Introduction of Slaves from Africa

When, at length, Thomas Rolf, the son of Pocahontas, and then nearly thirty years of age, came from England by consent of the Virginia Assembly to visit his uncle, the aged emperor, and Cleopatra the sister of his mother, Opechancanough heard from his lips about the war between the English factions. The old emperor concluded that the time for him to strike a vengeful blow had arrived. He sent runners throughout his empire, and very soon a confederacy was formed over an area many hundred square miles in extent for the extermination of the Europeans. A day was fixed for the execution of the scheme. The confederates were to begin at the frontiers and sweep the country to the sea. Opechancanough was carried at the head of his warriors, on a litter, when early in April, 1644, the savages began their horrid work. In the space of two days they slew more than three hundred of the settlers, sparing none who fell in their way. So they almost depopulated the region of the Pamunkey and York rivers. Governor Berkeley met the murderers with an armed force, and drove them back with great slaughter. Their old monarch was taken prisoner, and carried in triumph to Jamestown. He was so much exhausted that he could not raise his eyelids, and in that forlorn condition he was mortally wounded by a bullet from the gun of an English soldier who guarded him, and who was impelled by the remembrance of the bereavements he had suffered at the hands of the Indians, and of the agency of the old chief in the matter. The people out of curiosity gathered around the dying emperor. Just before he expired, hearing the hum of a multitude, he asked one of his attendants to raise his eyelids. When he observed the crowd, he raised himself from the ground, and in a haughty tone commanded an officer near him to summon the governor before him. When the magistrate came, the old monarch said, as fiery indignation gave strength to his voice: "Had it been my fortune to have taken Sir William Berkeley prisoner, I would not meanly have exposed him as a show to my people." He then stretched himself upon the earth and died.

With Opechancanough expired the Powhatan confederacy. After ceding large tracts of land to the Virginians, the chiefs acknowledged allegiance to the authorities of the province, and so passed away the political life of that once powerful empire. The colonists then had peace and prosperity. In 1648, there were twenty thousand Europeans in Virginia. "The cottages were filled with children, as the ports with ships and emigrants." The people were loyal to Charles because he left them in the enjoyment of liberty. They felt none of the oppressions, nor were they distracted by the disputes which afflicted their kindred at home. They exercised the freedom of an independent government; and when the king was beheaded, they opened wide their hospitable arms to the cavaliers who fled in horror from England. Many of these fugitives were of the gentry, nobility and clergy. They were valuable additions to the refined society of Virginia, and strengthened the royal cause in that province. When the king was slain, the Virginians acknowledged his exiled son as their sovereign; and Sir William Berkeley conducted the affairs of the colony as governor, under a commission sent to him by that prince, from Breda, in Flanders. Virginia was the last country belonging to England that submitted to the government of the rulers of the commonwealth which succeeded the monarchy.

The Republican Parliament was offended by this persistent attachment to royalty, and in the early spring of 1652, sent Sir George Ayscue with a powerful fleet to reduce the Virginians to submission. It bore commissioners of the Parliament, who were clothed with power to exercise conciliatory or harsh measures-to compromise, or to proclaim freedom to the slaves and to put arms in their hands to make slaves of their masters. Berkeley met the commissioners with firmness. They were astonished at the boldness of the Virginians, and deemed it more prudent to compromise than to coerce. They made satisfactory arrangements, by which the political freedom of the colonists was guaranteed. Berkeley disdained to make any stipulation for himself with those whom he regarded as usurpers, and he withdrew to his plantation at Green Spring, where he lived in retirement as a private person. The Virginians then elected Richard Bennet, governor. When news of the preparation of an armament for the subjugation of the colony reached Virginia, Berkeley and the cavalier party resolved not to submit, and they sent a messenger to Breda to invite Prince Charles to come over and be their king. He was preparing to come, with his mother and some others of his family, when affairs took a turn in England which foreshadowed a speedy restoration of the monarchy there. That event occurred in 1660, when the prince ascended the throne of his father, as Charles the Second, at the age of thirty years. The monarch did not forget the loyalty of the Virginians. He caused the arms of that province to be quartered with those of England, Scotland and Ireland, as an independent member of his empire. From this circumstance the title of the "Old Dominion" was given to Virginia. Coins, with these quarterings, were struck as late as 1773.