Destruction of Chickahominy Indian Towns

W-22-a

During the Third Anglo-Powhatan War (1644-1646), English colonists burned Chickahominy Indian towns in this area, destroyed valuables and food, and took many prisoners. The English built Fort James in 1645 and used it to stage raids. The fort stood southeast of here near the Chickahominy town of Moysenac. In Feb. 1645, Gov. Leonard Calvert of Maryland arrived and participated in the attacks. The war ended in Oct. 1646 with a treaty that required the Chickahominy to leave their traditional homeland. They moved to present-day King William County. Decades later they began moving back to their original territory, but by then colonists had claimed the valuable riverside lands.

Department of Historic Resources, 2009

See a problem? Report it to HighwayMarkers@dhr.virginia.gov.

DHR could use your help! We don't have a recent image of this marker. If you have one that you'd like to submit for inclusion on this site, please send it to HighwayMarkers@dhr.virginia.gov.

References/Bibliographic Citation:

Kemp, Richard. Letter to Sir William and Sir John Berkeley, February 27, 1645. Clarendon MS #24, folios 48-51. Bodleian Library, Oxford University, Oxford. (Hand transcribed by Martha McCartney) Hening, Wm W. The Statutes At Large, Being a Collection of all the Laws of Virginia, Vol.1, pp 293, 315 (February 1645). Nugent, Nell. 1969-1979. Cavaliers and Pioneers, Abstracts of Virginia Land Patents and Grants. Billings, Warren M. 1975 Some Acts Not in Hening’s, April 1652, November 1652, and July 1653. Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 83:65-72. Rountree, Helen C. 1990. Pocahontas’s People. Chickahominy oral history, personal communication, Chief Stephen R. Adkins, 2009.