Virginia Vignettes

The first Virginia Christmas found the English adventurers far from home and far from merry. Although it was spring when the three English ships landed in the New World, the men neglected the fundamentals of survival in their rush to find gold and silver, and winter found them – like the grasshopper in Aesop’s [...]

Virginia holds two claims to a day of thanksgiving predating the widely popularized “first Thanksgiving” at Plymouth in 1621. Upon arrival of much-needed supplies from England in the spring 1610, following the Jamestown settlement’s “starving time” – the winter famine in 1609-the settlers greeted Lord De la Warr on the James River with a service [...]

Opechancanough, a leading chief or werowance of the Pamunkey nation, was a maternal relative of Powhatan. Identified as one of Powhatan’s successors to the paramount chiefdom, he also acted as war chief or military leader for Powhatan. Opechancanough was leading the party of Indians who captured John Smith when Smith went on an [...]

Pocahontas, a daughter of the paramount chief Powhatan, was about 10 years old in 1607, when the captive John Smith was brought to her father’s headquarters at Werowocomoco. Opinions differ as to whether the famous “rescue of John Smith” actually happened, but if it did, it was most likely a ritual enactment misunderstood by [...]

When the English arrived in Virginia in 1607, Powhatan, whose informal name was Wahunsunacock, was the acknowledged paramount chief, or mamanatowick, of at least 32 Algonquian-speaking tribes with more than 150 towns. These tribes ranged from the Potomac River in the north to just south of the James River, and from the fall line [...]

Virginia holds two claims to a day of thanksgiving predating the widely popularized “first Thanksgiving” at Plymouth in 1621. Upon arrival of much-needed supplies from England in the spring 1610, following the Jamestown settlement’s “starving time” – the winter famine in 1609-the settlers greeted Lord De la Warr on the James River with a service [...]

Opechancanough, a chief of the Pamunkey nation, was a maternal relative of the paramount chief Powhatan. Identified as one of Powhatan’s successors to the paramount chiefdom, he also acted as war chief or military leader for Powhatan. Opechancanough was leading the party of Indians who captured Captain John Smith when the latter went on an [...]

Most modern historians do not think so. Although Smith in his 1624 memoirs credited eleven-year old Pocahontas with his reprieve from death at her father Powhatan’s hand in 1607, his account, replete with sexual fantasy, lacks collaboration and is considered myth. The ceremony that Smith described may have been an adoption ceremony that he did [...]

Pocahontas (1596?-1617) was a daughter of the head of the Powhatan chiefdom, Wahunsonacock or Powhatan. She had two other Indian names, Matoaka and Amonute. She reputedly saved the life of Captain John Smith. After this episode, Pocahontas often visited James Fort, serving as an intermediary and translator. In March 1613, during the ongoing war between [...]

It was not the English and John Smith in 1607! Almost a century before, in 1521 and 1525, the Spanish had explored the Chesapeake Bay region, calling it Bahia de Santa Maria. At the same time the French also sailed into the area, but neither nation was inclined to establish a colony, preferring to create [...]