Peninsula In Passage

‘fortunes’ of Martin’s company were catastrophic; surrounded by hostile Nansemonds and without their captains, Sicklemore’s men were decimated. Sicklemore and his party later were found ‘slayne with their mowthes stopped full of Breade being donn as it seamethe in Contempt and skorne thatt others mighte expecte the Lyke when they should come to seeke for beade and reliefe amongst them’. The English lost about 50 men during this engagement, approximately one-half of their Nansemond expeditionary force.”

“Two years after the battle at Dumpling Island, the English embarked on another large-scale assault against the Nansemond Indians. Governor Thomas Dale arrived at Jamestown in May of 1611, intending to implement new order in the colony which included the elimination of all threats to English settlements along the James River. As the only genuine impediment to complete English control of the mouth of the lower James River were the Nansemond Indians, Dale and 100 soldiers ventured up the Nansemond River, skirmishing ‘with the savages, both by land and water’. The Nansemonds suffered many casualties and Dale’s men cut down the Nansemonds’ corn fields, burned their houses, and brought back some prisoners to Jamestown. There were no English fatalities in this conflict. There are no recorded incidents or encounters between the English and the Nansemond Indians during the next ten years. By 1622, the English had taken over the land of all the tribes along the James River, except for the Nansemond’s’ territory. The relentless encroachment on Indian lands provoked the Powhatans to launch the Uprising of 1622 – a well-planned, coordinated attack on English settlements along both side of the James River that killed nearly one-quarter of the English population in Virginia. Despite the fact that there were no English plantations in their territory at the time, the Nansemond Indians were one of the major participants in the uprising.

Nick Lucketti

The Uprising of 1622 engendered severe English reprisals that resulted in the Second Anglo-Powhatan War which lasted nearly a decade. Records indicate that the Nansemonds were attacked in 1622, twice in 1623, and again in 1627. Two years later, the general Assembly of the colony agreed that expeditions should be launched against the Nansemonds (and other tribes) three times within the next twelve months; this was followed by a hardnosed order in 1630 ‘That the war begun upon the Indians bee effectually followed, and that noe peace bee concluded with them’. The decade-long war eventually diminished the Nansemonds’ ability to resist further intrusion upon their land and forced them to retreat into the interior in the early 1630’s. Shortly thereafter, the English began a permanent move into the mouth of the Nansemond River area in 1635-36.

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