Anglo - Powhatan Wars The Anglo - Powhatan Wars were three wars fought between English settlers of the Virginia Colony , and Indians of the Powhatan Confederacy in the early seventeenth century . The First War started in 1610 , and ended in a peace settlement in 1614 . Another war between the two powers lasted from 1622 to 1632 . The third War lasted from 1644 until 1646 , and ended when Opechancanough was captured and killed . That war resulted in a boundary being defined between the Indians and English lands that could only be crossed for official business with a special pass . This situation would last until 1677 and the Treaty of Middle Plantation , which established Indian reservations following Bacon ' s Rebellion . Early conflict . Complications with natives typically resulted at most of the settlements the English tried to establish from the beginning . The failed Roanoke colony marked the first contact between English settlers and Algonquian coastal tribes in North Carolina . “ As early as 1585 an elder by the name of Richard Hakluyt bluntly stated the English Position for the new colony : The ends of they voyage [ to America ] are these : 1 . to plant Christian religion 2 . to Trafficke 3 . to conquer ” . The first permanent English settlement , Jamestown Virginia ( May 1607 ) , was within the territory of the powerful yet still expanding chiefdom of Wahunsunacawh ( known to the English as Chief Powhatan ) . The Jamestown location was less than successful , because the conditions of this swampy area were far less than desirable , including : polluted water , significant amount of insects that carried disease , and soon , the lack of food supply . Jamestown , and the other colonies to be established in the " New World " needed to be dependent on natives for a successful settlement . Captain John Smith , a colonial leader , imagined that someday the Virginia Indians would be doing all the work for the English , but Powhatan envisioned something different : he wanted Smith and the colonists to forsake the swamp and instead live in one of his satellite towns called " Capahosick " where they would make metal tools for him in exchange for full provision . However , Smith underestimated the power of the Virginia Indians and what they were capable of , as they knew the land much better than the English . In December 1607 , only seven months after building the fort on Jamestown Island , Smith , while reconnoiter ing the countryside near Orapax , one of Powhatan ' s capitals , was captured by a communal hunting party led by Opechancanough . Smith much later in life claimed that during his captivity , Pocahontas had dramatically saved him from Powhatan ' s clubs , but historians differ as to whether or not this was propaganda , or an actual native ritual . Smith ' s capture represented just an example of the diplomatic strategies employed by Wahunsunacawh to make the English cooperate with and contribute to his expanding control in this region . Smith was released in time for New Year ' s 1608 , when he promised to move the colony to Capahosick . Smith had convinced the grand chief that he was the son of Captain Newport , and that Newport was their head " weroance " ( tribal chief ) . Relations between the two peoples began deteriorating again in late 1608 , when the starving colonists began to strong - arm some supplies of corn from the natives , who had likewise had a bad harvest . Smith ' s contacts with rival tribes around the Chesapeake Bay in the summer , and Captain Christopher Newport ' s military expedition to the Monacan country that fall , had not helped matters . By spring 1609 , the local Paspahegh tribe had resumed raiding the English fort at Jamestown . However , their " weroance " , Wowinchopunk , declared an uneasy truce after he was captured and escaped , and as a result some colonists were even allowed to board in Indian towns . Then Smith , who had become president of the colony the preceding fall , antagonized the Powhatan further in summer 1609 , by attempting to establish new forts in their territory . First he sent a party with Captain John Martin to settle in Nansemond territory . When they could not purchase the island with their temple , Martin ransacked it and the burial platforms of their " weroance " s , and occupied it by force , which was not well received . Later he abandoned the position after 17 of his men , disobeying orders , were wiped out while trying to buy corn at the Kecoughtan village ( now Hampton , Virginia ) . Smith also sent 120 men with Francis West to build a fort far upriver , at the falls of the James , right above the main town of the Powhatan proper ( and the present site of Richmond , Virginia ) ; Smith purchased the site from Wahunsunacawh ' s son , Parahunt , but this ended up faring no better . Smith was then injured in an accidental gunpowder explosion , deposed as president , and sailed to England on October 4 , 1609 , and the colony began to starve . Soon afterward , the settlers succeeded in establishing a second fortification , Fort Algernon at Old Point Comfort , right beside the Kecoughtan village . In November , the Powhatan ambushed and killed Captain John Ratcliffe , who had gone to Orapax to buy corn . Francis West sailed to the Patawomeck s , a fringe group among Powhatan ' s subjects , for corn , but beheaded two of them , then absconded directly to England . Unable to trade with the natives , the English began to starve to death , to the point that when Sir Thomas Gates arrived in late May 1610 , he decided to evacuate Jamestown . However on their second day of sailing , they met Lord de la Warr ( Francis West ' s older brother ) coming into the Bay with the remnant of his fleet , which had left England one year earlier , but been scattered in a hurricane . They therefore returned to the fort under de la Warr ' s command . The nobleman , Lord de la Warr , proved far harsher and more belligerent toward the Indians than any of his predecessors , and his solution was simply to engage in wars of conquest against them , first sending Gates to drive off the Kecoughtan from their village on July 9 , then giving Chief Powhatan the ultimatum of either returning all English subjects and property , or facing war . Powhatan responded by insisting that the English either stay in their fort , or leave Virginia . Enraged , De la Warr had the hand of a Paspahegh captive cut off and sent him to the paramount chief with another ultimatum : Return all English subjects and property , or the neighboring villages would be burned . This time , Powhatan did not even respond . First Anglo - Powhatan War . The First Anglo – Powhatan War , between the Powhatan and the English colonists , lasted from 1610 to 1614 . On August 9 , 1610 , tired of waiting for a response from Powhatan , De la Warr sent George Percy with 70 men to attack the Paspahegh capital , burning the houses and cutting down their cornfields . They killed 65 to 75 , and captured one of Wowinchopunk ' s wives and her children . Returning downstream , the English threw the children overboard , and shot out " their Braynes in the water " . The queen was put to the sword in Jamestown . The Paspahegh never recovered from this attack , and abandoned their town . Another small force sent with Samuel Argall against the Warraskoyaks found that they had already fled , but he destroyed their abandoned village and cornfields as well . Following these attacks , and the offense of killing royal women and children , both sides now found themselves at war . That fall , a party of Englishmen was ambushed at Appomattoc ; soon afterward Lord de la Warr managed to establish a company of men at the falls of the James , who stayed there all winter . In February 1611 , Wowinchopunk was killed in a skirmish near Jamestown , which his followers revenged a few days later by enticing some colonists out of the fort and killing them . In May 1611 , a new governor , Sir Thomas Dale , arrived and soon began looking for places to establish new settlements ; he was repulsed by the Nansemonds , but successfully took an island in the James from the Arrohattocs , which became the palisaded ' cittie ' of Henricus , despite raids there led by the renegade warrior Nemattanew , or as they dubbed him , ' Jack of the Feather ' . Around Christmas 1611 , Dale and his men seized the Appomattoc town at the mouth of their river , and quickly palisaded off the neck of land , renaming it ' New Bermudas ' . The aged chief Powhatan made no major response to this English expansion , and he seems to have been losing effective control to his younger brother Opechancanough during this time , while the English consolidated their new footholds . In December 1612 , Argall concluded peace with the Patawomeck ; while there in April 1613 , he managed to capture the great chief Powhatan ' s own daughter , Pocahontas , delivered into his hands by Japazaws , brother of the Patawomeck " weroance " . This caused an immediate ceasefire from the Powhatan raids on the English , as they held her ransom for peace . In the meantime , English settlers had begun to expand to south of the rivers , building houses at City Point in what is now Hopewell , Virginia . In early 1609 , Jamestown Island had been the only territory under English control . By the end of this period , the Powhatan had lost much of their riverfront property along the James to the English conquest ; the Kicoughtan and Paspehegh subtribes had been effectively destroyed , and the settlers had made major inroads among the lands of the Weyanoke , Appomattoc , Arrohattoc , and Powhatan proper . Two James river tribes , the Arrohattoc and Quiockohannock are not heard from again after this , possibly indicating that they had been dispersed or merged with the other chiefdoms . The Peace of Pocahontas . Peace negotiations stalled over return of captured hostages and arms for nearly a year ; finally in March 1614 , Dale went with Pocahontas and a large force to find Powhatan himself . Getting a shower of arrows at present - day West Point , they went ashore and sacked the town ; finding Powhatan at his new capital Matchcot . They finally concluded a peace that was sealed by the marriage of Pocahontas to the colonist John Rolfe . This was the first known inter - racial union in Virginia , and helped usher in a brief period of better relations between the Indians and the newcomers . A separate peace was concluded the same year with the autonomous Chickahominy tribe which even made them honorary " Englishmen " , thus subjects of King James I . Following the 1614 marriage of Rolfe and Pocahontas , relative peace and good relations reigned for several years . This time has been called the " golden age of Powhatan - English relations , in English eyes " . It has also been called the peace of Pocahontas . In 1616 , when Governor Dale had gone to England along with Pocahontas , the Chickahominy refused to pay their corn tribute to the new governor ( George Yeardley ) , rejected their alliance with the English , and instead finally became a part of Chief Powhatan ' s Confederacy . Following Chief Powhatan ' s death in 1618 , his younger brother Opechancanough assumed full power , and Nemattanew continued to be a prominent figure alongside him . Second Anglo - Powhatan War . Opechancanough maintained a friendly face to the colony , and finally even met with an English minister to give the appearance of his imminent conversion to Christianity . Then on Friday , March 22 , 1622 , his subjects , planted among the settlements , struck without warning , in what is now known as the Indian Massacre of 1622 . A third of the colony were wiped out that day ; were it not for last minute warnings by Christianized natives , a higher toll would have been certain . Powhatan military doctrine did not call for an immediate follow - up blow , but rather to wait and see what would happen after inflicting such a blow , in hopes that the settlement would simply abandon their homeland and move on elsewhere . However , English military doctrine did not call for reacting this way . For the next ten years , they marched out nearly every summer and made assaults on Powhatan settlements . The Accomac and Patawomeck allied with the English , providing them corn , while the English went to plunder villages and cornfields of the Chickahominy , Nansemond , Warraskoyack , Weyanoke and Pamunkey in 1622 . In 1623 Opechancanough sued for peace . The colonists thus arranged to meet the natives for a peace agreement , but poisoned their wine , then fell upon them shooting them and killing many in revenge for the massacre . They then attacked the Chickahominy , the Powhatan proper , the Appomattoc , Nansemond and Weyanoke . In 1624 both sides were ready for a major battle ; the Powhatans assembled 800 bowmen , arrayed against only 60 Englishmen , who attempted to destroy the Powhatans ' cornfields . When the Englishmen finally succeeded in destroying the cornfields , the bowmen gave up the fight and retreated . A shortage of gunpowder in the colony delayed the colonists from going on marches in 1625 and 1626 . The natives seem not to have been aware of this shortage , and were themselves desperately trying to regroup . However , summer 1627 brought renewed assaults against the Chickahominy , Appamattoc , Powhatan proper , Warraskoyak , Weyanoke and Nansemond . A ' peace ' was declared in 1628 , but it was more like a temporary ceasefire ; hostilities resumed in March 1629 and continued until a final peace was made on September 30 , 1632 . The English began to expand their settlements on the Eastern Shore and both sides of the James , as well as on the south of the York , and in 1633 , they palisaded off the peninsula between the York and James at about Williamsburg . By 1640 they began claiming land north of the York as well , and in 1642 , Opechancanough leased some land on the Piankatank to English settlers for the price of 50 bushels of corn a year . Third Anglo - Powhatan War . After twelve years of peace following the Indian Wars of 1622 - 1632 , another Anglo – Powhatan War began on March 18 , 1644 , as a last effort by the remnants of the Powhatan Confederacy , still under Opechancanough , to dislodge the English settlers of the Virginia Colony . Around 500 colonists were killed , but that number represented a relatively low percent of the overall population , as opposed to the earlier massacre ( the 1622 attack had wiped out a third ; that of 1644 barely a tenth ) . However , Opechancanough , still preferring to use Powhatan tactics , did not make any major follow - up to this attack . This was followed by a last effort by the settlers to decimate the Powhatan . In July , they marched against the Pamunkey , Chickahominy , and Powhatan proper ; and south of the James , against the Appomattoc , Weyanoke , Warraskoyak , and Nansemond , as well as two Carolina tribes , the Chowanoke and Secotan . In February 1645 , the colony ordered the construction of three frontier forts : Fort Charles at the falls of the James , Fort James on the Chickahominy , and Fort Royal at the falls of the York . In August , Governor William Berkeley stormed Opechancanough ' s stronghold and captured him . All captured males in the village over age 11 were deported to Tangier Island . Opechancanough , around 100 years old , was taken to Jamestown where he was shot in the back by a guard . Opechancanough ' s death resulted in the disintegration of the Powhatan Confederacy into its component tribes , whom the colonists continued to attack . In March 1646 , the colony decided to build a fourth frontier fort , Fort Henry , at the falls of the Appomattox , where the modern city of Petersburg is located . Treaty of 1646 . In the peace treaty of October 1646 , the new " weroance " , Necotowance , and the subtribes formerly in the Confederacy , each became tributaries to the King of England . At the same time , a racial frontier was delineated between Indian and English settlements , with members of each group forbidden to cross to the other side except by special pass obtained at one of the newly erected border forts . The extent of the Virginia colony open to patent by English colonists was defined as : All the land between the Blackwater and York rivers , and up to the navigable point of each of the major rivers - which were connected by a straight line running directly from modern Franklin on the Blackwater , northwesterly to the Appomattoc village beside Fort Henry , and continuing in the same direction to the Monocan village above the falls of the James , where Fort Charles was built , then turning sharp right , to Fort Royal on the York ( Pamunkey ) river . Necotowance thus ceded the English vast tracts of still - uncolonized land , much of it between the James and Blackwater . English settlements on the peninsula north of the York and below the Poropotank were also allowed , as they had already been there since 1640 . Result of the Wars . The war ' s end ushered in 30 years of relative peace between the colonists and the Powhatan , shattered only by the attacks of Bacon ' s Rebellion in 1676 . This resulted in the Treaty of Middle Plantation signed by Cockacoeske , Powhatan ' s matrilineal successor . The treaty set up reservations for each tribe , and allowed them hunting rights outside their reservations . It established that all the Indian rulers were equal , with the proviso that the " Queen of Pomunky " was now owed the ancient subjection of several scattered groups of Indians . Under her next two successors , lands within the original Pamunkey reservation , which was coterminous with King William County , Virginia , would be sold to the English , resulting in the relatively small Pamunkey and Mattaponi reservations of the present .