the aborigines of Virginia had been obtained from natives of the lands lying to the northwest of the country occupied by the subjects of Powhatan, and doubtless information of these great bodies of water had by the same agents been transmitted to the Indians in the territory along the coast. Powhatan was also in constant communication with the inhabitants of the Northeast, among whom a knowledge of the existence of the lakes was generally diffused.[1] It is not improbable that some of the reports had reference to the Gulf of Mexico. In stating that one route to the South Sea was by way of the Powhatan to a certain point in its upper course, and thence by a short overland journey to a second river, which emptied into that sea, the Indians perhaps had the Kanawha and Ohio in mind. There seems to have been some intercourse between the tribes of Virginia and those inhabiting the country in the far Southwest. From this quarter, Opechancanough is reported to have come. It was the annual custom of Powhatan to send messengers to the “West India” to keep him informed as to the progress of events in that region.[2]
The news as to the South Sea which Smith brought back to Jamestown on his return from captivity did not at the time produce much impression upon his associates. Captain Newport arrived in Virginia during the same month, having the First Supply in charge, and he became so deeply absorbed in the search for gold in the country in the immediate neighborhood of Jamestown that he made no attempt to explore the wilderness lying to the west of the Falls. All thought of the South Sea was for-
- ↑ Report of Francis Maguel, Spanish Archives, Brown’s Genesis of the United States, p. 396.
- ↑ Report of Francis Maguel, Spanish Archives, Brown’s Genesis of the United States, p. 396. By the term “West India,” Maguel, the authority for this statement, probably meant Mexico, and that general region of country, for the messengers are represented as “proceeding by land.”
