Powhatan

Powhatan (pou'ətăn`), d. 1618, Native North American chief of the Powhatan tribe in Virginia, whose personal name was Wahunsonacock. He greatly extended the dominion of the Powhatan Confederacy and after the marriage (1614) of his daughter Pocahontas to John Rolfe kept peace with the English colonists.

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Powhatan

(died April 1618, Virginia) American Indian leader, father of Pocahontas. At the peak of his power, he ruled the 13,000 to 34,000 people of the Powhatan empire. He initially acted ambivalently toward the English settlement at Jamestown, Va., and sometimes permitted attacks against the colonists. After Pocahontas married an English settler in 1614, however, Powhatan maintained peaceful relations with the colonists until the end of his life.

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Powhatan

Confederacy of more than 30 North American Indian tribes who once occupied most of what is now tidewater Virginia, the eastern shore of the Chesapeake Bay, and possibly southern Maryland, U.S. Powhatan languages belong to the Algonquian language family. The confederacy was named for its powerful chief, Powhatan, to whom the tribes provided military support and paid taxes in the form of goods. Many of the villages, consisting of long dwellings covered with bark or reed mats, were palisaded. Powhatan women cultivated corn, beans, and squash; the men hunted and waged war, chiefly against the Iroquois. The intermittent hostilities with the English settlers, often called the Powhatan War (1622–44), ended with the dissolution of the confederacy. Early 21st-century population estimates indicated some 2,000 Powhatan descendants.