The Indian Massacre in Virginia (Part 4)

Finding the very soul of Indian enmity now within his power, the governor had determined to send him to England as a royal captive, to be detained in honorable custody until death should close his earthly career.. But a death of violence awaited him. A brutal wretch, urged on by desire to revenge injuries to the whites which had long been forgotten or forgiven, advanced with his musket behind the unhappy chieftain and shot him through the back.

The wound thus given was mortal. Opecancanough lingered a few days in agony; yet to the last moment of his life he retained his majesty and sternness of demeanor. A crowd of idle beings collected around him to sate their unfeeling curiosity with a view of his person and his conduct. Hearing the noise, the dying Indian feebly motioned to his attendants to raise his eyelids, that he might learn the cause of this tumult. A flash of wounded pride and of just indignation, for a moment, revived his waning strength. He sent for the governor, and addressed to him that keen reproach which has so well merited preservation: "Had I taken Sir William Berkeley prisoner, I would not have exposed him as a show to my people." In a short time afterwards he expired.

After the death of this warrior, the celebrated confederacy of Powhatan was immediately dissolved.. It was without a head, and the members fell away and speedily lost all tendency to cohesion. The Indians had learned, by fatal experience, that they contended in vain with the whites.. They have faded away and gradually disappeared, never more to return.