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In the early 1600s, scholars estimate that 400–600 distinct Indian tribes existed in North America north of Mexico, with some higher figures when including smaller bands and villages. Across the entire Americas, the number of distinct peoples was likely in the thousands, though precise counts remain debated due to diverse social organizations and the impact of early European contact.
A New Tribe Arrives
In 1607, a new tribe—the English—established Jamestown on the shores of the James River, settling amid the territories of the Powhatan Confederacy, as well as neighboring groups like the Monacan and Manahoac.
In the early 1600s, England faced growing social and economic strain. Rapid population growth, poverty, and limited opportunities—along with religious conflict and rigid class structures—pushed many to look beyond Europe for a fresh start. The promise of religious autonomy, land ownership, and economic advancement drew settlers toward the New World, while reports of vast natural resources and commercial potential attracted investors eager to profit from overseas expansion.
Backed by the joint-stock Virginia Company, the new tribe hoped to find valuable commodities, establish trade, or at least justify the investment. They brought European ideas about private land ownership, diplomacy, and peace—concepts that clashed with Indian traditions of communalism, male dominance, and ceaseless tribal warfare.
The Engish tribe wanted to be left in peace. They were rugged individualists.
Jamestown Beginnings
Jamestown began as a fragile outpost. Disease, contaminated water, and food shortages nearly destroyed it in the early years. Survival often depended on trade with nearby Native communities in the Powhatan Confederacy, whose leaders sometimes provided food and goods. It was a time of cooperation.
Hardship reached its peak during the infamous "Starving Time" winter of 1609–1610, when most colonists perished from hunger and illness. Survivors resorted to eating animals, vermin, and, in extreme cases, even human remains. Reinforcements and stricter governance eventually stabilized the colony, but prosperity arrived only with the cultivation of tobacco using Caribbean seed varieties. As tobacco became a profitable export, English plantations expanded rapidly, increasing pressure on Indian lands and resources.
Uneasy Peace and Rising Tensions
After the First Anglo-Powhatan War (1609–1614) ended with the marriage of Pocahontas (daughter of paramount chief Powhatan) to colonist John Rolfe in 1614, a period of uneasy peace followed.
By the late 1610s and early 1620s, the colony grew quickly due to tobacco profits, the headright system (granting land for importing settlers), and new immigrants. Plantations spread up the James River. Powhatan tribes looked on with trepidation.
After Powhatan's death around 1618, his brother Opitchapam became paramount chief, but war leader Opechancanough emerged as the chief strategist. He and other leaders saw the English as an existential threat. The English were resented for their superior civilization and feared for their military might and prowess. The attack was driven by a desire to halt English expansion and reassert Powhatan dominance before things got out of hand. It was far too late.
The Coordinated Assault of March 22, 1622
On March 22, 1622, Powhatan warriors launched a carefully planned, simultaneous surprise attack on multiple English settlements and plantations along the James River.
Many attackers approached homes and fields appearing friendly and unarmed, often bringing provisions such as deer, turkeys, fish, or trade goods—sometimes even sharing meals. At a prearranged signal, they seized the colonists' own tools, knives, and weapons and attacked, killing men, women, and children indiscriminately.
The assault devastated outlying areas: homes were burned, crops and livestock destroyed, and some bodies reportedly mutilated, as was later common during the Indian wars. Jamestown itself was largely spared due to a last-minute warning from a Native Christian convert (possibly named Chanco or Chauco), allowing settlers to prepare defenses.
Contemporary records report 347 English deaths—roughly one-third (or at least a quarter) of the colony's population of about 1,200–1,400. Hundreds of colonists were killed within hours, and many outlying communities were wiped out.
Immediate Aftermath and English Response
The colony descended into chaos. Survivors retreated to fortified positions, but lost crops and supplies led to further deaths from starvation, disease, and exposure in the following months.
The Virginia Company in London published dramatic accounts, including Edward Waterhouse's 1622 pamphlet, portraying the attack as treacherous and barbaric to justify retaliation and rally support:
Some even sat down for breakfast, only to “basely and barbarously” murder the colonists with their own tools, “not sparing eyther the age or sexe, man, woman or childe.” The Indians were not “content with taking away life alone,” Waterhouse writes; “they fell after againe upon the dead, making as well as they could, a fresh murder, defacing, dragging, and mangling the dead carcasses into many pieces, and carrying some parts away in derision, with base and bruitish triumph.” In all, at least a quarter of Virginia’s English population was killed. (Waterhouse, presumably in an attempt to minimize the damage, puts the ratio at one-twelfth.) Numbering the dead at 347, the document lists them by name and includes John Waterhouse, who may have been a kinsman of Edward Waterhouse.
The event ignited the Second Anglo-Powhatan War (1622–1632), a decade of brutal conflict. English forces systematically raided Powhatan villages, burned crops, destroyed food stores, and sought to weaken the confederacy through famine and sustained raids.
English attitudes hardened: earlier hopes of peaceful conversion and coexistence largely vanished. Many now viewed the Powhatan as irredeemable enemies, justifying aggressive land seizure and militant rhetoric.
The crisis contributed to the Virginia Company's collapse (dissolved in 1624), after which Virginia became a royal colony under direct Crown control.
Lasting Impact
The balance of power shifted permanently toward the English, who continued expanding while the Powhatan Confederacy weakened. The assault transformed colonial policy. Indians could no longer be trusted. Still, they are held in highest esteem as brave warriors rather then mass murderers.
It’s happening again
Today, the “English” are again under assault as a confederation of “people of color” is being rallied against whites. In Texas, for example, State Rep. Gene Wu called on non-white racial groups to unite against their common “oppressor,” white people.
Clearly, Marxism is dividing America between “us and them,” "people of color vs whites,” “the oppressed vs the oppressors,” “Indians vs English.”
Just as the Powhatans attacked the English with their own tools, the people-of-color confederation is using tools invented by whites, such as the internet, against them. And just as Chanco warned the remaining English in Jamestown, whites have been warned.
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Powhatan Indian Attack of March 22, 1622
Jamestown Colony
Anglo‑Powhatan War, Second (1622–1632)
A Short History of Jamestown
The Moment that Changed Colonial‑Indigenous Relations Forever
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