1622 — March 22, Jamestown Massacre, Powhatan Natives attack Jamestown Colony, VA–347
Compiled by Wayne Blanchard, last edit 1-28-2024 for upload to: http://www.usdeadlyevents.com/
–>350 Nunnally, Michael L. American Indian Wars. 2007, p. 9.
— 347 Bancroft. History of the United States of America, Vol. 1. 1891, pp. 127-128.
—>347 Carter. “1622: Massacre at Jamestown,” in Campbell (Ed.), Disasters…, 2008, p. 11.
— 347 Drake, Samuel G. Chronicles of the Indians of America. In Drake 1836, p. 154.
— 347 Hoffer, Charles Peter. The Brave New World: A History of Early America. 2006, p. 132.
— 347 Jones, F. T. (Ed.). A History of the United States in Chronological Order. 1888, p. 21.
— 347 McCartney, M. “Narrative History.” A Study of Virginia Indians and Jamestown. NPS.
— 347 US National Library of Medicine. Native Voices. “Timeline. AD 1622: Powhatan…”
Narrative Information
Bancroft: “Powhatan, the friend of the English, died in 1618; and his brother was the heir to his influence. By this time the natives were near being driven ‘to seek a stranger countrie;’ to save their ancient dwelling-places, it seemed to them that the English much be exterminated. On the twenty-second of March 1622, at mid-day, they fell upon the unsuspecting population; children and women, as well as men, the missionary, the benefactor – all were slain with every aggravation of cruelty. In one hour three hundred and forty-seven persons were cut off…
“…public works were abandoned, and the settlements reduced from eighty plantations to less than eight. Sickness prevailed among the dispirited survivors, who were crowded into narrow quarters; some returned to their mother country. The number of inhabitants had exceeded four thousand; a year after the massacre there remained only two thousand five hundred.” (Bancroft. History of the United States of America, Vol. 1. 1881, pp. 127-128.)
Carter: “On the morning of March 22, 1622, Algonquian Indians attacked English colonists at Jamestown, murdering at least 347 of the settlers and wounding many others in an unexpected assault. Provoked by English incursion onto their native lands and the unaccommodating behavior of whites, the attack had major implications for the future relations between Indians and the English.” (Carter. “1622: Massacre at Jamestown,” 2008, p. 11.)
Drake: “1622….March 22. – The Indians in Virginia surprise the English and massacre of them 347 persons.” (Drake, Samuel G. Chronicles of the Indians of America, From its First Discovery to the Present Time. Boston: 1836. In Drake, S. G. The Old Indian Chronicle; Being a Collection of Exceeding Rare Tracts Written and Published in the Time of King Philip’s War, by Persons Residing in the Country; to Which are Now Added Marginal Notes and Chronicles of the Indians From the discovery of America to the present time. Boston: Antiquarian Institute, 1836, p. 154.)
Hoffer: “….Confident in their armor and firearms, the settlers dismissed their Indian neighbors as savages. English sneers and rudeness pained the natives, and English atrocities drove the Indians past endurance. In 1618, Opechancanough, succeeding to his brother’s paramount chiefdomship, began planning to oust the English from Powhatan lands. In the winter of 1622, after the English had murdered one of the chiefs and the company had refused to pay compensation, he and his allies decided to strike at the settlements.
“Opechancanough wanted the attack on the English to be an event that any surviving colonists would never forget. But to succeed, the attack had to be stealthy. Indian numbers and power were too weak for anything else, not to say that Indian warriors were not masters of ambush. The werowance knew that the English had grown careless. He set the plan to begin in the early morning of March 22, 1622.
“At breakfast time, his people would enter the homes of the unsuspecting Virginians carrying no weapons but those concealed on their person, engage in friendly conversation over the first meal, then use the English people’s tools to murder their hosts, according to Smith, ‘not sparing either age or sex, man woman or child…neither did these beasts spare those amongst the rest well known unto them, from whom they had daily received many benefits.’
“To enforce the message of the Indians’ fury on the minds of the settlers, victims would be mutilated and then displayed and body parts eaten. For example, Nathaniel Powell and his entire family were decapitated and hanged in plain sight. Some of the gruesome details in John Smith’s account of the massacre resulted from hysterical reports; some were propaganda, but the decapitation of enemies was a common Indian and European tactic to heighten the terror of the warfare. Torture of the captives served the same purpose. Indian cannibalism simultaneously humiliated the enemy and stole his inner spirit. He could never gain revenge from the other world, and his strength passed to those who consumed him. Practiced in the sight of survivors, it was never forgotten.
“Friendly Indians warned the people of Jamestown of the approaching carnage, and they were able to defend themselves, but 347 Virginians, a fourth of the total number of settlers, died in the massacre. The rest would never forget what they had seen or heard. Opechancaough’s sneak attack worked too well, however, for the English response to the ‘massacre of 1622’ was total warfare of the European variety. The English systematically burned Indian villages and gardens. With the Indians driven away from the Tidewater, their patchwork of common woods, paths, and native villages gave way to an English-style checkerboard of fenced-in, privately owned farms and plantations.
“Opechancanough sued for peace, at least until 1644. Then, nearly one hundred years old, he tried one more time to rout the colonists. After two years of war and nearly five hundred dead among the colonists, Opechancanough was captured and shot. Not all Algonquians followed Opechancanough, and Indians remained in the region after his final uprising was suppressed. Even the Powhatan confederation survived, though a shadow of its former power. In 1645, its leaders conceded that they held their lands at the pleasure of the crown.” (Hoffer, Charles Peter. The Brave New World: A History of Early America. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000, 2006, p. 132.)
Jones: “1622. In revenge for the murder of an Indian brave, the Indians massacre the colonists in Virginia (22 Mar.); 347 killed, many plantations deserted, and their number reduced from 80 to 8. Intermittent warfare results for 24 years, until 1646.” (Jones, Frederick Thomas (Ed.). A History of the United States in Chronological Order from A.D. 432 to the Present Time. St. Paul: The Pioneer Press, 1888, p. 21.)
McCartney: “The encroachment upon Native territory precipitated the March 22, 1622 Indian uprising which claimed the lives of an estimated one-third of the colony’s population. It was then that the Indians of the Powhatan Chiefdom, led by Opechancanough, launched a carefully orchestrated attack upon the sparsely inhabited plantations along the James River, hoping to drive the colonists from their soil. In the long run, however, the Indian uprising did very little to stem the tide of expanding settlement. The timing of the uprising coincided with the taking up of Powhatan’s bones (McCartney 1985:53-54; Kingsbury 1906-1935:IV:9). Anthropologists link the taking up of Powhatan’s bones as a significant ceremony in the eyes of the Indians and linked to the uprising.
“No lives apparently were lost on Jamestown Island, although the capital city may have had a narrow escape. Virginia Company records credit an Indian youth named Chanco, who had been converted to the Christian faith and lived with Richard Pace whose plantation lay across the James River from the western end of Jamestown Island. Chanco’s brother reportedly had told him about the plan to attack the settlements and urged him to kill his master. But Chanco, whom Richard Pace had treated like a son, warned him about the impending attack. Pace then ‘hastily rowed in a canoe across the river to Jamestown to notify the governor of the impending danger.” Richard Pace’s timely warning allowed the colonists to take some defensive precautions. One man said that when the attacking Indians arrived, we “opened fire upon them with our muskets,” whereupon the Natives retreated. An account written by a man, who had been in Virginia at the time of the attack, states that “a party of Indians embarked in four boats for Jamestown and the surrounding country” (Kingsbury 1906-1935:III:554-557, 652-653; IV: 98-101, 221-223; Smith 1989:II:297-298; Tyler 1900-1901:212). Natives living in colonists’ homes in Elizabeth City and Newport News also warned on the attack.
“At the end of the day, an estimated 347 men, women and children lay dead: approximately a third of the colony’s population.[1] Men, women, and children were slain in Henrico (at Falling Creek, the Sheffield Plantation, Henrico Island, the College, and Abraham Peiersy’s plantation on the Appomattox River) and in Charles City (at Bermuda Hundred, Bermuda City, West and Shirley Hundred, Berkeley Hundred, Westover, Flowerdew Hundred, and at the plantations of Thomas Swinhowe, William Bicker, Captain Nathaniel Powell, Captain Thomas Spellman, and William Farrar). Within the corporation of James City, several colonists lost their lives at Southampton Hundred, a settlement located at Dancing Point, on the west side of the Chickahominy River’s mouth.
“It is not known whether anyone perished on the tract of Company Land in James City, on the east side of the Chickahominy’s entrance. However, the inclusion of Captain Jabez Whittaker’s servant, Thomas Holland, in the list of those who were slain suggests that the Company Land may have been attacked. Ensign William Spence’s plantation, in the neck of land behind Jamestown Island, was attacked and several people were killed. A large number of people (73) reportedly were killed at Martin’s Hundred, where 19 women were taken prisoner and carried off to the Pamunkey Indians’ stronghold. Downstream in Elizabeth City Thomas Pierce’s and Edward Waters’ plantations were attacked. Waters, his wife, and child were captured by the Nansemond Indians, who took them to their village across the James River. Later, the Waters’ managed to escape from their captors. In Warresqueak, the death toll at Edward Bennett’s plantation, Bennett’s Welcome, was extremely high (Kingsbury 1906-1935:III:565-571).
“The Rev. Joseph Mead, a Biblical scholar at Christ College in Cambridge University, wrote several letters in which he talked about the Indian uprising. In a July 13, 1622, letter he said that 329 colonists had been slain and that the Indians tried to entice the settlers away from their homes by inviting them to a feast. Another letter indicates that the attack occurred at 8 A. M. Mead, though not mentioning Chanco by name, spoke of his role in saving colonists’ lives by warning his master. On February 28, 1622, Mead said that he had heard that Opechancanough had been driven afar and that many of his men had been slain. He also said that the colonists had taken a substantial quantity of corn from the Natives (Mead 1963:408-410).” (McCartney, Martha W. “Narrative History.” Chapter 4 in Colonial: A Study of Virginia Indians and Jamestown: The First Century. National; Park Service.)
Nunnally: “March 22, 1622, Jamestown Massacre – Virginia. Powhatan Indians led by Opechancanough begin attacks on settlements and plantations along the James River. Opechancanough begins a war to exterminate the English settlements from the area. On the first day of attacks at Jamestown over 350 colonists are killed from an area with a population of 1,200. At Martin’s Hundred, 78 of 140 settlers are killed. The town of Henrico is destroyed.”[2]
(Nunnally, Michael L. American Indian Wars: A Chronology of Confrontations Between Native Peoples and Settlers and the United States Military, 1500s-1901. Jefferson, NC and London: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2007, p. 9p-10.)
U.S. Library of Medicine: “At the death of Chief Powhatan in 1618, his brother takes his place as the leader of the Powhatan Chiefdom. Under the leadership of Opechancanough, the head of the Pamunkey Indians, Powhatans kill 347 marauding English settlers.
“Led by Opechancanough (b. ca. 1545–d. 1646), the Powhatan Chiefdom fights two wars with English colonists in Virginia, the first in 1622–23, and a second one in 1644–46. Both end in treaties between the Indians and the English. Another treaty signed in 1677 goes largely unheeded. As a result, Virginia’s Native people are forced from their homelands by thousands of English newcomers.” (United States National Library of Medicine. Native Voices. Native Peoples’ Concepts of Health and Illness. “Timeline. AD 1622: Powhatan Chiefdom resists English settlement in Virginia.” Bethesda, MD: National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services.)
Sources
Bancroft, George. History of the United States of America, Vol. 1 (the author’s last revision). New York: D. Appleton and Co. 1891.
Carter, Allison D. “1609-1610: Starving Time at Jamestown.” In Ballard C. Campbell, Disasters, Accidents, and Crises In American History (NY: Facts on File, 2008), pp. 7-8.
Drake, Samuel G. Chronicles of the Indians of America, From its First Discovery to the Present Time. Boston: 1836. In Drake, S. G. The Old Indian Chronicle; Being a Collection of Exceeding Rare Tracts Written and Published in the Time of King Philip’s War, by Persons Residing in the Country; to Which are Now Added Marginal Notes and Chronicles of the Indians From the discovery of America to the present time. Boston: Antiquarian Institute, 1836. Google preview accessed 2-22-2018 at: http://books.google.com/books?id=NUwMAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
Hoffer, Charles Peter. The Brave New World: A History of Early America. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000, 2006. Partially Google digitized at: http://books.google.com/books?id=8HlLTgmdPAEC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
Jones, Frederick Thomas (Ed.). A History of the United States in Chronological Order from A.D. 432 to the Present Time. St. Paul: The Pioneer Press, 1888. Google digitized. Accessed 1-29-2013: http://books.google.com/books?id=sldFAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
McCartney, Martha W. “Narrative History.” Chapter 4 in Colonial: A Study of Virginia Indians and Jamestown: The First Century. National; Park Service. Accessed 1-9-2013 at: http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/jame1/moretti-langholtz/chap4.htm
Nunnally, Michael L. American Indian Wars: A Chronology of Confrontations Between Native Peoples and Settlers and the United States Military, 1500s-1901. Jefferson, NC and London: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2007.
United States National Library of Medicine. Native Voices. Native Peoples’ Concepts of Health and Illness. “Timeline. AD 1622: Powhatan Chiefdom resists English settlement in Virginia.” Bethesda, MD: National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services. Accessed 9-17-2012 at: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/nativevoices/timeline/203.html
[1] McCartney notes that some people at first believed to have been killed, were found to have been captured.
[2] Cites: Hoyt, Edwin P. America’s Wars & Military Excursions. NY: McGraw-Hill, 1987; Josephy, Jr., Alvin M. 500 Nations: An Illustrated History of North American Indians. NY: Alfred A Knopf, 1994; and Reader’s Digest Publications. Through Indian Eyes. Pleasantville, NY: Reader’s Digest, 1995.