University of Virginia Library

THE INDIANS ATTEMPT THE DESTRUCTION OF THE COLONY.

Three years of prosperity had spread the settlements far and wide;
they extended for a hundred and forty miles along the banks of the
James and far into the interior; several had also been made on the
Potomac, so that by the year 1622, there were no less than eighty families
dotting the country around the Chesapeake. The only cause for
anxiety was the fear of Indian hostilities, and well indeed might this
anxiety exist, for there was now a plot being laid which if it had been
carried out in detail would not have left an Englishman alive in Virginia.
The friends of the colonists were gone. Pocahontas had died in
a foreign land, and Powhatan had also passed away—beloved and honored
by all who knew him. His brother, the cunning, treacherous and revengeful
Opechancanough, had succeeded him. He had long looked
with a jealous eye upon the encroachment of the English, and saw in

their occupation of the country the fate of his own race; and, now that
he was vested with the power which his honored brother had withheld
from him, he determined to annihilate the colony at one fell blow. To
meet the colonists in the open field only insured his own defeat, owing
to the disparity in arms; and the fact that the number of fighting men
were now nearly equal would have resulted in just what he wished to
avoid—the destruction of his own people. His only hope of success
lay in some great stroke which should destroy the power of the colony
at once; his cruelty and revenge dictated a general massacre. In order
to avoid suspicion he renewed the treaty of peace with Governor Wyatt,
and only two days before the blow was to be struck he declared that
the sky would fall before he should violate the terms of the treaty. The
friendly relations were continued up to the fatal day, even to the very
hour. They borrowed boats from the English, brought in venison and
other provisions for sale, and even sat down to breakfast with their unsuspecting
victims. The fatal hour arrived. It was twelve o'clock,
noon, on the 22d day of March, 1622, when every hamlet in Virginia
was attacked by a band of yelling savages, who spared neither age, sex
nor condition. The bloody work went on until three hundred and forty-seven
men, women and children had fallen victims at the bloody and
barbarous hands of that perfidious and inhuman people. Had not a
converted Indian, who lived with a Mr. Pace, revealed the plot, and
thus put the people of Jamestown and immediate settlements on their
guard, and therefore in a state of defense, every settlement would have
been laid in ruins and the inhabitants put to the tomahawk. But the
plot failed. There were yet sixteen hundred fighting men in the colony,
and the Indians were made to pay dearly for their perfidy. The English
pushed into the wilderness, burning wigwams, killing every Indian that
fell into their hands and destroying crops, until every tribe was driven
far into the interior. Confidence was once more restored, and a feeling
of security brought a return of prosperity; emigration again revived,
and at the end of the year the population numbered 2,500.