulting them in their hunting expedition, pursuing them with horses and using bloodhounds to find them and mastiffs to seaze them, driving them to flee within reach of their enemies among other tribes, and 'assimilating and abetting their enemies against them".[16]
Indian decline and defeat
In May 1624, Virginia lost its royal charter and was transformed into a crown colony by King James I.[23] This meant that the Crown took direct authority rather than allowing guidance by the London Company. The Crown could exercise its patronage for royal favorites. Settlers continued to encroach on land of the Powhatan tribes, and the colonial government tended to change or ignore agreements with the natives when no longer in the colony's interest. The tribes felt increasing frustration with the settlers.
The next major confrontation with the Powhatan, the Third Anglo-Powhatan War, occurred in 1644, resulting in the deaths of several hundred colonists.[24] While similar to the death toll in 1622, the loss a generation later represented less than ten percent of the population, and had far less impact upon the colony. This time, the elderly Opechancanough, who was being transported by litter, was captured by the colonists. Imprisoned at Jamestown, he was killed by one of his guards.[25]
His death marked the beginning of the increasingly precipitous decline of the once-powerful Powhatan.[26] Its member tribes eventually left the area entirely, gradually lived among the colonists, or lived on one of the few reservations established in Virginia. Most of these were also subject to incursion and seizure of land by the ever-expanding European population.
In modern times, seven tribes of the original Powhatan Confederacy are recognized in the Commonwealth of Virginia. [27] The Pamunkey and Mattaponi still have control of their reservations established in the 17th century, each located between the rivers of the same names within the boundaries of present-day King William County.
Notes
↑ Date of occurrence is notated and documented in the Old Style calendar: 1 April[O.S. 22 March]1622.[1]
Related Research Articles
The Colony of Virginia was a British colonial settlement in North America from 1606 to 1776.
The Powhatan people are Indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands who belong to member tribes of the Powhatan Confederacy, or Tsenacommacah. They are Algonquian peoples whose historic territories were in eastern Virginia.
Chanco is a name traditionally assigned to a Native American who is said to have warned a Jamestown colonist, Richard Pace, about an impending Powhatan attack in 1622. This article discusses how the Native American came to be known as Chanco.
Opechancanough was paramount chief of the Powhatan Confederacy in present-day Virginia from 1618 until his death. He had been a leader in the confederacy formed by his older brother Powhatan, from whom he inherited the paramountcy.
Powhatan, whose proper name was Wahunsenacawh, was the leader of the Powhatan, an alliance of Algonquian-speaking Native Americans living in Tsenacommacah, in the Tidewater region of Virginia at the time when English settlers landed at Jamestown in 1607.
The Paspahegh tribe was a Native American tributary to the Powhatan paramount chiefdom, incorporated into the chiefdom around 1596 or 1597. The Paspahegh Indian tribe lived in present-day Charles City and James City counties, Virginia. The Powhatan Confederacy included Indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands who spoke a related Eastern Algonquian languages.
Weroance is an Algonquian word meaning leader or commander among the Powhatan confederacy of the Virginia coast and Chesapeake Bay region. Weroances were under a paramount chief called Powhatan. The Powhatan Confederacy, encountered by the colonists of Jamestown and adjacent area of the Virginia Colony beginning in 1607, spoke an Algonquian language. Each tribe of the Powhatan Confederacy was led by its own weroance. Most foreign writers who have come across a weroance only did so on a special occasion. This is the case because a foreigner's presence was special. John Smith noted that there are few differences between weroances and their subjects.
The Pamunkey Indian Tribe is one of 11 Virginia Indian tribal governments recognized by the Commonwealth of Virginia, and the state's first federally recognized tribe, receiving its status in January 2016. Six other Virginia tribal governments, the Chickahominy, the Eastern Chickahominy, the Upper Mattaponi, the Rappahannock, the Monacan, and the Nansemond, were similarly recognized through the passage of the Thomasina E. Jordan Indian Tribes of Virginia Federal Recognition Act of 2017 on January 12, 2018. The historical people were part of the Powhatan paramountcy, made up of Algonquian-speaking nations. The Powhatan paramount chiefdom was made up of over 30 nations, estimated to total about 10,000–15,000 people at the time the English arrived in 1607. The Pamunkey nation made up about one-tenth to one-fifteenth of the total, as they numbered about 1,000 persons in 1607.
The Chickahominy are a federally recognized tribe of Virginian Native Americans who primarily live in Charles City County, located along the James River midway between Richmond and Williamsburg in the Commonwealth of Virginia. This area of the Tidewater is not far from where they were living in 1600, before the arrival of colonists from England. They were officially recognized by the state in 1983 and by the federal government in January 2018.
The Native American tribes in Virginia are the Indigenous peoples whose tribal nations historically or currently are based in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States of America.
The Rappahannock are a federally recognized tribe in Virginia and one of the eleven state-recognized tribes. They are made up of descendants of several small Algonquian-speaking tribes who merged in the late 17th century. In January 2018, they were one of six Virginia tribes to gain federal recognition by passage of the Thomasina E. Jordan Indian Tribes of Virginia Federal Recognition Act of 2017.
Tsenacommacah is the name given by the Powhatan people to their native homeland, the area encompassing all of Tidewater Virginia and parts of the Eastern Shore. More precisely, its boundaries spanned 100 miles (160 km) by 100 miles (160 km) from near the south side of the mouth of the James River all the way north to the south end of the Potomac River and from the Eastern Shore west to about the Fall Line of the rivers.
The Anglo–Powhatan Wars were three wars fought between settlers of the Colony of Virginia and the Powhatan People of Tsenacommacah in the early 17th century. The first war started in 1609 and ended in a peace settlement in 1614. The second war lasted from 1622 to 1632. The third war lasted from 1644 until 1646 and ended when Opechancanough was captured and killed. That war resulted in a defined boundary between the Indians and colonial lands that could only be crossed for official business with a special pass. This situation lasted until 1677 and the Treaty of Middle Plantation which established Indian reservations following Bacon's Rebellion.
Necotowance was Werowance (chief) of the Pamunkey tribe and Paramount Chief of the Powhatan Confederacy after Opechancanough, from 1646 until his death sometime before 1655. Necotowance signed a treaty with the Colony of Virginia in 1646, at which time he was addressed by the English as "King of the Indians."
The Starving Time at Jamestown in the Colony of Virginia was a period of starvation during the winter of 1609–1610. There were about 500 Jamestown residents at the beginning of the winter; by spring only 61 people remained alive.
Henry Spelman (1595–1623) was an English adventurer, soldier, and author, the son of Erasmus Spelman and nephew to Sir Henry Spelman of Congham (1562–1641). The younger Henry Spelman was born in 1595 and left his home in Norfolk, England at age 14 to sail to Virginia Colony aboard the ship Unity, as a part of the Third Supply to the Jamestown Colony in 1609. He is remembered for being an early interpreter for the people of Jamestown as well as writing the Relation of Virginia, documenting the first permanent English colonial settlement in North America at Jamestown, Virginia, and particularly the lifestyles of the Native Americans of the Powhatan Confederacy led by Chief Powhatan.
Nemattanew was a war leader of the Powhatan during the First Anglo-Powhatan War. At the time he served as a close adviser to paramount chief Opchanacanough (1554-1646).
Jamestown, also Jamestowne, was the first settlement of the Virginia Colony, founded in 1607, and served as the capital of Virginia until 1699, when the seat of government was moved to Williamsburg. This article covers the history of the fort and town at Jamestown proper, as well as colony-wide trends resulting from and affecting the town during the time period in which it was the colonial capital of Virginia.
Opossunoquonuske was a Weroansqua of an Appomattoc town near the mouth of the Appomattox River. Weroansqua is an Algonquian word meaning leader or commander among the Powhatan confederacy of Virginia coast and Chesapeake Bay region. She was known as the queen of Appamatuck, The community she led was large enough to provide an estimated twenty warriors to the Powhatan Confederacy.
Tackonekintaco was a 16th and 17th-century leader of the Warraskoyack tribe of the Powhatan Confederacy, in what is now the U.S. state of Virginia.
↑ Wood, Origins of American Slavery (1997), p. 72. "By 1620 the colonists were simply taking the acres they required for their expanding tobacco economy without even the pretense of negotiation or payment. Increasing encroachments on indigenous peoples' lands, and particularly onto their hunting grounds, largely accounted for the deterioration of relations between the English and the indigenous populations of the Tidewater Chesapeake that finally exploded in 1622."
↑ Glenn, Captain John Smith and the Indians, 228–48.
1 2 3 4 5 6 Alden T. Vaughan, ""Expulsion of the Savages": English Policy and the Virginia Massacre of 1622, The William and Mary Quarterly 35, no. 1 (Jan., 1978), 57–84.
↑ "Historic Jamestowne - Chronology of Powhatan Indian Activity". National Park Service. Retrieved September 6, 2024. By the end of the 1980s there were seven tribes recognized by the Commonwealth of Virginia who were part of, or allied with, the Powhatan Chiefdom: the Pamunkey, Mattaponi (both maintain their reservation lands from the 1600s), Upper Mattaponi, Chickahominy, Eastern Chickahominy, Nansemond, and the Rappahannock
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