Warraskoyack Indians had towns south of Fort Boykin near Tormentor Creek and on Jones Creek near the mouth of the Pagan River. John Smith stayed with them on his 1608 mission to Powhatan’s residence on the York River and on a similar mission the following year, when drought had withered crops and Native people had grown weary of English demands for food. A peace treaty and the marriage of Pocahontas to John Rolfe in 1614 brought quieter times, but the English expanded their holdings far beyond their agreement with Powhatan. In 1622, Powhatan’s successor Opechancanough organized punitive attacks on the encroaching settlements that killed many colonists, and after he withdrew the English answered with warfare against all of the region’s Indians. Fort Boykin began in 1623, when Capt. Roger Smyth was commissioned on May 11 to build a fortification here to protect colonists against “Spaniards by sea and Indians by land,” using a steep cliff above the James River and naturally deep ditches at a site first called The Castle. During the Revolutionary War it was refortified and renamed for Maj. Francis Boykin, then serving on Gen. George Washington’s staff, and it was used again during the War of 1812. The present earthwork fortification was built by the Confederate army between June 1861 and May 1862 as part of the river defense system blocking access to Richmond, was captured by Union troops shortly after completion, and has since remained essentially intact.