It is well known that the valiant Captain was wont to express his opinions in strong terms, but he has rarely been detected in any great inaccuracy. And the circumstances of this case are in his favor; for it has been truly remarked, that the Powhatan confederacy inhabited a country upon which nature had bestowed singular advantages. Unlike the natives of more northern region, they suffered little from cold, and less from famine. Their settlements were mostly on the banks of James, Elizabeth, Nansamond, York and Chickahominy rivers, all which abounded with the most delicious fish and fowl. In his Potomac expedition, Smith met with "that aboundance of fish, lying so thicke with their heads above the water, as for want of nets, (our barge driving amongst them) we attempted to catch them with a frying-pan." And though the captain naturally enough concluded, after some trials, that this was a poor instrument for his purpose, he persists in adding that "neither better fish, more plentie, nor more varietie for small fish had any of vs euer seene in any place so swimming in the water—but they are not to be caught with frying-pans." He found the stingrays in such abundance among the reeds at the mouth of the Rappahannoc, that he amused himself by nailing them to the ground with his sword: "and, thus," he observes, "we tooke more in owne houre than we could eate in a day."
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 [of 1607—8] 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, [FN] 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.
[FN] 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."
It is evident, at least, that the Powhatan confederacy must have been among the most numerous on the continent. It was warlike too; and though the situation of the Monacans and Mannahoacks among the hills of the back country protected them in some measure, yet nothing but a union of these two nations could assure them of security against their more powerful neighbors on the coast.
The Powhatans proper, who gave their own appellation to the confederacy of which they were leading members, were located in what is now Henrico county, on the banks of the James river, and at the distance of about two days' journey from the English settlement at its mouth. The principal chief—or emperor, as the old historians style him—of the thirty tribes of the nation, was found by the first colonists residing with these Indians, and is believed to have been one of their number by birth. His proper name was Wahunsonacook. He had that of Powhatan, by which he has been generally designated, from the town so called, which was the chief seat and metropolis of his hereditary dominions. This town is described as pleasantly situated on a hill. It consisted of twelve houses; in front of which were three islets in the river, not far from what in modern times has been called Mayo's plantation, and a little below the spot where Richmond now stands. It was considered by the English both the strongest and pleasantest place in the whole country; [FN] and was consequently named Nonsuch, it seems, about two years after the settlement at Jamestown, when it was purchased of the emperor by Smith. "The place is very pleasant," says the captain in his history, "and strong by nature, and about it are many corn fields."
[FN] Stith's History, p. 105.
The occasion of the first acquaintance which the colonists had with Powhatan was as follows. The adventurous and ambitious spirit of Smith had prompted him to make several journeys and voyages along the Virginia coast, and into the interior of the country. Within a few months after the settlement of Jamestown, among other tribes he discovered the Chickahominies, and procured a large quantity of provision from them at a time when the colonists were in great need of it.
But with the idle and unruly in the colony, this good fortune served only to produce murmuring. They complained of his having done so little instead of applauding him for having done so much; and some even of the council undertook to say, that he ought to have followed up the Chickahominy river to its source.