First Anglo–Powhatan War

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First Anglo–Powhatan War was the war between 1609–1613 involving the English colonists who were based in Jamestown, Virginia beginning in 1607 and Native Americans of the Powhatan Confederacy.

During this war, Thomas West, 3rd Baron De La Warr introduced "Irish Tactics", where his troops raided Indian villages, burned houses, confiscated provisions, and torched cornfields. However, the Native American Pamunkey warriors, led by Opechancanough counter-attacked defending their own land, and laid siege to the fort at Jamestown. He and his warriors nearly succeeded in driving the English out of the Jamestown area, when Captain John Smith a major intermediary between the settlers and the Indians, was injured in an accidental gunpowder explosion, and sailed back to England in December 1609. But British reinforcements arrived to raise the siege, re-capture the initiative and lead a devastating raid against the Pamunkeys.

A peace settlement ended the war in 1614, and it was sealed by the marriage of Pocahontas to the colonist John Rolfe. This was the first known inter-racial union in Virginia, and helped usher in a brief period of better relations between the Native Americans and the newcomers.