sojourning among them for the purpose of learning their language, back
home to his master. They even borrowed boats from the whites to cross
the river when about holding a council on the meditated attack. The
massacre took place on Friday, the twenty-second of March, 1622. On the
evening before, and on that very morning, the Indians, as usual, came
unarmed into the houses of the unsuspecting colonists, with fruits,
fish, turkeys, and venison for sale: in some places they actually sate
down to breakfast with the English. At about the hour of noon the
savages, rising suddenly and everywhere at the same time, butchered the
colonists with their own implements, sparing neither age, nor sex, nor
condition; and thus fell in a few hours three hundred and forty-nine
men, women, and children. The infuriated savages wreaked their vengeance
even on the dead, dragging and mangling the lifeless bodies, smearing
their hands in blood, and bearing off the torn and yet palpitating limbs
as trophies of a brutal triumph.

Among their victims was Mr. George Thorpe, (a kinsman of Sir Thomas
Dale,) who had been of the king's bedchamber, deputy to the college
lands, and one of the principal men of the colony--a pious gentleman,
who had labored zealously for the conversion of the Indians, and had
treated them with uniform kindness. As an instance of this, they having
at one time expressed their fears of the English mastiff dogs, he had
caused some of them to be put to death, to the great displeasure of
their owners. Opechancanough inhabiting a paltry cabin, Mr. Thorpe had
built him a handsome house after the English manner.[162:A] But the
savage miscreants, equally deaf to the voice of humanity and the
emotions of gratitude, murdered their benefactor with every circumstance
of remorseless cruelty. He had been forewarned of his danger by a
servant, but making no effort to escape, fell a victim to his misplaced
confidence. With him ten other persons were slain at Berkley.

Another of the victims was Captain Nathaniel Powell, one of the first
settlers, a brave soldier, and who had for a brief interval filled the
place of governor of the colony. His family fell with him. Nathaniel
Causie, another of Captain Smith's old soldiers, when severely wounded
and surrounded by the Indians, slew one of them with an axe, and put the
rest to flight. At Warrasqueake a colonist named Baldwin, by repeatedly
firing his gun, saved himself and family, and divers o