Powhatan

Powhatan, real name Wa-Hun-Sen-A-Cawh or Wahunsonacook (1550?-1618), father of the princess Pocahontas. According to legend, Powhatan was ready to kill the English settler John Smith when Pocahontas intervened and saved Smith's life.

Powhatan was the chief of the Powhatan confederacy of Algonquian tribes, in what is now Virginia, at the time the English first settled there in 1607. Fighting between the Native Americans and colonists arose when the new settlers began taking lands belonging to Powhatan and his people. In 1614, Pocahontas married John Rolfe, one of the settlers, and there began an eight-year peace between the Native Americans and colonists. Pocahontas and Rolfe sailed to England, where she died in 1617. Powhatan died the following year.