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Harper's Encyclopedia of United States History (ed. Benson Lossing) 26 0 Browse Search
George Bancroft, History of the Colonization of the United States, Vol. 1, 17th edition. 6 0 Browse Search
George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 3, 15th edition. 2 0 Browse Search
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Harper's Encyclopedia of United States History (ed. Benson Lossing), Imperialism. (search)
dians by trading with them, and at the same time fortifying the new settlement against Indian depredations. Smith strengthened the fort in 1608, trained the watch regularly and exercised the company every Saturday. No organized opposition to the white settlement appeared during the first few years, though the Indians manifested their dissatisfaction in the arrest of Smith, whom they would have summarily put to death but for the intercession of the chief's daughter. But in 1622, under Opechancanough, they attacked the settlers, killed several hundred of them, and devastated a good many plantations. They were finally beaten back by the whites, many of them being unmercifully slaughtered, and the rest driven into the wilderness. Twenty-two years later, under the lead of the same chief, another war broke out, lasting two years, causing much loss of life and property on both sides, and resulting in the utter defeat of the Indians and the cession by them of tracts of land to the coloni
Harper's Encyclopedia of United States History (ed. Benson Lossing), Opechancanough, -1644 (search)
Opechancanough, -1644 Brother of Powhatan, was King of Pamunkey when the English first landed in Virginia. He was born about 1552, and nown to the English as the captor of John Smith in the forest. Opechancanough would have killed him immediately, but for Smith's presence of ars—how the sun chased the night around the earth continually. Opechancanough regarded him as a superior being, and women and children staredian's capital, until he was placed in the custody of Powhatan. Opechancanough attended the marriage of his niece, Pocahontas, at Jamestown. But just at that time a fearful cloud of trouble was brooding. Opechancanough could command about 1,500 warriors. He hated the English bittestility between the races continued for more than twenty years. Opechancanough lived, and had been nursing his wrath all that time, prudence ampetent armed force, and drove them back with great slaughter. Opechancanough was made a prisoner, and carried in triumph to Jamestown. He w
Harper's Encyclopedia of United States History (ed. Benson Lossing), Powhatan, -1618 (search)
out 8,000, and he is known in history simply as Powhatan. When he became emperor he resided chiefly at Weroworomoco (now Shelly), on the York River, in Gloucester county, Va. He treated the English people hospitably, but his younger brother, Opechancanough, King of Pamunkey, was always hostile to them. When Captain Smith was taken prisoner by him, he conducted the captain first to his own village, and then to the palace of Powhatan on the York. At the former place the Indians held incantatied to his brother the King of England. Powhatan's friendship was almost destroyed when Captain Argall, a rough, half-piratical mariner, kidnapped Pocahontas (q. v.) to extort favors from her father. Powhatan was grieved, but remained firm. Meanwhile Pocahontas became betrothed to an Englishman, and with the consent of her father was married to him. After that Powhatan was the fast friend of the settlers. He died in April, 1618, and was succeeded by Opechancanough, an enemy of the English.
Harper's Encyclopedia of United States History (ed. Benson Lossing), Powhatan Indians, (search)
Powhatan Indians, A branch of the Algonquian family, which composed a confederacy of about thirty bands, including the Accohannocks and Accomacs, on the eastern shore of Chesapeake Bay. Their sagamore was Powhatan (q. v.). After Powhatan's death his people made two attempts (1622, 1644) to exterminate the English, but they themselves were so weakened by the contest that the confederacy fell in pieces at the death of Opechancanough, Powhatan's brother and successor. Of all that once great confederacy in lower Virginia, not one representative, it is believed, exists on earth, nor one tongue speaks the dialect.
Harper's Encyclopedia of United States History (ed. Benson Lossing), Smith, John 1579-1632 (search)
was Gosnold. The company had instructed the leaders of the colony to explore every considerable stream in search of the coveted northwest passage. Smith smiled at the ignorance of the company, but gladly undertook explorations. He went up the Chickahominy in an open boat to shallow water among the swamps of the Virginia peninsula. Leaving the boat in charge of part of his company, he with two others and two Indian guides penetrated the forest, when Smith was seized by savages under Opechancanough, king of Pamunkey, an elder brother of Powhatan, and conducted to the presence of the emperor at Weroworomoco, on the borders of the York River. At a great council presided over by Powhatan, he was doomed to die. Matoa, or Pocahontas, a daughter of Powhatan, begged her father to spare the prisoner's life, but in vain. His head was laid upon two huge stones, and two stalwart warriors had raised heavy clubs to crush it, when Pocahontas sprang from her seat by her father's side, clasped
Harper's Encyclopedia of United States History (ed. Benson Lossing), Virginia, (search)
vey......1635-36 Harvey, reinstated by Charles, returns......1637 Sir Francis Wyatt succeeds Harvey as governor......November, 1639 Sir William Berkeley appointed governor, and arrives in Virginia......February, 1642 Massachusetts sends three clergymen to Virginia at the request of Puritans there......1642 Virginia Assembly enacts that all ministers in the colony shall conform to the order and constitution of the Church of England or depart......1643 Indians, incited by Opechancanough, sachem of the Powhatans, massacre 300 colonists......April 18, 1644 Indians are quickly overcome, and the aged Opechancanough is captured and dies in prison......1644 Governor Berkeley sails for England, and leaves Richard Kemp as deputy......June, 1644 Virginia in sympathy with the Cavaliers of England. Population consists of 20,000 whites and 300 negroes; average yearly export of tobacco, 1,500,000 lbs.......1648 Dissenters having increased to 118, encounter all the rigo
the traditions of their tribes preserved the memory. He was allowed to send a letter to the fort at Jamestown; and the savage wonder was increased; for he seemed, by some magic, to endow the paper with the gift of intelligence. The curiosity of all the clans of the neighborhood was awakened by the prisoner; he was conducted in triumph from the settlements on the Chickahominy to the Indian villages on the Rappahannock and the Potomac; and thence, through other towns, to the residence of Opechancanough, at Pamunkey. There, for the space of three days, they practised incantations and ceremonies, in the hope of obtaining some insight into the mystery of his character and his designs. It was evident that he was a being of a higher order: was his nature beneficent, or was he to be dreaded as a dangerous enemy? Their minds were bewildered, as they beheld his calm fearlessness; and they sedulously observed towards him the utmost reverence and hospitality, as if to propitiate his power, sh
; and, so complete was the superiority conferred by the use of fire-arms, that with fifteen men he was able to withstand them all. Smith, i. 129. The savages were therefore regarded with contempt or compassion. No uniform care had been taken to conciliate their good will; although their condition had been improved Chap V.} 1622 by some of the arts of civilized life. The degree of their advancement may be judged by the intelligence of their chieftain. A house having been built for Opechancanough after the English fashion, he took such delight in the lock and key, that he would lock and unlock the door a hundred times a day, and thought the device incomparable. Smith, II. 68. Stith, 211. When Wyatt arrived, the natives expressed a fear lest his intentions should be hostile: he assured them of his wish to preserve inviolable peace; and the emigrants had no use for fire-arms except against a deer or a fowl. Confidence so far increased, that the old law, which made death the pe
the Indian country were ordered; yet so weak were the natives, that though the careless traveller and the straggling huntsman were Chap VI.} long in danger of being intercepted, Hening, i. 300, 301, Act 3. yet ten men were considered a sufficient force to protect a place of danger. Ibid. 285, 286, Act 5. About fifteen months after Berkeley's return from 1646 Oct. England, articles of peace were established between the inhabitants of Virginia and Necotowance, the successor of Opechancanough. Ibid. 323—326. Compare Drake's Indian Biography, b. IV. 22—24; Johnson's Wonder-working Providence, b. III. c. XI. Submission and a cession of lands were the terms on which the treaty was purchased by the original possessors of the soil, who now began to vanish away from the immediate vicinity of the settlements of their too formidable invaders. It is one of the surprising results of moral power, that language, composed of fleeting sounds, retains and transmits the remembrance of
hward of the Neuse River, spoke a kindred language—thus Lawson, 171. establishing Cape Fear as the southern limit of the Algonquin speech. In Virginia, the same language was heard throughout the whole dominion of Powhatan, which had the Chap. XXII.} tribes of the Eastern Shore as its dependencies, and included all the villages west of the Chesapeake, from the most southern tributaries of James River to the Patuxent. The power of the little empire was entirely broken in the days of Opechancanough; and after the insurrection of Bacon, the confederacy disappears from history. The Shawnees connect the south-eastern Algonquins with the west. The basin of the Cumberland River is marked by the earliest French geographers as the home of this restless nation of wanderers. A part of them afterwards had their cabins and their Kircheval, 53. springs in the neighborhood of Winchester. Their principal band removed from their hunting-fields in Kentucky to the head waters of one of the g