Indians. He had apparently won the favor of
Opechancanough, with whom he often discoursed upon the Christian
religion. At the moment of his murder, his servant, perceiving the
deadly intent of the savages, gave him warning, but his gentle nature
would not permit him to believe harm of those whom he had always
befriended, and he was cut down without resistance.[184]

The barbarous king failed in his design to destroy the English race in
Virginia, but the massacre was a deadly blow to the colony. No less than
three hundred and fifty-seven persons were slaughtered, including six
Councillors. The news of the disaster brought dismay to the London
Company. For a while they attempted to keep the matter a secret, but in
a few weeks it was known all over England. Although the massacre could
not have been foreseen or prevented, it served as a pretext for numerous
attacks upon Sandys and the party which supported him. It discouraged
many shareholders and made it harder to secure settlers for the colony.
Even worse was the effect in Virginia. The system of farming in
unprotected plantations, which had prevailed for some years, had now to
be abandoned and many settlements that were exposed to the Indians were
deserted. "We have not," wrote the Assembly, "the safe range of the
Country for the increase of Cattle, Swyne, etc; nor for the game and
fowle which the country affords in great plentye; besides our duties to
watch and warde to secure ourselves and labor are as hard and chargeable
as if the enemy were at all times present."[185]

The massacre was followed by a venomous war with the Indians, which
lasted many years. The English, feeling that their families and their
homes would never be safe so long as the savages shared the country with
them, deliberately planned the extermination of all hostile tribes in
Virginia. Their conversion was given no further consideration. "The
terms betwixt us and them," they declared, "are irreconcilable."[186]
Governor Wyatt wrote, "All trade with them must be forbidden, and
without doubt either we must cleere them or they us out of the
Country."[187]

But it soon became apparent that neither people would be able to win an
immediate or decisive victory. The Indians could not hope to destroy the
English, now that their deeply laid plot had failed. In open battle
their light arrows made no impression upon the coats of plate and of
mail in which the white men were incased, while their own bodies w