Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 11, 2025
Many fled west and south, into the Great Lakes country, and beyond. The first English-speaking settlement that held fast in the United States was Jamestown, inland a short distance from the Chesapeake Bay coast of Virginia, in the country of the Great King Powatan. The Powatans, of at least thirty tribes, in this 1607 owned eight thousand square miles and mustered almost three thousand warriors.
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.
This may be the reason that, although he was allied to Chief Powatan, he never joined him in friendship to the whites, who, he claimed, if not checked would over-run the Indians' hunting-grounds. The Indians of Virginia did not wish to have the white men among them.
Meanwhile, Pocahontas had died, in 1617, aged about twenty-two, just when leaving England for a visit home. His elder brother O-pi-tchi-pan became head sachem of the Powatan league. He was not of high character like the great chief's. Now Opechancanough soon sprang to the front, as champion of the nation.
Powatan, the head sachem, collected guns and hatchets and planned to stem the tide while it was small. But these English enticed his daughter Pocahontas aboard a vessel, and there held her for the good behavior of her father. Pocahontas married John Rolfe, an English gentleman of the colony.
They lived in a land rich with good soil, game and fish; the men were well formed, the women were comely, the children many. A large, masterful man was Opechancanough, sachem of the Pamunkeys. The Indians themselves said that he was not a Powatan, nor any relation of their king; but that he came from the princely line of a great Southern nation, distant many leagues.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking