Post by blackcrowheart on Mar 24, 2006 10:24:54 GMT -5
Highway marker honors Powhatan chief
Highway marker honors Powhatan chief His resistance against colonists
recognized as part of Va.'s history BY LAWRENCE LATANE III
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER Mar 23,
2006http://www.timesdispatch.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=RTD/MGArticl\
e/RTD_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1137834887803&path=!news&s=1045855934\
842
<http://www.timesdispatch.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=RTD/MGArticle/R\
TD_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1137834887803&path=!news&s=1045855934842\
>
MANQUIN -- An Indian king once considered a sinister warlord for
opposing English colonists in Virginia gained respect yesterday as state
and tribal leaders unveiled a highway marker in his honor.
<http://ads.mgnetwork.com/RealMedia/ads/click_nx.ads/timesdispatch.com/n\
ews@Left3?x>
The sign for Opechancanough, chief of the Powhatan Confederacy and bane
of the Jamestown Colony he twice attacked, is the first of 10 the
Department of Historic Resources is erecting to coax Virginia's Indian
history from the shadows.
"He was the Braveheart of the Virginia Indians," said Kathleen S.
Kilpatrick, director of the Virginia Department of Historic Resources,
drawing parallels with the 13th-century Scottish leader who resisted
English rule.
And, like Sir William Wallace, Opechancanough paid for his opposition
with his life.
As the marker beside U.S. 360 in King William County says,
Opechancanough was imprisoned at Jamestown in 1644 when a prison guard
shot him in the back. He was 100 years old.
"The Virginia Indian story is critical to understanding who we are as
Virginians," Kilpatrick said.
Opechancanough became king of the Pamunkey around 1629 and led campaigns
against the English colonists in 1622 and 1644 "in an attempt to punish
them for encroaching on Indian land," the highway marker says. Some
accounts say the attacks left hundreds of colonists dead.
The marker calls attention to a nearby tract of land between the
Pamunkey River and Moncuin Creek where Opechancanough lived in an Indian
town.
Chiefs of four Virginia Indian tribes spoke at yesterday's gathering as
traffic roared past.
"Getting to this point has been extremely difficult," said Upper
Mattaponi Chief Ken Adams, noting the time it has taken to introduce
Indian history into the mainstream.
"Society has perceived Indians as savages," Pamunkey Chief William Swift
Water Miles said.
Later, Mattaponi Chief Carl Custalow said his generation felt the need
to probe Indian history to fill the gaps left by Indian parents who were
more concerned with economic and cultural survival in a segregated
society.
"The older people would tell you a certain amount and that was it,"
Custalow said.
Frank Adams, the 52-year-old assistant chief of the Upper Mattaponi and
a member of the King William County Board of Supervisors, remembers
pretending to be Opechancanough while playing as a boy -- he was
enchanted with the name.
It wasn't until later that he learned of the leader's role at organizing
Indian resistance and, ultimately, preserving the American Indian
identity in Virginia.
"If the bands of Indians had separated, it would have been so much
easier for the English to have overwhelmed them," he said.
The Department of Historic Resources solicited suggestions from Virginia
Indians for topics of Indian history to display on new roadside markers.
Nine others are planned, including a marker in Henrico County that will
be the first dedicated to Powhatan, the paramount chief of Virginia's
coastal tribes when the Jamestown settlers arrived in 1607.
Highway marker honors Powhatan chief His resistance against colonists
recognized as part of Va.'s history BY LAWRENCE LATANE III
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER Mar 23,
2006http://www.timesdispatch.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=RTD/MGArticl\
e/RTD_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1137834887803&path=!news&s=1045855934\
842
<http://www.timesdispatch.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=RTD/MGArticle/R\
TD_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1137834887803&path=!news&s=1045855934842\
>
MANQUIN -- An Indian king once considered a sinister warlord for
opposing English colonists in Virginia gained respect yesterday as state
and tribal leaders unveiled a highway marker in his honor.
<http://ads.mgnetwork.com/RealMedia/ads/click_nx.ads/timesdispatch.com/n\
ews@Left3?x>
The sign for Opechancanough, chief of the Powhatan Confederacy and bane
of the Jamestown Colony he twice attacked, is the first of 10 the
Department of Historic Resources is erecting to coax Virginia's Indian
history from the shadows.
"He was the Braveheart of the Virginia Indians," said Kathleen S.
Kilpatrick, director of the Virginia Department of Historic Resources,
drawing parallels with the 13th-century Scottish leader who resisted
English rule.
And, like Sir William Wallace, Opechancanough paid for his opposition
with his life.
As the marker beside U.S. 360 in King William County says,
Opechancanough was imprisoned at Jamestown in 1644 when a prison guard
shot him in the back. He was 100 years old.
"The Virginia Indian story is critical to understanding who we are as
Virginians," Kilpatrick said.
Opechancanough became king of the Pamunkey around 1629 and led campaigns
against the English colonists in 1622 and 1644 "in an attempt to punish
them for encroaching on Indian land," the highway marker says. Some
accounts say the attacks left hundreds of colonists dead.
The marker calls attention to a nearby tract of land between the
Pamunkey River and Moncuin Creek where Opechancanough lived in an Indian
town.
Chiefs of four Virginia Indian tribes spoke at yesterday's gathering as
traffic roared past.
"Getting to this point has been extremely difficult," said Upper
Mattaponi Chief Ken Adams, noting the time it has taken to introduce
Indian history into the mainstream.
"Society has perceived Indians as savages," Pamunkey Chief William Swift
Water Miles said.
Later, Mattaponi Chief Carl Custalow said his generation felt the need
to probe Indian history to fill the gaps left by Indian parents who were
more concerned with economic and cultural survival in a segregated
society.
"The older people would tell you a certain amount and that was it,"
Custalow said.
Frank Adams, the 52-year-old assistant chief of the Upper Mattaponi and
a member of the King William County Board of Supervisors, remembers
pretending to be Opechancanough while playing as a boy -- he was
enchanted with the name.
It wasn't until later that he learned of the leader's role at organizing
Indian resistance and, ultimately, preserving the American Indian
identity in Virginia.
"If the bands of Indians had separated, it would have been so much
easier for the English to have overwhelmed them," he said.
The Department of Historic Resources solicited suggestions from Virginia
Indians for topics of Indian history to display on new roadside markers.
Nine others are planned, including a marker in Henrico County that will
be the first dedicated to Powhatan, the paramount chief of Virginia's
coastal tribes when the Jamestown settlers arrived in 1607.