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John Smith
A kinsman of Powhatan who was werowance (chief) of the Pamunkey tribe. Opechankeno was the one to first capture John Smith and bring him to Powhatan. As the years went by, Opechankeno remained an important military strategist and ally to Powhatan. In the years following Powhatan’s death, Opechankeno struggled to keep a hold on his people’s land in the face of escalating violence from the Jamestown colonists. In 1644, well into his 80s, Opechankeno was executed at Jamestown after leading one final rebellion against the colonists.
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Opechankeno Character Timeline in Pocahontas and the Powhatan Dilemma
The timeline below shows where the character Opechankeno appears in Pocahontas and the Powhatan Dilemma. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 1: Amonute’s People
...ahead. Then, more news comes to Powhatan’s village: one of his kinsmen, a warrior named Opechankeno, has caught the strangers’ “werowance” and is bringing him to Powhatan. This man’s name, the...
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Chapter 3: First Contact
...December of 1607, John Smith has been captured by the Pamunkey tribe, whose werowance is Opechankeno. After days of being dragged from village to village and presented to local tribes, Smith...
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...and as Smith and his men set out to find food, they were captured by Opechankeno’s men.
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Chapter 6: Imprisonment
...meeting with the chief. Instead, John Rolfe and another settler are brought to meet with Opechankeno, who relays Powhatan’s wishes that Pocahontas stay with the English as Dale’s symbolic “child.” Pocahontas’s...
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Chapter 9: 1622, and Queen Cockacoeske
...in a difficult political position. Powhatan has retired, leaving his younger brother in charge and Opechankeno as a “chief military man.” Uttamatomakin delivers a scathing and worrying tirade to Opechankeno “against...
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...wish they could use the young Thomas Rolfe, back in England, as a bargaining chip. Opechankeno refuses to part with any more lands unless they go directly to Thomas; the English,...
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...epidemic ravages the native populations, Argall is recalled to London and a new governor is installed—Opechankeno’s interpreters tell him the man is of low station and little power. The new governor,...
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...seems ashamed of his connection to the remaining Powhatan people, but nonetheless pays visits to Opechankeno and one of his mother’s sisters. In 1644, after Thomas has been living in Virginia...
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