Anglo-Powhatan Wars

The Anglo–Powhatan Wars were three wars fought between settlers of the Colony of Virginia and the Powhatan People of Tsenacommacah in the early 17th century. The first war started in 1609 and ended in a peace settlement in 1614. The second war lasted from 1622 to 1632. The third war lasted from 1644 until 1646 and ended when Opechancanough was captured and killed. That war resulted in a defined boundary between the Native Americans and colonial lands that could only be crossed for official business with a special pass. This situation lasted until 1677 and the Treaty of Middle Plantation which established Indian reservations following Bacon's Rebellion.

The settlement at Jamestown, Virginia, was established in May 1607 within the territory of the Powhatan, who were led by Chief Wahunsunacawh, known to the colonists as Chief Powhatan. The area was quite swampy and ill-suited to farming, and Powhatan wanted Captain John Smith and the colonists to forsake the swamp and live in one of his satellite towns called Capahosick where they would make metal tools for him in exchange for full provision.

Smith underestimated the capabilities of the Virginia Indigenous, as they knew the land much better than the colonists. He was reconnoitering the countryside near Powhatan's capital of Orapax in December, only seven months after building the fort on Jamestown Island, when a communal hunting party led by Chief Powhatan's son Opechancanough captured him. Smith was released in time for New Year's 1608 when he promised to move the colony to Capahosick. He had convinced Powhatan that he was the son of Captain Christopher Newport and that Newport was their head weroance (tribal chief).

By spring 1609, the local Paspahegh tribe had resumed raiding the fort at Jamestown. However, their weroance Wowinchopunk declared an uneasy truce after he was captured and had escaped. Smith had become president of the colony the preceding fall, and he attempted to establish new forts in the territory that summer. He sent a party with Captain John Martin to settle in Nansemond Country. They abandoned the position after 17 men disobeyed orders and were wiped out while trying to buy corn at the Kecoughtan village. Smith also sent 120 men with Francis West to build a fort upriver at the falls of the James, right above the main town of Powhatan at present-day Richmond, Virginia. He purchased the site from Powhatan's son Parahunt, but this ended up faring no better.

Smith was injured in an accidental gunpowder explosion and sailed to England on October 4 for treatment. The settlers established Fort Algernon at Old Point Comfort in the fall of 1609, right beside the Kecoughtan village. In November, Powhatan ambushed and killed Captain John Ratcliffe and 32 other colonists, who had gone to Orapax to buy corn, and the colonists began to starve to death. After being shipwrecked on Bermuda for nearly a year, Thomas Gates finally arrived in late May 1610 with meager and insufficient supplies. Gates saw the state that the colony was in after his arrival due to their lack of food, and decided to evacuate Jamestown on June 7. However, on their second day of sailing, they met Francis West's older brother Thomas West, 3rd Baron De La Warr, coming into the bay equipped with additional colonists, a doctor, food, supplies, and a contingent of 150 armed men. They therefore returned to the fort under De La Warr's command.^{[verification needed]}

De La Warr proved far harsher and more belligerent toward the Indians than any of his predecessors, and his solution was simply to engage in wars of conquest against them, first sending Gates to drive off the Kecoughtans from their village on July 9, then giving Chief Powhatan the ultimatum to either return all colonists and their property or face war. Powhatan responded by insisting that the colonists either stay in their fort or leave Virginia. De la Warr had the hand of a Paspahegh captive cut off and sent him to the Powhatan with another ultimatum: return all colonists and their property or the neighboring villages would be burned. Powhatan did not respond.

The First Anglo–Powhatan War lasted from 1609 to 1614 between the Powhatans and the colonists. De La Warr sent George Percy and James Davis with 70 men to attack the Paspahegh town on August 9, 1610, burning houses and cutting down cornfields. They killed between 15 and 75 villagers and captured one of Wowinchopunk's wives and her two children. Returning downstream, the colonists threw the children overboard and shot them in the water. Wowinchopunk's wife was executed in Jamestown. The Paspahegh never recovered from this attack and abandoned their town.

A party of colonists was ambushed at Appomattoc in the fall of 1610, and De La Warr managed to establish a company of men at the falls of the James, who stayed there all winter. In February 1611, Wowinchopunk was killed in a skirmish near Jamestown, which his followers avenged a few days later by enticing some colonists out of the fort and killing them. In May, Governor Thomas Dale arrived and began looking for places to establish new settlements; he was repulsed by the Nansemonds but successfully took an island in the James from the Arrohattocs, which became the palisaded fort of Henricus.