Lesson Plan - Indigenous and English Relations in 17th Century Virginia

The period of first contact between Indigenous people and English colonists in 1607 until the end of Bacon’s Rebellion can be described as a time featuring periods of intermittent uneasy coexistence and warfare. When Captain John Smith explored the region known to the Powhatan Indians as Tsenacomoco in 1608, he relied on Indigenous knowledge to map out the land and identify the Indigenous people who settled it. Although he intended his map to promote the concept of colonial settlement to people in England and Europe, Smith's map remains a valuable resource for documenting the flourishing Indigenous societies living in the area at the time.

In 17th century Virginia the tense relations between Indigenous nations and white settlers erupted in a series of wars between 1610 and 1646. While there were three separate phases, the root cause of these wars was the same: continued English incursion into Indigenous land and the lack of respect by the English for the Powhatan nation.

The first Anglo-Powhatan war began with Chief Powhatan’s response to skirmishes between the allied tributary Tsenacomoco peoples and the English settlers who were trying to force the Indigenous people to support them. In 1609, Chief Powhatan ordered what amounted to a siege of the English fort at Jamestown, which created even more hardship among the English who called this period the “Starving Time.” When English reinforcements arrived, the settlers struck back, burning Powhatan villages and killing women and children. They defeated the Kecoughtans and Nansemonds and captured Powhatan’s daughter Pocahontas in 1613, using her as a hostage to leverage an end to the war.

The second war, fought between 1622 and 1632, erupted when the Tsenacomoco peoples, led by Opechancanough, sought to assert their dominance over the region and contain the growing English settlement. Opechancanough led a series of attacks in March 1622 on the English settlements that had spread outside Jamestown, resulting in the deaths of more than a third of the English colonists. Violence continued through the next decade as English settlers attacked Indigenous food stores and supplies. A peace agreement was ultimately signed in 1632 that ended the battles but resolved little.

In 1644, Opechancanough (who may have been about 90 years old at the time) led a group of Nansemond and several other tribes in an attack on English outposts over the issue of encroachment, killing 400 colonists. Although more colonists were killed than in 1622, there were more English settlers in Virginia by this time so the loss did not threaten the colony's survival as a whole. As he did previously, Opechancanough did not follow up with more attacks, perhaps once again believing that the English would retreat. Instead, the English went on the counterattack, which ended with Governor Sir William Berkeley’s capture of Opechancanough. A guard killed Opechancanough while he was held prisoner by the English. The weakened confederation sued for peace and the Assembly confirmed a treaty with Opechancanough’s successor, Necotowance, in 1646 that confined the tribes to land north of the York River and required them to pay tribute of twenty beaver skins in exchange for protection by the colonial government. While the treaty favored the English, the 1644 act included here illustrates the damage inflicted on the English by the Powhatan confederacy.

The peace in eastern Virginia held for several decades, but conflict between an English planter and the Doeg tribe in 1675 spiraled into a wider war with the Susquehannock. When Governor Sir William Berkeley refused the demands of Nathaniel Bacon, a planter and member of the governor's council, and others for more land and more security on the colony's frontier, Bacon led a militia to attack friendly Indigenous communities in 1676. One of these was the Pamunkey, a tributary tribe whose leader Cockacoeske was forced to retreat into Dragon Swamp after her town had been destroyed and some of her people had been killed and captured despite having agreed to provide warriors to ally with Virginia's government against the Susquehannock.

Bacon's Rebellion continued throughout 1676 and pitted colonists who supported the governor against those who supported Bacon, many of whom wanted to eliminate the Indigenous tribes. Fighting continued until Bacon died and Governor Berkeley's forces subdued the rebellion in January 1677. King Charles II sent troops who did not arrive until afterwards, as well as commissioners to report on the conflict. 

In February 1677, Cockacoeske went before the Virginia Assembly to demand that Pamunkey land be returned and the Pamunkey prisoners be released. The royal commissioners agreed that the Pamunkey and other tributary tribes had been mistreated, and they negotiated a treaty of peace on behalf of the king with Virginia tribes who had remained loyal to the colonial government. The Treaty of Middle Plantation was signed in a public ceremony on May 29, 1677. Cockacoeske signed the treaty as "Queen of the Pamunkey" and on behalf of several tribes of the former Powhatan Confederacy. Her son John West, whose father had been the son of a colonial governor, signed as well. Three other tribal representatives, whose names are not recorded, signed the treaty, including the female leader of the Weyanoke and two male leaders of the Nottoway and Nansemond tribes. 

This treaty affirmed the rights delineated in the 1646 treaty but also banned English settlers from moving within three miles of Indigenous land. Tribal members had the right to take complaints to the governor, who was to treat them as Englishmen. The governor also had the right to regulate trade between the English and tribuary tribes. The tribes could appoint their own interpreters whom they trusted. The treaty required all Indigenous people who wanted to hunt or fish outside of their land to register with the magistrate of the local district and forbade them from remaining in those areas overnight. It also required the Indigenous tribes to pay annual tribute to the colonial governor to demonstrate their subordinate status with the king. Most of the rights bestowed in the treaty were eroded during subsequent decades, but the treaty still remains in effect.

More than 300 years later, these treaties continue to shape and govern the relationship between the Commonwealth, the state-recognized Virginia Indian tribes, and the federally recognized Virginia Indian tribes. The Mattaponi and Pamunkey represent the original treaty signers and they continue to pay tribute to the Commonwealth's government in a ceremony each November, as illustrated in this photograph taken during the administration of Governor Gerald L. Baliles.

Citations:
Virginia/Discovered and Discribed by Captayn John Smith, Graven by William Hole, 1624, Voorhees Map Collection, Library of Virginia. View high-resolution map online.

“Act IX, An Act to Care for Those Wounded in Expeditions Against the Indians,” William Waller Hening, Statutes at Large of Virginia (1619–1808), Vol.1, 1619–1660, p. 287.

“Articles of Peace Between the Most Mighty Prince…Charles the Second…Made and Concluded at the Camp at Middle Plantation in the nine and twentieth day of May (1677),” in Samuel Wiseman’s Book of Record, Pepysian Library, Magdalen College, Cambridge, England (available on Virginia Colonial Records Project microfilm reel 578, Library of Virginia). Read a complete transcription of the published version of the Treaty of Peace online at Encyclopedia Virginia.

Indian Tribes Pay Tribute Taxes to Governor Baliles, 1989, Visual Studies Collection, Library of Virginia.

K.4, K.7, 1.4, 1.5, 1.6, 2.5, 2.6, VS.2, VS.3, USI.2, US1.3, USI.5, WG.14, WHII.3, WG.14, WHII.3, VUS.2, VUS.4

Goals and Guiding Principles
Through this lesson, students will explore the relationships between English settlers and the Powhatan Confederacy. They will investigate how and why these relationships changed over time and the lasting impact colonization had on Indigenous society.

Story Map (20 minutes)
VS, USI, WG
Using the attached Story Map file, fill out the story map to explain the story of Anglo-Indigenous relations from John Smith’s landing to the Treaty of Middle Plantation. How did Smith see the region that the English claimed as Virginia? How did the Indigenous see the English who came to the land? What conflicts did it cause? How were those conflicts resolved? And what was the eventual outcome—the product of which still happens today?

 

Infographic (20 minutes)
VS, USI, WG, WH, VUS
Watch the 5-minute video on Virginia tribal reflections about John Smith's map on the Library's YouTube channel.
Fill out the attached graphic organizer file:

• Look at the map and describe in the first block what the Indigenous world looked like before the English arrived.
• Read the 1644 act from the Anglo-Indigenous Wars and the 1677 Treaty of Middle Plantation and imagine and describe what the world probably looked and felt like to the Virginia Indian tribes after the English arrived.
• In the third block, look at the image and think back to the video and describe how Virginia’s Indian tribes persisted after 1677.
• What do your answers tell you about Virginia’s history?  What do they tell you about the Virginia Indian Tribes?

Exit Ticket (15-20 minutes)
VS, USI, WG
Read the documents and watch the 5-minute video on Virginia tribal reflections about John Smith's map on the Library's YouTube channel. Complete the attached exit ticket file. Define three words or terms you did not know before. Write down three things you learned. Write down three things you still want to know after learning about the Indigenous people in Virginia.

Summative Essay (15-20 minutes)
WH, VUS
Using the primary sources and the 5-minute video on Virginia tribal reflections about John Smith's map on the Library's YouTube channel, write a summative essay answering the following questions:

• How did Indigenous/Anglo relations change over the seventeenth century, and why?
• How do Virginia Indians assert their authority today, and why are their activities significant?
• What do they tell us about the persistence of Virginia’s Indigenous culture?