1622: The Indian Massacre that Almost Destroyed Virginia

The Great Massacre of 1622 almost destroyed Virginia. Understanding that the ever-larger numbers of settlers and their accumulation of land would destroy his people and their way of life, Great Chief Opechancanough, the brother of Powhatan and uncle of Pocahontas, bands the Powhatan people together and launches a surprise attack on the English on the morning of March 22, 1622. A third of the colony is wiped out in the blink of an eye, its precarious prosperity is wiped away, and the outlying plantations are ravaged by treacherous natives who pose as friends of the unsuspecting settlers before striking down them and their families. Jamestown is saved by the bravery of an Indian boy named Chanco and a settler named Richard Pace who had taken him in, but only just, and the settlers respond with fury, launching the Third Anglo-Powhatan War. This is the full tale, and the story of how Virginia survived such treachery!

 

Timestamps:

0:00 The Indian Massacre of 1622

3:49 The Great Peace after John Rolfe Married Pocahontas

5:47 Opechancanough Plots the Destruction of the English

6:35 The Powhatan Launch the Great Good Friday Massacre of 1622

10:07 How Jamestown Survived the 1622 Massacre

10:54 The Aftermath of the 1622 Good Friday Massacre

12:44 The English Settlers Respond to the Powhatan with Total War

15:14 The Virginia Company Dies

17:04 Virginia is Born

 

Farmer at Colonial Williamsburg, Sarah Stierch, CC BY 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

 

Jamestown House, Hudson, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

 

Berkeley Hundred First Thanksgiving, By Joe Orbin - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=51846533

 

George Thorpe Coat of Arms, By Glasshouse - Crozier, William Armstrong. Virginia Heraldica. 1908; rpt. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co, 1965, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=137116635

 

Thomas Gates Reaches Jamestown, Jna. P. Davis Sc (via Edward Eggleston) via Internet Archive Book Images, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

 

Bennett's Plantation, Steveprutz, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

 

Arrival at Jamestown, Drake, Francis S. (Francis Samuel), 1828-1885, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

 

Henricus, Morgan Riley, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

 

An Indian Warrior, W.H. Drake via via M.E. Thalheimer (Internet Archive Book Images), CC0, via Wikimedia Commons