#werowocomoco

Governor McAuliffe celebrated the National Park Service’s acquisition of Werowocomoco, the former capital of the Powhatan Chiefdom and the presumed site of Captain John Smith’s first meeting with the leader Powhatan and his daughter, Pocahontas. When opened to the public, the 264-acre property, located on the bank of the York River in Gloucester County, will be the crown jewel of the Captain John…

Pocahontas, Capt. John Smith and Chief Powhatan get their due Friday in a dedication ceremony that preserves the village site that made them famous.

Virginia Gov. Robert McDonnell and Native American tribal officials will dedicate the Werowocomoco (WER-ruh-wo-KOM-uh-ko) site near Gloucester, Va., in a day-long event. Now an archaeological site, the village appears to have held a longhouse, judging from postholes, where Smith famously encountered Powhatan after the founding of Jamestown in 1607.

GLOUCESTER, Va. — A farm field overlooking the York River in Tidewater Virginia is believed to be where Pocahontas interceded with her powerful father Powhatan to rescue English Capt. John Smith from death.

That’s a fanciful footnote for many Virginia Indians, historians and archaeologists, who say the real story is that this land was the center of a complex, sprawling empire ruled by Powhatan long before the first permanent English settlement in American was founded in 1607. It was called Werowocomoco, which roughly translates to a “place of chiefs.”