Opechancanough

  • Born: c. 1545
  • Birthplace: Virginia
  • Died: 1644 or 1646
  • Place of death: Jamestown, Virginia

Pamunkey chief (r. before 1607-1644/1646) and head of the Powhatan Confederacy (r. 1618-1644/1646)

An inveterate enemy of the English colonization of Virginia, Pamunkey chief Opechancanough engineered two highly successful attacks during the Powhatan Wars.

Areas of achievement: Government and politics, warfare and conquest

Early Life

Lack of documentation as to the origin and early life of Opechancanough (oh-pehch-uhn-kah-NOH) has brought about a good deal of theorizing, much of it fantastic. It is most likely that he was born during the 1540’s, on or near the peninsula between the James and York Rivers. His parentage is unknown: The theory that his actual father was an “unknown Spaniard” has no basis in fact. He has also been speculatively identified as Don Luis de Velasco, a young Native American who was abducted by a Spanish expedition to the present-day Williamsburg-Yorktown area of Virginia in 1561.

Taken to Cuba, to Mexico, and then to Spain, the young man was baptized a Christian and given the name Don Luis de Velasco, after his Spanish patron. He was taken back to his homeland in 1570, when the Spanish Mission of Ajacan was established by seven Jesuit priests led by Juan Bautista de Segura (again, probably in the vicinity of Williamsburg or Yorktown). After a few months, “Don Luis” deserted the mission, returned to his people, and then, in February of 1571, returned to massacre Segura and the others. This story, which is offered as an explanation for the intense hatred later demonstrated by Opechancanough against Europeans, is highly questionable in the sense that it identifies the two Native Americans as being identical individuals, with no conclusive evidence to support this assertion.

The earliest fact that is known with certainty about Opechancanough is that by 1607 he was established as chief of the important Pamunkey tribe and served under his brother Powhatan (also known as Wahunsonacock), who was the high chief (or as the English styled him, emperor) of the Powhatan Confederacy. The confederacy stretched along the coastal plain of the Chesapeake Bay from the Potomac River to near the present site of Norfolk, Virginia. It was Opechancanough who actually captured the English adventurer John Smith and turned him over to his brother. Smith later turned the tables on Opechancanough: While pretending to be on a trading mission to the chieftain’s village, Smith seized him, placed a gun to his head, and forced him to give a supply of corn to the Jamestown colony. This incident may have intensified Opechancanough’s suspicion of and hatred toward the European interlopers.

Life’s Work

Powhatan pursued an erratic policy toward the English Jamestown colony, vacillating between open warfare, toleration, and, especially after Powhatan’s daughter Pocahontas married the English planter John Rolfe, peace and coexistence. Opechancanough, in opposition to his brother, consistently favored an aggressive policy aimed at the destruction of the colony. Some believe that he was alarmed over the rapidity with which plantations and settlements were spreading along the James and York River Valleys and that he feared that the English posed a threat to the Powhatan way of life. Certain scholars assert that, as Powhatan himself grew older, Opechancanough steadily advanced in power to the point at which he began to exercise actual leadership.

Pocahontas died at Gravesend, England, in March of 1617, and Powhatan himself passed on in April, 1618. He was at first succeeded by another brother, Opitchapan, but within a few months, Opitchapan was supplanted by Opechancanough. For over three years, Opechancanough feigned friendship with the whites, allowing his people to mingle freely among the settlements. He even accepted the gift of an English log cabin with a specially fashioned lock and key from George Thorpe, who championed a movement to educate and Christianize Powhatan children.

A religious revival, centered around the major Powhatan god Okewas, swept through the villages of the confederacy. When Nenemattanaw (“jack of the feathers”), one of the leaders of this religious movement, was killed in an altercation with English settlers, Opechancanough conspicuously signed a peace agreement with Thorpe, indicating his eventual desire to convert to Christianity. It was a subterfuge, and at 12 noon on March 22, 1622 (Good Friday), Opechancanough launched a meticulously planned and executed attack that virtually annihilated the colonists’ outlying settlements and snuffed out one-quarter of the English colony’s population (347 individuals) within hours. This so-called Day of Okewas left dead colonists and obliterated towns and homesteads on both banks of the James River, setting off the largest and most viciously fought of the Powhatan Wars.

The strategy of Sir Francis Wyatt, the English governor at Jamestown, was to withdraw the English population within a more easily defensible perimeter around Jamestown and to launch punitive raids on Powhatan villages and cornfields, thus jeopardizing the Indians’ food supplies. In May, 1623, while Opechancanough was attending peace talks with the English, they unsuccessfully attempted to poison him with wine and then shot him, leaving the chief for dead. However, he survived and recuperated to continue the fight until 1632, when a semiofficial, uneasy truce was put into place.

Though Opechancanough was generally quiet for some twelve years, he never abandoned the strategy of waiting until the English had been lulled into a false sense of security, and he planned another devastating onslaught. The Second Day of Okewas, on April 18, 1644, was even more bloody than that of 1622: More than five hundred settlers were killed. With a much larger population by this time, however, the English colony was better able to absorb the blow, and countermeasures similar to those initiated by Wyatt twenty-two years earlier were placed in motion by then-governor Sir William Berkeley.

Opechancanough, who may have been close to one hundred years old by this time, was quite feeble. He had to be transported on a litter borne by two warriors. He was ultimately captured, probably in the summer of 1646 (though possibly two years earlier), and taken to Jamestown, where he remained defiant to the end. Berkeley had ordered that the chieftain be kept alive, with the intention of sending him to England to stand trial before King Charles I. However, one of the guards, who may have endured the loss of friends or family members to the Powhatans, violated the orders and slew Opechancanough by shooting him in the back. Opechancanough is known to have had a daughter, Nicketti, who married the Englishman John Rice Hughes. Necotowance, who became high chief in his turn, may have been Opechancanough’s son.

Significance

Opechancanough’s death brought an end to serious Native American opposition to English expansion in Tidewater Virginia. His successor, Necotowance, signed a treaty of capitulation in October, 1646. The nations under Necotowance’s command became tributaries of the king of England, ceding to the English settlers all land between the York and James Rivers. The Powhatans, notably the Pamunkey and the Mattaponi nations, were eventually shoved onto smaller reservations or marginalized when they were partially assimilated into the population of Virginia. Opechancanough has variously been depicted as a wily, treacherous warlord and, more recently, as a statesman who was dedicated to preserving his nation’s civilization and religious faith against overwhelming odds in the only way available to him.

Bibliography

Bridenbaugh, Carl. Early America. New York: Oxford University Press, 1981. Theorizes that Opechancanough and Don Luis de Velasco were one and the same and constructs an elaborate—but ultimately unsubstantiated—scenario based upon this supposition and circumstantial evidence.

Feest, Christian F. The Powhatan Tribes. New York: Chelsea House, 1990. Balanced account that does not demonize the Powhatan chieftain and acknowledges more than other sources the probable impact of religion upon his actions.

Mossiker, Frances. Pocahontas: The Life and the Legend. New York: Da Capo Press, 1996. Despite the title, this account also focuses on the political maneuverings within the Powhatan Confederacy between Powhatan and Opechancanough and the implications of the latter’s succession to the leadership position.

Rountree, Helen C. Pocahontas’ People: The Powhatan Indians of Virginia Through Four Centuries. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1990. Includes a scholarly appraisal of Opechancanough’s character and motives; offers the controversial opinion that Opechancanough had virtually taken control of the Confederacy during the last two years of Powhatan’s reign.

May 14, 1607: Jamestown Is Founded; March 22, 1622-October, 1646: Powhatan Wars.