#87 Opechancanough’s War

The History of the Americans

Jack Henneman

History

4.9 • 632 Ratings

🗓️ 7 September 2022

⏱️ 36 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

After some English killed one of Opechancanough’s most celebrated warriors, Nemattanew, in the belief that he had killed an English trader, the great chief Opechancanough reassured Sir George Yeardley, the governor of the English in Virginia, that “the Sky should sooner fall than Peace be broken.” This was part of Opechancanough’s extraordinarily disciplined eight year campaign to lull the overconfident English into complacency, and then ambush them.

The sky would indeed fall on March 22, 1622, and the Powhatan Confederacy would kill 347 English, other Europeans, and Africans in an all-out push to eject the English from their lands. It almost succeeded.

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Selected references for this episode

James Horn, A Brave and Cunning Prince: The Great Chief Opechancanough and the War for America

David Price, Love and Hate in Jamestown: John Smith, Pocahontas, and the Start of a New Nation

Helen C. Rountree, Pocahontas, Powhatan, Opechancanough: Three Indian Lives Changed by Jamestown

Jamestowne Society

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the History of the Americans podcast episode 87.
0:11.1	I'm your host, Jack Heneman, and I'm recording this on September 6, 2022, in my closet,
0:18.1	New Orleans, very early in the morning. I have to drive to Austin after this.
0:24.6	On the off chance, you are new to the podcast. We are telling the history of the lands now encompassed
0:30.4	by the United States from the beginning without presentism. Once again, the Cuban creation
0:36.9	cigar bar and Toulouse Street in the French
0:39.5	quarter provided essential support for the writing of most of this episode. So before we get to
0:46.7	the history part, a couple of items. In August, the podcast exceeded 25,000 downloads and listens
0:53.8	in a month for the first time.
0:56.6	Joe Rogan isn't exactly looking over his shoulder, but I'm still totally blown away.
1:03.0	In the 20 months or so since the first episode on January 1st, 2021, we've had more than
1:09.3	290,000 downloads and listens, more than 90% of which have been in the
1:14.9	United States. The next four countries are Canada, the UK, Australia, none of which are surprising.
1:22.4	And Japan, which is, maybe there are homesick expats.
1:34.1	The top 10 metro areas are closely aligned with population, but not perfectly so.
1:45.1	They are in order, New York City, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston, D.F.W., Atlanta, Austin, San Francisco, and Denver.
1:49.4	Houston, punching way below weight.
1:55.7	Wherever you live, thank you very, very much for spreading the word as you have obviously done.
2:19.3	And a special thank you to Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit.com, David Burge, known on Twitter as Iowa Hawk, Paloma Media's Nancy Romaman, author Walter Kern, and Reason Magazine Giants Nick Delisbee and Matt Welch, all of whom have said very nice things about the podcast on blogs and Twitter and such, along with many others of less celebrity with no less taste and wisdom. I'm fortunate my friends, old and new.
2:26.1	The second item is that I will actually be in Austin for most of September, at least by my
2:31.6	standards. If you are within an easy drive of Austin, I would like to do a
2:35.7	meetup toward the end of September, send me an email at the History of the Americans at gmail.com
	...

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