: Indian Biography; Vol. 1 (of 2) Or An Historical Account of Those Individuals Who Have Been Distinguished among the North American Natives as Orators Warriors Statesmen and Other Remarkable Characters by Thatcher B B Benjamin Bussey - Indians of North Ame

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y of peace in 1634--Sends deputies to Boston twice--Treaty concluded--Anecdotes--His wars with the Narraghansetts--Fresh controversy with the English--They send an armed party to demand damages--Conduct of the party, and consequences of it--War with the Pequots in 1636--Political movements of Sassacus--English expedition against him in 1637--He is defeated--Driven from his country--Killed by the Mohawks--The English policy in his case briefly considered.

INDIAN BIOGRAPHY.

The Indian tribes of Virginia at the date of the Jamestown settlement; their names, numbers and power--The Powhatan confederacy--The Indian Village of that name--Powhatan--The circumstances of the first interview between him and the English--Opechancanough, his brother--Opitchipan--Reception of Captain Smith by Powhatan--Interposition of Pocahontas in his favor--Second visit of the colonists--Third visit, and coronation--Entertainment of Smith by Pocahontas--Contest of ingenuity between Powhatan and Smith; and between the latter and Opechancanough--Smith saved again by Pocahontas--Political manoeuvres of Powhatan and Opechancanough--Smith's return to Jamestown.

At the date of the first permanent settlement effected within the limits of Virginia, and for an unknown period previous to that date, the country from the sea-coast to the Allegheny, and from the most southern waters of James river to Patuxent river, was occupied by three principal native nations. Each of these nations was a confederacy of larger or smaller tribes; and each tribe was subdivided into towns, families or clans, who lived together. The three general names by which these communities have been ordinarily known, are the Mannahoacks, the Monacans and the Powhatans.

Of these, the two former might be called highland or mountain Indians. They all lived upon the banks of the various small streams which water the hilly country between the falls of the Atlantic rivers and the Alleghany ridge. The Mannahoacks consisted of eight tribes, five of which were located between the Potomac and Rappahannoc, and three between the last named river and the York. Of the five tribes of the Monacans, two were between the York and James, and three extended southward from the James to the boundaries of Carolina. The most powerful respectively of the eight and of the five--the Mannahoacks and the Monacans, properly so called--seem to have given their own names to the entire nation or confederacy of which they were members. The former tribe occupied chiefly what are now Stafford and Spotsylvania counties. The latter resided upon James river above the falls.

It may be well to take this occasion of observing, that the author's only rule in the orthography of Indian term has been to follow what appears to be the most approved usage. Stith uses Manakins, instead of Monacans.

The Powhatan nation inhabited the lowland tract, extending laterally from the ocean to the falls of the rivers, and from Carolina on the south to the Patuxent on the north. This comprised a much larger number of tribes than either of the others. As many as ten of them were settled between the Potomac and Rappahannoc. Five others extended between the Rappahannoc and York; eight between the York and James, and five between the James and the borders of Carolina. Beside these, the Accohanocks and Accomacks, on what is called the Eastern Shore have also been considered a part of this nation.

Both these rivers have derived their names from the tribes originally settled on them. The former have been commonly called the Patowomekes.

The territory occupied by the whole of this great confederacy, south of the Potomac, comprehended about 8,000 square miles. Smith tells us in his history, that within sixty miles of Jamestown were 5,000 natives, of whom 1,500 were warriors. Mr. Jefferson has computed the whole number of Powhatan warriors at 2,400, which, according to the proportions between Smith's estimates would give an entire population of 8,000, or one to each square mile.

A work of which the value is well known to all readers of the early American history. The title is--"The Trve Travels, Adventures and Observations of Captaine Iohn Smith in Europe, Asia, Africke and America, beginning about the yeere 1593, and continued to this present 1629." We copy from the London edition of the date last named.

Vast quantities of corn, too, yearly rewarded even the simple agriculture of the Indians, bestowed as it was upon the best portions of a generous soil. "Great heapes" of it were seen at Kekoughtan, "and then they brought him venison, turkies, wild fowle, bread and what else they had." In none of his captivities, or his visits among the natives, did the captain ever suffer from want of food; and he often brought off his boat and his men laden with plenty. The Nansamonds gave him 400 baskets-full at one time. The Chickahominies, though they complained extremely of their own wants, yet "fraughted" him with hundred bushels. The woods furnished another inexhaustible supply both of fruits and game; so that, on the whole, it is very easy to believe, that a considerably greater population than Mr. Jefferson's estimate supposes, might have subsisted without much difficulty on the soil they are known to have occupied. "And now the winter approaching," we are informed in another passage, "the rivers became so covered with swans, geese, duckes and cranes, that we daily feasted with good bread, Virginia pease, pumpions and putchamins, fish, fowle, and diverse sorts of wild beasts, so fast as we could eate them; so that none of our Tuftaffaty humourists desired to go for England." On one occasion, when Smith undertook an exploring tour into the interior, late in the season, a violent storm obliged him and his men to keep Christmas among the savages. "And we were never more merry," he relates, "nor fed on more plenty of good oysters, fish, flesh, wild fowle and good bread, nor ever had better fires in England." In a peaceful interval of a few months, which occurred during the next season, the Indians are said to have brought into Jamestown more than a hundred deer and other beasts daily for several weeks.

A species of indigenous plum, which is elsewhere described as growing to a considerable height, with fruit like a medlar, first green, then yellow, and red when ripe. "If it be not ripe, it will draw a man's mouth awry with much torment. If ripe, it is delicious as an apricot."

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