Posted on 12/09/2021 9:11:51 AM PST by re_tail20
In the summer of 1561, Spanish explorers abducted a Powhatan Indian youth from the Chesapeake Bay tidewater region and brought him to the royal court of Spain. The kidnapping set off a chain of events that would alter the course of American colonial history.
The abduction itself wasn’t unusual, since the Spanish in America often trained Native youth to serve as interpreters, or pressed them for information about local peoples and perhaps the whereabouts of gold or silver. But “Paquiquineo,” as Spanish officials rendered the young man’s name later that year, would in time re-emerge as Opechancanough, the most formidable warrior chief encountered by Europeans in 16th and early 17th century Virginia.
After returning to his homeland, he helped build the greatest chiefdom along the mid-Atlantic and spent the rest of his life defending his peoples from European invaders, whose mindset and strategies he had studied at close range. A brilliant tactician and charismatic leader, he successfully thwarted Spanish efforts to establish a Chesapeake settlement. And 50 years later, with his coordinated 1622 attack on Jamestown colony, he came close to ending English colonial ambitions in the region. But while he stands as one of the greatest military leaders in early America, his achievements remain almost completely unknown.
Following his abduction, Paquiquineo—reputed to be the brother of Powhatan, principal chief of a confederacy of Algonquian-speaking tribes—was transported across the Atlantic to the court of King Philip II in Madrid. A deeply religious man, Philip oversaw an immense empire of recently conquered territory in the West Indies and Central and South America, whose Indigenous peoples he considered heathens. He saw it as his sacred duty to convert them to Catholicism.
The king believed Paquiquineo, intelligent and high-born, could help achieve that goal. Specifically, he might play a vital part in establishing...
(Excerpt) Read more at history.com ...
Never heard of him.
Si no fuera por él, lo habías escrito en Español.
Drove out the Spaniards?
Racist!
He was from Asia and not native to America.
Even in the Marxist 1619 history their heroes have to be European trained.
Kind of ironic for the anti-Western Civilization zealots.
No doubt the Powhatan’s had a “squad” who said: “Border security? Who needs it? Its racist and we should welcome these newcomers!”
And 50 years later, with his coordinated 1622 attack on Jamestown colony, he came close to ending English colonial ambitions in the region. But while he stands as one of the greatest military leaders in early America, his achievements remain almost completely unknown.
For about a year, the colonists thought those people were dead. With the colonists reduced by more than half, and being tremendously outnumbered by the local tribes, it took that year to begin to take the offensive, during which they learned of the large numbers of slaves the indians had taken.
A Siberian-American.
Privative migrating Asians.
Good!
interesting read.
thanx for the post
Good thing we ended up expelling the natives. They seem like really nasty folks.
Very interesting, but given the source (A&E Networks: a partnership of Hearst Communications and The Walt Disney Company), it could be mostly fictional.
I am prejudiced., but I thank Opechancanough for helping to insure most of North America did not become part of Spain. I look at the colonial societies founded by the English versus those founded by the Spanish and have been very glad for the former.
Where was he when Biden’s ancestors came over?
The guy was defending his land from invaders. What would you have done differently were you him?
I am reading James Michener’s ‘Chesapeake’ now - this story fins in with it.
“But while he stands as one of the greatest military leaders in early America, his achievements remain almost completely unknown.”
Right up there with Tecumseh, Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, Chief Joseph, Cochise, Geronimo, Pontiac...etc.
At least according to current science, all of us originally came from southern Africa. We’re really all African-Americans.
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