Natives versus Settlers: the Berkeley Hundred Massacre, 1622

Berkeley Plantation, the ancestral home of the Harrison family, including POTUS William Henry Harrison, is one of the oldest established homes in America.  Settlers first came to Berkeley, then known as Berkeley Hundred in 1619.  Hundreds were townships, meant to be settled by groups of individuals or family often working under a specific charter.  Berkeley's charter called for an annual service of Thanksgiving, which is why Berkeley can claim to be a site for the first Thanksgivings in America.  Of course, at that time, Thanksgiving referred to a solemn church service or day of fasting and prayer, not a feast with family and friends as we know today.

Berkeley is also known for the tragedy that took place there in 1622, during the early stages of the Powhatan Wars.  For the first few decades of settlement, the various Native tribes of the Powhatan Confederacy had been hospitable to English settlers, gladly sharing corn and other foodstuffs and trading for skins and trade goods.  As time wore on and more settlers arrived in Virginia, demands for foodstuffs from the local tribes became more insistent.  Native leaders rightly pointed out that they needed the food for their own families, too, but their concerns fell on deaf ears.  Tensions between the Natives and Settlers exploded into war in 1622, with local Native leaders being ordered to provide the foodstuffs and, when they did not, their villages were attacked.  The Natives had no choice but to defend themselves. 

Settlements throughout Virginia were attacked, and one of those was the settlement at Berkeley.  Nine settlers were killed in an attack on the settlement.  Word soon spread to the colony of Plymouth in what is now Massachusetts and sparked the beginnings of hand-picked companies of men who were familiar with the terrain and with hunting and fighting techniques of the local Natives.  In 1622, Captain John Smith (not that John Smith), wrote about his company of men that, after the Berkeley Plantation attack, he and ten men "ranged that unknown country for fourteen weeks", on the lookout for similar attacks from Natives around Plymouth.  Soon the words ranger and ranging became used to describe men who were experienced in this type of warfare, the distant forbears of ranger units in the United States Army and elsewhere.