led west and south, into the Great Lakes country, and beyond.

CHAPTER III

OPECHANCANOUGH, SACHEM OF THE PAMUNKEYS (1607-1644)

WHO FOUGHT AT THE AGE OF ONE HUNDRED

The first English-speaking settlement that held fast in the United
States was Jamestown, inland a short distance from the Chesapeake Bay
coast of Virginia, in the country of the Great King Powatan.

The Powatans, of at least thirty tribes, in this 1607 owned eight
thousand square miles and mustered almost three thousand warriors.
They lived in a land rich with good soil, game and fish; the men were
well formed, the women were comely, the children many.

But before the new settlers met King Powatan--whose title was sachem
(chief) and whose real name was Wa-hun-so-na-cook--they met his brother
O-pe-chan-can-ough, sachem of the Pamunkey tribe of the Powatan league.

A large, masterful man was Opechancanough, sachem of the Pamunkeys.
The Indians themselves said that he was not a Powatan, nor any relation
of their king; but that he came from the princely line of a great
Southern nation, distant many leagues. This may be the reason that,
although he was allied to Chief Powatan, he never joined him in
friendship to the whites, who, he claimed, if not checked would
over-run the Indians' hunting-grounds.

The Indians of Virginia did not wish to have the white men among them.
They were living well and comfortably, before the white men came; after
the white men came, with terrible weapons and huge appetites which they
expected the Indians to fill, and a habit of claiming all creation,
clouds veiled the sky of the Powatans, their corn-fields and their
streams were no longer their own.

Powatan, the head sachem, collected guns and hatchets and planned to
stem the tide while it was small. But these English enticed his
daughter Pocahontas aboard a vessel, and there held her for the good
behavior of her father.

Pocahontas married John Rolfe, an English gentleman of the colony. Now
for the first time Powatan was won, for he loved his daughter and the
honest treatment of her at English hands pleased him.

Opechancanough but bided his time, until 1622. He was a thorough
hater; his weapons were treachery as well as open war; he had resolved
never to give up his country to the stranger.

Meanwhile, Pocahontas had died, in 1617, aged about twenty-two, just
when leaving England for a visit home.

Full of years and honors (for he had been a shrewd, noble