Early in 1656 word was received that six or seven hundred strange
Indians from the mountains had come down and seated themselves near the
falls of the James. The March Assembly, considering how much blood it
had cost to "expell and extirpate those perfidious and treacherous
Indians which were there formerly," and considering how the area lay
within the limits "which in a just warr were formerly conquered by us,"
ordered the two upper counties under Col. Edward Hill to send 100 men to
remove the intruders peacefully, making war only in self-defense.
Messages were sent to obtain the aid of the Pamunkeys, Chickahominies,
and other neighboring Indians. Tottopottomoy, the King of the Pamunkeys,
joined Hill with 100 of his warriors, although only the summer before
his brother had been murdered by an Englishman.
The western Indians had apparently come down to treat with the English
about trade, bringing with them many beaver skins to begin the
commerce. Col. Hill, however, despite the Assembly's command to avoid
the use of force, perfidiously had five of the kings who came to parley
with him put to death. "This unparalleled hellish treachery and
anti-christian perfidy more to be detested than any heathenish
inhumanity," a contemporary wrote, "cannot but stink most abominably in
the nosetrils of as many Indians, as shall be infested with the least
scent of it, even to their perpetual abhorring and abandoning of the
very sight and name of an English man, till some new generation of a
better extract shall be transplanted among them!" In the fight that
ensued Tottopottomoy lost his life fighting bravely for the English.
Despite his fidelity, neither he nor his tribe was honorably treated by
the English, the very land he owned being extorted from him and his
successors.
Hill himself was found guilty by the unanimous vote of the Burgesses and
Council of "crimes and weaknesses" in his conduct of the campaign. He
was ordered suspended from all offices, military and civil, and made
liable for the charge of procuring a peace with the Indians with whom he
had so treacherously dealt.
The disgraceful episode of Hill's campaign may have caused some
soul-searching in the Assembly that met following the event, for, in
addition to censuring Hill, it repealed an act which had made it lawful
to kill an Indian committing a trespass. It pointed out that since the
oath of the person killing the Indian was considered sufficient evidence
to prove the alleged trespass, killing Indians, "though never so
innocent," had come to be of "small account" with the settlers. Since
the colony would probably be involved in endless wars and might "expect
a success answerable to the injustice of our beginning if no act be made
for the future to prevent this wanton and unnecessary shedding of
blood," the Assembly attempted to provide some protection for the
Indians.
That expansion into the Indians' territory continued is shown by the
authorization given by this same Assembly of December 1656 to form the
county of Rappahannock on both sides of the Rappahannock River above
Lancaster County. Confirmation of the movement towards the frontier is
shown in the report to the same Assembly by the sheriffs of Isle of
Wight County and Elizabeth City County, both at the mouth of the James
River, that their counties were overrated in the tax lists of "tithable"
persons by thirty-eight and thirty-two persons respectively. The
Assembly ordered that their tax allotments should be reduced accordingly
and laid upon Lancaster County "where they are increased since the last
year's list 152 persons." An act of the Assembly of March 1658 similarly
took note of the numbers of inhabitants who had "deserted their
plantations and receded into the bay of Chisapeake" without having
satisfied their creditors. It prescribed penalties for removing without
notice.
Bills guaranteeing the Indians their lands, justice, and personal
freedom continued to pass. The acts freely admitted that previous
guarantees to this effect had been ineffective and that "manie English
doe still intrench upon the said Indians' land," which the Assembly
conceived to be "contrary to justice, and the true intent of the English
plantation in this country." Nevertheless attempts to legislate justice
for the Indians continued. It could not be done. The power of the
Assembly's acts was not equal to the power of the frontiersmen's
muskets. However, the acts of the Assembly were not without effect, and
in many cases served their purpose. One of the most notable acts of this
Assembly provided that no grants of land should be made to any
Englishman in the future until the Indians had first been guaranteed
fifty acres for each bowman. The good intent of this act seems to have
been a direct consequence of the practice that had arisen in the
preceding years of granting patents to Englishmen for land occupied by
the Indians. It was an attempt to make sure that the Indians would not
be wholly dispossessed to satisfy the land hunger of the English.
[Illustration: National Portrait Gallery, London