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Opechancanough ( ; – )Helen C. Rountree (2025). 9780813925967, University of Virginia Press: Charlottesville. . ISBN 9780813925967 was a sachem (or paramount chief) of the Tsenacommacah in present-day Virginia from 1618 until his death. He had been a leader in the confederacy formed by his older brother Powhatan, from whom he inherited the paramountcy.
Opechancanough led the Powhatan in the second and third Anglo-Powhatan Wars, including the Indian massacre of 1622.
In 1646, the aged Opechancanough was captured by English colonists and taken to Jamestown, where he was killed by a settler assigned to guard him.
It was likely derived from a Powhatan original phonemically spelled as /a·pečehčakeno·w/ < a·pe "white" + čehčak "soul" + - en "inanimate verb ending" + -o·w "3rd person transitive inanimate subject". This would have the reconstructed pronunciation or perhaps with Nasalization and haplology.
Before the 1622 massacre, Opechancanough ceremoniously changed his name "Mangopeesomon".
At the time of the English settlement at Jamestown, which was established in May 1607, Opechancanough was a much-feared warrior and a charismatic leader of the Powhatans. As Chief Powhatan's younger brother (or possibly half-brother), he was sachem of a tribe situated along the Pamunkey River near the present-day town of West Point.
Known to be strongly opposed to European settlers, he captured Captain John Smith along the Chickahominy River and brought him before Chief Powhatan at Werowocomoco, one of the Powhatans' two capital villages. Located along the northern shore of the present-day York River, Werowocomoco is thought to be where Powhatan's young daughter Matoaka (known as Pocahontas to historians) intervened on Smith's behalf during a ceremony, based upon Smith's account.
Written accounts by other colonists confirm that Pocahontas later served as an intermediary between the natives and the colonists, and helped deliver crucial food during the winter of 1607–08, when the colonists' fort at Jamestown Island burned in an accidental fire in January.
The marriage of Pocahontas and colonist John Rolfe in April 1614 brought a period of peace; this ended not long after her death while on a trip to England and the death of her father, Wahunsonacock, in 1618. A short time later, after a brief succession of the chiefdom by his older brother Opitchapam (during which Opechancanough was war chief), Opechancanough became paramount chief of the Powhatan Confederacy.
Beginning with the Indian massacre of 1622, in which his forces killed many settlers, Chief Opechancanough abandoned diplomacy with the English colonists as a means of settling conflicts and tried to force them to abandon the region altogether. On March 22, 1622, approximately a third of the settlers in Virginia were killed by Powhatan forces during a series of coordinated attacks along both shores of the James River, extending from Newport News Point, near the mouth of the river, to Falling Creek, near the Fall Line at the head of navigation. But the colony eventually rebounded, and colonists later killed hundreds of natives in retaliation, including many warriors poisoned by Dr. John Pott at Jamestown.
Chief Opechancanough launched a last major effort to expel the colonists on April 18, 1644, the third Anglo-Powhatan War. In 1646, forces under Royal Governor William Berkeley captured Opechancanough, at the time believed to be between 90 and 100 years old. They paraded him as a prisoner through Jamestown before a jeering crowd, and he was subsequently killed by a settler who shot him in the back while assigned to guard him in prison. Before dying, Opechancanough reportedly said, "If it had been my fortune to take Sir William Berkeley prisoner, I would not have meanly exposed him as a show to my people."
He was succeeded as Weroance first by Nectowance, then by Totopotomoi, then by Cockacoeske, Totopotomoi's wife, who is believed to be Opechancanough's daughter or granddaughter.
Rechristened as Don "Luis", the young man returned to his homeland in what is now the Virginia Peninsula subregion of the Hampton Roads region of Virginia, where Jesuit priests established Ajacán Mission in September 1570. Shortly thereafter, Don Luis is believed to have returned to live with the Powhatan and turned against the Europeans. He and his allies killed the Jesuits at the mission in the winter of 1571, ending Spanish efforts to colonize the area.
Other historians speculate that Don Luis may have become the father of Powhatan chiefs Wahunsunacock and Opechancanough. Their remains are buried on the Pamunkey Indian Reservation in King William, Virginia.
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