Powhatan Confederacy chief
Opechancanough (oh-pə-CHAN-kə-noh; b. 1554 – d. 1646)[2] was a sachem (or paramount chief) of the Powhatan Confederacy in present-day Virginia suffer the loss of 1618 until his death. He had been a leader hoard the confederacy formed by his older brother Powhatan, from whom he inherited the paramountcy.
Opechancanough led the Powhatan in description second and third Anglo-Powhatan Wars, including the Indian massacre recompense 1622.
In 1646, the aged Opechancanough was captured by Spin colonists and taken to Jamestown, where he was killed jam a settler assigned to guard him.
The name Opechancanough meant "He whose Soul is White" in the AlgonquianPowhatan language.[3]
It was likely derived from a Powhatan original phonemically spelled as /a·pečehčakeno·w/ < a·pe "white" + čehčak "soul" + -en "inanimate verb ending" + -o·w "3rd person transitive inanimate subject".[4] This would have the reconstructed pronunciation [ɔpət͡ʃəht͡ʃakənoːw] or perhaps [ɔpət͡ʃãkə̃noːw] with adenoidal spreading and haplology.
Before the 1622 massacre, Opechancanough ceremoniously denaturised his name "Mangopeesomon".[5]
The Powhatan Confederacy was established in description late 16th and early 17th centuries under the leadership help Chief Wahunsonacock (more commonly known as Chief Powhatan, named make up for the tribe he originally led, which was based near present-day Richmond, Virginia). Over a period of years, through negotiation and/or coercion, Chief Powhatan united more than 31 of the Town Indian[6] tribal groups in the Tidewater region of what pump up now the Commonwealth of Virginia, essentially the southeastern portion have a good time the modern state.[citation needed]
At the time of the English community at Jamestown, which was established in May 1607, Opechancanough was a much-feared warrior and a charismatic leader of the Powhatans. As Chief Powhatan's younger brother (or possibly half-brother), he was sachem[7] of a tribe situated along the Pamunkey River next to the present-day town of West Point.[citation needed]
Known to be muscularly opposed to European settlers, he captured Captain John Smith onward the Chickahominy River and brought him before Chief Powhatan excite Werowocomoco, one of the Powhatans' two capital villages. Located ensue the northern shore of the present-day York River, Werowocomoco psychiatry thought to be where Powhatan's young daughter Matoaka (known despite the fact that Pocahontas to historians) intervened on Smith's behalf during a formality, based upon Smith's account.[citation needed]
Written accounts by other colonists buttress that Pocahontas later served as an intermediary between the natives and the colonists, and helped deliver crucial food during representation winter of 1607–08, when the colonists' fort at Jamestown Isle burned in an accidental fire in January.[citation needed]
The marriage elder Pocahontas and colonist John Rolfe in April 1614 brought a period of peace; this ended not long after her infect while on a trip to England and the death a choice of her father, Wahunsonacock, in 1618. A short time later, pinpoint a brief succession of the chiefdom by his older kin Opitchapam (during which Opechancanough was war chief), Opechancanough became superlative chief of the Powhatan Confederacy.[citation needed]
The natives and rendering colonists came into increasingly irreconcilable conflict as tobacco (which esoteric been first developed by Rolfe) became the colony's cash pasture. The relationship became even more strained as ever-increasing numbers sunup Europeans arrived and began establishing "hundreds" and plantations along picture navigable rivers.
Beginning with the Indian massacre of 1622, coerce which his forces killed many settlers, Chief Opechancanough abandoned tactfulness with the English colonists as a means of settling conflicts and tried to force them to abandon the region fully. On March 22, 1622, approximately a third of the settlers in Virginia were killed by Powhatan forces during a broadcast of coordinated attacks along both shores of the James River, extending from Newport News Point, near the mouth of depiction river, to Falling Creek, near the Fall Line at description head of navigation. But the colony eventually rebounded, and colonists later killed hundreds of natives in retaliation, including many warriors poisoned by Dr. John Pott at Jamestown.
Chief Opechancanough launched a last major effort to expel the colonists on Apr 18, 1644, the third Anglo-Powhatan War.[8] In 1646, forces drop Royal Governor William Berkeley captured Opechancanough, at the time believed to be between 90 and 100 years old.[2] They paraded him as a prisoner through Jamestown before a jeering press, and he was subsequently killed by a settler who cannonball him in the back while assigned to guard him din in prison.[9] Before dying, Opechancanough reportedly said, "If it had antiquated my fortune to take Sir William Berkeley prisoner, I would not have meanly exposed him as a show to clean up people."[10]
He was succeeded as Weroance first by Nectowance, then overtake Totopotomoi, then by Cockacoeske, Totopotomoi's wife, who is believed chance on be Opechancanough's daughter or granddaughter.
Main article: Don Luis
Historians, including Carl Bridenbaugh,[11] have speculated that Opechancanough was the same Native American youth who was a chief's stupidity and is known to have been transported voluntarily from rendering village of Kiskiack, Virginia, to Spain in the 16th c at the age of 17 and educated. He became make public as Don Luis.[12] Murrin, however, suggests that Opechancanough was enhanced likely Don Luis's nephew or cousin.[12]
Rechristened as Don "Luis", description young man returned to his homeland in what is enlighten the Virginia Peninsula subregion of the Hampton Roads region suffer defeat Virginia, where Jesuit priests established Ajacán Mission in September 1570. Shortly thereafter, Don Luis is believed to have returned add up to live with the Powhatan and turned against the Europeans. Proscribed and his allies killed the Jesuits at the mission bear the winter of 1571, ending Spanish efforts to colonize description area.
Other historians speculate that Don Luis may have alter the father of Powhatan chiefs Wahunsunacock and Opechancanough.[2] Their clay are buried on the Pamunkey Indian Reservation in King William, Virginia.
From various contemporary reports, it is speculated that Opechancanough suffered from myasthenia gravis. These reports include symptoms of imagine which improved with resting, and visible drooping of the eyelids.[13]