Captain John Smith's Adventures on the James

— www.johnsmithtrail.org —

This peninsula separated two chiefdoms subject to Powhatan, the Weyanock and the Appomattuck. John Smith's map shows the Appomattuck people, whom Christopher Newport described as initially unfriendly, living in this vicinity. He told of a different reception from the Weyanock people who lived across the river.

Newport described a kingdom full of pearl-mussels at the junction of the Appomattox and the James called "Waynauk," where the Natives welcomed him with rejoicing and dances. The Weyanock controlled many miles on both sides of the James from the Appomattox east to Paspahegh lands. Smith's early map indicates the werowance's, or chief's, house near the peninsula across from here.

Capt. John Smith's Trail
John Smith knew the James River by its Algonquian name: Powhatan, the same as the region's paramount chief. Smith traveled the river many times between 1607 and 1609, trading with Virginia Indians to ensure survival at Jamestown. What he saw of Virginia's verdant woodlands and pristine waters inspired him to explore the greater Chesapeake Bay, chronicling its natural wonders.

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Early English Expansion
Sir Thomas Dale spearheaded the expansion of English land holdings near the confluence of these two rivers. Though his settlements, the Citie of Henricus and Bermuda Hundred, vanished in the decades that followed, nearby farms prospered.

Demand for cropland, fueled by demand for tobacco after 1614, led the English to seek the best land, which in many cases had already been laboriously cleared by Indians using stone tools. In some instances, Dale and his compatriots drove Indians from their fields and towns. More often, they chose what they thought were former field or habitation sites. However, the Natives had not actually abandoned these meadows, as they frequently reoccupied sites after allowing surrounding fields to remain fallow.

Of the trees the English did clear, many were used to fence out the displaced Natives.

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