his tribe for a length of time which went back even beyond tradition. Governor Yeardley was doubtless as little inclined as the Company to acknowledge the superior claims of the savage chief, but he had observed the character of the Indians long enough to know that nothing was to be lost by recognition of the ownership of the king of Pamunkey in the tract of land which Mr. Barkham wished to acquire, especially as the people of the Colony were now at peace with this dangerous warrior.[1]
When the charter of the Company was revoked, a much wiser policy was inaugurated with reference to the appropriation of Indian lands, because the colonial authorities were left more at liberty to follow the suggestions of expediency. Jefferson has remarked upon the fact, that a very important part of Tidewater Virginia was acquired, not by conquest, but by the process of lawful exchange. After the administration of affairs had reverted to the King, the occasional wars with the savages, as well as separate instances of outrage on their part, did much to pervert the views of the colonists with regard to the rights of the natives in the soil; but the necessity of retaining the goodwill of the tribes as far as possible and the smallness of the consideration which would secure the largest tract of Indian land, not to refer to the influence of less selfish motives, led the members of the General Assembly from time to time to confirm and protect the aborigines in the possession of their cultivated fields and hunting grounds.
The larger proportion of the Peninsula, the seat of the earliest English settlements, was acquired at first by conquest, but right of possession was afterwards confirmed by treaty. Thirty-nine years after the foundation of
- ↑ Abstracts of Proceedings of the Virginia Company of London, vol. II, p. 6.
