When last we encountered Capt. John Smith, it was late 1607. He had just extricated himself from a none-too-friendly encounter with Powhatan. It’s no wonder. The all-powerful chief was not known for tolerating potential rivals, whether of the white settler persuasion or those from an uncooperative tribe.
Smith probably didn’t know the rumors about his host. They only surfaced later when William Strachey, the most reliable historian for the new colony, pieced together the story. It suggests that Powhatan, when his priests told him a rival group would arise and threaten his empire, suspected the Chesapeakes, a tribe that then flourished throughout what we call South Hampton Roads and did so in defian
ce of his rule.
Powhatan reacted brutally, sending warriors across the water to attack and destroy Chesapeake villages. By the time the Jamestown settlers arrived in 1607, the rivals were extinct or driven out. There’s also the intriguing possibility – although less credible – that the lost colonists from Roanoke had found their way north and settled among the Chesapeake, and were finally exterminated by Powhatan.
Now comes Smith, in the summer of 1608, determined to learn what he could about native tribes.
We don’t know the exact date, only that it was summer and he and a dozen other men were making their way south on the Chesapeake Bay. After exploring the Piankatank River, they anchored in what is apparently now Mobjack Bay. But a storm caught them off guard “in the night with thunder and rayne that we never thought more to have seene in James Towne.”
It was a wild ride. With sheets eased, they ran before the wind, able to judge their position and keep from running ashore by lightning flashes “until it pleased God in that black darkness to preserve us” and catch a glimpse of Point Comfort. Here they paused and decided that the next morning they would cross Hampton Roads to the Elizabeth to learn more about native settlements.
“So setting sayle for the Southerne shore, we sayled up a narrow river up to the country of the Chisapeak; it hath a good channel, but many shoules about the entrance. By that we had sayled six or seaven myles, we saw two or three little garden plots with their houses, the shore overgrowne with the greatest Pyne and Firre trees we ever saw in the Country. But not seeing nor hearing any people, and the river very narrow, we returned to the great river, to see if we could find any of them.”
What Smith saw, historians guess, was the remains of the great Chesapeake Indian village called Skicoak (Sky-co-ak). It’s indicated on his map of the Chesapeake region by a small Maltese cross, at about present-day Lambert’s Point, or perhaps further south, near Fort Norfolk. But the eerie thing is that he saw no one. Houses, yes, but no native people, nor even smoke from a fire.
The future city of Norfolk was a ghost town.
Illustration: Detail from Captain John Smith’s 1612 Map. The Maltese cross above the word “Chesapeack” shows where the Skicoak village may have existed. Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
Smith probably didn’t know the rumors about his host. They only surfaced later when William Strachey, the most reliable historian for the new colony, pieced together the story. It suggests that Powhatan, when his priests told him a rival group would arise and threaten his empire, suspected the Chesapeakes, a tribe that then flourished throughout what we call South Hampton Roads and did so in defian
ce of his rule.Powhatan reacted brutally, sending warriors across the water to attack and destroy Chesapeake villages. By the time the Jamestown settlers arrived in 1607, the rivals were extinct or driven out. There’s also the intriguing possibility – although less credible – that the lost colonists from Roanoke had found their way north and settled among the Chesapeake, and were finally exterminated by Powhatan.
Now comes Smith, in the summer of 1608, determined to learn what he could about native tribes.
We don’t know the exact date, only that it was summer and he and a dozen other men were making their way south on the Chesapeake Bay. After exploring the Piankatank River, they anchored in what is apparently now Mobjack Bay. But a storm caught them off guard “in the night with thunder and rayne that we never thought more to have seene in James Towne.”
It was a wild ride. With sheets eased, they ran before the wind, able to judge their position and keep from running ashore by lightning flashes “until it pleased God in that black darkness to preserve us” and catch a glimpse of Point Comfort. Here they paused and decided that the next morning they would cross Hampton Roads to the Elizabeth to learn more about native settlements.
“So setting sayle for the Southerne shore, we sayled up a narrow river up to the country of the Chisapeak; it hath a good channel, but many shoules about the entrance. By that we had sayled six or seaven myles, we saw two or three little garden plots with their houses, the shore overgrowne with the greatest Pyne and Firre trees we ever saw in the Country. But not seeing nor hearing any people, and the river very narrow, we returned to the great river, to see if we could find any of them.”
What Smith saw, historians guess, was the remains of the great Chesapeake Indian village called Skicoak (Sky-co-ak). It’s indicated on his map of the Chesapeake region by a small Maltese cross, at about present-day Lambert’s Point, or perhaps further south, near Fort Norfolk. But the eerie thing is that he saw no one. Houses, yes, but no native people, nor even smoke from a fire.
The future city of Norfolk was a ghost town.
Illustration: Detail from Captain John Smith’s 1612 Map. The Maltese cross above the word “Chesapeack” shows where the Skicoak village may have existed. Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
