But colonial promoters’ dream of conversion and coexistence proved fleeting. Before sailing home in 1617, Pocahontas became ill and passed away, felled by an unknown European disease. The next year Wahunsonacock died. Control of the Powhatan confederacy passed to his brother Opitchapam (also known as Itoyhatin), who worked closely with another brother, Opechancanough. As the historian James Horn has recently argued, Opechcancanough was probably Paquiquineo, who as a boy had been kidnapped by Spaniards around Chesapeake Bay. His captors took him to Spain, where he seemed to convert to Catholicism and became Don Luís de Velasco. In 1570, he returned home on an expedition to establish a Jesuit mission on the bay. The next year, Paquiquineo joined with other local Natives to kill the priests.
Wahunsonacock’s brother had deep suspicion of the English. Unlike Wahunsonacock, who perhaps believed that the English would become subordinate to the Powhatans, Opechancanough and his allies watched the growth of the English population with alarm. The spread of tobacco cultivation, which began in earnest in the mid-1610s, encouraged English colonists to seek out fresh soil for their fields. Their desire for land to meet the insatiable European demand for tobacco created constant friction with the Powhatans. The growing influence of Opechancanough and the relentless colonial desire for new tobacco fields prompted the violence of 1622.
The English reacted to the news of the uprising with horror. A printer published the names of every woman, man, and child who died that day. One observer described the attack with gusto, decrying a surprise attack on families and the subsequent desecration of their bodies. In 1628, engravers in a workshop in Frankfurt-am-Main illustrated an account of the war with an attention-grabbing tableau of unmitigated violence unleashed upon unarmed colonists.
The rebellion of 1622 shocked the English. Less than two years earlier, the Pilgrims had arrived at the Wampanoag community of Patuxet (modern Plymouth). While the newcomers fared poorly the first winter when almost one-half of them died, they benefited from an earlier epidemic that had killed many Natives in coastal New England. For a time, at least, English believed they could live among the remaining Indigenous of the region, at least in part because there was less competition for resources.