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HISTORY
A GREAT CHIEF
During the late 16th century, a
great American Indian chiefdom
arose along North America’s
mid-Atlantic coast. The people
who lived along the rivers and
shores of the Chesapeake Bay
named it Tsenacommacah
(densely inhabited land).
Pieced together by two of
the most powerful chiefs of the
era, Powhatan and his brother
Opechancanough, the chiefdom
was a means of defending
their territories from invasions
by colonizers. Having been
taken by Spanish mariners
to Spain in 1561, and then
living in Spanish America for
many years, Opechancanough
was well aware of the threat
Europeans posed to his people.
Initially, relations between
the English and Powhatans
(as the Indians were called)
were friendly. Both sides
were interested in trade,
and the English were largely
dependent on the Powhatans
for food. But within a few years,
relations broke down. Led by
Opechancanough, Powhatan
warriors would be engaged in
hostilities for much of the fi rst
half of the 17th century; these
attacks soon escalated into a
war that nearly wiped out the
English, before hundreds of
well-armed soldiers—veterans
of wars in Europe—arrived
and carried out devastating
countermeasures.
In the end, Opechancanough
could not save his people from
the sheer numbers of arrivals
fl ooding into Virginia. Following
his capture and death in 1646,
resistance was broken. Yet he
came closer than any of his
peers to ridding his lands of
Europeans.
—Adapted from A Brave and
Cunning Prince: The Great Chief
Opechancanough and the War
for America by James Horn
THE RISK REPORT BY IAN BREMMER
Any advance
into new
Ukrainian
territory would
prove extremely
costly for Russia
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