Word: powhatan
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Relations between white and red men were the most variable factor in Jamestown's early history. The western Chesapeake was ruled by Wahunsonacock, chief of the Powhatan. He was an expansionist, no less than the English, having brought 30 local tribes under his sway, an empire of 15,000 people. In December 1607, Smith described his royal state: "He sat covered with a great robe, made of raccoon skins, and all the tails hanging by," flanked by "two rows of men, and behind them as many women, with all their heads and shoulders painted red." The settlers hoped to make...
Jamestown also was the first place to find a cash cow and an economic system for exploiting it. The Powhatan smoked a crude indigenous species of tobacco. But in 1612, John Rolfe imported seeds of Nicotiana tabacum, the Spanish-American weed that was already a craze in England. By 1620 the colony had shipped almost 50,000 lbs. home. Fifty years later, Virginia and Maryland would ship 15 million lbs. Tobacco and foodstuffs were grown on privately owned farms. Beginning in 1618, old settlers were offered 100 acres of land, and newcomers who paid their way were given 50 acres...
...colony flourished, its Powhatan neighbors became alarmed. Trading posts were one thing, permanent farms another. On March 22, 1622, the new leader of the Powhatan, Opechancanough, launched dawn raids on 28 plantations and settlements along the James River, killing 347 colonists, a quarter of the total population. Jamestown itself escaped, warned by an Indian boy who had converted to Christianity. "Besides them they killed," a survivor lamented, "they burst the heart of all the rest." Dispirited and disorganized, hundreds more colonists died the following winter, the second "starving time...
Smith's charms, though, quickly wore thin. After making a show of his wealth by feasting Smith with Chesapeake oysters, boiled turkey and baked cornbread, Powhatan got to the point: What the heck was Smith doing on the big man's turf, and how fast would he get out? Why, Smith baldly lied, he and his mates had merely been chased upriver by the wicked Spanish and would soon be gone. Powhatan, who knew better, signaled for a band of sinewy warriors to press Smith's head upon an altar of stone and prepare to beat out his brains with...
...life, though, was not waged against Turkish tyrants or English rivals. Smith met his match in a smoke-filled lodge of bark and skins, when he was captured and made to stand trial before the most powerful man in Virginia, an aging Algonquian chief the English knew as Powhatan. He wore a raccoon cloak, long strings of pearls and was attended by women, warriors, shamans and priests, Smith wrote, recalling that Powhatan projected "such a grave and majestical countenance as drew me into admiration to see such state in a naked savage...