Powhatan’s Headquarters

At the time Captain John Smith traveled the York River, several Eastern Virginia Algonquian tribes paid tribute to Powhatan, a spiritual and political leader who in return provided military assistance, guidance, and food. Powhatan established his headquarters at Werowocomoco, an Indian center of leadership since the 1200s, across the river from here. In 1607, Smith spent a month in captivity there, where Powhatan offered to make him one of his tributary chiefs and to bring the English colony into his alliance, but Smith did not accept. After his release, Smith returned from Jamestown to Werowocomoco to trade. In the early 1600s, Smith also explored the Chesapeake Bay, traveling the James, Chickahominy, and York rivers in 1607 and leading two major expeditions from Jamestown in 1608. Sailing and rowing a primitive 30-foot boat nearly 3,000 miles, he reached as far north as the Susquehanna River. Though he found neither gold nor a passage to the Pacific, his precise map and detailed observations of American Indian societies and the region’s abundant natural resources guided future explorers and settlers. At the time of these explorations, an estimated 50,000 American Indians lived in the Chesapeake region in sophisticated societies with arts and architecture, systems of government, extensive trade and communication networks, and shared spiritual beliefs, while the region itself held thick forests, vast marshlands, abundant fish and waterfowl, and enormous oyster reefs.

Virginia · United States