View source for Anglo-Powhatan Wars

{{short description|17th-century conflicts between Virginia colonists and Algonquian Indians}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=February 2024}}
{{Infobox military conflict
| conflict    = Anglo-Powhatan Wars
| partof      = the [[American Indian Wars]]
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| image       = Image:1622 massacre jamestown de Bry.jpg
| caption     = [[Matthaeus Merian]]'s 1628 woodcut depicting the massacre of Jamestown and outlying Virginia settlements by the [[Powhatan Indians]] on March 22, 1622; based on [[Theodore de Bry]]'s earlier depictions but with a large degree of conjecture
| date        = May 1609 – October 1646
| place       = [[Colony of Virginia]]
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| result      = [[Treaty of Middle Plantation]]
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| combatant1  = [[Colony of Virginia]]
| combatant2  = [[Powhatan Confederacy]] 
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The '''Anglo{{endash}}Powhatan Wars''' were three wars fought between settlers of the [[Colony of Virginia]] and the [[Powhatan|Powhatan People]] of [[Tsenacommacah]] in the early 17th century. The first war started in 1609 and ended in a peace settlement in 1614.<ref>{{cite web|title=First Anglo-Powhatan War (1609–1614)|url=http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/First_Anglo-Powhatan_War_1609-1614#|website=Encyclopedia Virginia|access-date=19 April 2017}}</ref> 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 Native Americans and colonial lands that could only be crossed for official business with a special pass. This situation lasted until 1677 and the [[Treaty of 1677|Treaty of Middle Plantation]] which established [[Indian reservations]] following [[Bacon's Rebellion]].

==Early conflict==
The settlement at [[Jamestown, Virginia]], was established in May 1607 within the territory of the [[Powhatan]], who were led by Chief Wahunsunacawh, known to the colonists as [[Powhatan (Native American leader)|Chief Powhatan]].<ref>{{cite journal |first=Keith |last=Glenn |title=Captain John Smith and the Native Americans |journal=Virginia Magazine of History and Biography |volume=52 |issue=4 |year=1944 |pages=228–248 |jstor=4245316 }}</ref> The area was quite swampy and ill-suited to farming, and Powhatan wanted [[John Smith (explorer)|Captain John Smith]] and the colonists to forsake the swamp and live in one of his satellite towns called ''Capahosick'' where they would make metal tools for him in exchange for full provision.<ref>Helen Rountree, ''Pocahontas's People'', p. 38.</ref>

Smith underestimated the capabilities of the Virginia Indigenous, as they knew the land much better than the colonists. He was reconnoitering the countryside near Powhatan's capital of [[Orapax]] in December, only seven months after building the fort on [[Jamestown Island]], when a communal hunting party led by Chief Powhatan's son [[Opechancanough]] captured him.<ref name="Puglisi">{{cite journal |first=Michael J. |last=Puglisi |title=Capt. John Smith, Pocahontas and a Clash of Cultures: A Case for the Ethnohistorical Perspective |journal=The History Teacher |volume=25 |issue=1 |year=1991 |pages=97–103 |doi=10.2307/494612 |jstor=494612 }}</ref> Smith was released in time for New Year's 1608 when he promised to move the colony to Capahosick. He had convinced Powhatan that he was the son of Captain [[Christopher Newport]] and that Newport was their head ''[[weroance]]'' (tribal chief).

By spring 1609, the local [[Paspahegh]] tribe had resumed raiding the fort at Jamestown. However, their ''weroance'' Wowinchopunk declared an uneasy truce after he was captured and had escaped. Smith had become president of the colony the preceding fall, and he attempted to establish new forts in the territory that summer. He sent a party with Captain [[John Martin (Jamestown)|John Martin]] to settle in [[Nansemond]] Country. They abandoned the position after 17 men disobeyed orders and were wiped out while trying to buy corn at the [[Kecoughtan]] village. Smith also sent 120 men with [[Francis West]] to build a fort upriver at the falls of the [[James River|James]], right above the main town of Powhatan at present-day [[Richmond, Virginia]]. He purchased the site from Powhatan's son Parahunt, but this ended up faring no better.

Smith was injured in an accidental gunpowder explosion and sailed to England on October 4 for treatment. The settlers established [[Fort Algernon]] at [[Old Point Comfort]] in the fall of 1609, right beside the Kecoughtan village. In November, Powhatan ambushed and killed Captain [[John Ratcliffe (governor)|John Ratcliffe]] and 32 other colonists, who had gone to Orapax to buy corn, and the [[Starving Time|colonists began to starve to death]].<ref>{{Cite news|title=Rethinking Jamestown 
|url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/rethinking-jamestown-105757282/|date=2005-01-01|access-date=2022-04-10|newspaper=Smithsonian Magazine|language=en}}</ref> After being shipwrecked on [[Bermuda]] for nearly a year, [[Thomas Gates (governor)|Thomas Gates]] finally arrived in late May 1610 with [[Jamestown supply missions|meager and insufficient supplies]]. Gates saw the state that the colony was in after his arrival due to their lack of food, and decided to evacuate Jamestown on June 7. However, on their second day of sailing, they met Francis West's older brother [[Thomas West, 3rd Baron De La Warr]], coming into the bay equipped with additional colonists, a doctor, food, supplies, and a contingent of 150 armed men. They therefore returned to the fort under De La Warr's command.{{verification needed|reason=was West, but there are two viable Wests; other instances of De La Warr should be checked also|date=November 2021}}

De La Warr proved far harsher and more belligerent toward the Indians than any of his predecessors, and his solution was simply to engage in wars of conquest against them, first sending Gates to drive off the Kecoughtans from [[Kecoughtan, Virginia#Colonial and Native American Kecoughtan|their village]] on July 9, then giving Chief Powhatan the ultimatum to either return all colonists and their property or face war. Powhatan responded by insisting that the colonists either stay in their fort or leave Virginia. De la Warr had the hand of a Paspahegh captive cut off and sent him to the Powhatan with another ultimatum: return all colonists and their property or the neighboring villages would be burned. Powhatan did not respond.

==First Anglo–Powhatan War==
The First Anglo–Powhatan War lasted from 1609 to 1614 between the Powhatans and the colonists.<ref>Rountree 1990, p. 55n</ref> De La Warr sent [[George Percy (governor)|George Percy]] and [[James Davis (mariner)|James Davis]] with 70 men to attack the Paspahegh town on August 9, 1610, burning houses and cutting down cornfields. They killed between 15 and 75 villagers and captured one of Wowinchopunk's wives and her two children. Returning downstream, the colonists threw the children overboard and shot them in the water. Wowinchopunk's wife was executed in Jamestown.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KzopDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA83|title=Lethal Encounters: Englishmen and Indians in Colonial Virginia|isbn=9780803248342|last1=Cave|first1=Alfred|date=2013|publisher=U of Nebraska Press }}</ref><ref name=":1">{{Cite book|title=The People's History of the United States|last=Zinn|first=Howard|publisher=HarperCollins|year=2003|isbn=9780061965586|location=New York|pages=[https://archive.org/details/peopleshistoryof00howa_1/page/12 12–22]|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/peopleshistoryof00howa_1/page/12}}</ref> The Paspahegh never recovered from this attack and abandoned their town.

A party of colonists was ambushed at [[Appomattoc]] in the fall of 1610, and De La Warr managed to establish a company of men at the falls of the James, who stayed there all winter. In February 1611, Wowinchopunk was killed in a skirmish near Jamestown, which his followers avenged a few days later by enticing some colonists out of the fort and killing them. In May, Governor [[Thomas Dale]] arrived and began looking for places to establish new settlements; he was repulsed by the Nansemonds but successfully took an island in the James from the [[Arrohattoc]]s, which became the palisaded fort of [[Henricus]].

Around the time of Christmas 1611, Dale and his men seized the Appomattoc town at the mouth of their river and palisaded off the neck of land, renaming it New Bermudas. The aged Chief Powhatan made no major response to this colonial expansion, and he seems to have been losing effective control to his younger brother [[Opechancanough]] during this time, while the colonists strengthened their positions. In December 1612, Captain [[Samuel Argall]] concluded peace with the [[Patawomeck]], and he captured Powhatan's daughter [[Pocahontas]]. This caused an immediate ceasefire from the Powhatan raids on the colonists, as they held her ransom for peace. In the meantime, settlers had begun to expand south of the rivers, building houses near present-day [[Hopewell, Virginia]].

In early 1609, Jamestown Island had been the only territory under colonial control. By the end of this period, the Powhatans had lost much of their riverfront property along the James; the Kicoughtan and [[Paspahegh|Paspehegh]] tribes had been effectively destroyed, and the settlers had made major inroads among the lands of the [[Weyanoke people|Weyanoke]], Appomattoc, [[Arrohattoc]], and Powhatan. The Arrohattoc and Quiockohannock tribes disappear from the historical records after this, possibly indicating that they had been dispersed or merged with other tribes.<ref>Rountree, p. 80 n.</ref>

==Peace of Pocahontas==

Peace negotiations stalled over the return of captured hostages and arms for nearly a year; Dale went with Pocahontas and a large force to find Powhatan in March 1614. They were showered with arrows at present-day [[West Point, Virginia|West Point]], so they went ashore and sacked the town. They finally found Powhatan at his new capital in Matchcot, and they concluded a peace that was sealed by the marriage of Pocahontas to colonist [[John Rolfe]]. Rolfe and Pocahontas married April 16, 1614 and had their only son 8 months later on January 18, 1615.<ref>{{Cite web  |title=Pocahontas: Her Life and Legend – Historic Jamestowne Part of Colonial National Historical Park (U.S. National Park Service) |url=https://www.nps.gov/jame/learn/historyculture/pocahontas-her-life-and-legend.htm |access-date=2023-01-10 |website=www.nps.gov |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web  |title=Thomas Rolfe – Historic Jamestowne Part of Colonial National Historical Park (U.S. National Park Service) |url=https://www.nps.gov/jame/learn/historyculture/thomas-rolfe.htm |access-date=2023-01-10 |website=www.nps.gov |language=en}}</ref> This was the first known inter-racial union in Virginia and helped to bring a brief period of better relations between the Indians and the colonists. A separate peace was concluded the same year with the [[Chickahominy people|Chickahominy]] tribe which made them honorary "Englishmen" and thus subjects of [[James VI and I|King James I]].<ref>Rountree, p. 61</ref> This period of peace has been called the peace of Pocahontas.<ref>[https://home.nps.gov/jame/learn/historyculture/chronology-of-powhatan-indian-activity.htm Historic Jamestowne] National Park Service</ref><ref>[http://teacherlink.ed.usu.edu/tlresources/units/byrnes-famous/poca.html Pocahontas]. Tammy Rodeback</ref>

==Second Anglo-Powhatan War==
Opechancanough maintained a friendly face to the colony and even met with a Christian minister to give the appearance of his imminent conversion to [[Christianity]]. Then, his warriors struck without warning on March 22, 1622, from where they had been planted among the settlements, and killed hundreds in the [[Indian massacre of 1622]].<ref name="TuckerArnold2011">{{cite book|author1=Spencer C. Tucker|author2=James R. Arnold|author3=Roberta Wiener|title=The Encyclopedia of North American Indian Wars, 1607–1890: A Political, Social, and Military History|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JsM4A0GSO34C|access-date=30 March 2013|date=30 September 2011|publisher=ABC-CLIO|isbn=978-1-85109-697-8|pages=17–19}}</ref> A third of the colony was wiped out that day, and a higher toll would have been taken without last-minute warnings by Christian Indians.<ref>Rice, James Douglas. "Second Anglo-Powhatan War (1622–1632)." Encyclopedia Virginia. Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, 30 Nov. 2015. Web. 12 Oct. 2018.</ref>

Powhatan war practice was to wait and see what would happen after such a blow was inficlted in the hope that the settlement would simply abandon their homeland and move on elsewhere. However, English military doctrine called for a strong response, and the colonial militia marched out nearly every summer for the next ten years and made assaults on Powhatan settlements. The [[Accomac people|Accomac]] and [[Patawomeck]] were allied with the settlers and provided them corn while the colonists went to plunder villages and cornfields of the Chickahominy, [[Nansemond]], Warraskoyack, [[Weyanoke people|Weyanoke]], and [[Pamunkey]] in 1622. Opechancanough sued for peace in 1623. The colonists arranged to meet the Indians for a peace agreement but poisoned their wine, fell upon them, shot them, and killed many in revenge for the massacre. The settlers then attacked the Chickahominy, Powhatans, the Appomattocs, Nansemond, and Weyanokes.

In 1624, both sides were ready for a major battle; the Powhatans assembled 800 bowmen with Opechancanough's younger brother Opitchapam leading their force, arrayed against only 60 colonists. The settlers, however, destroyed the Powhatans' cornfields, and the bowmen gave up the fight and retreated. A shortage of gunpowder in the colony delayed the colonists from going on marches in 1625 and 1626. The Indians seem not to have been aware of the shortage and were themselves desperately trying to regroup. However, the summer of 1627 brought renewed assaults against the Chickahominy, Appamattoc, Powhatan proper, Warraskoyak, Weyanoke, and Nansemond.  

A peace was declared in 1628, but it was more like a temporary ceasefire since hostilities resumed in March 1629 and continued until a final peace was made on September 30, 1632.{{citation needed|date=September 2018}} The colonists began to expand their settlements on the eastern shore and both sides of the James, as well as south of the [[York River (Virginia)|York]], and they palisaded off the peninsula between the York and James at about [[Williamsburg, Virginia|Williamsburg]] in 1633. By 1640, they began claiming land north of the York as well, and Opechancanough leased some land on the [[Piankatank River|Piankatank]] to settlers in 1642 for the price of 50 bushels of corn per year.{{citation needed|date=September 2018}}

==Palisade==
By 1634, a palisade (stockade) was completed across the [[Virginia Peninsula]], which was about {{convert|6|mi|km}} wide at that point. It provided some security from attacks by the Virginia Indians for colonists farming and fishing. It is partially described in a letter written by Captain Thomas Yonge in 1634 from Jamestown:
{{quote box|a strong palisade… upon a straight between both rivers and… a sufficient force of men to defence of the same, whereby all the lower part of Virginia have a range for their cattle, near forty miles in length and in most places {{convert|12|mi|km|spell=in}} broad. The pallisades is very near {{convert|6|mi|km|spell=in}} long, bounded in by two large Creeks. …in this manner to take also in all the ground between those two Rivers, and so utterly excluded the Indians from thence; which work is conceived to be of extraordinary benefit to the country.|align=center}}

==Third Anglo-Powhatan War==
Twelve years of peace followed the Indian Wars of 1622–1632 before another Anglo–Powhatan War began on April 18, 1644,<ref>William Waller Hening, editor, ''The Statutes at Large; Being a Collection of all the Laws of Virginia, from the First Session of the Legislature in the year 1619'', 13 vols. (Richmond: Samuel Pleasants, Junior, 1809), vol. 1, p. 290, "Act IV," 17 February 1644/5, "THAT the eighteenth day of April be yearly celebrated by thanksgivings for our deliverance from the hands of the Salvages."{{full|date=August 2022}}</ref> as the remnants of the Powhatan Confederacy under Opechancanough tried once again to drive out the settlers from the Virginia Colony.<ref name="TuckerArnold2011" /> Several hundred colonists were killed.<ref>Joseph Frank, editor, “News from Virginny, 1644,” ''The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography'', vol. 65, no. 1, 1957, p. 84, citing the ''Mercurius Civicus'', No. 104 for the week of May 15–22, 1645, London; {{JSTOR|4246282}} : accessed 14 April 2019.</ref> 

In February 1645, the colony ordered the construction of three frontier forts: Fort Charles at the falls of the James, Fort James on the Chickahominy, and Fort Royal at the falls of the York. In March 1646, the colony built [[Fort Henry (Virginia)|Fort Henry]] at the falls of the [[Appomattox River|Appomattox]], where Petersburg is now located. In August, Governor [[William Berkeley (governor)|William Berkeley]] stormed the village where Opechancanough resided and captured him. All captured males in the village older than 11 were deported to [[Tangier Island]].<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20071021002245/http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/jame1/moretti-langholtz/chap4.htm A Study of Virginia Indians]</ref> Opechancanough was taken to Jamestown and imprisoned. Very old and infirm, unable to even move without assistance, Opechancanough died in captivity in October 1646, killed by a settler assigned to guard him.<ref name="TuckerArnold2011" /> By this time [[Necotowance]] had succeeded him as the last chief of the Powhatan Confederacy.

==Treaty of 1646==
[[File:1646linemap.jpg|thumb|220px|Red line shows boundary between the Virginia Colony and Tributary Indian tribes, as established by the Treaty of 1646; red dot shows Jamestown, capital of Virginia Colony]]
In October 1646 the General Assembly of Virginia signed a peace treaty with Necotowance which brought the Third Anglo-Powhatan War to an end. In the treaty, the tribes of the confederacy became tributaries to the King of England, paying a yearly tribute to the Virginia governor. At the same time, a racial frontier was delineated between Indian and colonial settlements, with members of each group forbidden to cross to the other side except by a special pass obtained at one of the border forts. The extent of the Virginia Colony open to patent was defined as the land between the [[Blackwater River (Virginia)|Blackwater]] and York rivers, and up to the navigable point of each of the major rivers. The treaty also permitted settlements on the peninsula north of the York and below the [[Poropotank River|Poropotank]], as they had already been there since 1640.

==Aftermath==
Necotowance remained paramount chief of what was left of the Powhatan Confederacy until his death about 1649. The tribes of the former confederacy however were scattered. When [[Totopotomoi]] succeeded Necotowance, it was no longer as paramount chief of the Powhatan but as chief of the Pamunkey. Totopotomoi worked as an ally with the colonial government to maintain peace. In 1656 he died in the [[Battle of Bloody Run (1656)|Battle of Bloody Run]] fighting on the side of the colonists against encroaching hostile tribes. His wife [[Cockacoeske]] succeeded him. This period of time is often referred to as a time of relative peace between the colonists{{By whom|date=March 2021}} but it also saw the constant encroachment upon the lands designated to the Indians in the treaty of 1646. 

Chief [[Wahanganoche]] of the Patawomeck tried to work with the colonists, deeding them tribal lands, but it backfired. In 1662, colonists, wanting more, falsely accused Wahanganoche of murder. Found innocent of all charges by a specially convened session of the House of Burgesses, Wahanganoche was nevertheless murdered by colonists while attempting to return home from his trial.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/The_Case_of_Wahanganoche_an_excerpt_from_the_Journals_of_the_House_of_Burgesses_of_Virginia_1662|title = The Case of Wahanganoche; an excerpt from the Journals of the House of Burgesses of Virginia (1662) – Encyclopedia Virginia}}</ref> Shortly thereafter the colonial government demanded all Patawomeck 'sell' their land and in 1666 declared war on the Patawomeck, calling for their "extirpation". 

The tribes of the Northern Neck of Virginia were effectively wiped out, and the few that managed to escape the settlers were absorbed into other [[Native American tribes in Virginia|remaining tribes in the region]]. The peace was shattered further when a small group of [[Doeg people|Doeg]] natives murdered two settlers known for mistreating and defrauding natives, and pillaged the general area. This caused a series of escalations and confusions which culminated in [[Bacon's Rebellion]] in 1676. This resulted in the [[Treaty of 1677|Treaty of Middle Plantation]] signed by Cockacoeske who rallied together other local tribes to sign as well. The treaty set up reservations for each tribe and allowed them hunting rights outside their reservations. It established that all the Indian rulers were equal, with the provision that Cockacoeske was owed the subjection of several scattered groups of Indians.<ref>[http://www.baylink.org/treaty/ 1677 treaty text] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101120054158/http://www.baylink.org/treaty/ |date=2010-11-20 }}</ref>

==See also==
{{Portal|Virginia}}
* [[List of conflicts in the United States]]
* [[History of Virginia]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Further reading==
{{Library resources box|onlinebooks=yes}}
*Cave A. A. (2011). ''Lethal encounters : englishmen and indians in colonial virginia''. Santa Barbara: Praeger. {{ISBN|9780313393358}}.
*{{cite book |last=Grenier |first=John |title=The First Way of War, American War Making of the Frontier, 1607–1814 |url=https://archive.org/details/firstwaywarameri00gren |url-access=limited |location=New York |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2005 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/firstwaywarameri00gren/page/n39 24]–25 |isbn=0521845661 }}
*{{cite book |first=Steve |last=Rajtar |title=Indian War Sites |location=Jefferson, NC |publisher=McFarland |year=1999 |isbn=0786407107 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/indianwarsitesgu0000rajt }}
*{{cite book |first=Helen |last=Rountree |title=Pocahontas's People |location=Norman |publisher=University of Oklahoma Press |year=1990 |isbn=0806122803 }}

{{British colonial campaigns}}

[[Category:17th-century conflicts]]
[[Category:Powhatan Confederacy]]
[[Category:Colonial American and Indian wars]]
[[Category:Colony of Virginia]]
[[Category:Military history of the Thirteen Colonies]]
[[Category:1609 in the Thirteen Colonies]]
[[Category:1622 in the Thirteen Colonies]]
[[Category:1634 in the Thirteen Colonies]]
[[Category:17th-century military history of the Kingdom of England]]
[[Category:17th century in North America]]
[[Category:17th century in the British Empire]]
[[Category:17th century in the Thirteen Colonies]]