Massacre of 1622
Captain John Smith was not in Virginia at the time and did not witness the Massacre of 1622 in Virginia, but for centuries his writing on the matter was considered to be the authoritative account of the event. More recent history, including archaeological investigations, debunks Smith’s account. What did happen, on March 22, 1622, a Friday, was that natives led by the chief of the Powhatan confederacy launched a series of coordinated attacks to kill all of the English settlers they could find. Three hundred and forty-seven men, women, and children were killed by the natives, more than 25% of the population of the colony.
The small settlements of Henricus and at the Falling Creek Ironworks were wiped out, and most of Martin’s Hundred, a plantation on the James, was destroyed. The natives destroyed buildings and murdered settlers along the James River from near what became Richmond to the region of what is now Newport News. Jamestown was forewarned, and was prepared for the attack, which it repulsed. The massacre of 1622 marked the beginning of ten years of warfare between the colonists and the Powhatan confederacy, with expeditions against the native towns and villages conducted nearly every summer by the colonial militia.