I
Confederacy of more than 30 North American Indian tribes living in Oklahoma, New Jersey, and Virginia, U.S., and in Canada.
Powhatan languages belong to the Powhatan , to whom the tribes provided military support and paid taxes in the form of goods. Many of the villages, consisting of long dwellings covered with bark or reed mats, were palisaded. Powhatan women cultivated corn, beans, and squash; the men hunted and waged war, chiefly against the Iroquois . The intermittent hostilities with the English settlers, often called the Powhatan War (1622–44), ended with the breaking of the confederacy.
II
died April 1618, Virginia
North American Indian chief, father of Pocahontas .
At the peak of his power, he allegedly controlled 128 villages (about 9,000 inhabitants) of the Powhatan confederacy. He did not oppose the English settlement at Jamestown , Va., but some of his tribesmen persistently attacked isolated groups of settlers. In 1614 Pocahontas married a settler, and shortly thereafter Powhatan negotiated a peace agreement that he honoured until the end of his life.