The Second Anglo-Powhatan War was fought from 1622 until 1632, pitting English colonists in Virginia against the Algonquian-speaking Indians of Tsenacomoco, led by Opitchapam and his brother (or close kinsman) Opechancanough. After the First Anglo-Powhatan War (1609–1614), which ended with the marriage of Pocahontas and John Rolfe, the English colony began to grow. The headright system begun in 1618 granted land to new immigrants who, in turn, sought to make their fortunes off tobacco. As English settlements pressed up the James River and toward the fall line, Indian leaders devised a plan to push them back and, in so doing, assert their supremacy over the newcomers. On March 22, 1622, Opechancanough led a series of coordinated surprise attacks that concentrated on settlements upriver from Jamestown and succeeded in killing nearly a third of the English population. Perhaps assuming that the English were sufficiently humiliated, he did not pursue a final destruction of the colony. What followed, then, was a ten-year war in which the English repeatedly attacked the Indian food supply. After the conflict’s only full-scale battle, fought in 1624, colonists estimated that they had destroyed enough food to feed 4,000 men for a year. Peace finally arrived in 1632, but by then the balance of power in Virginia had tipped toward the English. The colonial population had grown significantly and Opechancanough’s power waned.
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