Colonial Wars

The Chesapeake

The English colonizers who settled Jamestown in 1607 brought a conception of conquest, an art of war, and behavior that had been shaped by England's subjugation of Ireland and by lessons learned in European wars. Their relations with the indigenous Powhatan Confederacy were uneasy from the outset, marked by mutual suspicion, hidden motives, misunderstanding, and violence. In 1607, members of the confederacy killed two colonists and captured John Smith. After his release, Smith instilled stricter military discipline among the colonists and began a program of raiding and intimidation designed to live off local indigenous peoples and cow them into submission and into providing food.

Smith's plan provoked the First Anglo–Powhatan War, which was marked by mutual savagery and heavy loss of life. The capture of Powhatan's daughter, Pocahontas, and her subsequent marriage to John Rolfe in 1614 provided the basis for a peace agreement. Within eight years, the expanding tobacco economy and growing population put increasing pressure on the land and on local Indian nations. Realizing that only war could stave off the English threat, Opechancanough, Powhatan's successor, launched an attack in March 1622 that killed nearly one-quarter of the colonists. Regrouping, the English waged total war, destroying villages and crops and killing every Indian in sight. The Second Anglo–Powhatan War lasted until 1632. In 1644, Opechancanough launched another desperate war for survival, which ended in 1646 when the Indians sued for peace.

Tobacco plantations proliferated and Virginia's population continued expanding. With growth came increased conflict as the population pushed west. Accusations of theft by a Virginia planter against members of the Doeg tribe prompted bloodshed and the summoning of the militia in 1675. The militia entered Maryland and indiscriminately killed both Doeg and Susquehannock, setting in motion a series of retaliatory attacks. Gov. William Berkeley instituted a defensive strategy, which displeased Virginia frontiersmen who wanted an aggressive strategy to crush the Indians. Planter Nathaniel Bacon responded to popular distress and dissatisfaction by assuming leadership of the militia. He challenged Berkeley's authority by leading the militia on raids against local tribes. Deemed a rebel by Berkeley, Bacon occupied Jamestown and forced Berkeley to accept his demands for a larger force and a broader campaign. Bacon's militia, in fact, killed relatively few Native Americans, turning instead against the governor in a civil war and burning Jamestown in September 1676. After Bacon died in October from dysentery, the rebellion effectively collapsed. An expedition of regular troops from England fully restored order—and the Crown's authority—in early 1677.

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