These Indians were members of a Confederacy of about 34 tribes occupying Tidewater Virginia, of which Powhatan was war-chief or headwerowance. They belonged to the Algonquin race, and were far less barbarous than the wild inhabitants of the Mississippi region. Like the other tribes of the Powhatan Confederacy, they had a territory defined by natural bounds and their villages had a permanent character and place. They were composed of houses oval in shape made of bark set upon a frame-work of bent saplings. On account of their strength, Powhatan regarded the Kecoughtan tribe with suspicion, which was much increased by the warnings of his medicine men. It is said by Strachey[1] that Powhatan was informed by them that “from the Chesapeake Bay a nation would arise that should dissolve and give end to his empire.” Powhatan bided his time, and while things were in confusion by reason of the death of the old Kecoughtan werowance, he suddenly invaded the territory, killed the new chief and most of his people and settled the survivors in the remote region of the Pianketank. And it was not the Kecaughtans only that he involved in slaughter, but the Chesapeakes also who inhabited on the south side of the bay, and, therefore, “lay under the suspicion of the same phophecy.” In the room of the former inhabitants Powhatan placed at these places some of his own people on whom he could rely. At Kecoughtan he made his son Pochins werowance, but the new comers there did not exceed over thirty warriors or 150 men, women and children.
This was the condition of things in the Bay region on April 26, 1607, when the famous fleet consisting of the Sarah Constant, the Goodspeed, and the Discovery, under command of Captain Christopher Newport, sailed with the founders of the Nation through the broad water gateway between Cape Charles and Cape Henry into Chesapeake Bay. Anchoring three days off Cape Henry, they broke the seal of the box which contained the names of the council, explored the Country, and subsequently set up a cross, taking possession in the name of King James of England. On April 30th, they came with their ships to a long, sandy point of land which they called Cape Comfort, because of the deep water, which was found there, and which put the navi-
- ↑ William Strachey, Travaile into Virginia Brittannia.
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