Chief Powhatan - Life

Life

Little is known of Powhatan's life before the arrival of English colonists in 1607. He apparently inherited the chiefdom of about 4-6 tribes, with its base at the fall line near present-day Richmond. Through diplomacy and/or force, he had assembled a total of about 30 tribes into the Powhatan Confederacy by the early 17th century. The confederacy was estimated to include 10,000-15,000 people.

In December 1607, English soldier and pioneer John Smith, one of the Jamestown colony's leaders, was captured by a hunting expedition led by Opechancanough, the younger brother of Chief Powhatan. Smith was taken to Werowocomoco, Powhatan's capital along the York River. Smith recounted in 1624 that Pocahontas (whose given name was Matoaka), one of Powhatan's daughters, kept her father from executing him. However, since Smith's 1608 and 1612 reports omitted this account, many historians have doubted its accuracy. Some believe that the event Smith recounted as a prelude to his execution was an adoption ceremony by which Smith was ritually accepted as subchief of the town of Capahosic in Powhatan's alliance. As the historian Margaret Williamson Huber has written, "Powhatan calculated that moving Smith and his men to Capahosic would keep them nearby and better under his control."

In January 1609, Smith recorded directing German workers to build an English-style house for Powhatan at Werowocomoco, in exchange for food supplies for the hungry English colony. Both sides looked for opportunities to surprise one another. Smith proceeded to Opechancanough's village. When ambushed, he held the chief at gunpoint before the warriors. When Smith returned to Werowocomoco, he found the house unfinished and the place abandoned. The Germans had deserted to the Powhatan side. At a village now called Wicomico in Gloucester County, the reconstructed ruins of what were traditionally believed to be the chimney and part of the building for Powhatan are known as Powhatan's Chimney.

Since 2003, state officials and researchers have concluded the likely site of Werowomocomo is further west along the York River at Purtan Bay. There archeologists have found evidence of a large residential settlement dating to 1200 CE, with major earthworks built about 1400 CE. They have found extensive artifacts, including European goods, which indicate likely interaction with the English in the early 17th century. In 2006 the Werowomocomo Archeological Site was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Excavations continue by a team headed by the College of William and Mary.

Powhatan made his next capital at Orapakes, located about 50 miles (80 km) west in a swamp at the head of the Chickahominy River. The modern-day interchange of Interstate 64 and Interstate 295 is near this location. Sometime between 1611 and 1614, Powhatan moved further north to Matchut, in present-day King William County on the north bank of the Pamunkey River, near where his younger brother Opechancanough ruled at Youghtanund.

By the time Smith left Virginia in 1609, the fragile peace between colonists and Algonquians was already beginning to fray. Soon conflict led to the First Anglo-Powhatan War, and further English expansion beyond Jamestown and into Powhatan's territory. The English effectively destroyed two subtribes, the Kecoughtan and the Paspahegh, at the beginning of this war. Powhatan sent Nemattanew to operate against the English on the upper James River, though they held out at Henricus. With the capture of Pocahontas by Captain Samuel Argall in 1613, Powhatan sued for peace. It came about after her alliance in marriage on April 5, 1614 to John Rolfe, a leading tobacco planter. Rolfe's longtime friend, Reverend Richard Bucke of Wymondham officiated the wedding. Prior to the wedding, Reverend Alexander Whitaker converted Pocahontas and renamed her "Rebecca" at her baptism.

Meanwhile, the English continued to expand along the James riverfront. The aged Powhatan's final years have been called "ineffectual" (Rountree 1990). Opechancanough became the greater Native power in the region. Upon the death of Wahunsunacock in 1618, his next younger brother Opitchapam officially became paramount chief. However, Opechancanough, the youngest brother, had achieved the greatest power and effectively became the Powhatan. By initiating the Indian Massacre of 1622, and attacks in 1644, he attempted to force the English from Virginia. These attempts met with strong reprisals from the English, ultimately resulting in the near destruction of the tribe.

Through his daughter Pocahontas (and her marriage to the English colonist John Rolfe), Wahunsunacock was the grandfather of Thomas Rolfe. The numerous Rolfe family descendants comprised one of the First Families of Virginia, one with both English and Virginia Indian roots.

According to one legend, Chief Powhatan, returning homeward from a battle near what is now Philadelphia, stopped at the Big Spring on Sligo Creek (present-day Takoma Park, Maryland near Washington, DC) to recuperate from his wounds in the medicinal waters there. Modern historians have dismissed this tale as lacking credibility; nonetheless, a commemorative sculpture of Chief Powhatan has stood at the site since 1985.