Chief Powhatan

Other Events and Attributes:

• Occupation: Paramount chief of Tsenacommacah, an alliance of Algonquian-speaking Virginia Indians

Notes:

Chief Powhatan (died 1618), whose proper name was Wahunsenacawh (sometimes spelled Wahunsonacock), was the paramount chief of Tsenacommacah, an alliance of Algonquian-speaking Virginia Indians in the Tidewater region of Virginia at the time English settlers landed at Jamestown in 1607.

Powhatan, who led the main political and military power facing the early colonists, was probably the older brother of Opechancanough, who led attacks against the English in 1622 and 1644. He was the father of Pocahontas, who eventually converted to Christianity and married the settler John Rolfe

Name[edit]

In 1607, the English colonists were introduced to Wahunsenacawh as Powhatan and understood this latter name to come from Powhatan's hometown near the falls of the James River near present-day Richmond, Virginia.[1]

Seventeenth-century English spellings were not standardized, and representations were many of the sounds of the Algonquian language spoken by Wahunsenacawh and his people. Charles Dudley Warner, writing in the 19th century, but quoting extensively from John Smith's 17th-century writings, in his essay on Pocahontas states: "In 1618 died the great Powhatan, full of years and satiated with fighting and the savage delights of life. He had many names and titles; his own people sometimes called him Ottaniack, sometimes Mamauatonick, and usually in his presence Wahunsenasawk." Many variants are used in texts:


Life[edit]

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.[2]

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.[3] 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."[1]

In January 1609, Smith recorded directing some of his men to build an English-style house for Powhatan at Werowocomoco, in exchange for food supplies for the hungry English colony.[4] 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 men 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, with major earthworks built about 1400. 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 Orapake, 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 Buck presided the wedding. Prior to the wedding, Reverend Alexander Whitaker converted Pocahontas and renamed her "Rebecca" at her baptism.


Whitaker (left, in white vestments) as portrayed in The Baptism of Pocahontas, 1840, by John Gadsby Chapman
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. The modern Mattaponi and Patawomeck tribes believe that Powhatan's line also survives through Ka-Okee, Pocahontas' daughter by her first husband Kocoum.[5]

According to one legend, Chief Powhatan, returning homeward from a battle near what is now Philadelphia,[6] 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.[7] Modern historians have dismissed this tale as lacking credibility; nonetheless, a commemorative sculpture of Chief Powhatan has stood at the site since 1985.[8].

Biography

Powhatan was the father of Pocahontas. Powhatan had inherited the leadership of a few tribes, which he built into a loose empire controlling Chesapeake Bay and its tributary rivers. This corresponds to Eastern Virginia, most of Maryland, and Delaware. Each Powhatan tribe had its own village, with houses of bark over wooden frames. They planted corn and tobacco, hunted and fished. Every few years, the local land would be depleted, so they would abandon the old village and rebuild a few miles away.

In 1607, English colonists of the Virginia Company arrived, hoping to make their fortune. Initially, they built a wooden fort, James Fort, which gradually became the English colonial village of James Towne, or Jamestown. Relations in the early days were chaotic. On any given week, the settlers at James Fort could be fighting with one of Powhatan's tribes, while trading peacefully with others. Powhatan lived long, and allegedly had 100 wives, with one child by each. There were a dozen known children of his; Pocohantas was his favorite. King James had Powhatan coronated Emperor of Virginia. (This made Pocahontas a princess, theoretically outranking the English nobility when she visited England.)

John Smith wrote:

"What he commandeth they dare not disobey in the least thing. It is strange to see with what great feare and adoration all these people doe obay this Powhatan. For at his feet, they present whatsoever he commandeth, and at the least frowne of his browe, their greatest spirits will tremble with feare: and no marvell, for he is very terrible and tyrannous in punishing such as offend him." [1]

Appearance

John Smith described Powhatan as follows: "...their Emperor proudly [lay] upon a bedstead a foot high upon ten or twelve mats, richly hung with many chains of great pearls about his neck, and covered with a great covering of Rahaughcums [raccoon skins]. At his head sat a woman, at his feet another, on each side, sitting upon a mat upon the ground, were ranged his chief men on each side [of] the fire, ten in a rank, and behind them as many young women, each a great chain of white beads over their shoulders, their heads painted in red, and [he] with such a grave a majestical countenance as drove me into admiration to see such state in a naked savage." [2]

Family/Spouse: Unnamed Native American. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

1. Pocahontas was born in 1595 in Werowocomoco, Virginia; died on 21 Mar 1616 in Gravesend, Kent, England; was buried in Gravesend, Kent, England.

Notes:

The Pamunkey nation are one of eleven Virginia Indian[2] tribes recognized by the Commonwealth of Virginia. The historical tribe was part of the Powhatan paramountcy, made up of Algonquian-speaking tribes. The Powhatan paramount chiefdom was made up over 30 tribes, estimated to total about 10,000-15,000 people at the time the English arrived in 1607.[3] The Pamunkey tribe made up approximately one-tenth to one-fifteenth of the total, as they numbered about 1,000 persons in 1607.[4]

When the English arrived, the Pamunkey were one of the most powerful groups of the Powhatan chiefdom. They inhabited the coastal tidewater of Virginia on the north side of the James River near Chesapeake Bay.[5][6]

The Pamunkey is one of only two tribes that still retain reservation lands assigned by the 1646 and 1677 treaties with the English colonial government.[7] The Pamunkey reservation is located on some of its ancestral land on the Pamunkey River adjacent to present-day King William County, Virginia. The Mattaponi reservation, the only other in the state, is nearby on the Mattaponi River.[7] The Pamunkey tribe has successfully adapted for continuation through the centuries.

The story of Pocahontas (Matoaka) tells a piece of Pamunkey history, but from an English perspective. Study of primary documents from the time of English arrival show that initial contact was characterized by mutual cultural misunderstanding. Colonists portrayed the Virginia tribes by contrasts. They had respect for Powhatan, but characterized other Native Americans by terms such as “naked devils”, showing fear. Fear and appreciation of Native Americans was coupled with distrust and uneasiness. George Percy’s account of the early years expresses such duality: “It pleased God, after a while, to send those people which were our mortal enemies to relieve us with victuals, as bread, corn fish, and flesh in great plenty, which was the setting up of our feeble men, otherwise we had all perished”.[14]P

The English distrusted most tribes, but they noted the Pamunkey did not steal. “Their custom is to take anything they can seize off; only the people of Pamunkey we have not found stealing, but what others can steal, their king receiveth.”[15]

Powhatan’s maternal brother and ultimate successor, Opechancanough, launched attacks in 1622 and 1644 as a result of English encroaching on Powhatan lands. The first, known as the Indian Massacre of 1622, destroyed settlements such as Henricus and Wolstenholme Towne, and nearly wiped out the colony.[16] Jamestown was spared in the attack of 1622 due to a warning. During each attack, about 350-400 settlers were killed. In 1622 the population had been 1,200; and in 1644, 8,000 prior to the attacks. Captured in 1646, Opechancanough was killed by an English guard, against orders. His death contributed to the decline of the Powhatan Chiefdom.[3]

As Rolfe was a child of an Englishman and a Native American woman, some aspects of his life were particularly controversial. He expressed interest in rekindling relations with his Native American relatives, despite societal ridicule and laws that forbade such contact. In 1641, Rolfe petitioned the governor for permission to visit his "aunt, Cleopatra, and his kinsman Opecanaugh".[7]

Unnamed married Unnamed Native AmericanAlgonquin Empire, Virginia. Unnamed was born in Algonquin Empire, Virginia; died in Algonquin Empire, Virginia. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]