Tag: Powhatan

The Powhatan (also spelled Powatan and Powhaten) is the name of a Virginia Indian confederation of tribes. It is estimated that there were about 14,000–21,000 of these native Powhatan people in eastern Virginia when the English settled Jamestown in 1607. They were also known as Virginia Algonquians, as they spoke an eastern-Algonquian language known as Powhatan or Virginia Algonquin.
In the late 16th and early 17th centuries, a mamanatowick (paramount chief), named Wahunsunacawh (a.k.a. “Chief Powhatan”), created a powerful organization by affiliating 30 tributary peoples, whose territory was much of eastern Virginia, called Tsenacommacah (“densely-inhabited Land”), Wahunsunacawh came to be known by the English as “Chief Powhatan”. Each of the tribes within this organization had its own weroance (chief), but all paid tribute to Chief Powhatan.
After Chief Powhatan’s death in 1618, hostilities with colonists escalated under the chiefdom of his brother, Opechancanough, who sought in…