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Powhatan Indian
Chiefs and Leaders
Chanco. A
Powhatan Indian of Virginia who gave timely
warning to the English of the intended massacre by Opechancanough, in Mar.,
1622, thus pre serving a number of lives. Drake, Bk. Inds., 361, 1880.
Opechancanough. A Powhatan chief, born about 1545, died in
1644.
He captured Capt. John Smith shortly after the arrival
of the latter in Virginia, and took him to his brother, the head-chief
Powhatan (q. v.). Some time after his release, Smith, in order to change
the temper of the Indians, who jeered at the starving Englishmen and
refused to sell them food, went with a band of his men to Opechancanough's
camp under pretense of buying corn, seized the chief by the hair, and at
the point of a pistol marched him off a prisoner. The Pamunkey brought
boat-loads of provisions to ransom their chief, who thereafter entertained
more respect and deeper hatred for the English. While Powhatan lived
Opechancanough was held in restraint, but after his brother's death in
1618 he became the dominant leader of the nation, although his other
brother, Opitchapan, was the nominal head-chief.
He plotted the destruction of the colony so secretly
that only one Indian, the Christian Chanco, revealed the conspiracy, but
too late to save the people of Jamestown, who at a sudden signal were
massacred, Mar. 22, 1622, by the natives deemed to be entirely friendly.
In the period of intermittent hostilities that
followed, duplicity and treachery marked the actions of both whites and
Indians. In the last year of his life, Opechancanough, taking advantage of
the dissensions of the English, planned their extermination. The aged
chief was borne into battle on a litter when the Powhatan, on Apr. 18,
1644, fell upon the settlements and massacred 300 persons, then as
suddenly desisted and fled far from the colony, frightened perhaps by some
omen. Opechancanough was taken prisoner to Jamestown, where one of his
guards treacherously shot him, inflicting a wound of which he subsequently
died.
Powhatan. The ruling chief and practically the founder of
the Powhatan confederacy (q. v.) in Virginia at the period of the first English settlement. His proper name was Wahunsonacock, but he was commonly
known as Powhatan from one of his- favorite residences at the falls of
James r. (Richmond). According to Smith, of some 30 cognate tribes subject
to his rule in 1607, all but six were his own conquests. At the time of
the coming of the English, Powhatan is represented to have been about 60
years of age, of dignified bearing, and reserved and stern disposition.
His first attitude toward the whites was friendly although suspicious, but
he soon became embittered by the exactions of the newcomers. On the
treacherous seizure of his favorite daughter, Pocahontas (q. v.), in 1613,
he became openly hostile, but was happily converted for the time through
her marriage to Rolfe. He died in 1618, leaving the succession to his
brother, Opitchapan, who however was soon superseded by a younger brother,
the noted Opechancanough.
Negahnquet, Albert. A Potawatomi, the first full-blood Indian of the United
States to be ordained a Roman Catholic priest. Born near St Marys, Kansas, in
1864, he moved with his parents to the Potawatomi Reservation. (now Pottawatomie
County, Okla.), where he entered the Catholic mission school conducted by the
Benedictine monks at Sacred Heart Mission, making rapid progress in his studies
and gaining the friendship of his teachers by his tractable character. Later he
entered the College of the Propaganda Fide in Rome, and was there ordained a
priest in 1903. The same year he returned to America and has since engaged in
active religious work among the Indians.
Index of Tribes or Nations
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