“And cheerfully at sea
  Success you still entice,
    To get the pearl and gold,
    And ours to hold
  Virginia,
  Earth’s only paradise!”

The destination of the colony was Chesapeake Bay, a large gulf opening by a strait fifteen miles wide upon the Atlantic at thirty-seven degrees, and reaching northward parallel to the sea-coast one hundred and eighty-five miles.  Into its basin a great many smooth and placid rivers discharge their contents.  Perhaps no bay of the world has such diversified scenery.  Among the rivers which enter the bay from the west, four—­the Potomac, Rappahannock, York, and James—­are particularly large and imposing.  They divide what is called tide-water Virginia into long and narrow peninsulas, which are themselves furrowed by deep creeks making numerous necks or minor peninsulas of land.  Up these rivers and creeks the tide ebbs and flows for many miles.  In 1607, before the English arrived, the whole of this tide-water region, except here and there where the Indians had a cornfield, was covered with primeval forests, so free from undergrowth that a coach with four horses could be driven through the thickest groups of trees.

The numerous tribes of Indians who inhabited this region belonged to the Algonquin race, and at the time Captain Newport set sail from England they were members of a confederacy, of which Powhatan was head war chief or werowance.  There were at least thirty-four of these tribes, and to each Powhatan appointed one of his own friends as chief.  Powhatan’s capital, or “werowocomoco,” was on York River at Portan Bay (a corruption for Powhatan), about fourteen miles from Jamestown; and Pochins, one of his sons, commanded at Point Comfort, while Parahunt, another son, was werowance at the falls of the James River, one hundred and twenty miles inland.  West of the bay region, beyond the falls of the rivers, were other confederacies of Indians, who carried on long wars with Powhatan, of whom the most important were the Monacans, or Manakins, and Massawomekes.[16]

Powhatan’s dominions extended from the Roanoke River, in North Carolina, to the head of Chesapeake Bay, and in all this country his will was despotic.  He had an organized system of collecting tribute from the werowances, and to enforce his orders kept always about him fifty armed savages “of the tallest in his kingdom.”  Each tribe had a territory defined by natural bounds, and they lived on the rivers and creeks in small villages, consisting of huts called wigwams, oval in shape, and made of bark set upon a framework of saplings.  Sometimes these houses were of great length, accommodating many families at once; and at Uttamussick, in the peninsula formed by the Pamunkey and Mattapony, were three such structures sixty feet in length, where the Indians kept the bodies of their dead chiefs under the care of seven priests, or medicine-men.