The numerous tribes of Indians who inhabited this region belonged to
the Algonquin race, and at the time Captain Newport set sail from
England they were members of a confederacy, of which Powhatan was head
war chief or werowance. There were at least thirty-four of these
tribes, and to each Powhatan appointed one of his own friends as
chief. Powhatan's capital, or "werowocomoco," was on York River at
Portan Bay (a corruption for Powhatan), about fourteen miles from
Jamestown; and Pochins, one of his sons, commanded at Point Comfort,
while Parahunt, another son, was werowance at the falls of the James
River, one hundred and twenty miles inland. West of the bay region,
beyond the falls of the rivers, were other confederacies of Indians,
who carried on long wars with Powhatan, of whom the most important
were the Monacans, or Manakins, and Massawomekes.[16]

Powhatan's dominions extended from the Roanoke River, in North
Carolina, to the head of Chesapeake Bay, and in all this country his
will was despotic. He had an organized system of collecting tribute
from the werowances, and to enforce his orders kept always about him
fifty armed savages "of the tallest in his kingdom." Each tribe had a
territory defined by natural bounds, and they lived on the rivers and
creeks in small villages, consisting of huts called wigwams, oval in
shape, and made of bark set upon a framework of saplings. Sometimes
these houses were of great length, accommodating many families at
once; and at Uttamussick, in the peninsula formed by the Pamunkey and
Mattapony, were three such structures sixty feet in length, where the
Indians kept the bodies of their dead chiefs under the care of seven
priests, or medicine-men.

The religion of these Chesapeake Bay Indians, like that of all the
other Indians formerly found on the coast, consisted in a belief in a