The first proven contact the whites had with Powhatan was in 1607, when they established Jamestown in Virginia. The site the English chose was only about twelve miles south by land travel from Powhatan's capital of Werowocomoco that was located on the York River.
Powhatan was in control of some two dozen tribes he had, as a young man, inherited control of along the upper James and York rivers. His personal empire included more than 30 Algonquian-speaking tribes. In terrain his kingdom included much of the area that is now known as the Virginia Tidewater. It extended north to the Rappahannock River and south to the Great Dismal Swamp. Within this area he controlled some 14,000 subjects.
Powhatan had nothing to fear from other Indian tribes not under his power. But he well may have had a deep concern about white intruders, even before the existence of Jamestown, and for very good reason, by native measures.
Powhatan was seemingly all-powerful amongst the native tribes in the Chesapeake Bay area of America. The whites that were coming to the shores of the New World, and advancing up its waterways to settle, brought an entirely new aspect on the extent of Powhatan's power.
The concerns that Powhatan may have held could have been, in the beginning, based on a decree made by one of Powhatan's shamans, or holy men. This shaman reported that "bearded men should come and take away their country and there should none of the original Indians be left, within a hundred and fifty years." If Powhatan had known how nearly correct his seers of the future were the Indian situation would have surely been considerably worse for the colonists than it was.
Recommended Reading:
Source:
Debelius, Mary. The American Indians: The European Challenge. Time-Life Books, Alexandria, Virginia, 1992.
Hoxie, Frederick E., Editor. Encyclopedia of North American Indians: Native American History, Culture, and Life from Paleo-Indians to the Present. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston and New York, 1996.
Photo provided by:
Treasure Net: Civil War Images
