Powhatan Uprising of 1622

In May 1623 the colonists arranged a spurious peace parley with Opechancanough through friendly Indian intermediaries. On May 22, Captain William Tucker and a force of musketeers met with Opechancanough and other prominent Powhatans on neutral ground along the Potomac River, allegedly to negotiate the release of the other captives. But Tucker’s objective was the slaughter of Powhatan leaders. After the captain and the Indians had exchanged ‘manye fayned speeches,’ approximately 200 of the Powhatans who had accompanied their leaders unwittingly drank poisoned wine that Jamestown’s resident physician and later governor, Dr. John Pott, had prepared for the occasion. Many of the Indians fell sick or immediately dropped dead, and Tucker’s men shot and killed about 50 more. Some important tribal members were slain, but Opechancanough escaped, and with him went any hopes of a quick return for the captured women. Between May and November of that same year, the colonists ravaged the Powhatans throughout Tidewater Virginia. The ‘fraudulent peace’ had worked, and the Indians had planted corn ‘in great abundance’ only to see Englishmen harvest it for their own use. Successful raids by the settlers not only proved the undoing of the Powhatans but made fortunes for several Jamestown corn profiteers. These raids against the Indians helped to heal the emotional wounds of the colonists, but victory came at a high price. While the captive women suffered alongside their captors, the Indian war transformed the colony into an even cruder, crueler place than before. The war intensified the social stratification between leaders and laborers and masters and servants, while a handful of powerful men on Virginia Governor Sir Francis Wyatt’s council thoroughly dominated the political, economic, and military affairs of the colony. It soon became clear that the fate of the missing women depended not upon official concern or humanitarian instincts but upon the principle that everything and everybody had a price. Near the end of 1623, more than a year and a half after the uprising, the prosperous Dr. Pott ransomed Jane Dickenson and other women from the Indians for a few pounds of trade beads. After her release, Dickenson learned that she owed a debt of labor to Dr. Pott for the ransom he had paid and for the three years of service that her deceased husband had left on his contract of servitude at the time of his death. She complained bitterly that her new’servitude . . . differeth not from her slavery with the Indians.’ By 1624, no more than seven of the fifteen to twenty hostages had arrived in Jamestown. The majority of them returned with Jane Dickenson. Those who did not come back were presumed killed during the 1622 attack, although one captive, Anne Jackson, was not returned until 1630. Mistress Boyse, the first of the missing women to rejoin the colony, was not mentioned in official records following her return. Another of the captives, Mistress Jeffries, died within a few months of her release. Anne Jackson probably returned to the colony badly broken from the consequences of her captivity, for in 1630 the council ordered that she ‘bee sent for England with the first opportunity,’ with the stipulation that her brother take care of her until she was on board a ship. Nothing more was heard of Jane Dickenson after she petitioned the council in March 1624 for release from her’slavery’ with Dr. Pott.

The missing women of Martin’s Hundred were uprooted by their enemies, manipulated by their countrymen, and mistreated in both societies. No brave frontiersmen stalked their captors, and no romantic legends arose to memorialize them. There were no heroics involved in their return; in the harsh, unforgiving world of Virginia in the early seventeenth century, it was a dispassionate business transaction that brought about their release.

This article was written by J. Frederick Fausz and originally published in the March 1998 issue of American History Magazine. For more great articles, subscribe to American History magazine today!