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Updated: May 11, 2025
And the noble rivers, whose head waters no man has ever found, hidden by the Lord in the Blue Mountains near to the South Sea! Sir, Virginia is God's country!" "You in these lowlands have no trouble with the Indians?" "None to speak of since 'forty-four, when Opechancanough came down upon us. The brush with the Ricahecrians seven years ago was nothing.
Opechancanough is his king, and he lies upon his bed in his lodge and says within himself: 'My war chief, the Panther, the son of Wahunsonacock, who was chief of all the Powhatans, sits now within his wigwam, sharpening flints for his arrows, making his tomahawk bright and keen, thinking of a day three suns hence, when the tribes will shake off forever the hand upon their shoulder, the hand so heavy and white that strives always to bend them to the earth and keep them there. Tell me, you Englishman who have led in war, another name for Nantauquas, and ask no more what evil you have done him."
The Indians were beaten, and, lacking such another leader, made no more organized and general attacks. But for long years a kind of border warfare still went on. Even Maryland, tolerant and just as was the Calvert policy, did not altogether escape Indian troubles. She had to contend with no such able chief as Opechancanough, and she suffered no sweeping massacres.
Now for the first time Powatan was won, for he loved his daughter and the honest treatment of her at English hands pleased him. Opechancanough but bided his time, until 1622. He was a thorough hater; his weapons were treachery as well as open war; he had resolved never to give up his country to the stranger.
By now the sun was shining through the lower branches of the trees, and the mist was fast vanishing. The forest around us, above us, and under the hoofs of the horses where the fallen leaves lay thick was as yellow as gold and as red as blood. "Rolfe," I asked, breaking a long silence, "do you credit what the Indians say of Opechancanough?" "That he was brother to Powhatan only by adoption?"
"I think that Opechancanough would not lift a finger to save me from all the deaths the tribes could invent." "Opechancanough is very wise," he answered quietly. "He says that now the English will believe in his love indeed when they see that he holds dear even one who might be called his enemy, who hath spoken against him at the Englishmen's council fire.
From the Chickahominies and the Pamunkeys the word was spread to the other tribes. The second of his plans ripened. Opechancanough had so aged that he was unable to walk. He set the day of April 18, 1644, as the time for the general attack. He ordered his warriors to bear him upon the field in a litter, at the head of five united tribes.
I could not flee with my wife to the Indians, exposing her, perhaps, to a death by fierce tortures; moreover, Opechancanough had of late strangely taken to returning to the settlements those runaway servants and fugitives from justice which before we had demanded from him in vain.
It looked as though nothing would stand before Opechancanough indeed, as though the end of Virginia had come. But in the midst of the pillage the work suddenly was stopped, the victorious Indians fled and could not be rallied. They were frightened, it is said, by a bad sign in the sky.
I took them the word of Opechancanough." "Then, since the matter is settled, we may go home," I remarked, rising as I spoke. "We could, of course, have put down the Paspaheghs with one hand, giving them besides a lesson which they would not soon forget, but in the kindness of our hearts toward them and to save ourselves trouble we came to Opechancanough.
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