Pamunkey most powerful. Powhatan and his daughter Matoaka (Pocahontas), who achieved historical fame, were Pamunkey Native Americans. Captain Samuel Argall abducted her as a hostage in an attempt to secure the release of some English prisoners and ammunitions held by her father. Initial contact with Europeans was around 1570. "And from [1570] on at ever briefer intervals until the first permanent English colony was established at Jamestown in 1607, the Powhatan Confederacy was visited by white men: Spanish, French, and English." (Barbour, 5). Scholars estimate that when the English arrived in 1607, this paramount chiefdom numbered about 14,000–21,000 people. Colonists of
History of Jamestown, Virginia (1607–99) Captain John Smith did considerable exploration up the Chesapeake Bay and along the various rivers. He is credited by legend with naming Stingray Point (near present-day Deltaville in Middlesex County) for an incident there. Smith was always seeking a supply of food for the colonists, and he successfully traded for food with the Nansemonds, who were located along the Nansemond River in the modern-day City of Suffolk, and several other groups. However, while leading one food-gathering expedition in December 1607 (before his term as colony president), this time up the Chickahominy River west of Jamestown, his men were set upon