P II E F A C E 



By W J McGee. 



The most cous[ticuuiis stock of Anuuicau ludiaus iu early kistoiy is 

 the Algouquian. Xot only was the area occupied by the Algonquian 

 peoples larger thau that of any other stock, but the tribes and confed- 

 eracies were distributed along the Atlantic coast and the rivers, estu- 

 aries, and bays opening into this ocean from Newfoundland to Cape 

 Hatteras. The Pilgrim Fathers of New England, the Dutch traders 

 and merchants of Manhattan island and the Hudson, the Quaker colo- 

 nists of Pennsylvania, the Jesuit missionaries and Cavalier grantees 

 of Maryland and Virginia, all encountered the native tribes and con- 

 federacies of this great stock. Further northward and in the interior 

 Champlain, le Sieur du Lhut, Pere la Salle, and other exi)lorers, came 

 chiefly in contact with related peoples speaking a similar tongue. So 

 the American Indian of early history, of literature and story, is largely 

 the tribesman of this great northeastern stock. 



One of the most prominent among the confederacies of Indian tribes 

 belonging to the Algonquian stock, in the history of the settlement of 

 our country, was the Powhatan confederacy of tidewater Virginia and 

 Maryland. The prominence of this confederacy in our early history is 

 partly due to the fact that C/apt. John Smith Avas writer as well as 

 explorer, and left permanent records of the primitive people whose 

 domain he invaded ; but these and other records indicate that Pow- 

 hatan was achief of exceptional valor and judgment, and that the con- 

 federacy organized through his savage genius was one of the most 

 notable among the many unions of native American tribes; also that 

 Powhatan's successor, Opechancanough, was a native ruler of remark- 

 able skill and ability, whose characteristics and primitive realm are 

 well worthy of embalming in history. Capt. John Smith was followed 

 by other historians, and England and the continent, as well as the 

 growing white settlements of America, were long interested in follow- 

 ing the fortunes of the great tribal confederacy as the red men were 

 gradually driven from their favorite haunts and forced into forest fast- 

 nesses by the higher race; aiul in later years Thomas Jefterson and 

 other leaders of thought recorded the movements and characteristics 



