occurred in the colony a
memorable massacre, which originated, as was believed, in the following
circumstances: There was among the Indians a famous chief, named
Nemattanow, or "Jack of the Feather," as he was styled by the English,
from his fashion of decking his hair. He was reckoned by his own people
invulnerable to the arms of the English. This Nemattanow coming to the
store of one of the settlers named Morgan, persuaded him to go to
Pamunkey to trade, and murdered him by the way. Nemattanow, in two or
three days, returned to Morgan's house, and finding there two young men,
Morgan's servants, who inquired for their master, answered them that he
was dead. The young men, seeing their master's cap on the Indian's head,
suspected the murder, and undertook to conduct him to Mr. Thorpe, who
then lived at Berkley, on the James River, since well known as a seat of
the Harrisons, and originally called "Brickley." Nemattanow so
exasperated the young men on the way that they shot him, and he falling,
they put him into a boat and conveyed him to the governor at Jamestown,
distant seven or eight miles. The wounded chief in a short time died.
Feeling the approaches of death, he entreated the young men not to
disclose that he had been mortally wounded by a bullet: so strong is the
desire for posthumous fame even in the breast of a wild, untutored
savage!

Opechancanough, the ferocious Indian chief, agitated with mingled
emotions of grief and indignation at the loss of his favorite
Nemattanow, at first muttered threats of revenge; but the retorted
defiance of the English made him for a time smother his resentment and
dissemble his dark designs under the guise of friendship. Accordingly,
upon Sir Francis Wyat's arrival, all suspicion of Indian treachery had
died away; the colonists, in delusive security, were in general
destitute of arms; the plantations lay dispersed, as caprice suggested,
or a rich vein of land allured, as for as the Potomac River;[161:A]
their houses everywhere open to the Indians, who fed at their tables and
lodged under their roofs. About the middle of March, a messenger being
sent upon some occasion to Opechancanough, he entertained him kindly,
and protested that he held the peace so firm that "the sky should fall
before he broke it." On the twentieth of the same month, the Indians
guided some of the English safely through the forest, and the more
completely to lull all suspicion, they sent one Brown, who was