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The Boys' Book of Indian Warriors and Heroic Indian Women
The Boys' Book of Indian Warriors and Heroic Indian Women Author:Edwin L. Sabin Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER in OPECHANCANOUGH, SACHEM OF THE PAMUNKEYS (1607-1644) WHO FOUGHT AT THE AGE OF ONE HUNDRED THE first English-speaking settlement that held fast... more » 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 Poca- hontas aboard a vessel, and there held her fo...« less