Paspahegh Indians

V-50

Located nearby was the main town of the Paspahegh Indians, tributaries to paramount chief Powhatan. When Jamestown was built in their territory, the Paspahegh consistently resisted the English settlement. In Aug. 1610, George Percy, on orders from Gov. De La Warr (Delaware), destroyed the Paspahegh town and its crops, killing 16 people and capturing the wife and children of chief Wowinchapuncke. On their return to Delaware's ship, the English threw the children overboard and then shot them in the head, and later executed the chief's wife — actions that changed the nature of warfare for the Virginia Indians. Wowinchapuncke was killed in a later skirmish near Jamestown. The remaining Paspahegh left the area by 1611.

Department of Historic Resources, 2005

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References/Bibliographic Citation:

George Percey, "A True Relation of the proceedings and occurents of moment…" in Edward Wright Haile, ed., Jamestown Narratives: Eyewitness Accounts of the Virginia Colony, The First Decade: 1607-1617 (Champlain, Va.: RoundHouse, 1998), 509-510, 512; George Percey, "Observations gathered out of a discourse of the plantation of the southern colony in Virginia by the English, 1606…", in Edward Wright Haile, ed., Jamestown Narratives: Eyewitness Accounts of the Virginia Colony, The First Decade: 1607-1617 (Champlain, Va.: RoundHouse, 1998), 92; Gabriel Archer, A relation of the discovery of our river, in Edward Wright Haile, ed., Jamestown Narratives: Eyewitness Accounts of the Virginia Colony, The First Decade: 1607-1617 (Champlain, Va.: RoundHouse, 1998), 117; Robert Tindall, "Letter to Prince Henry," in Edward Wright Haile, ed., Jamestown Narratives: Eyewitness Accounts of the Virginia Colony, The First Decade: 1607-1617 (Champlain, Va.: RoundHouse, 1998), 129; John Smith, A true relation, in Edward Wright Haile, ed., Jamestown Narratives: Eyewitness Accounts of the Virginia Colony, The First Decade: 1607-1617 (Champlain, Va.: RoundHouse, 1998), 150, 151, 175, 180; William Strachey, "A true repertory, part 4…", in Edward Wright Haile, ed., Jamestown Narratives: Eyewitness Accounts of the Virginia Colony, The First Decade: 1607-1617 (Champlain, Va.: RoundHouse, 1998), 437; "The history of travel, capot 4 (probably February 1611)," in Edward Wright Haile, ed., Jamestown Narratives: Eyewitness Accounts of the Virginia Colony, The First Decade: 1607-1617 (Champlain, Va.: RoundHouse, 1998), 625-626; Thomas Dale, Letter to the Council of Virginia, 25 May 1611, in Edward Wright Haile, ed., Jamestown Narratives: Eyewitness Accounts of the Virginia Colony, The First Decade: 1607-1617 (Champlain, Va.: RoundHouse, 1998), 524; Mark Nicholls, "George Percy's 'Trew Relacyon': A Primary Source for the Jamestown Settlement," Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 113 (No. 3, 2005), 253-254; Susan Myra Kingsbury, The Records of the Virginia Company of London (4 vols.; Washington: United States Government Printing Office, 1906-1935), 3:228; Emily J. Salmon and Edward D. C. Campbell, Jr., eds., The Hornbook of Virginia History, 4th ed. (Richmond: Library of Virginia, 1994), 102; John A. Garraty and Mark Carnes, eds., American National Biography, 23 vols. (New York and Oxford: Oxford University, 1999), 6:385-386; E. Randolph Turner, III and Antony F. Opperman, Searching for Virginia Company Period Sites: An Assessment of Surviving Archaeological Manifestations of Powhatan-English Interactions, A.D. 1607-1624 (Forthcoming), 8-2 and 8-3; Helen C. Rountree, The Powhatan Indians of Virginia: Their Traditional Culture (Norman, Okla. and London: University of Oklahoma Press, 1989), 121, 184 fn 73; Helen C. Rountree, Pocahontas’s People: The Powhatan Indians of Virginia Through Four Centuries (Norman, Ok. and London: University of Oklahoma Press, 1990), 54-55.