ABSTRACT
In 1607, when English colonists made their first permanent settlement at Jamestown, Virginia, many of the Algonquian-speaking peoples living in the Chesapeake Bay area belonged to an alliance of different tribal groups headed by the powerful Indian leader Powhatan. By the end of the seventeenth century, intermittent warfare between Virginia Algonquians and English settlers had resulted in the destruction of Powhatan’s confederacy, substantial loss in land and population, and the confinement of the few remaining Algonquians to reservations. Kathleen Brown’s article focuses on early Algonquian-English relations.
