The Powhantan Peoples and Their Loss

As the English were just coming into Tsenacomoco located on the eastern side of Virginia at Chesapeake Bay, the Virginia Algonquian speaking Indians known as the Powhatan attacked from within the woods using bow and arrows. From this, the English settlers returned fire with their muskets. The Powhatan Indians retreated back to their village known as Wereocomoco, and alarmed their chief, Wahunsunacock more commonly known as Chief Powhatan. The English settlers followed the Powhatan Indians back to their village where they were immediately met by about seventy warriors with their faces brightly painted, ready to attack. The year is 1607, and the location as we know it today is Jamestown, Virginia.

The Powhatan were such a large group, they were known as the Powhatan Confederacy. The confederacy consisted of almost 14,000 Algonquian speaking people inside of thirty different tribes. The Powhatan confederacy was ruled by one person whom Helen Rountree refers to as mamanatowick or “Great Kinge.” Chief Powhatan had weroance who were in charge of individual tribes under his control. In English terms, a weroance means petty chief or commander. The weroance achieved their title through matrilineal kinship. Most all of them were sons of Powhatan. This paper provides insight on the impact the English settlers, called Tassantassas by the Native Americans meaning, “strangers or foreigners,” demonstrated on the Powhatan losing their land. The clash of these two completely different cultures led to the demise of the Powhatan confederacy. In due course, how the English were ordered by Queen Elizabeth I who established the Virginia Company, to colonize the Chesapeake area without regards to the hardships placed on the Powhatan. ...

... middle of paper ...

...bor to tend to the crops as poor immigrants offered their service in the New World if passage was given to them at no charge. They promised to work as indentured servants to pay back their fare.

In brief, over a period of thirty-seven years with three wars, increased trading, and population of the English during this time, the Powhatan wound up losing the battle to keep their land. With the invasion of the English who assumed it was their God given right to set up a colony on land Powhatan informed them he was not immediately using, being denied weapons for trade which ultimately started the first of three wars, the Powhatan confederacy was doomed to collapse. In the end, the complete elimination of the Powhatan was that of greed. Greed from the English for land, land to grow tobacco on which in turn, brought money back into the hands of the Queen Elizabeth I.