king to murder his new visitants on the spot. He was assured, that whether he did his part or not, before the end of two moons, there should not be an Englishman left in the whole country. Japazaws first disclosed the message to his guest; and then, after thinking and talking of it two days, made answer that the English were his friends, and Opitchipan (the Powhatan emperor) his brother; and therefore there should be no more blood shed between them by his means. The beads were returned by the messenger.
After this, the colonists had their season of success; and more Indians are said to have been slain during the autumn and winter of 1622–3, than had ever before fallen by the hands of the English, since the settlement of Jamestown. [8] But the course adopted by the civilized party sufficiently indicates the desperate state of their affairs. They availed themselves of a stratagem worse than barbarous in its principle, however circumstances might be supposed in this case to justify it. A peace was offered to the enemy and accepted; but just as the corn which the latter were thus induced to plant, was beginning to grow ripe, the English fell upon them in all directions at a given hour of an appointed day, killed many, and destroyed a vast quantity of provisions. Several of the greatest war-captains were among the slain; and for sometime Opechancanough himself was reported to be one. This rumor alone, so long as believed, was equal to a victory; "for against him," says the historian, "was this stratagem chiefly laid."
Such language furnishes evidence enough of the apprehension which his movements and reputation had excited. But he gave more substantial reasons for the respect which he still wrested from his enemy, by his prowess. A battle took place at his own village of Pamunkey, in 1625, in which the main body of the savages numbered eight hundred bow-men, independently of detachments from remote tribes; and though the English, led on by Governor Wyatt in person, succeeded in driving the enemy from the field, they were unable to pursue them even as far as Matapony. That town was their principal depot and rallying point, and the acknowledged inability to reach it, though but four miles distant, proves that the battle was by no means decisive. It appears from this affair, too, that all the efforts of the English, during an inveterate war of three years, had not driven the tribes even from the neighborhood of their own settlements. What was more discouraging, Opechancanough was not to be deceived a second time by the arts of diplomacy. In 1628, the governor's proclamation, which announced the appointment of commissioners to negotiate with the enemy, declared expressly an intention to repeat the stratagem of 1622; [9] but the plan failed of success, and the Pamunkies and Chickahominies—most immediately under the influence of Opechancanough—were more troublesome at this period than ever before.
Four years afterwards, the same tribes made an irruption so furious and alarming, that every twentieth man was despatched, under the command of the governor, to parley with them—a term in the records which shows forcibly, as Burk observes, the respect this brave people had inspired. But Opechancanough was still implacable; and when, in the course of 1632, a peace was at last formally concluded, so little dependence was placed on that circumstance, that even while the commissioners on both sides were adjusting the preliminaries, a proclamation was issued, forbidding the colonists either to parley or trade with the Indians.
This truce or treaty was understood to be on both sides a temporary expedient; but the chieftain was the first to take advantage of it. During nine years he remained quietly making his preparations for the conflict which his sagacity told him must some day or other be renewed. The hour at length arrived. The colony was involved in dissensions. Insurrections had taken place. The governor was unpopular, and the people were unprepared and heedless. Opechancanough lost not a moment in concerting measures for effecting at a single blow the bloody, but in his bosom noble design, which had engrossed the solicitude and labor of so large a part of his life.
He was now advanced in years, but his orders were conveyed with electric rapidity to the remotest tribes of the great confederacy associated under his influence. With the five nearest his own location, and most completely under his control, he resolved to make the principal onset in person. The more distant stations were assigned to the leading chiefs of the several nations; and thus the system of a war that raged from the mouth of the Chesapeake to the heads of all the great rivers, which flow into it, was so simple as to render confusion impossible. The whole force was let loose upon the entire line of the English settlements at nearly the same instant of time. Five hundred persons perished in the massacre. [10] Many others were carried into captivity. The habitations, corn, household utensils, instruments of farming, every thing essential to comfort, and almost every thing necessary to life, was consumed by fire. But for circumstances in the situation of the settlements, over which Opechancanough had no control, and which he could not guard against, the fate of Virginia had been decided by this single blow.
As it was, every other labor and thought were suspended in the terrors of an Indian war. The loom was abandoned. The plough was left in its furrow. All who were able to bear arms were embodied as a militia for the defence of the colony; and a chosen body, comprising every twentieth man, marched into the enemy's country under Governor Berkeley's personal command. The operations of the war, which raged thenceforth without any intermission until the death of Opechancanough—and that alone was expected to end it—are detailed by no historian. The early Virginian records which remain in manuscript are altogether silent respecting this period; and the meagre relation of Beverly is the only chronicle which has survived the ravages of time. This circumstance of itself sufficiently indicates the confusion and dismay of the era.
Opechancanough, whose last scene now rapidly approaches, had become so decrepit by age, as to be unable to walk, though his spirit, rising above the ruins of his body, directed, from the litter upon which his Indians carried him, the onset and the retreat of his warriors. The wreck of his constitution was at length completed by the extreme fatigues encountered in this difficult and laborious service. His flesh became macerated; his sinews lost their elasticity; and his eyelids were so heavy that he could not see, unless they were lifted up by his faithful attendants. In this forlorn condition he was closely pursued by Berkeley with a squadron of horse, and at length surprised and taken. He entered Jamestown, for the first time in his life, as the most conspicuous figure in the conqueror's triumph.
To the honor of the English, they treated their distinguished captive with the tenderness which his infirmities demanded, and the respect which his appearance and talents inspired. They saw the object of their terror bending under the load of years, and shattered by the hardships of war; and they generously resolved to bury the remembrance of their injuries in his present melancholy reverse of fortune. His own deportment was suitable to his former glory, and to the principles of an Indian hero. He disdained to utter complaint or to manifest uneasiness. He believed that tortures were preparing for him; but instead of any consequent reduction in his haughtiness, his language and demeanor bespoke the most absolute defiance and contempt.
But generally he shrouded himself in reserve; and as if desirous of showing his enemies that there was nothing in their presence even to rouse his curiosity, and much less to excite his apprehensions, he but rarely permitted his eyelids to be lifted up. He continued in this state several days, attended by his affectionate Indian servants, who had begged permission to wait upon him. But his long life of near an hundred years [11] was drawing to its close. He was basely shot through the back by one of the soldiers appointed to guard him, from no other provocation than the recollection of his ancient hostility.
To the last moment his courage remained unbroken. The nearer death approached, the more care he seemed to use in concealing his dejection, and preserving the dignity and serenity of his aspect. Only a few minutes before he expired, he heard an unusual bustle in the room where he was confined. Having ordered his attendants to raise his eyelids, he discovered a number of persons crowding round him, for the purpose of gratifying an unseasonable curiosity. The dying chief felt the indignity, but disdaining to notice the intruders he raised himself as well as he could, and with a voice and air of authority, demanded that the governor should be immediately brought in. When the latter made his appearance, the chieftain scornfully told him that "had it been his fortune to have taken Sir William Berkeley prisoner, he should not have exposed him as a show to his people." [12]
Such was the death of Opechancanough. His character is too well explained by his life to require any additional comment. His own countrymen were more extensively