Blockhouses Near Jamestown

In the first few years of the English settlement at Jamestown, colonists built small, isolated, fortified structures called blockhouses around the perimeter of the main settlement to serve as refuges, observation posts, and rallying points in case of attack. On 29 Mar. 1611, Paspahegh Indians, who consistently resisted the English incursion into their territory, attacked the nearby blockhouse and killed the soldiers stationed there in retaliation for the Feb. killing of their leader Wowinchapuncke. On 20 May 1611, Sir Thomas Dale ordered another blockhouse raised on the north side of the back river to help prevent Indians from killing the colonists' cattle.

Virginia · United States